Dane Cobain

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A Long Weekend

Sometimes life is overwhelming,
like when you take the day off work
and sit in a car for hours on end
to spend six minutes on stage
reading words from a page
in aid of a fundraiser,
and you stand beneath the cross
and try not swear
or say something contentious,
and you see ethnicity
and try not to worry
about all the little things
that might go wrong.
 
You go on corporate away days
where they make you relax
whether you like it or not,
and then hop on Thomas
and ride Clarabel home
through Drayton Manor Theme Park,
holding hands with your girlfriend –
because I’m pretty sure that’s what she is –
as she’s worried sick
on the Apocalypse.
 
You go shopping
walking through warehouses
and wandering through the market,
and sometimes
you even
go to dinner.
 
Then you drive back home
or fall asleep in the passenger seat
because you’re reading
but your little eyes won’t stay open,
so you watch a season finale
and stand up speaking slowly
at The Rose and Crown.
 
Sometimes a weekend is all you need;
all you need is love,
and love I’m feeling.
​

Struggling to Find Potential Usernames

She can’t be @RedLantern
‘cause it’s a takeaway place,
and @Red_Lantern is also some sort of restaurant
and @RedLighthouse has been taken
by some woman who hasn’t posted
since 2011;
 
@CarlaCobain could be cool,
but some fool is already using it
and there’s nothing I need to tell you;
meanwhile,
someone else has @LighthouseEyes
and @EyesLikeLighthouses
is three characters too long
and anyway,
then you’d have to explain
what it means;
 
I tried various combinations
on the theme of wolves and foxes,
like @LupineFox and @VulpineWolf,
and you know what?
Some bastards stole those, too.
 
Maybe I should stick to what I’m good at,
‘cause you were always one
for finding titles.
​

Living the Dream

If you want to live the dream,
you’ve got to seize it,
like when your weed dealer
wants to read your new release
and you get back from Birmingham
with three signed books
and a dozen new connections,
who mention you on social networks,
experts in their niches
giving you a piece of their mind
and signed memorabilia
to share with all their readers,
the thought-leaders who see the reason
for reading fiction,
the contradiction between
romance and horror,
creeping easily into other genres
who can’t release the favour,
and we savour the day we came together,
full of clever incentives like muscle men
inverting the booth babe phenomenon,
and author bingo where you could
win a Kindle if you mingle
with every single individual,
the residual build-up
of interesting people.
 
If you want to live the dream,
go back in time
in Birmingham.

A Rare Moment of Solitude

When you’re surrounded
by sound,
and there are people all around
and they’re howling for your blood
or at least a little piece of you,
and you’re dying for peace and quiet
but the lights are down low
and the show must go on,
and you’re so damn tired
that the stage is on fire.
 
Then when you’re alone,
you're really alone,
and so you stare at your phone
and groan,
because YOU HAVE NO NEW MESSAGES
AND SEVENTEEN SAVED MESSAGES,
AND TO LISTEN TO SAVED MESSAGES
PRESS ONE.
 
And then you’re surrounded
once more,
and you fall to the floor
with your poor thoughts calling,
and every moment of silence
has impeccable timing,
and you might just
think of me,
again.
​

The Flight of Your Darts

Step right up to the little black line
and get ‘em in your sights,
‘cause the time is right and tonight
you’re fucking frightening,
and the flights of your darts
shine bright beneath the lights;
 
you’ve gotta strike ‘em in the eye
and shoot ‘em to the ground,
cast ‘em out without a shadow of doubt
and start breathing in and out again,
tell your friends when you’re dead
you’ll reappear again,
but the jokes on them
‘cause you’re immortal anyway,
and you’ll stay alive in the smell of the rain
and the way things change or stay the same.
 
So step right up to the little black line
and let ‘em fly tonight;
tomorrow,
we’ll learn to play baseball.
​

Dane Cobain's profile

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Rebecca

She was famous
for dancing in the darkness,
sexy confident
because she knew
her body moved
the way she wanted.
 
She was beautiful,
like a crossword puzzle
with the clues filled in,
or two thousand books
in perfect alphabetical order
on the shelves
of an independent
charity shop.
 
She had a gift for sleepwalking,
a sonorous somnambulist
in the back of an ambulance,
but she didn’t take food
into her bedroom.
 
And so she danced about
with the lights out,
all away with the fairies
like the top of a Christmas tree,
thrown out with the rubbish
and still decorated
on a cold, dead pavement,
waiting for men
to take it away again.
 
She was blue
like a summer day;
she was blue
like a smurf
with a black eye.
 
She was mine
and that’s the way
I liked it.
​

Let's Get Incendiary

Your words are strongest when honest,
and I never promised silence to begin with;
I never promised anything
‘cause I didn’t want to break them.
 
Truth is,
I fell in love again,
only this time it’s personal –
I’m not in love with the moonlight
like I used to be,
and I’m not in love with the music,
although it helps.
 
My poems force sparks to fly
between us,
singeing eyebrows
and causing serious distress
in the eyes of the spies
who spread their lies
about me,
and ironically,
I’m now at fault for the truth,
but I never asked for their opinion
anyway.
​

Average

You’ve gotta find
some excitement,
like badass assassins
hatching plans
to stand around,
out on the town
in a dressing gown,
not a frown or a smile
for miles,
the sighs and yawns
as thoughts form,
all the silence in the world
and today is any other day,
tame and tired
and uninspired,
and it’s better than bad
and worse than good
holding back the barriers
and baking the mud.
​

Some of the Butterflies

The pea and mint soup
after my tooth was removed.
 
Eye contact at the writers’ group
when I spoke the unspoken truth.
 
When you touched my face
and kissed my hand.
 
When I said you had eyes like lighthouses
and your exact response was,
“That’s beautiful.”
 
Hand-made hats from Lady Capulet,
thus making me feel like part of the family.
 
Accidentally brushing against you
in the church with the lights out,
before I gathered the courage
to speak to you.
 
Even further back,
when we met for a drink
and began our quest for world domination,
and we hugged for the first time
and then I went home.
 
Every time you make me smell
the way you smell.
 
Seriously,
every time you make me smell
the way you smell.
​

Keep the Faith

Everything is terrible,
and I’m dreading the inevitable tension
when I mention condescension,
the lack of respect
and the disdain I collect
for the  men we elect
as representatives,
senseless centres of excellence
rendered helpless.
 
The footnotes of history books
were made for men like me,
who were born early
and blessed with a blend
of graft and greatness,
but I hate this life at times,
and we all do.
 
I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer,
or to clown around
with a Glasgow frown,
causing trouble
in smoking bubbles
like the struggles we face
on a daily basis,
but you’ve gotta keep the faith
if you want to win this race,
and I hate the fates that make me late,
the mistakes I made along the way,
and the way I changed
and stayed the same.
​

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