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Please forgive the shameless plug!  I am so pleased to be able to tell you all that my first volume of poetry is now available...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quiverstorm-Poems-life-love-longing/dp/1539931641/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid;=1487694689&sr;=8-1&keywords;=quiverstorm

Here is the poem of the title...

Quiverstorm

Suckled
My lower lip swells gently
Like a rose in bud after a summer shower
I have what I
need, I am ready to be opened
I am opening already
And inside, an invitation
That can only be read by

You.

Oh, I came
Here ripe and ready as
the swollen summer moon.
On a sweet, still moment
our fates linger, waiting
On a pregnant, prescient pause.
Quiet, comes the
Quivering storm.
Meet me there, you remember? The corner of Air Street, outside the bar that constantly changes its name. Remember? Where we drank margaritas - 2 for 1 - before heading to On Anon for half price champagne.

Ecstatic from happy hour, we needed no more fuel, we were all fired up for fun. We sauntered past restaurants offering every cuisine imaginable to bag ourselves an early table in Freedom Bar, before they introduced an entrance charge.

The sticky floor adhered to the bottom of our platform heels, the bar smelled like bubblegum. Drag Queens dared us to dance; we held onto poles, span and sang.

Slick with sweat, our own, and everyone else's as the place grew packed. We smelled like horses. Tossing our manes, we breathed hard, danced and danced, wild eyed, looking for a ride.

Remember? Before it all went wrong. Before you lost your job, your home, your mind. Before I had children, learned to love a different kind of fun. You kept losing.

Weeks went by, the phone stopped ringing. It was easy not to think of you, I was tired, you wouldn’t be interested in my boring life. You dropped away, silently, stealthily. Suddenly you weren’t there, you weren’t anywhere. Where are you now? How can I find you?

If I had thought I could lose you, I would have tried harder. I would have found you, I would have brought you home. I could have been you, I could have been the one to lose my way.

The colour of remorse is crimson; a flood of red despair. Your hair was slick with it, trailing the tub, tacky, like the dancefloor, where we didn’t care in a different way.

Meet me there, you remember? Come back, I’ll take you dancing, I’ll hold you up, we’ll laugh until we cry. Are you in Heaven? I’ll meet you there. Wait for me - I’m on my way.
The night is like a sharpened knife,
It slides inside the softened butter of my sleep,
Slices, and spreads.
My dreams are a feast for beasts that haunt
The shuttered soul of my very human heart.
That first taste; sweet, like the first brave stars
That wave goodbye to dusk.
Heady then, those midnight licks
From something sated, gorging here for greed alone.
Soon, their appetite curdles,
My dreams within those gaping maws,
Turned foul and rank, now turn on those that feed.
As dawns shy song bids night ghasts flee
My dreams return, at last, to me.
Not sure what this is about. I have not been sleeping well, in a lot of physical pain, hopefully to be rectified soon with surgery. Think it's about that, about sleep being stolen by pain.
Purple
All my thoughts of you are purple.
You will ever be inky,
Regal,
The last colour of the rainbow.

Lush berry stain
And a famous rain.

Pools, purpled with the heart of the moon
through thunderclouds,
Viscous and inviting.

Amethyst lover.
A rose dappled with dew.
As if it wept
Like my bruised and aching heart.
Your music was a lovers kiss,
Welcome, unexpected,
Libido-launched.
It swam inside, traversing psyche depths; a sleek fish
With purple scales, overflowing,
Like your heart.
There was never time enough
To share the surplus of your wealth,
But you tried. I want to walk
The filled-to-the-brim vaults,
With my eyes open and my ears attuned
To nothing and everything,
Catching from the chaos a crystal riff, a purple pulse,
Musical graffiti,
Splashed on mind walls,
Astounding, and alive.
Leave there in a Paisley daze,
Saturated, never sated,
Ever now emancipated.
I can't give this a title. I spent ages trying to think of one but it's just a goodbye poem, really. I have adored Prince since I was thirteen years old and for me, he WAS music. I am devastated that he's gone. It's one of those 'before' and 'after'  defining moments. I am only posting this as a dear friend urged me to do so.
You hold my heart, in those large, surprisingly delicate, dextrous hands. Your twisted little fingers, the ones I stroked and kissed only yesterday, move against my beating heart as they reach for me through restless dreams. Are you dreaming? I exist now, only in your dreams. If you do not dream, I cease to be. You promised to devour me; you did. I danced on your warm, rough tongue. You taste me still. I will change the story that your senses tell, I will alter all remembrance and anticipation. I become you; then, now and evermore.  

‘I miss you’ is a paltry phrase, inadequately addressing the way my heart has moved into my throat and is trying to escape. I search for you, in the city you have departed. The city calls you back; it wants you here, and so do I. You perfectly fit this imperfect paradise. I cannot absorb your departure, you are still here, burned into the tips of my fingers, pressed into the skin of my lips. Your thigh rests under the palm of my hand. Your voice echoes at the centre of me. I hold you within. If I reach inside, I can bring you from me, to me. My need for you can make this happen. My longing for you is all that there is.
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