there are times when I feel
like an old waterwheel
and my bucket fills slowly with drips
when it’s full to the top
I lurch forward and drop
and descend with my heart doing flips

or if that sounds unreal
think an old Ferris wheel
spinning round with the customers gone
or the space on a clock
that connects tick and tock
or the hand poised between twelve and one

on the brink of free fall
through a cavernous hall
to the skull’s epicentre, the brain
it’s a moment of doubt
or a temporal white out
as before, it just happened again

what goes round comes around
I'm a ship, run aground
not profound - just my mind being hacked
something wrong with my head
had a rupture and bled
or by anxiety just attacked?

dead fly on my roller blind
dragged into the light
there to find as I unwind
or draw back up at night

round as ripples on a pool
flattened by the wheel
spinning on the pole and spool
cured of real by reel

this had happened long before
and would repeat again
knock he might on heaven’s door
but here he will remain

like that movie, Groundhog Day
from his dream never wakes
rolling out and rolled away
reminded of mistakes

reflecting on this gruesome sight
I think of my life too
and perhaps explain it might
why I get deja-vous

someone, somewhere pulls a string
and once again I'm seen
life and death are the same thing
we're dead flies on a screen.

something she had seen
mid the concrete, puddles, suds
made her think ‘is my car clean
look as shiny as it should?’
seeing sponges slapping screens
spying soapy splashes slosh
and those lads in skin tight jeans
working at the street carwash
so she pulled up in her Merc
where she stole more sneaky looks
as they set about their work
while she sipped on her Starbucks
and that soggy bunch of guys
put on something of a show
as the heater warmed her thighs
but quite needlessly so
made her bite the paper cup
sent her tongue across her lips
as a t-shirt pulled right up
and she fumbled for a tip
and some time in due course
her car looked forecourt new
but she panted like a horse
and her knickers stuck like glue
but she drove back to the street
to resume her working day
and she earned tomorrow’s treat
hitting puddles all the way

in apogee
and full moon blue
the lunar sea
came into view
its effigy
a face I knew
invited me
to join the crew
 
with half hypnotic
thought implants
that loosened logic
with its glance
I felt exotic
queer, askance
tried a high kick
couldn’t dance
 
but in the thrall
of altered norms
went in withdrawal
and got reborn
in full recall
an idea forms
from dusty squalls
of lunar storms
 
then colour blind
except for red
heard words unkind
inside my head
asked would I mind
to wake up dead
but I declined
and so it fled
 
the moon’s decree
I did not do
thought fleetingly
it might be true
but now I’m free
from that voodoo
just lunacy
I once passed through.

took a bottle from the cupboard
then she tilted back his head
this meant trouble, he discovered
when she read out what it said

it said hazardous to health
twice as poisonous as bleach
keep it on the highest shelf
keep it out of children’s reach

treat like pepper spray or mace
or an acid that could maim
store it in a cool, dry place
and avoid all naked flames

the instructions then suggested
it could leave him stiff and pale
if by chance it was ingested
if by chance he did inhale

then its pungent, toxic odour
from its allergens, writ BOLD
burned his nose like caustic soda
made his nostrils yearn for cold

since the content seemed unstable
so she handled with a glove
but she let him read the label
and the word he saw was LOVE

held his nose and told him ‘swallow’
made him chug it in one go
and the pain was quick to follow
why she did it, hard to know

felt like acid ingestion
not a gentle warmth inside
so he asked the girl a question
‘is an antidote supplied?’

she said ‘there’s no medication
just a long and slow decline
there’s no cure or vaccination
you can only pray for time’

and that pain he still remembers
since his stomach’s still upset
just a pit of glowing embers
from that girl he can’t forget.

I had weakess of grip
thoughts of madness and sin
at her pouty of lip
and her brownness of skin
and her smoky of eye
and her blondness of hair
and her longness of thigh
and her hugeness of pair
and her tightness of sweater
her made up to the nines
and her couldn't look better
and her blurredness of lines
I could see her undressed
still in fullness of clothes
but I lost interest
at her picking of nose.

from there to back
you come and go
and hairline cracks
begin to show
from top to base
from toe to chin
to line your face
from outside in
then gold to brass
to false from just
with bones of glass
and blood of dust
then passion throes
turn malcontent
well, so it goes
and there it went
a shadowed earth
where suns are moons
and jagged curves
make knives from spoons.