Not seeing the mountain

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me in veils

of cloud, sometimes 

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue

when I forget or refuse to go 

down to the shore or a few yards 

up the road, on a clear day…

Denise Levertov

Cheers

Sugar ticks and selfie sticks
Cobbled streets basted in oil slicks
Swipe to the right peepshows
Broken sleep, wandering where your mind goes
I wish I had never led us here
If I could only clamp my eyes and plug my ears
The City of corrupted fiends
Your behaviour my soul demeans

Litter-strewn and vomit-soaked
Lines of mandy, nitrogen-oxide smoked
No room to breath, no space to sit
Stiletto heels seemed for you a better fit
Offering the City what was once intact
Your affection, like a summer's day, a vanishing act
Now wrapped up in knowing what I lack
Short skirts in taxi cabs, both black
Frayed wit and hollowed eyes
Walking past off-licences stacking putrid pork pies
And cornish pasties
And kebabs

What do I do now without you here
A place so easy to feel your worth does not exist, as I disappear
Half-awake on trains where no one speaks
Internally focused on what the iphone leaks
While I hear sirens and tyrants' bank balances soar
More, more, more
Embracing the fast, gin-soaked race with some trendy herb
Festering mattresses retired to the kerb
Steeped in rain and melancholy
No longer necessary
(Like me)
Beside boozed-up lads banishing love with another round
Don't worry mate, plenty other birds around.

“You only lose what you cling to”

In French, you don’t say ‘I miss you'. You say ‘tu me manques,’ which could be taken as ‘you are missing from me.’ Missing from me, like a beating organ, or the flow of blood.

 A limb that was, now no longer. A hand to hold, a mouth to taste, so soon discarded, now replaced.

You filled your time with another so quickly.
Deaf and dumb with each new kiss, as if the dream of us did not exist.