Sunday Morning Poet: George Roberts in OUTSIDELEFT

We are delighted that this week's poet is George Roberts, who has described himself as 'a poet, still serving my time'.

George has been performing poetry since 1980, has slammed with Hammer and Tongue, and had poems published in Fire, Magma, New Poetry from Oxford, The Nail and Catweazle. He has performed in pubs, clubs, festivals, and open mics since 1980 in locations as far and wide as Oxford (where he lives), Birmingham (where Outsideleft first saw him), London, Ledbury, Philadelphia (where he was born), New York and Burlington. His book, When Life Looks Like Easy Street (2014), was published by Albion Beatnik.

You can hear him performing his work as thelastpoet on SoundCloud (there is a version of today's poem included as well).

I know you're in pain

I know you’re in pain and you’re probably drinking
but my heart’s in a hole and you stop me sinking
so I’m calling you up because I’ve been thinking again.

This shirt is the one I want:
the being I am going to haunt today,
in the rattle can chattering
monkey brain battering
rain of the epochs passing me
still not ready to cry
with the birds that are worrying me,
fly with the people hurrying me
just to make up the bed I’ve been laying in,
rehearsing the speeches, been saying them,
over and over re-playing them,
chewing the same old poem.

I know you’re in pain and you’re probably drinking
but my heart’s in a hole and you stop me sinking
so I’m calling you up because I’ve been thinking again.

Do the trees make any sense
stamping repeating patterns on the clouds?
Like Aztecs sitting on a fence:
all there ever is, is now.
When I tell the story we call When,
it happened once - and well? Again.
A moment on the surface
before the violet beyond;
rivers of frightening
swans inviting me in for a swim.
Dive right through the surface bluster
the banter, the bong
to the boy beyond
the brief forever that’s all we ever have left.

I know you’re in pain and you’re probably drinking
but my heart’s in a hole and you stop me sinking
so I’m calling you up because I’ve been thinking again.

I make models, ships in bottles,
foam on the ocean, frozen motion a long way from home.
Thread the rigging, tiny eyes,
a tired disguise, misreading meaning in the skies,
following mermaid lies
on swollen roads’ commotion.
I know what it is to be different.
I know what it is to be wrong.
I know what it is to be right here and feel I belong.
And I guess the fight is forever,
and I even think I know why.
But if I tell you I’ve been in the battle:

You know I’m in pain and I’m probably drinking,
when my heart’s in a hole, you stop me sinking,
so I’m calling you up because I’ve been thinking again.