It’s always hard to agree with leather
the change of its way back to skin is hard
pliable
i watched it grow all day on the back of my office seat
it was a present from my girlfriend
nothing I’d bought myself
nothing my eyes did
whilst it opened I drank coffee and tapped
its pink hairs flexed back into place
each one a part of the chair
it sewed back on the cow as it grazed
and aligned itself
once more

happy that flesh flies this way
upper class
or the hell in economy
behind.

The translators scanned us up and down
it was relaxing, they had a nice authority
later we flew back and ate it
not so much that ye canna recognise ****
their sound, or binary trail
more like a one and a zero
in a small chrysalis in your hand
that eats champagne, presidents
dull houses and dull cheeks
we gathered our belongings as the air port
moved
hints of shade on our sunglasses reported the sun
they called it
a certain name
as we walked

Your waist
gripped my hand
it felt like
we could go
Anywhere.

You watch a mother dog groom her pups
and finally get something
about contact
you can choose
the smell
her touch
or her peace
and the way
she doesn’t notice
you.

By the tree
a copper smacks a drunkards legs away
from behind him
as he walks home
oooze me adrenalin
pick hornet faults
and you have honey combs
choose an action
that leaves you alive
the media forgets
like a humming bird forgets
with wings that cut its own paper
in the back of your knee
surrounding human crime
where without streets
we still smell it.

When you’re strapped in
and get down to it
once your jaw is permanently dislocated by your own
once the gut
stops
knowing
how it’s fed
and why it has fire all the time, in all weathers in all fuel, nice and bad and good and anything easy
and anything bad enough
to keep on coming back for more
way after if should
way after everything is torn away and bored away to ****
when your orchids make you think
when you cannit count on certain things

like days
they
keep on
turning up

i asked the owner ‘Why do people get so obsessed with the things?’

she told me
and i stare into the mouth of this thing
on the kitchen table
with its small tongues open
it has this small part
that looks like a split tiger head
inside
with eight purple arms spread on either side
of two large wings
and two tongues coming forward
after all this
that look just like

how you
think

tongues

*look.

Where the sea-gulls hang in the sea
and chatter always

Where the water is fresh enough
to thump in your heart
like a new body
shaking when you leave

Where they still sing and wait for your return
where we find life and shape and humour
in this life
like a hand in the dark that’s a friend
guiding your palms over your work in the
different homes that guide you in
and away
as green life shatters against
the waves

And jack-knifes when you take your eyes off
for just one second or ounce
of time
of all the pearls that have been found
by the men and women who know how to dive down
of the cost we hang around them when polished
and no longer wet
of the joy carrying of them to the person
you found them for

A gift
rolls back to the waves
to where it was taken
in the smile
upon the neck of that person

Looking good enough to dive back for
and eat on a perfect neck
anytime
they’re worn
and seen by the warm hands
that placed them
just
*there

We look better now
now that the night is draped and prepared around our shoulders
like a tight night arm
that only lets you go
when you want it to

and eats your bones with content heat
when it wont
a strange asking
scent
leans in on you

leading you
like a pulse inside a dream
open
in a corner
asking for speech
and silence
mirrored in the same pulse
pushing your soul through the wall
and back to the street

easing you up in the morning
and letting your dreams grin
and the day begin
i’ll never stop watching the morning dress
because it dresses like you

i love the concrete/and what the city makes us
to let anything but what we wish devour us is a crime

and the city forgets how to lay still
so it walks around on all fours
around any part we need
if we have the stamina to enjoy it
with every exchange
with every close
and opening
of sweat and work and pace
as playful as old fights
crawling up the city
like sounds
from low insect hums
this wheel moves so **** slow
we’d pay for a ticket
if our silence wasn’t so much better

i take a day to think about all this
and finally come here
and put it all down
let it fly
stop imagining more
because all we have
is all here
as wide awake as a luminous sign
down one of the alleys
we can always walk
at anytime
of day
or night.