I sit and try and be a lotus
after killing the third fly of the evening
with a pocket book of recipes and a
thirty centimetre ruler stolen
from bathroom **** measuring contests to our knees.
Young professionals tread these boards
and I watch, trying to paint them lotus.
I listen and learn like I was told to do
then clock watch, mop, cycle home to you;
I am still trying to be a lotus
even in wet shoes and no socks.
With less than five-hundred pounds to my various names,
an office-chair-cum-clothes-horse, eight USB charging ports
and a future that stretches to Sunday’s last reluctant second,
I am sitting, trying to be lotus figuring out the professional path
David Attenborough heard in his gentleman’s class: that son of a-
- I walked into an army recruitment vault with dreams of being Gulliver,
though was asked to leave out the cat flap cathedral door back into war
as they’d got their laugh and didn’t applaud.
Perhaps I should’ve been better at maths
where apparently a career can be predicted on a scatter graph,
and the pigeons of today were the pigeons of next year and the months that’ll follow the century after that.
I am still trying to figure out the hoo-ha of ************
and ring fingers and collar sizes and the inner circles
of hyenas when the winter solstice splits the seasons.
There is no reason for this lotus procrastination
when what’s there to live for but a crooked world
and one bandage left.
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 2:18 PM UTC
Along with the last moment to complete any homework,
one was instructed to etch name, number and form
upon the tag that lurked within the rim of each new polo shirt,
every pair of trousers and that stretched, sleeved jumper
(better than any other in the house that were just the same).
Without those legal details properly stated you’d run the risk of losing them to lost property,
that orchestrated tub, dead sea stench, of pre-pubescent potpourri.
Now, all we wear is the earned income of a bestowed cognomen
and it embellishes the backs of our necks
and we mustn’t forget it’s all we have;
that, and our teachers.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 7:44 AM UTC
Were we not once love stood in abbey shadow and sun,
were we not once lovers at the top of bowling alleys
holding, having fun?
As you showered, I
bathed in the oeuvre of your
aura opposite,
thought of
midnight scrambled eggs
then bed
and the coffee to keep it company.
It’s then we woke
to the Sunday cacophony of avocados on post,
head to the second supplement in
to learn of the best twelve coasts where good lovers go to live,
where good lovers go to hide and give,
where good love exists.
If only the car wasn’t broken:
second hand, forecourt pile of ****
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 8:57 AM UTC
Determined to have left by half-eight,
cats fed and plates away,
they were late.
This raconteur of the recce,
part time life model to Rosetti (among others)
had corralled cagoules onto arms,
thrown shoes their way, warmed up the car,
had marched across driveways, crossings, marshlands to playgrounds
and so far had lost none.
This was him without coffee, a fifth of his repertoire,
and they weren’t even his sons.
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
She clung to his waist as if the last fisherman pitched around a lake.
She was not gonna let go until evening
fell,
until they’d made their hotel;
eyes on the autobahn ahead.
They'd once trickled into terraced tributaries hankering after hidden
held waists on corners, continuously,
as they learnt of not letting go,
kept the sense of cologne pecked necks,
fuliginous chimney pots
and the fume of hollowed out leaves on rain soaked trees
stacked next to each other on the latent apothecary's patent leather shelf,
safe in the old factory of a shell.
Their single cylinder sang along the road,
and she did not hear him singing.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 9:23 PM UTC
I dreamt of travel disruption last night
and haven’t woken up since; know that though,
a whole ****** of crows hidden along
the hemline of a coat was not the
reason I was late, nor were black stamps spat
out through mirrored windows, panes unmoored from
frames in the wake of two late goodbyes: one
said at a check-in desk disguised as point
A; the second, central, wrapped around an
orbit of children where they now lay.
This news- again, it is news- is an air-
bag of ears, of interviews, listening
so we don't have to, colouring pallor
in post so the ghosts of aftermath do
not go unnoticed when we believe it
may not of have happened.
I'm going to buy out the sky right of
tragedy and skywrite,
vandals of companionship are not tolerated below this message, or above.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 12:53 PM UTC
A fortnight ago an Algerian masseuse anointed each note of my joints,
spread thumbed cursive over my shoulders and
back around to my chest;
she spelt out how I'd be shivering now knowing you were leaving.
And last week you led me to an acupuncturist where he said,
Rob Frost had quit his job on point duty to become a receptionist instead.
I knew it was ******** by the way you barked in the background.
I knew it was wrong from the rumble through the stud wall,
sound of timpani, of gusto's drawl ringing in my ears:
the resonance of windfall if saved 'in the best ISA for years!'
This has been the best February since records began
and I thank you for being a friend.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.
You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).
I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 3:13 AM UTC
Take your ******* fedora off you are not a Jones.
Kid, leave the captain's hat on, gods know you're going it need now,
those waves are knee dip and those rip-tides drag:
lay flat across the hull in dreams of concrete and something a little more stable
until someone takes over,
guides you back home to the lit terraces,
glowing apartment advent calendar,
lighthouses of cushions
and the sofa just how you left it.
Within simple pleasures sleep intricate tasks,
curled up dogs at the foot of fires:
someone please tell them their Dalmatian died whilst they were on holiday,
he was
below
the radiator in the spare playground.
Am I a weak man? it asked the black marble glare of the corner skirting board joint.
Am I meant to feel like that gasp after a slow kiss? that come back for more
Godfather Part Two again,
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,
rumble string of motorcycle parade through tarmac and your core
sat crossed legged on any first school floor.
AM morning calls to vets,
stumble for words and
over the abbreviations,
the IAADP have got your back in case Gandalf ever witnesses your blinding,
forever led forth by a lead and little more faith in something worth confessing over.
Love is a tango
it's too hot to handle,
someone sang in a spontaneous smoking area
spawned from a spare terracotta *** and someone asking for help once,
so nervous their knees quaked,
slow down reigns not effective once their BPM was past 200 whatever
Jeremy Clarkson was screaming that week,
but their eyes,
they were knocking down walls with toffee hammers,
scattering chunks under werthy wooden horses,
rubbing sweet stud wall shards into coarse prison gravel with waiting soles,
whistling so not to give the game away.
Escape now back to a Lowell of an old park bench,
dig through **** and pipelines of earth for
canons of authors stacked high in front of you,
you awfully well bled individual,
the wounds from those words about to heal
all the slips you fell into
dragged yourself out of,
clawed back your fedora through more doorways than you can
remember: it always gets you into trouble.
Kid, one thing at once.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 10:04 AM UTC
Somebody put Kylie Minogue on
from the wall mounted touchscreen one-pound-a-go jukebox-
Coldplay would've been better, but I should be so lucky-
and the rising water in the Titanic's engine room of noise
rose to a First Class stateroom chatter and Kate Winslet
and the queue to the bar grew a little longer
and then
you
walked
in
like
a
Sunday
morning
walk,
one long stroll by a river edge or lake side,
through a Westfield, Bluewater Meadowhall
in one long rehearsed map move entrance
dodging standing drinkers and their plus ones in Zara trench coats and Boden shawls,
and you left a wake of wet forest and crumbling beachhead afternoons behind you as you
walked
on
through
the
crowd
to the pool table at the back where you watched
*** after ***
after pint
after ***
after we need more one pound coins to play more pool,
and you went out for **** though you don't smoke yourself
and you looked up into the mist because you're the kind that would find New York Stuart Little big:
mostly building, building, building, window, balcony, bridge, statue and Central Park trees,
and you walked back in with river eyes, your lids moving from cold back to behind-the-fridge, pub-room warm
and they watered a little, Pacific blue sliding over eternal black;
I think she's the kind that needs a lion tamer not an orchestra leader,
but I've only got Petit Filous muscles and I had four raw eggs this morning and I'm still not as strong as I’d like to be,
(put the baton down, Tim)
a River Phoenix younger Harrison Ford stasis, one train wreck ride to remember,
nowhere near the lion tamer you need.
Kylie sings for the fifteenth time in a row,
and the bar is past last orders though cash is pushed under for pints
and you disappeared under bar light
and then into the moonlight
and now I'm sat grieving
the Golden Retriever of The Nutshell
in Bury St Edmunds this evening.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 12:26 PM UTC