Cured meats hanging hooked
veiled in shadows, flies resting on pink
salmon flesh and a tall long bearded man
wearing dark denim in the Jewish Quarter
talking adventures, jumping vibrant,
Bold questions and stares, the woman
screaming in the Great Hall Market escorted out,
back of the throat slapping smells
on the train from Budapest to Bucharest
Stories from a tired man
aging wearing a musty coat no bag, complaining about wild
children near the dead sea throwing rocks at his sinking house

Hands beckoning in between white flapping cloths
- white sails everywhere high up, sleeping in the Hare Krishna temple
with mosquitoes ******* my legs, fishing for mussels
and eating grilled corn, 6.am grey skied Istanbul,
Morning prayers, the setting up of stalls
The shouting, the tasting of honey thick with the bees still immersed,
the tasting of cheese wet and dry brânză de burduf,
chubritza, soups, the hash and the ham. Escorted out
The juice leaking from tender meat
A sweating brow
Pockets full of coffee beans

sharp and sweet I imagine
That I must burn a smell
up the inside of your nostrils
just where the bridge
of the nose
meets the eye
but you let me in
and inhale it all
a tangle of life edging
to the back of your throat
flavouring your tongue

Braving lapses in neon dreams
You don’t like the look of air max 90’s
Besotted language intercepted not digested
The babble of youths who don’t talk correctly
Basking loosely in nonchalant demise
The **** on the floor, what a mess
Buttoned lips insinuating nothing decisive
You are hard eyed from men outside the pub, you look away at
Bluebottles lying inside neatly dead
Get me off this ******* bus.
Black lines, interrupting nothing deep
Why always black and never red
Broad landscapes intrude narrowness, delicately
But you close your eyes and hum the cure
Breaking laughter, ignorant nuisances drain
I wish they all were quiet and tame
Berating loud intuitive noises, djembe
Banging hands against the glass
Banging, lightning, ignored, deleted
There’s a fight going on, you will stay seated
Buried liquidized imagery, naturally dancing
The reflection of drama in a window behind you
Because listening is not done
You think about dinner and where you will buy it
Because light is no fun
You again close your eyes and think about home
Busy lovers inseparable never daring
You enjoy your thoughts
Being left in near darkness
You enjoy your thoughts
Watching interesting things happen
Eventually yelping even shouting trill howls
After the watch, offset retina kicks

dying to dance
under rays of bright lights
singing new songs that we could
sing to all our tomorrows
we took to a field with the moon,
and stayed there until the field was built upon
with bricks containing our freedom songs in buildings
that were beautiful but roofed
with alcohol sweat
****** stained floors
we named this place
The Field in memory of the pastures
underneath it
soon we queued forever to get in
and even though our feet
were being pulled forwards
and backwards
forwards then sideways
by songs
that had become familiar
with a thunderous bass leaking from towering speakers,
inside our bodies we stood there, still
looking up for the moon
but like moths
in a whirlwind of awe
settled for artificial lights
because they flashed to red
from green and from red
to nothing
and in the end
we stood like dead sunflowers
in this noisy place
in police cells and offices
marital courts and churches
on doorsteps, stairways
Asdas and Tescos, Walmarts and Wilkos
at funerals on microphones
with children in our arms
singing songs about The Field we shall
get back too.  The field where we
belonged
roots shifting
routes shifting
until all roads are lost
in dirt and filth, no soil
until they charge us to sing
and we pay
to truly be in the club

Origami swan
elegantly folded into a delicate infinite being
sit on this table forever
and grow old with us

I pulled the arms off my clock

It stopped waving instantly

And became silent

Leaving only

Meaningless numbers

That I could never call

And all the time in the world

Whole

Undivided

racing through everything that is
from your toes to the tingling skin
of those finger tips that grip hard

ousting your eyes from their sockets
before bursting you
cut off from the system
with electric still running through your veins

and the room will spin

and the room will spin

till what ever was in it
is flung out

and it will feel like coming
back to where you forgot
you came from

The fingers on my hands belong to you
and to the hairs of yours that settle
in-between the curves of them

You stick to me like glue
even when I peel you off
I haven’t

strips of extra skin, covering mine
a film of curiosity
smiling in the night

Lines of harmony I cannot stress
Only hum them off
the top of my head

hoping to be hit hard in the mouth with lucidity
knocking back the sweat of dark spirits
tapping the ash
of the last draw
onto our knee caps
songs suppressed by nothing
suffocating
under the breath

you look up,
a silver eye lashed kitten
Burning 21

you reside in
the silver lining silence
of my darkness

Dissipating into
the gaps of memory

A mark
on a perpetual bar
inside the heads
of others

hard to see
easy to feel,
hard to feel
when it’s easy to see

a mark so small
measuring the norm of us
instead of

The Norm

A flexible thing
with beginnings
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