I can speak of jaunty
All I like, I
Won't find that taste within
What are friends?

Given little stories to firelight books
I mould myself to fit the grip
I never knew you...
What are family?

Gardens don't tend to shears
Flowers don't grow for late bloomer
Moons, who are you?
What are permanent?

I never left you
You can't be free of me.
For I consider you all the time
And grade all jaunty songs to your gait.

What are we?
Humans don't stay together.
Does that answer your question?
I just don't care.

What's a palm
Sweating in panic
Or a stomach
Whining as the whistle of alert
To someone like you?

What's a voice
Too clenched,
Or a word
Misplaced
To you?

What's a sentence
Repeated
Or a song
Sung drunker than a foul man,
To yourself, long-lashes?

Flutter-hair.
Architected smile.
Ancient-Greek eyebrow,
Curved
In a musing love.

You found a little else,
Didn't you, a
Little chick to
Perch with you?

Let's jump and find our wings
Let's take feathers for what they're worth
And leave those flightless birds
To the foxes,
With a taste
For emus.

It's no one's fault really
Just slavery
And I'm free when I know you
Popping like sparks onto my knockout vision.

I respect
Something...
It's not simplicity
It's not silence,
But it's something,
I'm sure.

I expect
Something...
It is simplicity
It is silence
And it's a little,
I'm sure.

I reject
Nothing...
It is hatred
It is pressure
It is the growing fist in your stomach
Save me
Because I'm nothing,
I'm sure.

You're an almond joy
A smooth stone in soft flesh
A blank stone sparrow
In crooked wire mesh

You looked over your shoulder
And ignored their descriptive hairs
Dancing with compliance
Giving never selling wares

What unbroken ****** skin
Around your eyes, thy
Eyebrows never meeting, stretching
Happy faces to the sky

I hoped richer feelings
Might comply to your dream, yet
It was laid on shallow and
Cracked and poorly set

Still despite your fret dancing
Your shakes and swoons so full
Graceful, hopeful, ruby bright
Fell dirtied, scratched by gravity's pull

Despite your new company,
Jackal grins that never start
Hope, not one can rival
The sweetness of a young heart.

He saw me sleep
Blood flow from the mind
And fumes from the eyes
He clattered and ground
His gears

His grim fermented
Circuits and wires
Fusing within
A core of metal droplets

I shot up
Blown from my slumber
His bright stare in slate
Wouldn’t fade, but
Burned in my eyes

I shook and sweated
As he could not
That foul machine
Clatters on.

The gloom of night gives naught but green
In trees that gather closely in
Their leaves and fruit fall in their lean
At their feet my cheap gifts of tin.

I motion for them to take back
Human plunder
They wash back their green seas and
Make clear that some roots don't grow back.

When I draw you
It's not as if I use lines
A dusty black to suggest you
My pencil doesn't touch the paper
Not really
I'm not really showing you to others
And I'm not pushing your face out
But just touching it,
Just feeling it once more
Through an extended wooden finger

I'm not here to tell you
Your nose could be prettier
Your eyes straighter
Your hair more flirtatious
I'm not here for them and
I'm barely here to draw
I just want to feel you, is
That so bad?

But you seem to lose me
As I bait graphite
And plunge it in after you
What the paper reflects, like water
You're warped and don't quite grip me
Though I'd pull you out
Like an arm to the drowning I'd be there
If you'd only let me
Gloomy, I retire for the day

I can only assume
While I leave and sleep away
You come out, like the moon at night
And stretch anxiously out
In darkness
And assured solitude
You look for me
And as I'm gone you
Are quite happy to
Put your hand out finally from what I looked in
And as I'm gone
Gently feel where I threw my pencil
Softly touch the dent in the table
Where my elbow leaned me in, desperate
You come out perhaps to trace my outline
In what I left for you
And maybe
Give sensing me some time
With an outstretched finger
And a hopeful mouth
Ready, waiting
Till we can speak again.

Come ye, all who broke,
All those whose light
Poured out like a yoke
To be born one more bright

Come ye, all who knew
That one day they'd be
Better than those few
Who never cried for 'me'

Come ye, all ye teary
Who never thought they'd find
Them back at home so weary,
For they thought they'd lost their mind.

Come ye, all ye triumphant,
Who beat back the claws of the beast,
Come ye, all ye poets
You deserve this much, at least.

Tucking you under my arm
Fonder than a child's embrace
Your wooden limb channels breath
From my chest to my fingers and into space.
Singing.

Cold at first, but we warm together
My hands through what could be called hair
The black teardrop falling between us
As we share each other
Crying.

Let's take all the air about us
And shake it like the mountain's rage
Let's take the ears of all around us
And whisper whatever we want.
Strumming.

It's all we're here to do.

Truly blessed am I for so
Might people think of me and so
I am, walking April days on springsteps
With pockets of passion sewn about

What heather bears thine poppy seed
What bee might chance into your scent
Aligned with lights that beckon away
Swallowed poles of north or south

Tunnels gape and gnash stalactites
And eyes bear the brunt of the dark
But I feel not with sight, not where I reap real bounty
With twig and hair I feel my way

And paint what promise I need to survive

I met her in my sleep last night,
And it was awkward, like in life.
Her arm was parcelled by a curse
And I hated him at once
Though I hid it well.

I was a king on a throne,
Brooding over battle
And my armour fitted poorly,
A matter which she noticed
And pointed out.

She asked me whom I was fighting,
Smiling as she did.
And I looked down, amazed
That she could be so bold.
She readied herself.

I drew my own weapon,
Distance in my fist
And fought her smile,
While her 'friend' looked on.
She laughed and it rattled me.

There I lay,
Distance brought down and shattered
And there she was,
Above me,
Her smile the only weapon she needed...

I cried last night
It's bad and deflating
But after the tears
My sorrow's abating

But after it happened
After I showed it
I felt one step closer
To sadness and permit

It's strange how the joy
Of sorrow can grow
When the coming gangrene
Of the mind can now show

I told myself things
I never spoke out
But now they're exposed
They're a frostfall of doubt.

I can almost expect
What you're worth to me
The search for something I care about
Leads me to consider some like you

To be honest, you're a bit of a plaything,
Some little dolly I can twist
To make me happy, one
Bird in the light's chorus

So the vanity in me congratulates you, you're in, that which I'm sure about
In my garden of the could've-beens
Where all is shelved and warm and no longer offensive

You can be great there, one of the best
And walk through the grass, the fountains of instinct
And meet the others who came before
As though you cared

There, you can taste the sweetness
Of pollen I scatter, brush past currents on the wind I send to ruffle your hair
*** it should be displayed,
Hear the laughter of girls in the painted summer
And appreciate me

He had hair like leaping horses,
Golden brown of treasures took by skies
And he smiled
Like he knew

He had eyes like ruby fingers,
Fiery bright and reaching for me
Long and sharp of meticulous greed and
Hungry.

He had lips like hurricanes spoke of
Natural, free, loose or wild
His words sprung from him as they yearned to be free
Yearned to write poems.

He knew not, but he had totems
Crafted in the world for him
One called future, one called lessons
One called battle, the call-all of hope

He told me one day I had eyes of redbirds
I laughed and said the same
For in this poem we speak to each other
In this poem he shares my name.

Grey whistles spoke shrilly
Of wishes never seen
As I sought a hobby that ne'er
Grovelled to'r machine
I saw those moor harpies asleep in their crow
There was a sentence lying dormant in me

Without much more than history lessons
To go forth was a hefty sentence
Making conversation pieces
Of the rocks I met along the way
And I hoped that one day I might
Be there for the rise
And fall of 10p states

To sentence them to mutiny
Silly, shrilly and ne'er hopeful
But at least not airborne, at least rooted
In hobbies gainst the machine
What a terrible lot, indeed
What a lot of terrible days

Ah, well
At the running track I feel
The sentence dormant in me
Bolt upright, turning the grey
On its head, as harpies fall
Into the earth and the stars come down for me

When what is new
Stays through night's wading charm
And lasts not for fame's harm
But ignorance left here with thee
There you invite something special, something free.

Where you use what is new
And usurp the old order
You taste what lore old beggars do
And beautify lost tomes once more

When you find what was forgotten
And wrap wedded slogans on yourself
Raise slightest youth from its ignorant ways
There, thine work is well founded,
And your spirit well freed

The starling rode the tree
And weathered out the storm
Though his mind had set him free
The wind still lashed his body

Atop the tallest cedar
He held fast upon the branch
His courage was his leader
His teardrops froze and broke like lightning

His nest fell with empty eggs
And he forgot to say goodbye
As he stuck fast with sureborne legs
And forgot to watch it turn to dust.

His gaze went deep into the heart
Of blue flashes of the sky
The nest of the treetop built for the art
Of the titans of the light aloud.

He let the night speak free its mind
For his was much the same
The tempest shook and roared and whined
While the starling stuck fast




The breath was lost and the sun came back
But the bird was not ready to feel relieved
He wanted more of the punishing black
To make him feel he deserved to forget.

Waking up with a brain that sticks to the sheets
It must have leaked last night '***
I'm resting on a puddle.
A full bladder can't get me out of here.

Breathing deep and feeling your thoughts diluted
And yawning, though you're still half dreaming and
You could swear that this shirt wasn't on you before.
Why are you at work?

Coffee jumpstarts your heart, but you heard it misfire.
Your clockwork legs and arms wind back up and
You try for another day. The air outside your bed is
Cold.

You find your way back with miracle eyes
Just before you lose your softness
As you crash into the cotton shores
You're blunt once again.

It's the strangest thing,
We can all blush over really
What we're all made to do
By the pink hand of biology

The coated sexuality
We claim and occupy readily
What strange things we tend to see
Under the pink hand of biology

Roaring flames burn angrily
When met with female gasoline
Or the match of male anatomy
According to the pink hand of biology

She lines herself before me, eyes halting her gait like a rod rid of bait
Trotting her feet again in my way, not perturbed or frightened by me

The churning distress tongues speak about us on the whiteboard each week
Is finally bringing us together, her delicate neck craned ****-eyed

Tip-toe though your feet are crashing, and all pretense of slicing your eyes at me is mashing
But I play her game and look up at the ceiling, red blouse she's got on like honey

Her body pours over, spilling a little as her foot twitches too far and she jabs my leg accidentally hard
I'm forced to look over, that cunning smile done up like hair, you

I meet her, she smiles, she apologises, I smile and nod, saying it's ok, because it is for a while
But when she glides on by I'm angry that her mistake wasn't falling into my useful lap

Like wardrums, that sound, footsteps echoing deep bass-like from the ground
And soaking my skin in flannel bravery and horror at what I can see

Her walking away from me, until next week, the dancing meek kittens
Ashamed to make mouths say what eyes can only guess at

'Hello, how are you, would you like to know my name?'
'Not really for I learnt it long ago, but tell me just the same'

There's nothing we could have said
No reason to arm ourselves with
No common purpose to bleed them dry, we
Couldn't call them wrong, for that which
We know by the word has meaning only in sensitive minds.
There was no way to tell them
They hurt us, for they knew and
No way to push them back for
Rage was on their side, fear
Ignorance and the gnawing of doubt a terrible wealth of battle for them and
A cotton shield for us, such knowledge cushioning only the shears
We could not stop them with the knowledge that we were right
With the hope of forgetting what tomorrow seemed certain,
They were poised to defend
What little they saw through red lenses what
Crimes they saw committed in the name of justice
Our thorn bush burnt out and
Our knowledge of fresh kindling in seeds of the morrow
Was no use to us, we
Could not stop them.

He hated open doors
Less to hide behind, he felt
And more for them to charge through,
More to use...

Walking past the spotlight eyes
He broke his sunglasses on the daily
And the burning light of the dim bulbs lit the school
Hurt.

Spaz They whispered
But they might have shouted
What feels like a whisper hurts like a knife
When the names are for you

He walked home out of breath
He never wanted to breathe again
He saw how breaths had been used to hurt
As much as punches.

And she hugged him

Carpet feels soft when you know the feet that tread it
Mum
What a feeling
Coming out of the plunging terror.

Darling
The sweetest word he knew
More syllables, more mind behind what he was used to
He ****** in the cherry hugs through his nostrils

And threw down his books.

She looked in at him enjoying
Time spent away from that
And smiled
He will get through it

Closing the door quietly,
She dried out a tear
Moving a sleeve over her birth-marked face
Which had earned her such identity.

Digging through a chest,
Long ago she had named "Weapons"
She pulled out her old school sword
Hello, Courage. she said.

Next morning she gave her boy his lunch
Of potions of strength and fortitude
Made magic
By her note telling him she loved him

Next morning she wrapped her boy
In an armour raincoat
Made iron by
Her hug compressing it to metal

Next morning she filled his tender hand
With her sword
Made courage by
Her own pain hammered into it

And she sent him back on his way.

As she watched him go
Feigned eagerness in his step
She could not hide his pain ahead,
But she knew what came at the end;

Ah, it has a thousand names.
But I shall call it Beauty;
For when he slays those demons
He shall know what he truly is.

And what they are.

He loved her
For she's only ever been amazing
And she liked herself
For her strength forged in the fire.

The boy knew.

It mustn't hurt
To feel the pain for me
To remember my dates
While I try to kiss you through
A block of plastic and steel.

It can't be true
If I see you smile
And wilt
Never broken by a sun
That shines on anyone else
Never.

You've been so much to me,
But could I feel alone
When you look at me?
Could I know
A lightning flint
Strike sparks on my smile
Just for you?

It's never enough to be alone
Because the things you told me
Build roads to my feet
You're beautiful
Because of all you do
And it would be wrong
To hope no one else sees that.

If I said tomorrow
Would be a farewell, I lied
For today is a worrysome lesson
A grant of freedoms rarely wanted

But I never say goodbye forever
Just be one to remember that
Readily I'm returning
Every day, every night
Some way

I'm going to think a while
Throw what taste I have to other customs
Of my own interest, but don't forget
How I was born to see you
At my hand every day

I'm going away to think about what I want
And feel the brink with my toes
To rekindle my passion and
Rid myself of cliché

In days not yet with us
I'll know what I need
Nearer to what I expect to get
And redetermine my pathly vision
To make good of the promise I made

Whoop, wow, careful now
Don't slip don't fall
Don't break into a misty skip
While dull as ditchwater sirens call

Keep your balance, toe the cord
You have stolen someone's sorrow,
Safety nets long rotted away
From expecting gone what's here tomorrow

But think with what grace you have left
And don your jester cap once more
What spasmic leaps you made, what fun
You got to see while on the saw

Up and down and Romeo
You capsuled dose of fun, you joy
Stop leaping over fields of mould
Stop making endurance your toy

I'll crack the whip and flair your shackles,
Shiver, shake, for soon you'll see
A spirit of pain has blown through with the wind,
But pass it shall, as easily

I can still see
The liquid lust
Of your breath
I can tell
The heaving must
Of your breast
I can hear
The panting pangs
Of another
When you’re near
I need only
To recover

Give me your
Granted silence
Of some truth
Give me your
Dew eyes
Bitten tooth
We are now
So apart
And so near
How I wish
How I wish
You were here

Now the death
Now the death of ourselves
Now each other
Is a never she sells
We are dying
As my memory dies
Keep my crying
He who still sees
You still cries.

What orange bosoms

Can you press to yourself

Prised out a candied tube?

What lice make thoughts creep

And hands run down stockings?



What time spent brainless,

Hoping for a life outside riches

Growing into a chair?

What losing streak

Paints your face, sorry?



What can we talk about

That isn't hopeful,

That asks true questions?

What can I say

of big arses on fat girls

and big biceps on vain men?

Here I am, in Harlem
Where I will learn my trade,
To make the world that better
For better it must be made.

And though I am torn most roughly,
From pillows and from sheets
I'd trade it all for effort
Gave to tread these streets.

My court is now in session
The spinning starts again
I'll paint a pretty scripture
Let's hope it's kinder then.

Only a clenched burden can bear my face today,
I mellow with billowing sinews, flexing
As a dove who learnt to fly in muck
Grin

But the week brings the strong
The forceful losers who taste a candied concept
Of decency, directed to strange tests
Fight

As defended hopes take faces snarling at the blistered skin
Turned raw to the winds my indignant child blows
I can't help but feel forgotten a little
Puff

But it matters not - as sweat from malice brings out the best in me
I'll strive and forget the reluctance
I felt while crawling here
Success

Let's just hope, when mirages whisper the past to me
I **** an ear and still know
My voice among the desert breezes
Forgive

Breakdown in the tower,
I'm going to miss you
As I wait for the next step up
The lightning crackles on about.

Or waves roar beneath
Past listens crash alive
I'm healed, but
In our past I was broken.

You'll be everything without me, but
Of course
Not our everything,
That's a drop in our uninventable ocean now...

Our sea between us.

Well, know heartily that I laughed,
That I loved you,
Friends and lips,
Walks and trips

Forever chuckling on into my world.

In the city of hatred
Love is currency
In the town of the belated
Not all the eyes can see

Smile on the tramway
And watch the eyes adance
Glare at the luckless
The ones without your chance

Chuff down the street
Coffee your coal and steam
But don't ever try to meet
Those with less esteem

Little nooks have passed tonight
And new beginnings bore us on
But I fear nothing now
Crouch again I shan't

Loathe all above you
Curse the lightning struck so far away
But sleep with me, soft tails of hope
I am your burrow tonight

What minds are temples to these eyes?
What thoughts are wrought of dragon sleep?
What power lies awake at night
Fearing, fearing clouds?

What water stirs the millers opinion?
What algae slinks from murky adoption?
I'm you, I'm you,
The cuckoo sobs
And all else wears its feelings.

For lions may dance
Lions may sing
And lions fear no raindrop's glory
I chill, I scream, but not for your sake
For my own terrifying passage
And what is to come

What's a ferrous person
Doing here, they asked, those bars of gold
Clutching iron filings as if seeking to squeeze some life into them
Some heat
I clenched my teeth,
Furious

Snobbish, looking down on baser metals,
Mixing only with the company of diamonds
I pulled no punches, held my fists
Red while they jeered
The cracks of ore in my coat
Furious

I bandied through their
Glittering parting like oil and water,
Sliding off me like I wished their wit might,
White hot and flaming, cracking brittle,
Fragile filings
Melting furious

Uncontrollably smelted
Hammered by their eyes
Clenched by their sneers
And burned, scalded, reshaped, reheated
Abused
Scarlet-whipped and chamber fitted

A drill, to reform to a drill,
Aimed at
Softer metals, I
Turn on them, they
Shy away, anxious not to mix
With baser metals, throwing
Iron filings to the floor,
To the earth
Where gold wishes it could be

My jewelry

Like a tap, cold and misshapen
You can twist me and watch words come out
Mixed in with the tears, fluoride confessions,
Equally dangerous in quantity
As bitter I'm pushed
To tell you I never wished to speak
To tell you I'm alone
That I long lost what you were
In cramped days

I feel sick
Not learning, not learning
And dashing my mind against you
Tearing myself up
And pouring out like
Feral confessions

Turn me off, stop me speaking
For only your eyes
Have the strength to twist me up inside
And pour me out
Like a tap

A trojan course
Before me
Light
Hasten
I'm here

Listen
Please
Understand
What I try to say

I'm not wax
I'm flesh,
Rotten
But perfume's my conversation.

Don't tell me you've forgotten
Bad words
Reek from my lips
I'm me

And I'm confused

Some dying wish
Flew from him
As he babbled with
The clink clink clink
Of coins.

Nickel tongue
Plated with all the
'How else'
And icy tang of inadequacy
What could he be
But a shaking
Taking
Babbler?

But there was something,
Some gritted tooth of a word
Biting into my ear
With all the froth and rage of
Rabid animals held on tight leads,

And that word?
Money
Money
Money

I sleep with girls in my dreams
And let roll-over chuckles make our pillows
In that we share
Twogether.

We rumble over envy
And forget the shores of doubt
You, me, her, I, we
Are something more than wind

We adventure
And do so in each other, mostly
People ask me why I grin in the morning
Waking from a story written by me.

I dreamt of living last night.
My mind pushed away by
the wheels of a
Rene Descartes.

I felt a jolt after
I'd eaten
Of my mind jumping back
Perhaps it became aware.

But, foolish vision, I
Know this must be real
For if this is a dream
Why is she not in it?

Why is she not smiling?
Why is she not laughing?
Why is she not invading?
Because it's real.

It's real and she's not here.

A country road has spoke to me
Narrowly rolling out 'cross twitching grass
The wind, impatiently describes
The sea I will be crossing with a gust

We friends speak of longing, spoke of leaving
And leave I did, left you behind
Return made quickly, for I reeled
In much to do, though little told

And you saw in me, not your friend
But your friend's friend, a soul without
And gone was the boy you dreamed about
As friends do, at times

But not for better, nor for less
We spoke of what you'd lost
And I told what I had found
What learnt travellers on roads like mine

All the wonderous minds you meet
Shine like medals in your eyes
Each footstep placed broadly ahead
Lifts your feet that little more

Each lonely mountain conquered makes
Your loneliness more comforting and
Each piece of silver found and spent
Is a strand in your feathered coat

'What day we meet, some other day
Our paths should cross when I return
Or you, hungering on words I spoke
Came to find me and find me do

You'll see me at the riverside
A cup in hand, a hand on heart
A heart for her, and then you'll see
What medals in my eyes shine forth
As we turn to greet each other again'

These lips have lost their purpose
Have shed their puckered sheen
And the time spent without her
Has left them bare and clean

These lips have had their moment
Their dew has up and left
And cracked the red the evening has
To leave the smile bereft

And though her flower perfume
Still clouds about this cheek
I don't know what lips can be
Without her name to speak

For all is lost without her
Mere smoke from flames within
My lips have lost their meaning
And now are cold and thin.

An urgent kind of motion
Lends me life on grin
And thumb-prints make words
Techno-bio-written

I read you when I'm spoken
I speak you when I'm heard
And you and I speak lives together
That we both were, little brother

Thank you  from a drunk heart to a thirsty living
You're all I love
Hold hands with me
That horizon's for the seizing