Strange Famous

They arent very good, actually, but her are some:

1,

Valentines Day

This is the day for love, for cupid, and gaudy wishes.
Heart shaped candy, strange coincidence, lingering kisses.
I'll be collapsed on our bed, head in my hands:
My failure laid before me in obscene glory. And plans
Are ruined before they've begun.

And meanwhile, outside my room, two boys play basketball
In the street. A blue car crawls passed, a woman's call
Brings a lazy cat running, a cold North wind whips
Up the street: a man stands with his hands on his hips
Glaring at the scattered litter.

Later, I go to the shop, buy bread, smile at a girl
Who is just too young to matter: within the swirl
Of self indulgent self reproach there's a life to make.
I can pretend to do it for your or my sake.
Because it’s all there is.

Dead eyes surveying a world made of equal measures
Of pain, fear and joy: sucker punched and hidden pleasures.
Only four people know that I cry in my sleep:
The hole in my life is fizzing, burning: how deep
is it? It's sucked up years


2,

T H E G I R L W H O C O U L D N ' T F L Y

I

Summer's dreams still born before they've even begun;
Becky just wanted to be loved by everyone.
Lurching through the hysteria of sleep each night
She made the mistake that any of us might.

Dancing alone in her room, to her own CD;
How come she's a size eight and she's still so lonely?
Choking sobs into her pillow; but no one sees
Such apathetic pleading and apologies.

Forcing down cheap vodka, reading about the stars,
Lying flat on her stomach, listening to cars
Speed past her window. How many cars till she knew
She couldn't ever become somebody like you?

II

A wicked tide picking at her soul every day,
She knew she needed help, but didn't know what to say.
Even if we'd have seen how it would end, who would
Have helped her mould her life into the shape it should
Have been?

Pressing herself against the rain streaked glass, her eyes
Bleeding mascara; broken heart, desperate for lies.
Living a death sentence: culture, remorse, fear. She
Feels like the insides of a broken clock when the
Rust sets in.

Which sad songs, and sadder books, played in her head?
It's so hard to take, that she wanted to be dead.
She put on a new skirt and top before she went,
And painted every finger nail a different
Colour.

III

Her Dad found her empty room, her stuff was all there;
Her tarty skirts and clever books; there was nowhere
She could have gone. No friends or boys or anything.
They didn't know what to do, or who they should ring.

They told us in assembly, a week after we
Already knew. Her teacher kept telling us she
Felt so guilty, and that we'd miss Becky so much.
Some of the girls cried anyway. No one talked much.

Her parents moved away not very long after.
Kids from our year made up ghost stories about her.
Once, when they were drunk, they tried spelling out her name
With a ouija board; but no reply ever came.

IV

Walking through wet grass in toeless shoes, she thought how
The life she had wanted was in tatters, how
No one could hold on to her - make her feel all right.
The paper stained with tears, the note she left that night
Said it all.

When she stood there; praying for something to hold her back
Gravity proved stronger, what should have held her back
Abandoned her. In that dark, her eyes must have seen
Such intense sadness, where a river should have been
Instead.

I sometimes cross her bridge. The water that took her
Looks too bright, and I feel too little. They found her
All messed up by fish, two miles further downstream.
It's so sad to watch the beer cans dance in that clean
Brittle water.

V

And I drank alcopops, and smoked with younger girls
While the mess of hate and pain and missing out swirled
Round and round her head. I write her name on my hand;
But she's dead, how can I pretend to understand
What she felt?

3,

Untitled

Silk blonde hair, perfect teeth and light blue eyes
A mirror held up to late summer skies.
That pretty face was not wasted on you,
But why do you do the things you do?
Why can't you be more like the girl of my dreams?
You look like her.
Sometimes it almost seems
Obscene, that way that you can hurt yourself.
Don't you cry? Don't you care about yourself?
I do. Yet you are not the one to blame.
Inverted, shared days all look the same:
Small and silly, and deathly silent,
Empty words and tacky - bright pink - intent,
And smiling into burning heat. We fit
In each other's eyes and say we like it.
At 4AM I see you're not so great
But daylight is coming and it wont wait
For me to make my resolutions strong.
I still love you, I can't help that it's wrong.
You're so stupid and wasted, but I still care
And still pretend that inside you is where
All your hidden virtues are stored intact
Ready to turn my illusions to fact:
For me. If only I could be more worthy.
If only...
But I am me. You're you too.
Perhaps there is nothing you can do
Except take drugs and drink and screw up life
While - strong, healthy - I'm dreaming you were my wife:
And telling myself that you really are she,
That imagined girl who really loves me.
So you just drink and smoke and I will lie,
And reality and love will pass us by.
Love, twisted and stillborn, dwarves my sight
And stains my mind with it's cold warped light.
It tells me one day my dreams will come true,
And superimposes my heart over you.
Weeping at dawn is so sad and so ugly.
If only you thought that you loved me.

4,

Unfinished

Remember, you remember: it took you two years
To shut my big mouth and make me choke back tears.

I can't stop now, thinking about the past:
Stumbling drunk through the dim lit world that couldn't last.
Fully dressed, laying on our stomachs on your
Bed; the clean light of TV rippling on your door.
Holding my hand without thinking. Calling my name
Without looking up - life cannot now be the same.
How to explain? When you pressed your weight against me,
What did it feel like, arching your back lazily?
For me, a haven from pain, deep in love, a place
I could like myself, at last drop to my own pace.
For you: a bored static void, where you throw away the day?
Or the best thing you ever had? How can I say?
But growing up so convinced that I was bad,
How could I ever make you anything but sad?
All I want now, is you submerged in the past:
Stumbling drunk through the dim lit world that couldn't last,
Cold eyed with regret, or at least very sad
To have lost the very real protection you had.
And if, when searching yourself, you still cannot see
Any reason to stay, at least don't forget me.

We finally cracked up one cold November.
I don't know. How can I make you remember?

5,

Star Girl (for Mandy Moore)

When I was younger I would watch the stars sometimes
With apprehension, I sensed their vast, sparse, timeless,
Burning hid a great velocity. The night shines
All the same, indifferent: I bet you weren’t afraid
Of things you couldn’t understand.

And there must have been much then, maybe there is now,
That seems so strange, so unexpected: your picture
In a magazine. The first time you saw it how
Sure that girl looked. I could have said how beautiful:
But you’ve heard that before.

And now your picture’s in a thousand magazines,
And you are still the same, that quiet certainty
Even when you don’t know, are lost, or your life seems
To be fizzing with haste and someone else’s
Direction, you have that faith in yourself.

Sometimes I listen to you sing, it makes me dream
I was someone else, on firmer ground, less afraid
Of things I don’t understand; in my mind I seem
To see you smile, every word every note. I think
That’s one of the reasons you made it.

Plus the talent, the looks, the hype, and all that.
Years of dedication, in front on the mirror
With a hairbrush for a mic, a pen and pad that
You scrawled a hundred songs you never get to sing
On. I suppose people forget about that.

A poem for a girl I’ll never meet, that she
Might not even read, and wouldn’t like if she did.
I can’t compare you to stars, I fear them still, the
Difference is that you belong down here, but yet
You shine like them in your way

A quiet glow that touches everyone you know
Just a little. Maybe it doesn’t seem that much
Or maybe I make it more than it is, but it’s so
Important to have hope in this life, I think you
Made most people here catch some of that.

When you were younger did you watch the stars sometimes
With apprehension, did you have the same fear I
Did, being lifted at terrible speed? It shines
The same, indifferent, but I bet you weren’t afraid
Of things that weren’t really there

8 Oct 2002

Adam Douglas

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas