The woodworms are coming
And they’re gnawing through the room…
A little death this morning,
A little death this afternoon.

Wormwood is coming,
Green leather revelations,
The fairy is humming
Through her sugar-soft foundations.

Merveilleusement dérangé,
Louchily deranged,
Strangely marvelous…
Marvelously
strange...

Slumping on upwards with

her kiss in my hair,

A circle of knees are her

musical chairs and

pearls fat as the moon

glint in the gloom

as we fall forehead-first

up a full flight of stairs.

(Pink balloons at the mouth of a party, inflating,

For a kiss on the cheek you can watch me ******* him…)

I tell  you I love you,

All sullen and dainty,

and that even the death-wish I’ve flirted with

lately

paints trails on my faces and

colours me saintly,

But you want me most (and don’t

try to deny it)

when my bones and groans and eyes all

imply it…

when pushed against an emergency

door

and our shoes like petals are stuck to

the floor

and I realise as I unpick your flies

just what my ******* hands are for.

“There’s a boy over there – don’t

look so embarrassed!

he’s up by the bar and he’s utterly ******,

and do you think

that he’s ever been kissed…

(said with a wink)

quite like this?”

“So how much did you miss it?

The dancing and dirt?”

You press crooked grins to the stripes

on my shirt,

folded over my shoulder

like a toy that needs

winding.

I balance out all of your gnawing

with grinding,

stamping my lust to the floor

like a soldier.

Brushed-wet tarmac Tomcat

Coat,

Socks pulled up to the knee.

The sand went on for miles

Like pebble dash,

Ground to it’s golden *****

Decimals and

Packed tight between the

Bowed white legs of the cliffs,

Which stood with their feet

In the sea.

My Queen of Bracing Holidays,

Gemstone brooches, wet cafes.

Your face

Cut into coat of armour

Quarter colours,

Pink and white

And red and gold

Like a royal crest of sunburned summers.

“Women sync up with the moon,

like the sea does,

and it makes them unpredictable.”

he said.

(Surely not –

the sea and the moon are as predictable as you like!

you can chart them with maps!)

“Ah, but how about tsunami’s

that come along from nowhere

and drown the innocent?”

(Tsunamis aren’t caused by the moon,

they’re a result of the earth crashing into itself

and we are the earth,

us men,

and we drown the innocent.)

Every time I look at the moon -

(and I look at it often because I’m that kind of boy),

I can’t help but think of every woman in the world,

of every class and ever colour,

who has looked up at it too.

Cleopatra,

Kate Moss,

Katherine Hepburn,

Workhouse women with broken nails,

Baudelaire’s pale thin girls,

Courtney Love,

Female football players,

And how they feel

(or felt)

just as separate

or as close to it

As I do.

(Give me a London girl every time…)

- I want to push my hands into your hips and smack you back to front against the wall, bunching your **** little skirt in my fingers, unclipping those fifties plastic beauties that cling to your thighs and I want you to be a right proper girl for me, a right proper girl -

(…I’m gonna find one, I’ve made up my mind…)

So she got her phone out and

Smiled her Madonna-Gap smile,

Fine lines floundering

Like speech marks

Either side of her mouth.

So romantic!

A girl with a face of

Punctuation!

***** pennies,

she said,

Your eyes are

*****

*******

Pennies

She would finger the holes

In my tatterdemalion

Charity coats,

And my shop-bought medals.

She would jab her fingers

Against each point

Of the Burma Star,

Spookily,

As though it were a

Pentagram.

She’s a washboard,

Her ******* are  thumb-tacks

In a cosmetic shade of

Gold,

With a crucifix stamped

Like a dagger glyph

Right between them,

like a silver sneer,

on her precious metal chest.

- I want to take your photo -

I want you in Pippi Longstockings

And to angle you just so, my no-knickered **** with her goosebumps on show -

I’ll never forgot when she told me

She owned a leopard-skin

Pill-box hat ,

And I said

* “You’d have to be dead

Not to fancy that…”*

I’m not sure how aware she is though,

Of how many people

Tongue- to- the -floor want her.

She plays bored on purpose!

I’ve watched beautiful boys

Go to pieces

Trying to entertain her

With a curly straw.

She’s a real cheekbone feline,

And around her pupils

Rages a ring of jagged orange,

Like a jester’s ruff.

And I think of all this,

Whilst she stands there,

Moving from toe to toe

In her zig-zag heels,

And wooden bracelets,

And her little lycra

Landmine that

Shop assistants sell

To girls like her.

And then she clocks me.

and she doesn’t say a thing -

she just swims smilingly  over

Through a parted gaggle,

Letting me grab her

Like I mean it,

Spanning her waist with my

Hands like

A corset -

And the fairylights

Are  just smudges

Across her sequins,

And her mottled shoulders are

Ten shades

Of mostly white.

She wore bright glossy

Humbug tights.


Aw ****,

the way she smoked

her Marlboro Lights

was pornographic.

She flicked her smoke rings

at the traffic

and was blown to bits by

cheap hairspray.

(Considering my love of Jean Genet,

I told her ‘you make sense this way.’

She smiled and clicked

a ****** heel.

‘Holy ****! How real you feel!’

Not that I have points of reference.)

Stop confusing my ******* preference

with La-La-Lola Soho Kink.

Your lips are painted ***** pink

and you wrap them round

your glass and down

your Lambrini-Girls Pre-Party

drink.

(I want you against my kitchen sink!)

And naked -

How you overplayed it!

I think you were a bit

afraid

of both your halves,

your masquerade,

your matching scars.

(What did mermaids do to

all their sailors

struck by stars?)


You’re a crazy fusion,

Top-heavy wonder.

You’re a woman, my dear -

and you pulled me under.