Black Cat sits there like the lion by
the bridge I'm always over and he oozes
cement from his eyes but he's not crying.

Old Rug stands up and his old bones
creak and his jacket is made of brick dust,
he brushes himself off and makes a storm cloud.

Taps begin to run and so do I but
neither of us knows who's chasing who but
they laugh and someone answers a door.

Curtains close and the old foundations
set again, I'm still running but there
he has his windows shut and I am breakable.

Scattered Cushions hug me and it's awful.
they've got me in a pillowed choke hold
and they begin to build around me

but my feet just keep on going

The shoreline bites at the toes of attendees,
watching the little appendages curl up together.
The footprints there have been etched into fossils,
the sand crunching together and sounding like
echoes of war cries and whispered endearments.

The raft is loaded. The time is traced.
A caterpillar in a chrysalis hums a love song,
glows with the light of ‘vita vita vita’ as
the gathering crowds taste dead languages.
Children eat from lunch boxes carved with runes.

Sometimes a glipse of twenty years is caught,
a journal is forced open by the wind; it’s pages
creak, the voices from the world's coffins
that have been wrenched open start a hymn
and the songs pile up in our ears as dust.

Those who are do not mourn titter respectfully
as men in white coats try to push the raft
into the water, but you were so lovably stubborn.
You always returned and even here you knew it;
your final laugh was filtered through sign language.

I step forward and push, float you off into
the water, put my fingers over the candle and
over the lips of dead kings as masses shoot the sky.
The match roars and your raft gasps as it burns,
old things being laid to rest and new ones kindling.

I've been too selfish and kept you
tied into knots on my tongue, or
kept you caged up in the cell structure
of my brain, like an Anglo-Saxon
relic you see the interweaving and
I did that to you, to never let it go.

But, to be fair, people like you tend
to find it reasonable to steal my breath
and not return it, which I do find quite
rude but I'll just pretend you're homeless
and it's only fair to let you keep the warmth,
you might not have enough come winter.

So maybe we'll make up an agreement,
I'll keep your name and give it to
the cat to play with, along with my tongue.
And you can take from me whatever you want,
make a game looking for the missed heartbeats,
use my flat line as a skipping rope.

It was a romantic dream you had
that we'd wake up to birdsong together,
but you turned them into your sirens
and sung your battle cry from the shower
as I prepared for you to finish up
and start our breakfast warfare.
With a mock shooting action you
presented soldiers and pretended to
throw eggs like grenades, so it made
sense you told me they were your speciality.
I would choose the non violent option,
obviously, but always ended up wincing
into my coffee that you made, too strong
so that I'd bruise my lips as I drank.
A 'labour of love' you called it, trying
try to trade a kiss for morning vitamins
or to soothe the bruises on my mouth.
I'd fend you off with a teaspoon, drop
sugar cubes in my cup like bombs.
I could only smile your way if I held
a croissant upside down over my mouth,
but you always had a smile because
you loved our breakfast warfare.

He is a force of nature. I'm usually too
scared to react to people, if I'm alone, but
I did then 'cause I was sat on my own and
he seemed to take that as a good omen.
I was waiting for someone, as ever,
sitting and thinking about **** like how  
some artists work better when they're drunk.
And a picture you start with improves so,
with a picture like this standing there,
you'd call it dappled gold, like cider
or with clarity like a martini if
getting ****** on your own was romantic.
But by this point, with the drinks I'd had,
he could have had any face or form
and I still would have danced with him.
There was no romance in this.
He decided to stop dancing at some point,
apparently he dislikes the things that
are good for us. He'd say dark stuff like that.
'What's the point in your tomorrow?' like
he'd prefer to think about my yesterdays.
Whatever happened in between this time
and the time it took to get me outside
must have been boring as **** because
he watched me light a cigarette, eyes
huge  and saying nothing, apart from
'when will you stop flirting with me?'
because I asked him to dance again.
I checked, told him I had twelve
cigarettes left and no sense of self
preservation.

I think of love and how it can only exist
In your dreams as I trace their remnants,
Made feasible by the dim light of morning
Which is both drooping and waving, prepared.

I think of love and how it can only exist
In the shutter images of your unfocused eyes,
More like weather than windows, clouded
By morning with showers of yawns.

I think of love and how it can only exist
As our bed is a forest, the stirring of your
Body I follow like footpaths lit by sun,
Patches of light on us like puddles.

I think of love and how it can only exist
As it is etched into your face, those
Pillow case creases that makes me the
Cheekbone cartographer and I think

Of love and how it can only exist
In this dream of mine.

Living it up in a HB dream,
Scribbled house sturdy as a pencil,
This token of a childhood memory.

House. Family, dinner, empty plate.
Ghost in the attic. Cat on the lawn.
Four out of five smiles.

Playground. Friends. Unused seat
On the swing set congregation.
Pencil case protection from the ground.

Classroom. Listeners, artists, mathematicians.
Glaring absence note. An echoing drawer.
Raised hand at the back too far away.

This crayola madness is draped out
In ribbons, strewn carelessly over
An invitation. The dotted lines blur so

The pencil shading, the artistic peak,
Has gone too far, now it's translucent.
This invitation goes to the imaginary friend.

I'm writing narrative poetry
To please the masses with verse
Un-versed because nobody knows
How to do it anymore.

(insert metaphor for the heart)

Heart's are just organs teaspoons are the real deal
Here is happiness,tempest on a teaspoon
Getting quicker with the drips don't call them tears
Where's the originality?

(cackle at alteration and appreciate the notion
of a bracket and enjambement)

If emotion rests in the balance of milliliters
I'm calling it real because hearts beat
And that's it; don't romanticise, rationalise.
Your brain is intelligence doesn't mean it's apathy.

(end it here before people know you're being insulting
and **** ink tears into little noteboks)

Opinions like dough, gruesome and cloying, sticking to the tongue like self righteous peanut butter.
Sitting up for the wrong reasons, though it's difficult to get out of bed alone.
Counting calories like counting the number of eyes that pass over this form.
Glances flitting like shadows on cheekbones that aren't cutting, too rounded.
Running towards expectations on the necessary incline towards beautiful.
Sweat and pounds and £s for form fitting clothes, like sickly scales.
Weight resting on the soles of the right shoe for the right path towards the right body.
Weight lifted, muscles straining like Atlas with the weight of the world's eye view.
Memberships paid for, memberships given to the society of those who fit into society.
Take the leftovers, it's funny because the sight of us does not suggest the leaving of necessity.
Tightening belts until the loopholes leave us love even though we lack what is expected.
Leaving our food and gaining what you want.

not so glamorous that i'm crying
diamonds into martini glasses.
'what's your poison' ?
scowling into dry gin mirrors
'anything.' cuz the fountain of youth
doesn't exist

We'll call this chardonnay.
Call me intelligent because it's French.
Fill up my ego with thoughts.
The rest of me is just
%10 heart
%90 unfeeling wine.
%100 teenage angst.


**** this my degree (?) is English what are numbers now

The dishes are making me angry,
All relaxing after work in bubbles
While I just stand here and linger,
A kitchen ghost of scented soap.
People say my eyes are bright
So I scrub those glasses thoroughly
But it does nothing but show me.
My own hands go red on those
Horrible abrasive sponges
And much too hot water does
Nothing to soothe, just morphs into a
Boiling *** that riles my passing thoughts
Until I'm no longer pondering things.
I'm screaming in jealousy as I stack plates,
And fit bowls together so perfectly,
Maybe a drop falls because I'm cleaning
Dishes for one.
Maybe I'll smash them.

One day I'd like to trace the finery
Of your subconscious, in that dim light
When morning is half waving and prepared.
It'd be written on your face, your eyes
More like the weather than windows, like they say.
Cloudy with the potential for morning yawn showers
But, of course, always sunny, Even at this hour.
I'd follow your dreams, Id trace the markings of those maps
Made by pillow case creases, your cheekbone cartography.
I'd find the X and stamp it with a smile.

Inky gymnasts.
Maybe that's what we are all
Curved, poised, stretched around pens
Our fingers like those dancer ones, on the mats,
Maybe that's what we're like with keyboards
Jumping along performing each move
With a flourish, a florid metaphor
Or something matter-of-fact
That is possibly more poignant
Than overuse of imagery
(deduce ten points!)
S'weird though when you have
Nothing to refer to inside wise
I'm just flexing wildly with no mat to land on.

Don't suppose you have any words, lovely?
I'm done for the night.
The life, mostly, lost 'em whiles back
Don't know where but I don't even use them as a blanket no more.
Might sound Romantic, that, but it gets cold right?
Been away a while, verbalised, very verb-y all fun
But
well
****

Walking without words and I wish there was talking,
To drown out the noises.
Don't think of the people, or places or faces
They burn and it's burning, drilling  holes till I'm brainless
Left completely shameless.
Wandering.
Aimless.
Your rain's the same but I can't help but think first,
I have no frame for reference ,
Can't help but blink away away those drops of helpless helpless

And this mess has me choked on maps,
City streets grown too big, too fast
And I lost track of those ones, the paths already used,
And now i'm just confused, displeased and displaced,
My sense of direction has fallen from grace
And I'm bawling, geology sent sprawling
From all hours till dawn in here we're all wanderers  
and our soles don't sink in.

Where have we been?
Where are our souls going?
Give us arts but still the lost are throwing out this sense of
'home'.
There, that word, it lurches
Verses.
Music.
Maps,
They're useless.

We are rootless.
We are growing, shoot-less,
Our searches frantic, fruitless
And passing by we have footsteps we're tracking

But.
That's where they lie,
familiar and lacking.

Oh, I don't mean to sigh, or groan,
No this isn't a moan I don't mean this
Word the way it often seems but
Have we became the 'ironic points of light'?

That was your prophecy, I guessed, anyway.
But if you can see, please look and
Well, be happy, maybe?
See us working, not just verses
But lit by sound I'm here in a big
Mixing *** of music ready for the
Bruises of potential.

Nah, I'll bask in the fun of this
Experimental sapling all small just now.
Here I am sprawling beatwordbeat
There he is with beatbeatbeat
Letter to the letter (MPC?)

But, **** it all if I don't love this
Chance for poetry.

i fell down on your skin.
just before the mole hill on your wrist
the walk was bumpy, a bit creased.
And, well, I was looking more at you.
Anyway. Those tiny creases tripped me
on my travels i ended up stopping.
Stumbling right there, face down.
Sat for a bit in the chasm of your scars.
Dawdled. Happily. Very happily.
I did pull myself out, though,
i used the vines on your arm
you’re covered in them, all
soft. Something rest-your-head-on-able.
So that’s what i’ll do on my hike.
I’ll stay awhile.

It's all concept it's thought before
It's all solid, stand alone statues and rain clouds
But the sounds are sneaking love affairs
A bit like two flat lines on a heart monitor getting hit by thunder storms
(Can't help but tap together and buzz)
Big 'ol sounds in the sky bashing life, big 'ol symphony.
Maybe it's funny that they'll be on a boat
Sonic waves like bashing rocks into the sea.
Or maybe not but hear my ears sing!

your face is very sharp
not like knives though
not like knives cutting
like sharpness used specially
to highlight the headlights
of jokes and talking
ha ha ha ha
this reminds me of your eyes
they go so big mine too though
god it's just nice to look

I am choked on maps
little friend
London streets are not the end of worlds

Your rain's the same,
Drops on nameless wanderers
My soles don't sink in.

Rootless standing,
Shoot-less passing
Fruitless frantic searching

'Home' that word it lurches
Verses music maps are useless
Walking barefoot looking

But familiar footsteps are lacking,

I think I need an eye doctor;
Eyes in the sky, Doctor
Eyes aren't mine, Doctor
Eyes on fire, Doctor
Don't be shy, Doctor
Read my mind, Doctor
Use your eyes, Doctor
Doctor Do-ct-or
I           can't      
s           e           e

I'll take you like a pill
But I'm not addicted

It's often that we stare across from each other,
A distance much too close for my liking.
The space gorges itself on a sense of detachment,
Something stupid like that just loves how it becomes
a Space and no longer just nothing between us.
Somehow silence and astonishing shrieks
Fill it up, makes it tangible enough that
Maybe I can ignore it or spend time thinking
Words, wrapping them up in places like this.
Poetry. Or anywhere. Scribbled in lipstick
Who knows? Screens sometimes tell me.
Speaking truthfully, though, that tangible
Something-of-Sorts is easily breached.
I know that we stare at each other,
Unreasonable amounts of time spent
Loitering in 'our' selfish pondering.
I know for fact my fist can break through,
Distance means very little in this matter as
I know for fact that mirrors can shatter.

I am sometimes sad because
Surely churches should be
Shelters for the homeless?
Or because pockets jingle
And we are deaf to the jolly clatter
Whilst others hear the call of god.
Or because people with
Paper cuts leak bitterness
And not human empathy
And we leak and leak and
No one cleans up after us,
Until jokers mutter 'revolution'
And the day dreams of a burning city
Are believable when the cries for
'IhavenohomeIhavenomoney
nofoodnoshelterIhavenothing'
Are from muted peripheral spectres
In our Utopia.
Mostly I am sad because my words
Are void by lacking action but
My mind refuses to stop spilling out poetic waste.

Today you gave me a fake flower and
Most likely a lie but the flower is on my wall
Shiny yellow thing in foil bright like my eyes, you said.
I hope our exchange gave you hope.

common people
every man and every woman
we all share the same heartbeats
we all share the same whispers into different worlds
we all share held hands on coloured poles that keep us steady on our little journeys
we all share everything walking paths on circular buses
                                        steps followed on and off
                                        the need to stay upright
we all are beautiful because our rhythms are the same just in different places

There was no noise,
When I saw you but
Loud scrapes of wheels
Some chattering, ignored
And I like it. Being
Space Cadet
'in my own little world'
I like it it is mine and I like it
But people like you break it,
Popping my sensory little bubble.
I want your blood to deafen me
Not the waves of water but
Your pulse.
Nothing from my own world now
It's washing down the plug hole.

How many times does the world end
In just one day? Think on it and delve
Only then, it seems, we can see;
Locked hands unlocked,
Precious footsteps retreating,
Weathered toys lost to cities,
Answers answered with a shaken head,
Prices raised, expectations lowered.
Dropped bombs on the little people,
We all have our apocalypse
But then red lips like flags announce
The little twinkling lights through your smile.

Next day there's no gaze, -----.
We never met except our irises
I caught like butterflies in some
Cosmic net of sorts. Watchers.
That bus stop holds something
Now you might not even know
It holds Momentary weight.
Maybe the road crushed under
The weight of locked windows.
Stained glass cracks though,
you and I are ----- so here's
A 'nice to have seen you so
Many times' I hope you -----.

This house we share is a house of howls
Listen. Hidden in locked rooms and
On shared beds our breathless laments
Leak out like slowly drained bottles
Our breath taken by our shared mentality
And sole calls for you. We are wolves.
We are wolves and we prowl sound
Crouched, willing prey awaiting never near.
Crown us with calls we are prey only
To the lack. We are not the only pack.

'A howl heard once lost
Amid life's wanting
Aching.
Pitiful urgent need for more
And yet again a howl heard to
Me vibrate my very being and
I for you cry back.
Allow again your soul, if let
me, swallow unknown,
For we, to be, eternally.'

There's no such thing as incognito
(I + Outside = Eyes) when
Beetles stall with headlights like lamps
And street-bustles are littered with head-lights.
(colours x two = terror)
Current thoughts buzz hidden by swarms
Of awkward car crashes on side roads.
(specimen + street = analysed 'I')
Skin stretches tight dried out under
X rays and equations.
(expressions as such hit like irony
a certain lens is needed = answers)
my answer is not incognito.

I see my bed as a landscape;
There are dips like valleys and
Hopeful mountains just begging for
The bird's eye view.
But I get to see it properly,
Burrowing under and waving at giants,
They live there under the natural formations
Of empty gaps, the hollows under hills,
bigger than those spaces
Between stars and time and
Smaller than those between a child's teeth.
They pinch and bite.
If I wait long enough
The open maw of the open world
swallows down my closing thoughts,
My head thumps pillowed lips
And sleep chews me up and spits
Into the morning, so I groan and clutch
At hidden things in dotted gaps, holding on.
I have ran out of toothpaste.

there are interludes in life like this,
smoke in the air, catlike on a breeze.
I'd say it's oppressive like snakes
around my neck but that would be a lie
my flesh betrays with fleeting feelings
of old fingers and the quiet burn is the
same sound as ancient echoes and
silent whispers shatter the shut up
windows.

Is a happy accident predictable?
Could I prophecy that red is romance
And that we'll meet in the Tunnel-of-Love
That is part of London's skeleton?
Will the Central Line tie us up,
When happiness is accidental,
Like a red ribbon following 'destiny'?
Am I able to sit on full buses
Without a new fated friend sitting
On that one empty seat?
Dearest Who-Knows-Who
Will I trip and drown you in tea
And stain your ears with words;
Will it be the start of a beautiful
Work-but-never-social relationship?
Can I foresee the strike of chance that
Has two hands reaching for the same
Bottle of milk only to then be locked
Into a battle of politeness with my
Defeat being an exchange of dairy for
Kind ears? Or is our shared liquid desire
Made by a patient and the soon to be
Doctor in, say, seven accidents time?
Perhaps a publisher engages in this war
Of intrinsic social conduct, perhaps my poetry
Is destined for pages because of this bottle,
Perhaps I become a helping hand.
Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

Not all of this is an exercise in futility;
I look out from my window and see a city
Filled with cracked pavements or missed trains
Or shared taxis or dropped books or...or....
Or, perhaps, that ever so unpredictable,
Wonderful, accidental serendipity.

The full stops are red
Across your shoulders;
Each a curtain dropped
Like funeral shrouds
On undisclosed moments.

I did not see the play
(I never knew it was on)
But I saw the dropped drapes
And the cracks of light in between.

By all means, Mr. Man,
Wear your paper suits.
You have corrupted a
Face the notes are black.
I go for the symbolic,
It is my language;
Like a chirping bird
We may be sparrows to
Your sky scraping hawk
But we have a mountain
Perch with collective shrieks.
And you, Mr. Man, you
Have a nest of money
In your concrete churches
Where you are comfortable.
So relax, Mr Man, you
Still have your briefcase shields.
But one day your paper suits
Will be our kindling.

If I was writing from the face of a clock
I would have to inform you of this:
(beware asking such)
Each tick is money, curled
And sounds heard we all know
But pretend otherwise.
I suggest, dear nobody,
You ask someone else
For my times

tap me and listen for the echo.
a jostled shoulder before this,
did you hear the big bang?
I don't suppose in the grand design
that it was as big as the first,
but it deafened my insides.
if you listen hard
(and here I am a coward,
earplugs like shields)
can you hear?
my arteries are a web of whispers.
please try to keep the noise down.

You could ask me but
I would not know;
Whether it is a resting dragon
On top of a trove of treasure or
A curled up cat on a carpet.
You could ask me and
I would tell you;
Both are calm and certainty
Is in the storm.

All the day has happened
And it is always 'goodbye'.
There are salmon swimming
In the sky, again.
I'd go fishing,
If you were here, but
I'm slinging a lonely camera flash
Into the ocean still,
Just waiting for you to bite.

I wish to scale the column
Of your neck, a mountain
To climb, enamel marks following.
I'd place a flag with fevered lips
And jump

Down, a soaring rush,
Descent into that hollow pool
Of heated skin, and swim
In hazy seas with sails
Caught on fervent breath;

Floating, who knows how,
On shared clouds;
(later)
A memory foam kiss like
The parted lips of dawn

Hollow footsteps echo
In blue-vein corridors.
My blood is ink and,
With each new step,
It spills and leaves
A trail of droplet words

Uniform: Artificial Joy; to be worn intermittently
                 (Side Effects: reversible)
Weaponry: I say irony it is expected
                    (Actuality: it is our worse defense)
Why: I want to ask for a creed but
          They say 'cliché' yet I think.
          I think we all must think the same
          If so, the war should really be over and

          I'm writing time from the battlefield.