God is a Lichen

Feel it grow along you

O beast of bark and leaf

Feel yourself be coated

Cloaked and draped 

Creeping, creeping

Creeping divine

Feel it grow along you

O you bastion of grit and stone

Feel it pick at your details 

Grasping your sacred secrets

Knowing, knowing

Knowing divine

Feel it grow along you

O great tower of brick and flesh

Feel it share your grandeur

Covering your walls

Growing, growing

Growing divine 

Soul Eaters

Oh pit. 

I feel your warmth around me

as I lie here so afraid

all curled up in your shadow. 

They came for me, pit

with pitchforks and knives and

words that bite. 

Soul eaters. 

Am I a monster, pit? 

I feel that sometimes - 

the way my body just doesn't... 

just refuses to be what they say

is morally good. 

Am I evil just for existing, pit? 

Eddington In The Dark

The path is long, 

such that I can't see the end. 

It makes me scared, 

but also.. giddy, excited,

thrilled.

I'm glad you're here with me. 

It's inset with a thousand dim stars

that light the way and guide my steps. 

Though for all their glow, 

they sure don't make the cyclists 

see us any clearer. 

They don't steal the beauty of the pitch

black field either. 

My favourite part is after the turn

and we come to look upon the

distant suburb itself, all glowing

in its concrete horror. 

And to the south, 

cranes shine in crimson bright. 

And I love, 

the feel of the gravel beneath my feet

the chill of cold autumn air 

a shared joke, quick and snappy. 

We're all too cold and damp and tired to chat. 

And I love, 

the wilderness to our sides 

protected for science and for joy;

the wood we can't enter 

and the pond downhill

where ducks and geese conspire 

in the water reeds. 

And I love, 

the neon rings that hang in the air 

next to the U-bus we never take

(but always want to) 

and the cyberpunk hall. 

The only things I like in this dreadful town. 

And after we trudge there, 

fill our bags with sweets and beer and

food for half a week, at a stretch,

it's time to trudge back

and I love every second of it. 

King's Parade Of A Rainy Morning

It's a rainy day

and I'm feeling miserable. 

Wrapped up in my thin waterproof

and my thick college jumper. 

I can barely see through 

the droplets on my glasses. 

I don't want to go to lectures, 

but then, I never do. 

"Let's skip out," I say 

"and go have breakfast at King's", 

looking up at the old stone walls

and untouched grass

as we dawdle past. 

"Yes, let's," you say, with a grin

and then we keep on walking 

and turn down Bene't Street, away. 

The Lake On Mount Pleasant

How did it get there? 

A pool, not a puddle - 

metres wide, too much

to jump. 

We had to navigate around and

be splashed by

the passing cars uncaring. 

Why does it stay? 

Oh, how odd. 

I do love it, though. 

A Love Poem

I want to tell you I love you. 

I want to say it over and over

I love you, I love you, I love you. 

Til I'm crying. Overflown.

But you wouldn't understand. 

Conjured images of 

intimacy and abandon. 

As if I've dedicated 

Myself to you. 

But it's not - 

I don't want that.

I have all these feelings 

So big and so much. 

How I appreciate you and 

How you brighten my day and

Make me laugh and smile and

Make me feel alright again. 

And I don't have the words for that. 

I was never taught them. 

All these familiar trappings 

I find myself stuck within;

Misleading and deceiving 

They twist my words. 

Make it something it's not. 

These aesthetics, they've weasled

Inside my mind, made me obsessed. 

Made it hard to see and express

The way I am, 

Outside the paradigm. 

And yet, 

I love you, 

So much and

Thank you...

Thank you for being there

And for being my friend. 

It was all I ever needed. 

A Walking Sonnet

The lake so wide upon the mount's short peak

and hill, or mound; that ancient strength long spent

where lords once sat, to rule on tallest seat

unseen; us lost to talk, in our descent. 

Or bridge, the Cam to cross, at mountain's end

Mary's old scholar Lodge; or its named way. 

Walking high above boats that punters tend

To take tourists along the town's fairways  

The passage of two names, to widen out 

Cobble and stone; a grandeur that I hate. 

That place, I try always to mess about;

Brighten the mood, then quicken, don't be late. 

O Duroliponte, your concrete heart

These bare stone steps, all your broken old parts.