Building contrasts
between the holes
shaped by fists
through wall cracks
to finger holes
in my knitted jumper-

I feel hole-punched by
layers and sediments,
each blend of fibre
becomes microscopic
to a solid form, or
a strangled kite:

Do you know how
a kite flies without
breath? It makes
sail in the earth,
depths in oceans,
drowns in vacuums.

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.

froths in lichen:
gushing on its bark,
it looks like pollen
was smeared on in
yellow gouache,
ulcers spread to lick
on to each branch.

I let it take over
in the way you
spread your arms
over bed and torso,
in the way your kiss
through the mornings
paint my cheeks red.

The first pair of shoes you wore were black,
velcro straps sat atop your pair of dollies
to make it easier to put them on for the park.
They were meant to be smart, but you laughed
as you wore them against the ground so free
as dad slung the swings, smiling at his child.

Our mum told me I was a creative child:
I didn't like to wear anything black. Red
suited me in how I stood in puddles, free
in indifference to how brown my wellies
became. If I was asked why, I'd shout,
“I'm pretending we're all at the seaside.”

From there we made our way to beaches,
where the wind was crisp and the children
we could see around us acclaimed screams
of emphatic joy at how the sea was so blue
and big. We had to wear pairs of sandals
when we went, but being barefoot felt free.

All that time we had at being young and free
soon went with the summer ending in school,
the arrival of my freshly polished black boots
was identical to almost every other child's-
a lather of paint dripping over in mud yellows
proved who I was with a mother's groan,

and this wasn't the only time she wailed.
As we grew older and wanted to be free,
my sister started to experiment with pink
highlights in her hair as I visited clubs
with fake ID. We were adults with childish
personalities in how I wore my Docs

like a religion for feet, my sibling in high heels
that you could hear in Sunday morning claps.
The arguments broke out: she wanted a child,
mother saying was too young, needed to free
herself from lazy culture and find a workplace.
I'd never seen both their faces so gushed red,

just like the red richness of those wellies
I had worn in the park. I pipe up and say,
“The best freedom is our time as children.”

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.

Coffee house
windows drape
litters of faces
like teabags
milk white but
feature black yolks
in sunken pits--
sinking pits, dip
under the morning
embers. Sunny side
where? A day begins
though you lot, out
to dry, waiver it off;
It's not ours, you say,
It's yours and you's
filling the streets below.
We's wait for the sunny,
we's wait for the up.

Sunflower cereal;
trickled clumps
cast into demi-
dune sacrificial,
China region
size cup cusp,
awaiting
the
cantankerous
gulps of pearl
globules seeped
through crinkle
cut skin petals
to sounds like
wet paper pulp
mulch peeling
in a bake sizzle.

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.

This boy sits on the carpet
with his crayons in hand,
a mural on the wall saying
he loves his father just like
the gaze of a rising sun,
an eye always watching
him as he reaches higher
to proudly touch the sky.

The sea at the base tells
his mother she is a war
of temper and peace,
her lullabies teach him
how to whisper secrets
as the waves bear him
journeys to new land
for him to be the sun.

We're on a train
in London's subways
and everyone stands
with a dead-eye peer
down the carriage, so
please, hold my hand.

They're all like apes,
hung on bamboo poles
and strung vine-straps,
hunkered over the small
space I have to myself, so
please, hold my hand.

I think you've become
just like them, Daddy;
a ringed-eyed orangutan
or narrow-staring lemur.
You've become much less
human it scares me, so
*please, let go of my hand.

he got caught;
yes I got him
caught on the
edge of 2nd &

                crux,
he turns to me
on eyes glazed
through a pane
of his car, white
balloon balancing
the pretty cast
of his head. It

serves the eye -
it isn't quite there
as I move closer,
parallel to collide
as sensations start
to crunch.

Dey real kewl. Dey
selfie skool. Dey

glow goonz. Dey
PC geeks. Dey

luv Jay-Z. Dey
RT #JK. Dey

tan tangaz. Dey
pRT bangaz. Dey

dwn danger. Dey
jack jäger. Dey

dbl dip. Dey
do trip. Dey

l%k weL 7k. Dey
die s%n, LOL innit.

The kid’s quiet
then she teeters in,
all glamour and glitz.
The Ritz is asking,
Mademoiselle, for your
curtain call dress,
a glitterball gown,

dragging by your feet—
oh, but her shoes!
Duty bound cardinal
red swim in the eye
like the carpet you
ought to premiere on.
It matches the lipstick

rub, your lips a yolk
as though you had drawn
over the lines, a smear
having caught the pearl
shawl around your neck.
Those your grandmother
passed down, you say?
She would be so proud.

one day we'll shake
our heads out like
flowers in spring,
like our hair was
on fire to light up
the fields, and we
would watch on
to those who sang
their songs for us
and only for us
as we are always
there, for them,
as though we're
weeds in thought.

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.

Knife crunching through
skin? No, it slips down
like a gulp in the throat,
a breath before pushing
in. My moon-eyes stare
at the shock of the victim's
as their belly is hollowed,
blood swilling in the sink
as fingers reach in the cut
to polish the insides clean.

I wonder why that look of
panic? There is a pink lining
stitched in by spinal threads,
the tenderness under a coat
proving you were only dressed
in a glazed metallic shimmer
to impress the eye. The head
must go, and the dressage off
so I can go soak your flesh
in a much tastier puddle.

I'll follow you through
sunflower cranes, stood
straight up on one leg,
tiptoe-heads above. Thick,
trunk stems support eyes

as though a field of giraffes
came to Loiré on holiday,
a tower of swinging faces
basking in a summer breeze.
Sepia yellows peg out

like eyelashes, shine
against that blue wave
of ocean sky, barely
frothing a cloud. Atop
your shoulders, I'll try

pinching a bud to keep
for home, looking back
a thousand suns echo
a staining rust, autumn
reds sinking as they set.

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.

Coming home from a fair,
cusped between your lap
a globe of darting eyes,
your hands rested atop
the thin film of a world
as you endlessly peer in.
Are you scrying over
your future career?

Here a tungsten bulbous
body, a chunk of flame,
swills itself in spins
and mindless dances,
as you think you could
be so careless like them
to live hazily in a framed
bubble of treasured youth,

fed by some divine fate
looking over you. Golden
scales make your skin,
binds you as if you were
a chocolate in a wrapper
for people to circus over–
every flicker being edible.
Or maybe you're like

those tinned peach slices,
posing in a cage for all  
as a marvel to feast with
until you end up rotting,
there in your tomb-space,
muttering an open mouth,
“help me” before they serve
you up on a silver-lined dish.

I assure you, you'll forget
these childish thoughts
of aspirations and dreams
sooner than you think:
no matter how much
you think they want you,
I'll bet they'll let yourself
drown in coming weeks.

Carpals, knees, elbows
scuffed. Cement carpet
freshly sears the fabric
then cuts, but a bruise

silhouettes the tear:
start Saturday raw, soon
swells a red ruby gulp
charring to black coal.

By Monday it slips
into a nebula of purple
constellations, a drink
of red still remaining.

You'll wish it never
faded – a jaundice
dulling swims palely
like the fated colour
of that new bike.

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.

it’s a dream
under cities’
block bricks
a small house
like canvas
squats cut out,
array of colour
not black
or grey, or white,
is tangerines
and strawberries
paper works,
also a ribbon
picket fence
take a stick to
beat of a ribcage
diagnose blame
too memorable
no serious future
says this dream
it’s a lucid one.

Putting the receiver
to the cupped side
of my leaning face,
I'll listen to an old,
dead phone, a husk
with a sound echoing
inside like a seashell:

I tune into the static
as if they were waves
sweeping in and out
of my eardrum, hear
the whisper of voices
asking the operator
to pass on last sighs.

We gave the
infant
our features;
the babe got
a bulb nose
passed on by
its grandfather,
jet-turf of hair
like a wave of
soft sulphur
from the other,
but the eyes,
tungsten grey
set in firm lids,
burnt out like
incandescent
light bulbs
as it left their
filament fingers
gasping mine.

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.

Peering down
an empty bottle
we've begun
a kaleidoscope
full of broken
memories and
twist of tongues
where nights
flash, conducting
awareness to all
and everything,
a glare of mirrors
basked above us
in splendid colour
with my hands
firmly earthed
into yours.

Here you are in those
purple-jelly dolly shoes
and you wonder why
the sky is blue when
the jam on your face
is a brilliant lipstick red.

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.

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.

‘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.

Could you hold me up-
right, left to sit and stare
though your sifting smoke
columns like a spinal wisp,
wasting away time in your

beautiful lungs. I like to in-
hale the cast-away smiles
you hang over me, into me,
my mind lost in taste to how
your chest is as mild as May.

A poster leans gaunt
against a lamp post,
its translucent skin
hung in its plastic film
coat pinned by corners.

Her face has seen better
before the wind and rain
had crept its fingers in
to caress her youth;
half of her is smiling,

the lipstick a smoulder
of tone black chaste,
the eye catching yours
in its fine-lined frame.
But the eye on the face

next to her is smudged,
ink drowning the socket
like a welt of a bruise
down her cheek, the lips
dribbling down her chin

like a cut, and the hair
strewn over in curtained
bleed as though she'd cried
tears down the image that
prophesies to her end result.

mornings I get up
early and watch
the night sail
into a water
bucket so I
can wash
over in
moonshine.

Friday mornings I'd slip
the little bones of me
into the big skin of you;
the bags under the arms
spaces to fill. My head
dives under the seams,

finding encrusted sea-salt
swept into nicked threads,
fresh surf cast in nostrils
like delving into wafting
depths of a second-home,
painting the skin rough.

I'll pretend I have your eye,
search for fish in the dark
as you do when away,
and I'll explore with hands
as shimmers fade between
soft holes in cotton waves

small fingertips touching
gasps. They slick the sky
like breaths in the night,
their smear of scent
a welcomed reminder
until you come home.

Semi-permeable
translucent vibes;
rhythm through
a château door
into neon nights,
and lanterns like
red-eye photos
look down on us.
They look down
on me, and they
see me shaking
the vibes out on
cement cobble-
blocks. I got the
cancer / excess
disease, we say
I'm the new-old
where the auto-
focus is good
but around us
is gaussian blur
forgotten future.

A leaking clock keeps you
nose up with eyes peering
through night-flooded sky
towards glow-in-the-dark
stars, childhood mementos,
to keep those other shapes

from seeping in, like snakes
slinking over drawers when
they were socks left hanging,
or a hand haunched achingly
through the wardrobe door
was only a shirt sleeve, but

now light escapes the curtains,
becomes a silhouette of a man
out of the second-floor window.
It's ok, you remind yourself.
You roll your head over to
drink, drink, drink in the ticks.

sit down; Mexican standoff
side saddle head cocked
readily shot-stare asunder
to paper/pen & the
grinning wince.

employment; where are you
now? You, in current state
gaseous coagulation, you
neither “in the mix” or
ahead.

bullet point; list thoughts
& aspirations, where you
thought you ought to
wish you were here!ing
and not.

T&C; going forward agree
to meet the anticipated
expectations as if you
wore that crown to say
"you own you".

handshake; the formality
contracts its bindings,
and the paper witness
writ as statement that
we will

                 do this again sometime.

Looking out to the sea,
there is art in the white,
frothing rinds like billows
of chalk softly skimming
each wave, or in the dark
blue of a day-old swelling
stretched across jelly skin
like spread blueberry jam,
or maybe in the bright red
jacket you wear, your hair
held to your face as you
grin like an absolute twit,
small fingers gripping on
to the rails as you peer over,
and in my grin is my reply
because I love you for it.

I'll have roses,
daffodils, ivy
and snowdrops
in a bouquet
on my palette.

Slipping a taste
of one another,
a puddle is made.
It is murky like
hungover clouds

though now
with new regret
I understand
the mixing of
beautiful ideas

brings me pity
for my creation
formed through
pursuit of a dream
to a wretched being.

We let the align-
ment of our con-
tact create a new-
lyfound structure:

you dress our bed-
ding over frame-
work, shapes mold-
ing words on paper

as though our truth-
fully plaiting finger-
tips shape a stereo-
type linear tendency.

We own a pond;
mottled bluebottle,
flecked in freckles
when the sunlight
skims the surface
between the moss.

I dip a finger inside
and stir. A nebula
swills, swirling like
a whisk of spilt oil
from a water spot
sometimes found
underneath a car.

My fist plunges in,
embalming a gulp;
moss bandages
around the orb that,
withdrawing in drips,
I see a new world
set alight upon it.

There is a misdeed where,
on a corner of Hunter Street,
a phone box sits in a puddle
like a flamingo in a storm,
yet it's not pink. It's a dull

shine with legs protruding
out of its sea, a lone oil rig
with an open mouth to enter
in which (you would hope!)
some black gold would pour

out of its receiver and say,
Press your fingers to me,
then my hand to your cheek
and I would stand there
drowned in those thoughts,

my feet also being rig stalks
as I would hold your hand
to my face, my other leaning
against your body, then only
to gather a simple “Hello.”

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.

What you don't see
is the way I wait,
watching her braid
worries in her hair
speckling small daisies,
my eyes like tumblers
gulping her in swigs
as she perches glasses
on the arch of her nose,
and then we'll take
a photo
to remark on how
we were back then
and now.

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.

keep an eye
on her church
mouth, place
a kiss upon
liquor thighs
then remember
she'll make you.

As you open this book
pressed flowers lie still,
dormant veins of cherry
splashes and scarlet
pools for their faces.

I was told that they grew
for such a beautiful head
to die a martyr, their vain
silk of a skin pulled apart
like lips on a gun barrel.

I caught them with wings
spread out, yellow stalks
for their eyes seeking
a summer sun. I wouldn't
let them fly, so I stuck

their lovesick in a casing
bound to hold them down.
Coffin closed, box sealed.
They sleep a winter, raw
as the day lately picked.

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.’

You made me a race
from the womb to
the itch and stretch
of a world for me
to traverse around.

Inches then meters
to stride against:
first the garden to
the park's expanse,
by then countries

are feet then miles,
and so I become like
the drip of cloud-tears
on car window panes,
shooting themselves

down the weathered
sheet to be closer
to an end of journey
that feels measured
by the centimetre.

“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.