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.

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.

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.

There is an unwriteable in my life,
An unspeakable in my mouth,
An undreamable in my sleep.
Such a hurt,
That I cannot even skirt
Around it, hint at what
The unpermitted is.
A blank space in my head
Once remembered,
Now consumed.
As a doe absorbs her kittens,
I unlearn myself,
Unwritten from existence,
And unspoken evermore.

My mind is a                ghost house,
Haunted by souls still trying t
   still here
o be found.
Some live
  still
Others,
       mere vapours
still here
Exhale, then die, and resurrect in technicolour,
Only to expire

again

Like candles in an unexpected breeze.
The windows were left open

In the dark, the spectres
still.

I am covered with
Excreted expletives
Light bleeds between my fingers
And merges with tears.
Words are weapons
Spat jaggedly, slicing cruelly
Into gentle dreams,
Silence is the final, finishing cut.
Leave me smothered
In dislike and disdain,
Leave me shaking,
Naked and in pain.

Are you so unused to the way love tastes
That you smother it in salt?

Keep your bitterness to sharpen your palate,
Your senses are dulled, and your flavours uninspired.

Feed, then, on that which makes you salivate
You lust only for that which you have lost.

I will no longer feed you pity.
I am too busy feasting, partaking of joy.

They do not know that we remember them here,
Their names and faces locked in our hearts
Each one a smiling, could-be-me,
An everybody.

They cannot see that we seek peace in their name,
Their death has birthed a unique grief,
The painful realisation that death waits patiently nearby,
Demanding to know why?

They will not feel the love and hope that holds us in this place,
The nods from passing strangers, of every faith and race,
The friendships forged from tragedy, connections made through pain,
Arms linked in shared communion, and hands held though pouring rain.

When they buried me in the dark, I was frightened.
I didn’t like the taste of earth.
And I was so thirsty.
Some people are no good with plants,
Even the hardiest shrubs
Wither and wilt in their careless hands.
You aren’t one of them.
When no-one else could see,
You took such good care of me.
Water, warmth and love.
These are my needs, but I had no voice
With which to ask; without you
I would have remained inert
A lost life, in the dirt.
See now, how I blossom?
Just a shoot, but I will astound them all
With my beauty, in time.
Thank you for caring for me,
Thank you for helping me to grow.

I poured and drank a final glass of wine with you
Undertaking that sacrament
With a pure heart, for the very last time.
But where was the rapture
Of union with my God?
Unconsecrated, I yearned
for flames, and burned
Burned with something else
Unspoken, like a prayer.

It is becoming harder to find people who refuse to be cowed by fear, and made to hate.

Our borders are a circus sideshow; we sit in increasingly uncomfortable pews and watch the sad, desperate clowns beg for some of our popcorn, and the chance to sit down and rest, for just a little while. We don’t want the popcorn; we want hotdogs and french fries but it all costs too much these days, and that’s their fault too.

Build more fences, send more dogs.

Children scream as their ears bleed but they aren’t ours, they aren’t anywhere near ours. They aren’t anything to do with us and it isn’t our fault or our problem. A young boy washes in the sea closer to home. The salt stings and his body starves and he’s the ultimate unwanted. He wants to return to a home that will hurt him even more, and to a family returned to the earth. Blame the French. Blame the Greeks. Blame the Muslims and the Syrians, the swarming, stinking hordes.

So come to the circus, and bring your kids, 3000 crying clowns, all walking the tightrope without a net. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. The horses have bolted and the dancing girls have all been sliced in two. The ringmaster never drops his whip. He sits in the centre and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

A small kindness can’t sustain
A screaming, starving child.
One step at a time
Won’t bridge the distance
Between salvation and despair.

I click that button.
I like that you are running to beat cancer,
But you won’t.

The world boils and burns.
I won’t share anymore,
Because I don’t care anymore.

Grief consumed by vampires
Ravenous for pain and loss,
An arm around the shoulders,
A rictus grin, another gaping maw,
Then a quick flash.
Acknowledging their hunger, he has none of his own
And no-one else to feed,
He is the son of a new angry tribe
And a father of none.

It did not look like rain.
And then, slowly,
Clouds gathered, fat drops fell.
A perfect storm can take you by surprise.
Words fall into my hands and your lap,  streams of language,
A downpour, from that stern and sombre sky,
A deluge, spilling sudden, wrenching, overwhelming need.
I fear that we will drown.
I hope that we will not.
You cannot stop the sky when it cries,
And so, we let the storm pass.
Now, I take your hand, and run towards the sun.
Laughter sparkles, there are diamonds on the wet, worn road,
Washed clean, the landscape itself surprised, renewed,
It did not look like rain.

The sun shines, the sea sparkles,
Laughter fills the air, delighted chuckles
Bubble from cavorting cupids,
This is their time, memories built
On a sweet summer day,
Happiness founded on laughter and play.

This languid Aphrodite, though
Must be content with vicarious joy,
Seeking balm in the salt sea,
Soaking invisible wounds, savouring the sting.
Far away, Adonis waits, and waits,
To bathe with her once more.

You touch me,
As if you can't believe that I am real,
The wonder in your eyes,
Betrays all that you feel,
All that you want, and need,
You gaze on me,
As if you could feed
On what your eyes find,
As if you could live on our love,
As if, withdrawn from my presence,
You might wither, and die.
Know this, then, love,
Without your touch,
My skin would turn to stone,
Our love sustains me,
I am not alone.
Under your gaze, I grow, I breathe, I live,
So touch, and gaze, take what you need,
And all that I can give.

Lying with you, in our meadow,
Surrounded by wild flowers,
You playfully trace a finger
Down a skin-splash of sun.
Reaching in, your lips stroke my collarbone,
Making me shiver, even in this heat.
Our laughter trails the breeze,
And we ride this July high,
Lost in each other,
Kissing away all care.
I am bedded here, in flowers,
Opening up for you, like a tender bud,
Dipping, dancing,
Aching to be sipped.

Missing you is an ache inside
A bruise that needs to be soothed.
I kissed you, and can never now erase
The imprint of your lips upon mine,
The playful nipping of your teeth.
My hands tightened around your neck
And yours, trembling, entangled in my hair.
Happily devoured, wholly consumed,
It is my turn to hunger
For your tender, loving touch.
Sweet, sweet, your breath upon my cheek,
Your hand in mine, subtle heat conveyed from palm to palm
And the fiercer burning at the heart,
A branding, a burning; I am yours.
You pulled me to your chest.  
And I wept, I wept as you left
Made sure you didn’t see
What you felt, and shared
As you wept too, despair at leaving me.

I yearn for your strength
Your fortitude
Whispered words
As you slide inside
My heart.

I won't spill a single drop of us
Until you place a new page, here
And urge me to erupt.

In my dreams
Real, imagined, urgent
How I yearn
Silently
I burn.

I yearn for your strength
Hold me, heal me, lift me up
Slide inside
My heart.

Hopeless inadequacy
Binds me to the ground.
Cruel roots; anxiety, despair,
Pull at the soles of my feet,
Earthing me, pretending common sense.
The most terrible obstacles
Always lie within,
My greatest enemy;
That traitorous *******, doubt,
And I cannot cast him out.

'I love you' means more than itself, it means nothing, and everything. It means that I cannot now live without your voice in my head and my heart, whispered softly in early morning, lucid dreams in which your skin finds mine and we are suffused with warmth and a gentle, deep arousal that is beyond everything; utter rapture.

It means that you have infiltrated desires and abilities that I have always had and never known, and gifted them to me with a deft flourish and a heartstopping smile, halting me in my tracks, making me aware of myself and of you and the myriad possibilities that are all caught up in us.

I tell you in the spaces between these words that you are my dearest friend and only love, that I do not exist in any real way without you; you make me true.

'I love you' cannot mean these things, and yet it means all of them, and everything, and nothing, and when I say it to you I hope that you will hear the catch in my throat as the words fall into your waiting hands, my gift, all and everything I have; now yours.

We'll stroll one day
Down a country lane,
Palms together, flesh to flesh,
Stopping to kiss
In sunshine-dappled glades.
My hawthorne hero, holding me
against you as we gaze,
Stopping to laze
Upon each other,
Drunk on heat and sweat and summer ***,
The scents of oh, everything, including us
And we are all.
Giddily, we'll fall
Together. I will know
What it is to lie with you and laugh,
******* happiness in warm spurts
As you take me in your arms,
Fondling your possession
Finding me forever willing
Following me, fascinated, into the hot, hot
Summer of our lives.

Hush, lover,
The moon is a still and silent icicle,
Blurred by clouds that glow and gasp,
The wind; it wants them gone.

Lover, hush,
Midnight will always, ever be blue
And you, dream lover, sweet and sure,
Will always chase the dawn.

Love, hush, hush,
The moon is a still and silent icicle
But we are not cold
Wrapped as we are, in each other, in our love.

Hush, love, hush,
I want you not as I want the coming summer,
With a longing for heat,
'Tis Winter Midnight-Wanting warms our blood.

Beloved, you are coming to me.

Your heart beats hard,
And you run, you push, you climb
every obstacle, denying the impossible,
Dismissing sense and reason, you are coming,
Home, to me.

Come home, beloved.

The life you lead now, hurts,
The salt tears soak, and burn.
Hush now, hush, hush,
All will be well.

Come, come, beloved.

My heart beats faster,
Pulls you closer, ever closer,
Oh, beloved,
We will be together, come
Beloved, come.

I dream in
The colours of the palette you have gifted
my eyes see

New colours
Not-like-red and not-like-blue

Like the new love
not of the seven kinds
ever more than Eros and

Familial,
cerebral,
Celestial fantastical

Breathe, breathe, breathe
in gasps and
small
bewildered
shudders.

Coming

To see that
You have set me
Free.

Between us lies
An empty space.

How could we know
How great the gulf would grow?

I carried the strain.
You would not share my burden,

Now find me
An unwilling host.

I have found a rare mutation
Spliced, we are perfection.

Uninfected, we evolve.

My body bewildered and depleted,
Fragile as the needy me that fed it
Nothing and everything,
Ravaged through the raw, wet decades
Of abuse, and despair.

Bile-tainted, anger-stained
I gazed up, up, and into myself.
Those were the eyes of a determined dreamer,
The heart of a lioness,
Slowly curving mouth prepared to roar.

I am a woman who has learned
I am not this belly, I am not this body,
It is mine, and theirs, and yours.
I gaze upon it, gladly now,
Finding something
Finally worthy of love.

I am fragile
as the pulse that beats
Visibly
here at my wrist.
I am strong
as this resolute
Proud
steady fist.

We don’t need swaying palm trees and cicadas,
Not to feel as if we have stepped into paradise,
Cradled in the still, warm shadow of devotion,
We are soothingly bathed in love’s sweet heat.

Emotion surges within, rising, an upwelling,
Breaking with the speed of a tropical storm,
We are saturated with loving, wholly drenched,
The feeling; as water offered to a parched soul.

With burning words we urge our worlds to merge,
Unexpected blending during the summer of our lives,
Forging an alloy of free-flowing emotion, so powerful,
So intense, we are captured by its undeniable allure.

We don’t ever need to speak of our love aloud: no,
Finding our affirmation in the sighs between lines,
The liquid longing whispered into stories that we build,
Mirroring our deep desires, hopes and needs fulfilled.

From heady dreams, creating our own sweet heat,
Exploring unconditional passion, trembling, complete,
On cold, starry nights, embracing, sated, warm, alive,
Our coalescing, enraptured spirits, breathlessly writhe.

Across the challenging separation of distant night,
Languishing on the cusp of sleep, edging dreams,
Images rise, silken gossamer threads of thought,
Brushing against latent desires, calling, calling.

Irresistibly drawn together, ah, sharing the dream,
Thrumming pulses racing as we gently caress,
Languorous kisses, hot, sweet and hungry, we love,
Sleep entwined in moonlight, streaming from above.

I am not a perfect angel
Or a fairy in a jar.
No gossamer winged thing, I
am flawed, I am imperfect
And I sometimes fail.
Falling for you was my redemption.
While yearning for perfection,
I had nothing to give, I had no way to grow,
Frozen by rejection
All my courage had fled,
There was nowhere to go.
I can fly now, without wings,
Floating up, up,
I am borne by wizard gifted magic.
Even so
I am not a perfect angel
Or a fairy in a jar.

I tell you all my stories
And you inhale them,
Eager and entertained and hungry for more.
You build a little picture of me in your mind,
Your brilliant, beautiful mind,
And you love them because you love me.
But the best thing of all
Is that you are in the picture now,
And you are one of my stories;
A dream that came true.

Before such beauty
Reason flees, restraint is mocked
By wild, glad desire.

Layers and folds yield
to pressure, tongue sinks - dissolves
into soft, sweet bliss.

Speak to me again.
As your lips make words and sounds
I imagine them instead, moving over my skin,
I want them there, brushing past my hair,
Sliding down my neck, pausing for a heartbeat at my mouth
A trembling, teasing, barely-there brush, warmth and wanting,
A flick of your tongue against my lips,
Then down, to find the soft, yielding curve of my breast.
I think of you loving me,
Setting free your hunger to encourage my own,
Passions rising in a tidal wave,
The rapture of released restraint.
Willing flesh tugged by eager teeth,
You need to taste, I long to be consumed,
Gasping, once, twice, the damp heat of you
Spurs me to a frenzy, I am all aglow, a lava storm
Streaming forth in torrents, gushing, rushing
To you, always to you,
I want you in everything.
Speak to me again, my love,
As passions rage, our fates collide,
Speak of a love that will not be denied.