and we’re back there again,
moved some seats around,
why change something
not broken I said.
Your eyes,
topaz ovals watch me
as I take off my hat,
a treat for a change
from that shop
on the high street.
Conversation,
a roll of sticky tape,
the novel,
your very first
with chapters, a title
and a pretty front cover
is moribund, liquid words
that don’t mean what they did
six weeks ago.
I tell you I write
but the pendulum wobbles
between A* and a C,
if nothing much happens
there’s nothing much to say.
The coffee bites my tongue,
flames zip along my bottom lip
like the strike of a match
as you talk
about these names
with no faces
in your life, bubbles
on the scene.
I know before long
they will pop and be gone
but keep quiet
for I am one of them,
floating around longer than most.
The water
still hasn’t boiled for us yet,
it probably never will,
what I have to say
stays stored in my head
sealed up as Christmas knickknacks,
DO NOT OPEN
in black marker
on the side.
You’ll read, you’ll see,
you’ll no doubt laugh,
once a pen pecks my page
what has started
must end.
You kick me back awake
under the table,
I must have half a book
already.

Come quarter to ten,
sleepyhead, time for bed
with brother close by,
what awaits you up there
at the top of the stairs?

As night unfurls
each step groans
like an old gentleman,
you ask what will greet us
when we’ve scaled this mountain?

A monster, a ghoul
or nothing at all?
Something he says
different from the rest,
a sight quite like no other.

Before the clock strikes bedtime
a marvel for you two
that won't be forgotten,
the oddest thing you've ever seen;
the feast, the beast and one jelly-bean.

Many evenings, the curtains drawn,
you slept restless
as a new-born accepting
their life and the world.

Quilted in night
but come morning
you'd rise again,
write the branches of your tree.

Black upon a fresh page,
every word still in the breeze
long after your roots
were destroyed.

When the rain came
he liked to watch it from indoors,
clouds, distraught,
dripping their tears down every window,
filling every drain
until they overflowed with woe.

When the fog came
he liked to dissolve into it,
pretend he had faded from existence,
strolled into a new life
where everything was coated
in the most brilliant shades of rainbow.

When the hail came
he liked to hear it on his roof,
bang, thwack, smack,
fill the plant pots
with frozen white spheres
like pearls tossed from the sky.

When the wind came
he liked to stand in the garden,
let it swim through his hair,
make it a mess
and wonder what would happen
if he flew up, away, and gone.

When the snow came
he liked to jump in it,
make a haul of snowballs,
throw them at no-one
and scour for footprints
that looked just like his.

When the sun came
he liked to smile a little,
only a little,
look at the view
and see the painting blend
from Prussian blue, to peach, to marigold.

The beautiful scar
deep in green,
peaceful question mark
loops through the field
in which I stand
on ground
soft as a soap-drunk sponge.
The sun,
a lit matchstick-tip
burns all shades of tangerine
and saffron.
The water I hear trickle by,
the water I see
flossing the weeds,
a turquoise flow of blood
from this vein
to the beating heart.

A black force erupted into your sight;
male, small and wet, it would be the last.
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Nurse came around nine, you felt some delight,
ready to relive the pain from the past:
a black force erupted into your sight.

Time dribbled by and then with all your might
cried for the child to arrive and fast:
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Years before, a thought, ‘Will mine be alright?’
Like Christmas Eve, a present in the post:
a black force erupted into your sight.

No wave of love upon him in the light,
what you wanted now here, but at what cost?
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Come morning the daughter, intrigued and bright
meets your son, awake after his first rest.
A black force erupted into your sight,
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

That Saturday
when they pulled your teeth,
he came at nine,
the smoker, the drinker,
the one with hard black pebbles
for eyes.

Your aim? To ******, to thrill,
the American ******
with daffodil hair.
Out from the rain and into a bar,
dialogue on birthdays
and becoming old.

A speck of seriousness,
your mood, spiked,
each 'conquest' you called it
so fabulous,
always this way;
you knew it would be.

Hand on waist,
you gasped for air
as if drowning in ginger ale,
one kiss,
light as a feather,
the first.

Positive,
it's only physical,
this lovely magnetism
but his burning voice
you clung to
like a thin cigarette.

Past fuzzy lights,
through a summer shower
that fell faster and faster,
just like that, another one gone,
another name
maybe thinking of you.

I still have
the note you wrote,
kissed with your raspberry lipstick,
licked with your bedtime ink.

For years, left to dry
in a drawer, inhaling the dark,
I found it, like a stale apple,
blushing yellow.

I understand the words now,
the loops, the curves, a fairground ride,
that's what we were
before the carpet scorched our knees.

Did you keep the one
that I wrote you?
No, maybe, torn at the top
and stuffed somewhere.

I let your message breathe again,
swallow the days,
this red stain rages upon my eyes,
a note with no writer, how it all fades.

Next door’s cat,
alone as they’ve gone away
on holiday,
slouched on the lawn,
our garden.

A monochrome tube
flops over, turns over,
liquorice eyes peer up,
a rolling pin
kneading the green.

Thinks it owns the place,
can lounge about
wherever it pleases
drizzled in June honey,
‘round ours for a week.

It knows when I am close,
a mewling baby,
rises like an overweight man
from an armchair
and asks to be loved.

'Ten years from my successful seventeen, and a cold voice says: What have you done, what have you done?'
Sylvia Plath - journal entry Wednesday 4th November 1959.*

Now, like a typewriter ribbon,
worn-down and weak
as a shrinking pencil,
but there are white days
among those fruitless, bare ones,
spasmodic,
where the machine
gorges on characters
you create.

Multi-coloured rhapsody,
confident stories
have upped and left,
what can you do,
what have you done.
Feast on unknown delights,
astrology or foreign waffle
and wait for them to come.
They will come.

Ten years, ten calendars gone,
now your hair is up
rather than tumbling down,
need some buoyancy in a bottle,
medicine again,
take twice a day.

What you need,
crave, long after seventeen
sleeps inside you
silent
and will come alive,
your small siren,
as will every pitch-black word.

It was a Wednesday,
the postman in glorious blue,
a horrific thin letter
in your mailbox.

Across the street
the plump woman watched,
you tore it open,
birthday present in June.

Rejections, maybe.
But no. Instead
black words
said something other.

Happiness crashed upon you,
jumping up, up and down
as if on a trampoline,
a fire, smothering the dark.

Accepted.
You called it a creative wave,
rising, frothing wildly
and falling again.

I. (The Gone).
They have gone.
Why does it bother me so?
A truth,
only a handful of gems
stay bright,
all others
faded
like pencil on paper
until a faint mark remains,
what was, what now is.
Names in conversation,
a drive down the alphabet
then and now,
clotted recollections
breaking apart
each time, stalled
in silent traffic.
A few, needles I suppose,
a shot in the arm
again, again,
I cannot believe
how many times
their voices
painted everything,
but long gone,
no abrasion or impact
to consider, to revise.
On occasion,
a stretch into fog,
icy melancholies
but not always
a echo,
moments to inform
me they can return
if they wish.

II. (The Bare Feet).
So, it is night.
Whorls of cream
came through the door,
sleepyhead next to me,
ragged, tired,
out of juice.
I can only say
‘I knew you would.’
This is not your home
but we’re not far away.
Lipstick less rosy,
sound of drums
still throbs in our ears
but it was worth it,
for confetti,
flecks of gold
whirling around
you, the crowd.
Peachy lights
spray across
your face,
piano black eyes,
warm bare feet.
It is not real
but we can touch,
we can speak.
On our knees,
we look at each other,
I hold you,
the minutes
stutter past
and for a moment
only silence,
silence is all
we need for our words
are used too much.

III. (The Next.)
It took
over a year
but we saw
each other again.
Since the end
of a grey June day,
two years
elsewhere,
forty miles the difference.
He quit,
the right choice
he tells me
as we reminisce,
that’s what it is
these days,
now he looks
for the next stage
and soon
it will be me
who must fully
step into adulthood,
like a foot plunged
into a bath,
too hot, too cold.
Did we expect this?
If we could see
next year
would we smile
or scowl?
Tell ourselves
it’s just the way
things go,
on, on, on.
Now, as I look
out my window,
the faintest tinge
of orange
descending,
I know, he knows
we don’t know
what comes next.

The one with the
         crack
along the middle,
dark and so thin
words could fall through
like water in a colander.

Under the grand chandelier,
a slew of sheets
spat with confident blue juice,
cardboard-covered notebooks,
a team of paper ***** to be tossed
towards your wooden jail.

Sketches of mice, polar bears,
a recipe for rabbit at his right elbow,
red Shakespeare
and a well-read thesaurus
as scruffy
as recently rinsed blonde hair.

You always ***** the lid
on your own *** of ink, black,
sleeping silver scissors
near your French dictionary
and shells over a plastic
sunglasses case.

The table
in the room
in the house on Tomás Ortuño,
serenity bathing you,
a golden spark
of solitude.

Today, no yesterday
you purchased a raincoat
to drench you in grey,
way too expensive
but worth it, about right
if you hand over enough.

They will see you ride,
maiden on a bike
through the torrent in your new
good-on-the-eyes garment,
with just the slightest hint
of merry pink lining.

A night in mid-August
and you can hear them
from your house,
the drums begin
and brass sounds follow
like quietly excited children,
like the two who walk with you
over the hill.

The sun sinks
into evening’s quicksand,
your soggy clock
of adolescence
ticks faster than ever.

Scent of popcorn
excites your nostrils,
grey couples talk soft, slow,
and once your blanket
is draped upon the grass
you see an orb of hollow green
drift sleepily
up, up, over everyone’s heads
and you wish
you were that tiny balloon,
floating far away
toward something new
as each teenage summer
blurs into your brew.

For once, I watched
after waking early
the trick of the sky,
a vivid circle
creeping up
as an anniversary.
Half forget-me-not,
half sunflower,
a glowing hat
poised on the horizon,
amber flames
singe the first clouds
of morning.
Chimneys soak in light
and here
from the window
it climbs higher
ready to burn,
ready to blind.

A night sometime in mid-July
and darkness hums between the trees.
My eyes look across sodden grass
for another life to waddle past.

A creature,
a ball of bristles
appears from the bushes,
listen out for a snuffle, a mumble.

There, by the fence,
a wooden coat speckled with milk.
Its movement lazy like a man
on a summer Sunday walk home.

Does it come often? I wonder
as a breeze races over my lawn.
A sniff of a fallen branch
before shuffling along.

The evening crawls on,
a caterpillar over a leaf.
I decide to wait a while,
watch my guest awake, alive.

The blackcurrant words
     seemed grotesque to you
     on the vast tarnished landscape.
Letters curling as October leaves
     pricked your old silver eyes,
     slapdash lines
and glitter thoughts
     splurged upon your paintings.
     You were a poppy,
a dark, minute dot,
     but every idea burst in gaudy red
     from you.
The poems would arrive,
     would come eventually,
     leap from your fingers,
punch onto the page
     and would it be good enough?
     Your product, complete.

What you should have done
instead of throwing your clothes
was let the water run
from the rusty ‘H’ tap,
heard, watched it splash, gush
in the long white tub
to almost near the top.

Then what you should have done
is dipped your petite frame
into the steaming transparency,
feet first, felt it scald
every individual toe,
see the intense red
flush your pale skin,
blotches of crushed raspberries
rising up your **** legs.

Once under,
you could have sunk so far down
so only your nose and eyes were dry,
a scrambled mess of blonde straws
stuck to the surface,
and each muscle would relax
like an aged writer in an armchair.
You'd be cured again, new again,
if only ephemeral.

I think he wrote
while you baked,
made fairy cakes
or something of the sort
while the young ones
whizzed around
like balloons
released from your fingers.

I think he was
your applicant,
not a bad fit,
frothing with wit,
a kiss made you giddy
like a girl
on their first date
in the heaving city.

On a red day
I think you sighed
when hearing boots
in the hallway but beamed
on a blue day
when he strode
through the door, a tie,
another rough wool jumper.

When he rode
those capsules home
I think perhaps you
wished to nick
your thumb again,
see the crimson seep
and weep as a child
over their father.

I think you wore
the smile of accomplishment
on day forty-two,
enough had bruised you,
pinched your skin
so it hurt and burnt pink,
stung a cheek
and left a tender spot.

I think you didn't want to
but did anyway,
felt all your words
had charred and bled black
so inhaled the haze,
swam under the jar
for the last time, before it fell
and cracked on his floor.

For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.

I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.

Once a little sun,
black walls drooled over
by pumpkin light,
soaking the furniture.

We knew you were ill,
every hour dissolving
to a lukewarm puddle.

You began to weep
white chocolate tears.

Couldn't be helped,
the heat gobbled you up
in segments like a boa constrictor.

We said goodbye
as you slipped down in the earth,
a trickle of smelly grey smoke left,
all you were, melted.

Now for too long drunk in your past,
dunked in your past
and you know I can't swim,
thrashing like an epileptic puppet
as each wave gurgled over me.

I guess you were a magnet,
hurling me toward you like
a cricket ball in the air,
except I was never caught,
the shiny maroon sphere
nowhere near your fingers.

Had to go and ruin it,
spoil it, but there wasn't an 'it',
a malleable object
for us to **** and poke
into our chosen shape.

You can't swim back either I suppose,
for the city screams
at you like an ambulance
and my head bobs above the surface,
I see silhouettes
move no nearer, no further.

I told you not to forget
but you did,
a letter resigned in a drawer,
a story left to grow dust
and words to vaporise
like they were never written
and meant one thing.

I liked our kaleidoscope moments,
candy-colours in triangles and circles,
melting stained glass
but you broke it,
dropped it on the floor or something
and we couldn't fix it,
those reds and greens and golds
a sprinkled memory
at the back of our brains.

So we used a spinning top
and watched it ****
upon the table,
round and round
but it slowed,
staggering
like a man intoxicated
and it fell from the wooziness,
too sick to go on.

So we played chess
even though I am mediocre at it
and I was white,
you were black,
the little kings, queens, bishops
forced forwards by our fingers
until they didn't want to play anymore,
back in the box please,
and you won, of course,
you won every game with ease.

Said we'd play again sometime
but you didn't remember
and I bought a new kaleidoscope too,
just for us to use
but you forgot didn't you,
it happened again.

I found her sprawled on the stairs
with no shoes,
plum-coloured bruise
on the back of her leg,
I ask, how did she fall?

Hand slumped over a step,
a young girl climbs to sleep,
now still on these stairs,
all dreams wrapped in black,
bumped her milky-haired head,
but how did she fall?

I heard no commotion,
no 'ouch', no '****!',
no cry cutting the air to my ears,
I only opened the door
and saw you on the stairs
and I can only wonder
how did she fall?

Was her mind swimming in drink?
Eyes droopy and weak?
Unable to reach
her soft pillow in bed?
Now as the clock dongs
throughout our house
I still think
how did she fall?

I say aloud her name
but no breath, no movement at all,
she remains sprawled
near the top of the stairs,
close, not close enough
and I look at her there
unconscious, mind strolled off elsewhere
and I continue to ponder,
how did she fall?

Bright     blue      skewers      the      dark,
navy      fingers      grow­      into      nothing.

A   young   girl's   helium   squeal   hisses   high,
'oooh.....ahhhh.'
Emerald   gunshot   ends   another   life.

Velcro-splitting,
amber   glitter
sparkles   upon
the   night's   stars.

Toothpicks ***** the sky,
crimson ribbons dribble down
like blood dripping from a nose.

The orchestra of colour plays
before black devours them all again.

Black hair
like oodles of shoelaces
on the surface.

Skin turns to tough rubber,
fingers are lollies
left to freeze in a dank cave.

Above, a melting sky,
wonky blue and white
too far from wrinkled hands.

Electronic voices stutter
into her ears, a gargly reply
floats to nowhere.

Each second adds up,
each second closer to blackout,
perhaps a slow-motion wave cheerio?

She drifts deeper down,
a wrecked puppet
asleep in the sea.

Unable to inhale,
throat begins to scrunch
like a paper cup.

Bright vegetables of the sea,
disordered hair, thin arms.

Tubes protrude among vivid coral,
an array of shades against a sapphire canvas.

Wobbly vermilion wires poke out
from under rust-coloured rocks.

A clown swims quick through the middle,
orange in a forest of fingers.

Pink bonbons, candy canes,
an underwater confectionery store.

Some throb with electricity,
small pools of violet light near their homes.

Others ***** rainbows
from deep open mouths.

Waltzing in solitude
as tangerine horses gallop.

More creatures weave past,
realise they are in a multi-hued hug.

Hidden paint splatters,
are they aliens of the deep?

I want to feel those feelings,
those indefinable feelings
of hopscotching
towards it,
one foot in front of the other
to experience
the maudlin aqua-eyed
moments in rain,
jeans
and midnight skirts.

Taking every step necessary
to evade black lakes
down your cheeks,
hot blood on my fingertips.

And there'd be a song,
cordial and soft
on the piano,
delicate
like carnation petals,
writing lyrics
on each other's arms
in multi-coloured ink,
letters that hop
up to our elbows.

How to feel what it's like
with another one,
opposite and the same
all at once.

Cheerful dreams,
placid days
on streets, in homes
with brown drinks,
single and un-single friends
who say 'I knew you two would...'
and to show our love
our hands would touch
and our lips would touch
and the lights would rise.

I. (The Bubble).

Now, I don't like it.
The coming, the going
on four wheels
to the building
where we all drift,
told what is right
and how to write,
the same stories
in disparate voices,
A B C fail.
What is obscured behind the names,
cherubic female faces,
men from various places?
Who are you again?
We talk
but know little
about each other.
It's about you,
how to waft into
the social triangle.
We are transparent bubbles
that float and collide
and pop,
an insignificant extinction.
I do not like it.

II. (The People 'Just Like Me').

It fell into your lap
like warm spilt tea.
You took it,
the first,
of course,
but me?
Not a thing,
not a person I mean
on the other side
of the decrepit fence.
Forget, forget they say,
pick someone from that place,
figure them out
like a thousand-piece jigsaw.
But they are no good,
diluted colours
visible but not stand-out.
Where are the similar shades
of green
to paint themselves to me?
There could only be one
but forgive me,
I cannot see
for the steam in my eyes.

III. (The Resolutions).

These are the silent days
between pigs in blankets
and bangs in the sky.
Wet weather,
lights on.
The resolutions,
who keeps them?
Write better,
fair enough.
Be less inept,
but I am not anyway.
Cut down on complaining,
take each day
s t e a d y .
Breathe, move forwards,
only on occasion
delving into the sack
to pull out
unwelcome shards of the past
or vibrant memories
soon to vanish.
Are you sure you want
to delete this file?
Yes/No?

and we met up, same place,
seats still cold but comfy.
Your cheeks were fuchsia pink
from the squally breeze outside
and I had one of my scarves
wound around my neck,
red and black
like a chunk of children’s candy.
The story you'd started
was going well,
ideas popping up
as a villain would
in a hackneyed horror film.
I said a sporadic poem
spilled onto the page
but little else,
just comatose dross.
Twenty past,
coffee swam over our teeth
like sepia-bikinied swimmers.
Somehow you were more beautiful
but unaware of it,
your hair brighter
under the glare of the lights above.
The youngest pair around,
early twenties, 'whole life ahead.'
How wrong.
Our relationship a radiator
that fails to heat up enough.
Everybody has one.
I'll write about you someday for sure.
Some day.

I. (Wrap).

It does not matter
how they have wrapped the presents
but what lies beneath.

--------------------------------------------------

II.­ (Gifts).

Be thankful my friends
for what you have this Christmas
even if it's socks.

--------------------------------------------------

III. (Reindeer).

In all honesty,
should Santa and his reindeer
fly in this weather?

Snitch-catcher.
Cauldron-stirrer.
Wand-waver.
Quidditch-player.
S­tone-retriever.
Riddle-killer.
Buckbeak-rider.
Triwizard-enterer.­
Phoenix-member.
Snape-hater.
Voldemort-fighter.

The lady shuffles,
spindly feet across the wooden fence.

A blood red bug
flecked with dark black circles.

It’s as though a child
has painted her flimsy wings.

White marks
on her head like lights on a dark road.

Sunlight skulks up
to where she now stands.

I blink
and she chooses to whizz away.

A minute crimson blur
against the forget-me-not sky.

Why do they laugh at me? Guffaw until hoarse
as I walk through the fog?

Little copper feet strut across woodwork,
sherbet white feathers extend, retract.

A mob stands on soggy grass, wheezing
like old men on twenty a day.

Some yawn, open orange castanet beaks,
a boring morning for those who remain.

Clouds turn a grimmer grey shade
over me and these gulls.

Two of them spring up, higher than every tree,
wings glide through air as satin through fingers.

Tiny eyes will continue to scour this park
for another stranger to deride.

Every afternoon I walked past
and there, sprawled static
amid golden brown grass.

I thought someone would move you,
the stench, the gaunt body
obsolete in feeble autumn sunlight,
winter’s overcoat.

I could not look away
from the rough mustard
and chalk white hair.

Flies, bugs clung to you
like a strong-smelling drug,
ebony eyes open
but you saw nothing.

The gap grew each day,
a lump gone
and before long, the rest.

and we went for coffee
at the cafe round the corner
where the guy
who served us looked like
a wannabe rock star,
where the seats were cold,
a buttermilk colour.
I remember your lips
were strawberry red -
I wore a liquorice jet-black jacket
that was too small for me.
Then somehow
like a shirt in the wash
the conversation changed
to the other side of things,
what we both had written
over the days of dying summer.
'Plenty, you?' is what you said
sipping from the white mug.
'Not much, no surprise' my riposte,
glasses harassed
by caffeine-full clouds as I drank.
Then the fog cleared,
I could see again
sinking into your seawater eyes
and I muttered how I'd scrawl down
something about you
sometime.
This isn't it.
Here’s to another day.

Your fingertips
are icicles,
doodling
figures of eight
on my cheeks.
I see your breath
like little white clouds
of smoke
drift in the winter air
and vanish,
as if you didn't breathe
out at all.
The branches
of the nearby oak tree
sprayed
in whipped cream,
the ground sprinkled
with a vanilla ice cream-like
layer of snow.
And as it slowly
starts to melt
you lean in for a kiss,
the frosty blast
of mint
infecting my teeth.

I'll ask you not to turn off the lights,
I want them to blind me
with their brilliant filaments
until the bulbs break
like a vase on a tiled floor,
the walls, the door go back
to being charcoal black
as they have been so many times before.

I have started to abhor
the roads that define me,
the words that describe me
and my traits,
the way I must walk in wintery air
to a migraine inducing wilderness
to be squashed into old moulds,
will this be adequate for you now and when?

What is this fall,
does it affect you, your actions,
your jumbled jigsaw piece thoughts?
These bruises are purple,
this brain is strained,
inject me with zest
until my wrist pains
so much it must combust.

Out of the glass is nothing,
a candyfloss cloud, a tree, a lawn,
it bores me,
an artist is needed,
paint a new canvas
swathed in colour
and things from my weekend dreams
lucid and intense.

I am a ******* up ball
of paper, unfold me, still legible?
Fold it again, an airplane
chucked into an angry breeze
or please,
if the lamps are tough enough,
watch my words illuminate,
drool across the table.

Why do you wear that thing?
Not nice to embrace
the coarse khaki coat
wrapped round
your whole body.

I don't want to touch
your untrimmed chin,
what's underneath?

When I remove
the fuzzy item I gasp -
black pin-****** all over your chest
and grass stains
like rays of light too.

You never blink,
just stare at me with wet
creamy-coloured eyes.

I have basked in another beauty,
a sharp jasmine needle
that has pricked the corner
of the so-called snazzy ones.
A bright torch
in a dark blue drowned room,
crumbs on a blood napkin
and the one-tone words
drop out our ears
like heptagonal coins out of pockets
or tears,
tears onto pages
in a teenager’s diary.

And then we advance
into October air
where leaves tick and tack
as typewriter keys do
across soggy ground.
Ride, walk
and now a story begins.

Blonde after blonde,
strangers
stroll in,
no idea who you are,
not a clue where you're going.
I am among
a new wave of writers
with anxiety on the table,
pursuing acclaim for incoherency.
Some are absent
like a snowflake at Christmas,
failed to come forward
over the horizon
where rainclouds don't depart.
Naturally reserved
in our asylum of words
but it's a melee
to be heard,
to be seen,
a rising flower
on the cusp of spring.

Head sunken in a black puddle,
give me a sponge
with no holes
to scrub away marks
of irritation.
Drinking disease,
blood is a slush
like crushed ice in my veins
through dreary afternoons.
A headache burns
but how the flames must spasm
in the wind
and wax drip
as a tap not turned off right
to stir incoherent words along.
Are ears filled with filth,
eyes coated in a watery false film?
Dust the old ones from your shoulder,
move past the smog
to the probable.

I traipse along fractured slabs
to get away,
away from worn floors
to a place
of haunting silence -
just cope with it I say.
From the cavern
to the cave,
beneath ***** dishcloth clouds,
a monochrome Rubik's cube
of a mind,
sluggish and masses
of ******* ideas,
there
then forgotten.
Rummage around
in the green sack,
pick out a dream
to dream
tonight
before it melts
like Red Leicester on brown bread
into an image
hard to decipher,
a TV dotted with white spots -
smack me on the back
'til a picture returns.
Blindfold me
until I cannot see,
give me another sliver
of suspect perfection.

Now you are married,
may you spend several years
happy together.

Over the garden you droop,
crooked fingers
point in every direction.

When summer's gone
you shake, a wet dog,
the grass strewn with shrivelled waste.

"Not so young anymore",
a weaker wrinkled body
battered by almost all weathers.

A faded jade jacket
covers your naked figure
as the cold days come closer.

From my window I look,
and your strands of hair
nearly scrape the sky.

A chalky body
tainted with sticky ruby,
acne-riddled, dark spots.
Digits
spill out
over your tongue
onto the red floor.
Clatter,
now spin.
Watch through your dried blood fringe
as it revolves,
let the good times roll,
isn’t that what you say?
Now this is out of your hands,
out of your mouth,
blurred blackness,
your choice down to chance.
A low rotating sound
and it lands
next to crimson painted nails.
Your number is up.

As I opened my fridge one morning,
early on before sunrise,
I was greeted by the stench of tuna fish
which at that time came as quite a surprise.

And I poured myself a glass of orange juice,
the stronger stuff with bits in,
and then tossed yesterday’s Guardian
into the overflowing silver bin.

‘I’ll pull back the curtains’ is what I thought next,
nobody, of course, out on the street.
No sooner had I picked up the remote control
when I felt like something to eat.

‘I’ll get myself some toast’ I said in my head,
and smear it with some Marmite,
but my days, my eyes were so **** sore,
I couldn’t see if I was doing it right.

The years I’ve been waking up early,
every time it is the same,
barely making it down the stairs,
all part of God’s make-him-pay game.

But I finally sat down once more
and could now relax in front of the news,
only to see some cheery couple
with a glass of champagne on a cruise.

It made me wonder, what it would be like
if tomorrow I just stayed in bed.
Would I have an extra few hours to rest
or would somebody find me dead?

Then a van pulled up on the other side of the road,
bloke closed it with a very loud bang,
made me jump so much I spilt half my drink,
seconds later is when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I recognised the voice immediately,
a friend calling me at this hour?
They said how they wanted to pop round later
if it wasn’t going to be a terrible bother.

‘Sure’ I replied and then soon hung up,
my voice sounded coarse like Velcro.
Only then did my eyes see a black figure
standing right outside my window.

It's all about time and how we don't have enough of it.
It's all about money and how we need more of it.
It's all about petrol and the high price of it.
It's all about school and how we are so fed up of it.
It's all about guys and girls and how they don't seem to get 'it'.
It's all about family and how we don't feel part of it.
It's all about sleeping and how it takes ages to arrive at it.
It's all about a cigarette and how we shouldn't be smoking it.
It's all about a drug and how easily we can take it.
It's all about the bad dudes and how easily they can do it.
It's all about a gun and how simple it is to fire it.
It's all about health and how we don't look after it.
It's all about war and asking what's the point of it.
It's all about music and the messages within it.
It's all about poetry and what someone has to say in it.
It's all about ignorance and how there's too much of it.
It's all about religion and having a moan about it.
It's all about birth and how we should treasure it.
It's all about death and how we say we don't fear it.
It's all about life and how we choose to live it.

I. (The Upcoming Trio).

There are three.
Of course there is only one right now,
but still, there are three
and they are lurking nearby
like a daddy long legs in the corner of a bathroom;
the more they daintily move around,
the more the need to do something about it.
One is foreign, far away,
young and surrounded by superglue sticky air,
questions having already been posed.
Two will lure you in with lipstick
and teems of sienna hair
but is taken with a drink.
Three, my strangers, is a bit of an unknown,
beautiful with powder blue eyes,
somehow missed on the first of the week.
Older! Would never have guessed.
I ask myself if one out of this group
will join the list of failures-to-be
with their own letters
or flowers
or stories
serving up rich reminders
of amateurish errors.

II. (The Summer’s End).

Before we all enter fall
some actions must occur.
A chat with five of those stepping up
into the world of small rooms,
nights out
and a lack of coins.
A reunion with linguists
for a talk and some tea
after over a year
since food in the market.
There’s also him
before he goes off to learn to teach,
P who had results last time round,
her with guy issues,
a fan of shoes
and the one above the rest
incapable of any words.
Good times ahead
with friends I hold dear
that ought to take place
before we all enter fall.

III. (The Procrastinator).

A ******, a waste
and a bag of mice on the floor.
Newspapers
under every little helps.
Really must be done
now,
now,
but no,
later,
tomorrow,
weekend,
why?
You haven’t gone back yet
to the days of park crossing.
Sort it out mate,
clear some space.
No more than an hour, tops.
How do you expect
to get anything done
if you don’t get up from the chair
and begin to move?