A cough cough chorus of a sickly bunch,
germs fly as we do.
We’re all bunched in, no room to move when eating lunch.
**** a cherry drop so your head won’t pop.
We are nowhere going somewhere,
we have to keep on telling ourselves.
The weight of a cold increases with gravity.
Puffed eyes swollen, greasy hair,
like a drowned fish I too breathe poison.
The food *****
back to the cherry drop,
back to the ground.

Landing’s like submerging from dank water,
I need air, I need air, I need air.
Invisibly delectable
droplets of juice on an apple.

The word oxygen is refreshing.

My legs walked me onto the plane
to my 3ft square.

Like cogs in a clock, we gathered in time.

A cat stalks amongst stalks;
monkeys like old men, fingers unpick
your banana hands, curious and careful.
Too much expression.
Don’t worry, have a curry.
And from a coach window glimpses of a land
where a skeleton boy sleeps or lies dead under palm.
And the red earth chokes.
Follow the waterfall to mango pickle
down river to a jungle boogie rhythm
you ain’t ever heard before.
Cobra skins and coy carp,
the sound of cicadas amasses.
A stand still in traffic, its ‘crush’ hour
its okay to beep even if it will never get you anywhere.
A treasure trove of trinkets, a myriad of jewels.
All you see is money,
all I see is you wanting money.
Dusty rags from sandy bags, the face of
desperation is ugly.
Temples carved into caves
as markets coloured like an artist’s palette.

An elephant’s eyes say more than this poem could.

I tried to throw the phone on the bed,
but threw the glass instead,
sprinkling ***** and fanta fruit twist like holy water,
This is where I hurl my head
and wake, and wake, and wake.
Crust seals the eye like a crypt.
Dreamscape duvet: paint your colours,
Phantasmagorical shadows sweep the brow,
walls blend blurred images,
dream friends pass like flocks of birds faceless in flight.
I could ask you what it’s like to be a character in my dream,
make it all about me or you could tell me I’m a character in yours.
Shatter my reality,
tell me I’m your worst nightmare.

From corner of eye’s mind the luminescence of lamplight spills.
A startled stumbling, a fumbling with covers out of worlds and into new ones.

A birthday party,
I turn as I lift this velvet curtain
unveil this night for you,
Sixty circus freaks unravel down the hill
like a coloured handkerchief
of liquid laughter,
all singing the circus theme.
The only tears are drawn on
and the smiles cut up to the ears,
a tap dance in a bathroom,
manic movements,
a tumble back up the hill.
Cherry liquor is juggled, smuggled around the room
to a clown sporting harlequin pantaloons.
I laugh, drink, talk,
like a mime I copy the idea of human.
A sudden disconnection of sometimes weirdness envelops,
I become an audience member,
able only to watch the show,
a speechless mime with my face in shadow.
A desire to shout into empty biscuit barrel silences
I test ringmaster reactions,
to get back in I perform in a freak show.

But my eyes catch eyes, a timed grasping on a social trapeze,
we swing above a net of old ties.

Every tread was filled with dread,
marching through march alone,
desperate to get it over with,
unable to get you on the phone
always heading for a street called summer.

Crowds envelop,
a thicket of people,
arms like branches reaching out greedily,
like barren trees in winter.

A forest of faces,
I searched for yours.

I only feel now,
You will return.

I imagine you with elephants in the jungle,

The teacher told you to stop pretending to be an elephant,
the other kids thought you too loud, too enthusiastic,
unhindered perhaps you could’ve been one by now.

Everything’s taking from us, giving to us,
I can only breathe.

Angora on cashmere
our parents have never been in love,
and you make me feel so smug
I wear the smile of the cheshire cat,
an emblem declaring you my own.

I cried for them in a jazz bar in Dublin.
Told each other stories
new and old.
I feel older than them.
Decided you only get one chance at love,
you blow your chances away
like particles off a book
in the sunlight of spring.
So cold, that winter;
left the ***** six euros
under the hood of his sleeping bag
like Santa’s elves
or is that vanity?
But I kept on looking back
and soon I will forget
because we are always looking forwards.
Wonder how long he’ll carry that sack
of bones?
It’s all we had,
I won’t think of misery until it is my
turn.

Stuck, screaming in a traffic jam, the cars
Suddenly veer across the lanes. Desperate-
To get to their destinations. So late,
Their whole lives depend upon a green light.
Fists clenched tight, feeling the cars’ vibrations
Dimly beneath their blind rage. Wanting to
Lash out, like animals kept in cages
Waiting to die. Feels like it’s been ages
And ages… I can’t take this anymore
I scream!! Pulling out my hair, I’ve gone cra-
zy. I put music on to soothe my nerves,
But I’ve gone deaf. **** it, I’ll blow them all
To kingdom come. These are my traffic screams,
Caused by the engines repetitive hum.

Eight years old
the little girl skips
to the garden
to feed the rabbit.
“Georgie is cold!”
Her heart grows old,
she learns of death
and the stopping of breath
and heat,
The little rabbit’s feet
are ugly now
and frightening to
behold.
Not in heaven
but buried under soil
I saw you lift him with the
*****.
It looked undignified
soft fur (enclosed)
in mud,
and then you patted it down
like you would a pet
and thought I would
forget.

In vintage shops
little rabbit feet once used for dusting, dainty women
hang.
They sway like leaves.

Paw prints on cheeks,
the blood has turned to pink powder.

In tea shops your skin is like cinnamon
sprinkled over chai,
every separate part of you.

Your kisses are a leaving.

Rain pelts pedestrians,
the sky is falling.

At breakfast you crack an egg for a smile
and the yolky richness unfurls on the pink of your
rosebud tongue.

We pass old women hunched over,
their eyes are a starving.

******* bags rot,
we’ve always made waste.

In bed your eyes are a frozen lagoon
flecked with clouds of grey.

I wade you to the ocean.

You call me the bed bug, patient insect
as you hunt down pizza
and gather strepsils for my cold.

How far are we from the cave?

I roll in the duvet.

My breath like smoke in the air,
squelching my feet in icy puddles,
they are broken pieces of sky reflected.
Stomp, the image is dashed:
Nothing remains but empty water.

Cold damp streetvoid,
Lamps illuminate the blanks.
******* sacks on stained old mats,
Alley cats searching for rats.
This cannot be the same world.

Thoughts unfurl like smoke.

You blew a circle of it,
your face lay in the centre
encircled by the grey, billowing fumes.
Beautiful
ever-changing,
twirling plumes.

We accept our fates blindly
like mice.
Sipping ***** from a jar
that once held
Ragu.
A Frisbee as an ashtray
I’m dancing stupidly with you
Ol’ detective Gribble
who dribbles down the phone
and whispers: “sweet nothings”
in my ear,
I hear.

The page was blank until I wrote this,
that, then, now.

All time is passing,
this thing we are party to is everlasting
and our bodies grow old.

I will not let this poem go
I could just let it grow and grow
and never develop it.

The word develop makes me think of the womb
and camera film.
A poem is an egg, fertilise it with your vision,
photograph it with your eye.

Every word releases image after image,
fireworks form a question mark in a dark sky,
synapses snap like fruition,
my apples smother the ground, waiting to rot.

I can’t remember anything that has happened to me clearly                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
let alone to the world.
Is anyone ever sure that anything really happened?

And the tea is too hot and the toast is too cold,
dreams of intermingling sips of tea and
bites of toast crust, turn to dust on my lips
and it is time to go to work.

Limbs littered the earth, her negligee no longer lay in his soldier’s
world; he would do anything to smell her perfume
once more. What day was it? Ahhh…Monday,
the perfect first date, a moon-
lit walk on a beach. He felt like a train
about to crash and nobody was dancing.  

She felt alien alone in their home. Dancing
was impossible and she stared at the photo, a soldier’s
face, not his own. Limbo was a train
journey that never ended. Billboards advertising perfume
and the never ending sun, the never ending moon.
The name of the days changed but Monday

was no different from Tuesday or last Monday.
She wondered if disabled people thought dancing
ridiculous. He could return disabled…the moon
was full tonight, she wondered if he in his soldier’s
uniform would be admiring it remembering her perfume
and not side stepping dead bodies feeling like a train

wreck. How many poor driver’s of trains
were haunted by suicides, faces looming out, the Monday
blues? And some women will never afford perfume
and would never be taken out dancing,
it did not console her. She was one of thousands of soldier’s
wives all gazing wistfully at the unhelpful moon.

She dreams of werewolves howling at the moon,
of him passing through a dark forest on a train
coming back to her, having thrown his soldier’s
gun, stamped in the mud, rejected. But she was the gun, Monday
and no letter had come and her nerves were dancing,
she knocked over her most expensive bottle of perfume.





He was dead, she would never replace the perfume.
She would smash bottles sticking her tongue out at the moon
throwing herself around in life, dancing
like a boat in a storm, occasionally consider suicide by train
but she would never do it. Saturday, Sunday, Monday
all days trooped past like the heavy march of a soldier.

The word soldier stank of cheap perfume and
everything was mundane especially the moon.
People hurry her by like late trains, only a few whirl past dancing.

I’d much rather push up daffodils than daisies,
should summer be renamed sprung?
Last winter, so cold
I worried all the birds would freeze,
fed them toast, dreamt of knitting them jackets.

A robin died in my hands on Christmas eve one year,
Found on chewing gum pavements barely breathing,
his soft little breast rising and falling heavily like snow,
his neck a little droopy, so soft he was almost boneless,
frighteningly fragile, lovely.
Osiris’ scales about to be tipped,
I tripped and skidded the way home,
broken bird in one hand, dog lead straining the other.
As the door swung open,
a **** for breath, his twist of head and then…

This bird is dead dirt.

His orange crumbled.

Buried in a dog food box,
The guilt of knowledge lies under the duvet,
the winter grows stagnant.

Sublime sun, no socks and cigarettes,
concrete jars each step.
My finger strokes the trigger aimed at a perfect fullness,
targeted to smash smooth surfaces.

This shooting gallery also houses art.

Sparks of adrenaline fuel blood, hot lead flows through veins.

Like a toast has been raised by a crystal tapping,
the scene lies in focus.
Every melon visible,
I choose a victim.

“Every dog has it’s day”.

An ******* squeezing,

as splatters land upon tatters,
a cold slime slick of fresh pink flesh.

I lap it up.

Second on the list:
I’ve always wanted to hurl
a pumpkin from a third floor window,
watch the flecks of orange explode all over the grey concrete below,
a bulbous bursting of gourd upon ground.

An exuberant exhalation of at last:
I have got something done.

When she was very young she read Ann Frank,
And her daddy’s serial killer novels that he
Carelessly left in the bathroom,
Like a ****** weapon.

Strange dreams for a girl of eight,
****’s and bodies buried under patios,
Insane neighbours thirsty for the blood of the innocent.
The danger of the unknown stranger.

When she was young she read Shakespeare,
Voltaire and discovered Fred Astaire.
Her faith in humanity was restored again,
She tap danced her fears away.

“It was after I’d been *****
that my cat died” you said.
We laughed.

Why did we laugh?
We made tea
hoping to find the answer in each
sip.
But all I could detect was
sour milk and a lack of
sugar.
(I clanged the spoon onto the mug
to make musical tea
thinking it might cheer you up).

Someone’s been laying in
to my cheesy thins
and I have no biscuits
to offer.

Have you ever seen ‘La Vie en Rose?’
The little sparrow runs from room to room
weeping for the dead love of her life.

Every cloud has a silver lining
and who cares about cancer when there’s music to consider?

                  Someone’s noisily nibbling nachos and scrunching sweet wrappers nearby.

No movies for us in a Cadillac at the big chill;
instead we watched the world slip past as we sat still.

The lake in the valley, sun drenched skin,
we lay, bellies to earth on soft grass.

A whisker as white as snow pushes through your chin demanding to be known,
I am in love with this hair.

I felt you might die too and I’d run from room to room
calling your name and you would not come.

The price of popcorn increases.

The woods are lovely dark and deep
and I have no promises to keep.

The snow will melt soon and I will hesitate,
leave it too late to play in it.

Black and white from gold and blue,
branches blacken the skyline like veins,
the bloodless rhythms of a barren land.

Can this be the same world?

Hiding and watching snowflakes swirling,
every hot breath quickly unfurling
blankets the window’s glass
as warmth from the fire makes my hair start curling.

I stay in writing these lines
with a white crunch of dread.
Fear of the cold, fear of the pines
fear of passing hours, fear of these times.

Fire crackles behind as a teacup steams,
a book invites me to a world of dreams
none of them my own.

An empty room that’s full of things.

Your huge hands,
a pool champion’s sausage fingers
carving roast dinners.

I rarely think of you now
but memory lingers.

It’s leaves return every year;
they rustle in the rain.

The walnut tree
with the swing.

You’d push me so high
rush of wind and air,
chunks of cherry bough
caught in my hair
and I thought I would never come down.
Your skin wrinkled in the sun
like an apricot.
And me and Elisha would run
and race electrical jeeps
in the garden fetching you walnuts.

I was afraid of your pond,
you said there was a shark in it,
dangerous like the
cancer in your body,
I was afraid of
the pig skin patch on your arm.

Considered too young for the funeral,
my memories look like the photos I look at afterwards.

Crackling comets colliding
and inside a stiff sprung box Earth lay dying.
There are more synaptic connections in a brain
than there are atoms in the universe.
Crusted blood cracked and crusted crumbling to the floor
and there grew treasonous trees,
unnatural nature.
Life sprung from life sprung from death,
The matter, what’s the matter, it never dies just changes form.
Each separate spot, treaded like an old stitch rethreaded
dinosaurs, plants, people passing breath after breath.
There will always be something left.
And we have no roots, no ties to an earth, free to roam
like old lions, lying and lying about.
No matter how long you remember being here, your cells are only seven years old, held by a membrane of change, arranged in a format that remains unexplained.
The eye of a needle can only go so small and dogs see the world through smell.
Will the people remember what we remember?
A collective consciousness of all history encompassed.

I watch as a rising bloom has turned to rose,
nature spreads like butter as we raise a toast.

Shouts and screams,
bangs in dreams.
We shuddered in the bunk beds
of our sea themed bedroom
like tiny fish.
They didn’t even try to restrain
the noise
or pretend everything was fine.

We hid.

Do you remember when
they were each going to have
one?
Acamera flash of broken moment,
vision torn, my head screamed.

Every cell in revolt.

Hot tears steamed the windows
as we drove away without you.

Memories blur,
but the car
stopped.

As suddenly as it had started.

A return, to what?
She was always too cold and the house was too hot.

Mine’s a sort of light, musical, dancing
tread, a never-ending thread of notes
on a string, a slight ring upon the ears,
I like to think of it as:
cheeky, small, charming.

An underground solo orchestra
the music of my footsteps,
only I can play
and we’ll never be able to play each other’s tunes.

When your knees crack real good
you’re locked in a skin of sound.

Every bone in my spine cracks
crystalising form in bubbling molten blood,
Can you hear?
Breath is a knife to dissect unsynchronized rhythms.

In an empty house, we miss each other by seconds.
The sound of doors banging.

Footsteps on hollow floorboards.

My darling blue eyed Russian boy
who is not Russian.
Your breath icy cold in the night’s air,
floating between us spiralling upwards like
smoke.
I kiss your eyes
wanting you later to caress my thighs
and run your fingernails down my back.
I squirm into you, you press into me,

Loved up, drugged up .

You brought me gloves
I brought you socks

Together we huddled by the fire
seeking warmth, there was
none.
Every star visible
your soft skin next to mine.

Nothing beats
hearing your heart
beat.