Leaving Town: Chasing dreams that run away like cats down alleys after midnight

A collection of poems inspired by a time of uncertainty, purpose, youth and question.

These poems were mostly written in 1989 while living in Oxford. A very small number of them were done in 1990, just as I moved to London. I had been through a difficult couple of years, but life was starting to look up again. I was on the dole, waiting to become a rock star. London seemed like the right choice, and I was done trying to make Oxford work out for me.

Hazy future

I'm not sure that I know anymore,

just what’s fair, what's right at all.

There's a long way to go on this open road,

at the mercy of all the world may throw.

I'm not sure that I feel anymore.

When my home is gone in misty stories,

my body is broken by men I don't know.

Sometimes I feel like a puppet, in a loser’s show.

I'm not sure of what I do anymore,

though I've been avoiding it for so long.

The reason’s lost, why I go on.

Can I build it back, when I keep getting it wrong?

Hazy future, yeah, it looks like another misty dawn.

I salute you - all those who carry on.

When the bed you lie on, isn't your own,

and the life you live is no longer normal.