I'd like your opinion
on the state of this
building. The state
of this building.

Did you compile
this boarded nest
made of bricks
and metal twigs?

Can you not feel
the cold weeping
through open pores,
or the cries at night

when the summer
wets the old bark,
roars of young blood
screaming past you?

All you do is gun
a gaze down streets,
a survey in envy
as the new cribs

beat up the block
with a freshly carved
skin. A freshly carved
smoothed flat skin.

At my father's funeral
my childish hand suckled
my mother's wrinkled fingers
as though kissing a wound.

Looking up to her, I found
such a raw flesh of fear,
so hard in the face, so soft
in the lips, glowing dark red

against her cheeks like
blood on chalk-bone,
the rest in a second skin
of a black bandage dress.

skinning a lemon
he slips the rind off,
cradles a pulp

drowning his hand
The taste is so bitter
The taste is so
bitter. His face

looks blenched
white, lips pucker
like a child's first
love's kiss

Tears on his face,
a sour smile, lips
wrinkle one more
It isn't too bitter

In the nights
are sculptures
in bleach colour,

their soft shapes
huddled together
on street corners.

Like Pompeii
as tar flooded,
sunk into spaces,

they stood so
still as though
alabaster angels.

Down the garden
sits a small water,
sunk with moss ink
floating its own

second skin like
a face left blotched.
Hands peel away
the tumour lips:

under dank flesh
splay young starlets,
gazing sirens lost
without their ceiling.

Their eyes are bright
in the gloom - plates
hunker foolish heads,
anchored by the stem

to murky pond-floor,
they cry up to a night
begging to be taken
into the jet reflection.

By God, when the rain
in summer nights
spat into jam jars,
I could hear the pots

swallow the slurps of
pitter-patter raindrops
tumbling down in slips
on small panes, as though

starlets plunged like
pitted pips torn out
of blackberry skies;
the morning jars

left with shining tears
waiting to rise as
darkening blossoms
of the night again.

I laid the twigs as bones,
blanketed in my favourite
summer leaves tucked
inside the fire-nest.

Newspaper down
nestled a small ruby
placed in the centre,

then grew a childish flame
dancing in the brick ***

its cries singing upward
as autumnal ghosts,  
in their flickered gasps,

cackled their summer
screams as they fell
back through black coal,
seeds for next season.

fingertip strands spread
like a flower gulping
embers delicately held

tight in lingered lips.
Sticking between folds
hands warm as honey

trap the air in
and through
touch and kiss.

These kids remain
forever stuck with
golden memories.

pushed clouds out,
pursed lips like
whistling in a shell,

reverbs into tumbler
held down
and spirals back.

Then, as it rises,
Advocaat crackles
thunder-yellow,

tickling the insides
into familiar
house-warm feeling.

air-goggles clasped
eyeing up slickness
like a gull hangs over

bright airy gasps
brings arms up
feeling the tilt

toward water-sky
kicks up then down
to earth-pull push

‘That one's for sorrow,’
she said,

holding my sleeved stump
and pointed

to dancing in small floods,
glossed feathers

dripped in dips of a path.
I asked,

why's it sad? ‘She’s lost someone,’
she replied,

‘Two’s for joy.’ I looked back
beady eyed,

to cast out my hand
for hers.

The bones of you spoke to mine,
finger and thumb picking the ivory,
screaming softly at daintiest pushes
and ground sweetly at my bones.

My hands washed over the high keys,
though settled for the low. You see,
my fingers ached without yours.
They suited the high; they were nimble

and sharply caught each note,
whilst I kept the wallowing octaves
moaning like an ocean’s breath.
Now the hammers thundered softly,

they plummet through the sails
having had lost that lengthy breeze,
tumbling into a lonesome abyss.
I had you, though now your chime

resonates right through the depths;
it leaves my heart crying for a shine,
a glimmer in the dark. These bones
play bones, and a piano plays me.

In the garden out back
I used to gather up leaves,
looking like burnt flames
crisping up on my lawn.

The sun had stained them
from springtime children
to tarnished stars, waiting
on the ground for my dance.

They would  blush for me
and crackle in delight
as I pirouetted around
then eagerly pounced,

piling up a nest so then
as the winter wind came,
roughly rubbing my cheek,
I'd sit there with sandwiches.

Box has me press-ganged.
 
‘Please read. I can help you:
recall nausea and ****-buddy
depravity? Dee-press-shun.

‘Suffer the shirk? Cancerous
pressure talk taking its kind
time. Makes the clock scream

****** at twelve. Tick, tick,
tock—it’s time. Open, take and
swallow. Feel much better now?

‘Take another! Toss it down
the hatch. It’ll stun you alive
until dead. You’re chastised, kid.’

Smile like you mean it, I titter
with tongue in teeth. Bite the end
and hit it across the consonant. Cry,

abuse! Beater! It’s part of it –
to do you good. Tears trip pity.
No, I know those weren’t meant;

you’re here for my rapture.
Caught between tines a *******
brands you both illicit and curious,

clings to your skin as blood
and *** is alike to smoke and fire.
I’ll teach you to be felt contented.

Take my example. Look, note here;
the slant of a lip, eyes just taut,
the jutted chin—look! Copy in delight:

‘Smile like you mean it.’

In English gardens she blooms lilac,
comes with her petals spread
and swept across for me to pick
out a red droplet ready to bead.
She reaches my lips, then I bite.
And as the pips tumble and hit
teeth, tongue and cheek, I find
the sour taste she leaves behind

is ill-fitted for me. Innocence dies,
so now I swallow in hesitant takes
with spoonfuls of sugar to get by.
She drips from her brittle-soft skin,
and bleeds until she begins to break
whilst in an English garden I lie within.

A thin, red trail
slaps the pavement,
becomes so swollen,

strands trip around
the neck and cut
deep where there,

in the slick trickles
pulled to small floods,
sinking out, a tip

of the tongue cry
never quite confirmed,
stays strangled. Drips

and ebbs with bottle
in hand, a scarf
in the other. Like ribbon

it weaves into spaces,
drenches the ground
until everything is art.

“Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,” we screamed
holding hands in circles. We laughed,
fell, tumbled when the end came
and rolled about in the thick grass.

Mothers would scold us and click
their tongues. Big sighs came;
we knew the games were over
and retired the evening inside.

At night I played the game myself,
pulled on my teddy bear’s arms
and loudly whispered the rhyme
as I danced around my room.

Like a possessed child I danced,
fully drunk in the night’s vigour
until there came the trumpets,
slowly gathering pace outside.

They became louder. So did I.
I twirled as the house shook,
span around me and laughed
until it all blurred violently.

The sound was deafening
much like my heart in my ears.
Ba-doomph. Ba-doomph.
The explosions rattled me

as wailings came and cawed,
but I carried on in my fever:
“We all fall down” I said, dizzy.
I knew I wouldn’t dance again.

You would cry like there was no end,
tears dipping in the broken smile
until they clung on the very outline.
We were sat in the morning shade,
sketching me with your lead
in hand; you see me. I’m empty.

Across the field the thickets were empty,
the crisped, golden summer would end
as though the teeming life were mislead.
The sun would fade like your smile,
then only a glimpse would escape the shade

and stay with me as a furtive outline,
inescapable in nightmares. This outline
leaves my bed covers breathless and empty,
waiting for your hand to guide. You lead.
I question whether this will end:
When will you stop taunting me with a smile
unable to slide, sketch and shade?

I’d try to broach the shadow of the shade,
yet my eye cannot catch you. Just an outline
of that torn heart is left in the smile
leaving the space more than empty
until I decide to have it end
by picking up the scattered bits of lead.

Across the golden fields I would lead,
looking back onto the folds of the shade.
The tall grass would make my gaze end,
leaving our tree grazing over the outline.
The field’s thickets were undoubtedly empty.
I head on home. I can still see the smile.

In our child I can see your smile,
as it was before you were misguidedly lead
and left me here feeling alone, empty.
I see on the walls how you used to shade,
how darkness clung to the drawing’s outline.
There I see that you knew light would end.

You always seem to end with the same smile.
I am the outline that you embrace with shades
until the skin is lead. You left me empty.

Yestreen, the night cried like a flying circus,
with belts of hoots, laughter and howls.

Thumps caved walls like a drum,
seeking full attention in the early morn’s hours.

A shrill would chirm a space,
as a soul would burrow its place to hide.

The moon turned searching spotlight,
bawled mumbling  groans like a child gone snide.

Screams were thrown in disgust,
like a temperamental mother in a sunken heat.

A whip-crack tore at the sky,
as though it swore I could never be true or right.

The rain had sounded like flittering lashes
against reddened cheeks cold, beaten and bruised.

It was quiet as though the right words
were not for the night’s embrace to ever be used.

The windows did cheer so wittily
like clapter belting the colour out of a smile.

The sky cried and wanted me home,
although I would return and never leave her side.

I hold myself together here,
for fear my eyes may never close.
A pocket watch ticks until I tear.

You left it on the table there
just for me. I stood, froze,
and hold myself together here.

I took hold of a chair, made it steer.
Crept to the edge like a recluse,
as the pocket watch ticks until I tear.

I wanted to end the dreaded nightmare;
you made the choice I’d never choose.
So now I hold myself together here.

I cry as I realize you had made it clear.
My words had slowly become the noose,
like the pocket watch ticking ‘till I tore.

Though if it were so much to say I care,
or even say, “I need you, heaven knows”,
instead I hold myself together here.
My pocket watch ticks ‘till tonight I tear.

She was never my own; always stayed
with the night. Her dark coat glazed
only when the moon was lit.

I asked her to stay for just a while,
then it passed. She became too tired
watching the pond wallow, shine.

She asked me if I loved her, see if
it was true. I told her no lies though
she danced to her merry tune;

“Cat’s got your tongue! It will merrily
be mine!” and sang to the sky until
it burst into booming song.

Many others agreed so I sat there.
Me, alone. She left with her play
along smile ‘till I sang my own verse.

“Cat’s got my tongue! I’ll chase
‘till I die!” Wailed into the night,
perched forward, fell, to fly.

Snow melting when I left you, and I took
the kite you sewed, stitched and saved.

I’d never left you before but, as a kite would,
I would explore and soak the sky in colour.

I would delve and dive, swoop in crescents,
then save myself when at my lowest.

There were times when a kite should fly
and so it would, were there a breeze to sail.

Many others plunged and plummeted,
shot through and down with a brash snap.

A holler raised for another sent down,
saw red splayed on green then blackened-brown.

It was then my friends did not play anymore.
I saw how the colours were black and white.

Only a few kept a strong hold of their string.
Those who didn’t, fell. Tumbled. Tore.

Red flushed our fields when I wrote, though the
tides of scarlet set silence in all man’s heart.

Swards settling when I returned, and I saw
my kite that once flew brimming on proud lapels.