(Poem) An A for Amnesia

pear-shaped silhouette

meets compound pulsing insect eye

aglow from shadowy tessellated rafters

singed retinae and smoking cochlea

and the sweetsmoke smell of the nineties

16-hole doc stomping

jackbooted German gyrotechnothump

blaring out through every crack

of the nicotined plaster walls

and here I am, trying to figure out

how to manoeuvre in this space

and how to be alone in a crowd

and not to carry the countenance

of washed up refugee status in a tide of desperation

I was never a natural born killer

a twisted firestarter

or the son of a black hole

I never smelled of teen spirit

or fucked like an animal

and the beautiful people

always dwarfed my steeple

and E was just another letter of the alphabet

somewhere between C the consequences and Y the fuck not

I only ever rode the edges

of a wave that never truly formed before rolling back

will it stick this time?

long enough for me to find my way

I hope so

this time I know what I'm doing

I think