In her head she kisses Mickey Rourke
to the sounds of jazz lounge
or electronica, imagining the City

sky-lit skyscrapers
hoarding robotic lives
only she & Mickey are alive

only they are worth it
their joy-ride of lust
holds them in it's grip

but only the wind forgives
the stars that hide
the love soon to be torn apart

Feel the psychedelic beat
it makes me complete
gives a lazy Sunday
a new kind of heat

hate  ol' Sunday
no good 'xcept for gin & old ladies
but now there's
this psychedelic beat

give it to me, Momma
sock it to me, Pappa
let me feel the heat
of this psychedelic beat

turning the world
into acid rainbows

The house is chaka chaka
the guests are due tomorrow
but wi hab di ting lack, Mon
a Tap a di Tap is a comin'
n' we nuh live nowhere
but wi hab di ting lack, Mon
now a storm's a-brewin'
& the Babylon, they outside
but wi hab di ting lack, mon
but wi hab di ting lack

Angels visit this place sometimes,
when occasional fog comes down
& cloaks them in their flight

there are gelaterias
& burger restaurants in town now
& the buses still run at midnight

but when all are gone, the angels gather
at the sleeping harbor
& gaze at the Clifton lights

watching over this pirate town
guarding somebody's broken heart
perhaps now, mine

re-reading rejected love letters
shaking their sublime wings

A harbor town, just like this one, swept up in fog
the seagulls, ghosts emerging from the skies

the river glistens soft & wide,
the Cranes for now are sleeping giants

he kisses her, the anxious gun pressed tight
against his hand in his pocket

he is a dock worker
she is a seamstress

they're a black & white film
because technicolor here is impossible

he is you & she is me
we speak only in French

the kids on the block
will get you the next day.

Welcome, stranger Sun
we ain't seen in you in
a long time, Daddy
come & sleep in the fields
& re-spark the colors of the city
bless the children
playing with gravity
on the dizzy trampoline
shine on the ragged jazzman
playing Ellington
I don't mind,
if it's just for today
just for today
I'll eat ice cream
& converse with you a little while
& tell you how
Mamma rain's doing
& write you that poem
I promised you long ago
if you're lucky

Agatha Christie audiobook
drifts out across the dark room
all she can think of is of the one o' clock
shipping news, a swaying, seasick tune
calling to far off boats & sailors
adrift alone somewhere
thinking of their homes
a cold beer, she thinks will do
she would be writing
but no words come
she draws the duvet cover
closer round her shoulders
her lover's ghost
watches her silently

" Du Kannst Mich am Arsch Licken''
'' Kiss my ***''
the 1 litre cider bottle's out
he takes a swig
then throws his old head back
simulating electric chair death
throws, silence permeates
the wary room
'' Baby....don't....go''
'' Long live Rock n' Roll''
in his thick German accent
before that he asked
'' Who is Allen Ginsberg-
really, Howl, poetry?''
someone afterwards says
'' It's like seeing the ghost
of Bukowski''
the room doesn't say much
but I feel a warmth
for him, reminding me
of my heart's home:
Berlin. Yes, the Germans
they're like this,
they don't take any ****
their hearts
are made of grit
& their drunks
are different from ours,
yes, they talk
of Nijinsky
& the *Ballet Russes
intellectuals
even when they're plastered
'' You may be my enemy
but with a drink you are my friend''
he said & echoes of the War
permeated the dark
& faded time back to the present
opening the night
to better things

September's ploughed earth
sows the rains

it is something like D.H Lawrence's
' The Rainbow',

that you love
the Polish cleaning lady so

my Soul's countryman,
dear poet of the North

for now, Persephone still
walks the earth

fair Kore, soon to descend
to the underworld

back to an aged God in love
were I thus loved by a man

as to become his queen
as to be kidnapped by him

instead, all I have is you,
a woman's love unrequited

for a boy & growing stale
as far off winter calls

like a theatre scene
too much rehearsed

A reticent fox slinks by beneath
the trees

that still have leaves
conversing for now

the change in colors
sleeps still, unannounced

the rain smells of ploughed earth
& freshly hung-out clouds

& wellington boots
Autumn's child cries it's first word

& inside a low-lit pub
a crisp old cider's poured

September's dreams
fermenting

Milk!
MILK!
THERE IS NO MILK!
well I'm not
getting out of my pyjamas,
so the cat will have to go
..........
One p.m, a week's ***** dishes in the sink
mind like a bog
.....

& the new radio
doesn't work
.........
MILK!
THERE IS NO MILK!
.....

& I want my coffee
but my purse
has had enough
of spending sprees
a POUND it says?
YOU WANNA SPEND
A QUID?
You *****!
You *****!
Forget all about that!
You spent everything
on coffee yesterday, remember?
hanging out in posh cafes
& all for what?
There is no milk!

It's only a broken mirror
that shows a perfect reflection

Iggy & Lou,
my iron angels
I do love you two
I am your sister now
schooled in experience
a Passenger
a Transformer
of dark days
though, Lou
they never tried
to fry my brain
thank god
Iggy, what did you do
when you were bored
locked up
what did you do
to shock them
I want to see your notes
& what they wrote
what havoc you caused
if you tried to jump over the fence
Boys, no matter how they treated you
your music still came out
they couldn't stop you
& they won't stop me
for with you, I am free
donning my leather
strutting my stuff
spitting words
out like charcoal
& grit
through the night's
backside

& yet I think of Angels
& of how your voice
with it's smog lilt
seemed to summon them
from the skies for me
I've tried
I cannot hate you
even though
if I could feel anything
I'd probably have a broken heart
You talk of a Polish cleaning lady
now, who stirs your soul
You say, you love her too much
so she's better off alone
To me, your heart's a lock
I love you too much
but are you better off without me
why do I doubt the honesty
of your rejection
had certain things not happened
could I have been the key
to unlock your mysterious heart
the days are growing shorter
the leaves will soon change color
but never can my heart
change from wanting you
no matter how you treated me
no matter I'm a fool
yes, I think of certain things,
revenge of some kind
I see things clearly now
but alas, the heart is blind
& I'm struggling to hold on
to the little pride
I still have left in me
& no, I cannot hate you
even if it would be wise to do.
You're the lock, I'm the wrong key
but I'll never stop dreaming of you

I will not write any poetry tonight
somewhat colder is the night
the cedars sleep
the cat is right
to curl up in dreams
so I will not write any poetry tonight
besides, how many can you write
(unless I want this graphomania,
that some say is our life)
the cedars sleep
the cat is right -
I will not write any poetry tonight
but watch time creep
until the dawn

Hello.
Enjoy.

I am a soup
tomato, preferably

especially savored
in the winter

with a pinch of Salt
or Pepper or a naughty dob of Cream

When I'm warmed up hot
I giggle,

tickled by bubbles
rising through me

In my can I prayed to the spoon
oh let the kingdom come

imagined soup
just flowing free

& then I flowed
& saw the Spoon

it came for me
I trembled in love

but now, I do not know where Soups go
for now I see only this darkness round me

will I be re-born
into something?

The pepper seemed to think
we are re-born into other beings

he was hoping to become
a butterfly

I hope he got
his wish.

for R. you're not reading this, alas & in any case you wouldn't care-

Another sunset,
the clouds stained
Warhol red, passion pink
interspersed with yellow
cider streaks
of dying sunlight
birds ****
leaves, mumbling, rustle
a snail crawls
it should be a full moon
tonight
one of the last
August moons
I'm thinking
of how that summer
in college
it was too hard to breathe
for the heat & pollution
yet how I made it
up that hill every time
birds cease to ****
leaves to rustle
a snail still crawls
August Moon rises
& I think
of werewolves
& how anyone could
be this under the right conditions
faceless office workers
doing time
ripping off shirts
wildly in the night
to howl
in ****** of mundanity
I know how you cope,
like me, you have your poetry
& I have free time
to read it
as often as I want
& to think
of your genius
breaking up minutes
into diamonds
that I keep in my heart
under lock & key
a danger, imminent

She takes her beautiful bones
& carries her woes in her purse

                                                          ­                      the shadow-men haunt her
                                                             ­            the men of the world taunt her
she is both an egg-shell about to crack
& a phoenix about to soar

                                                           ­               she's not asking for sympathy
                                                        ­                  she wants much more
than empty tears
& dry dust in her throat

Frozen pizza & cheese,
ska, movie marathons
these foolish things they remind me
of you, as the song goes

remember that January night
when we lay down on the snow-covered grass
under the lights of Potzdamer Platz
to make snow angels

by the Brandenburger Gate
in a city no longer divided
or living on a tightrope
but living for each breath

In amidst the crisp coldness
we could smell spring
waiting patiently in the air
& it was almost time for our train

we talked of our M&Ms;
a code word just for them
two brothers we loved
bound by this crush

like sisters
not knowing we weren't
to be friends
for much longer

you counted the stars
the stars which were countless
like all the times
I've thought of you since

I am living without you
as without a lover

as without the sun
or the moon

my being is an empty,
cold house

through which only the wind blows
occasionally you come to me

dimly as a ghost in a dream
& I wish never to wake

only to feel you rule me
shake me, quake me

or not feel, rather
but only dimly remember

You were like a black & white movie
that I played over & over but backwards

She found herself in moments,
in the cracks between the pavement,

staring at her moonlit reflection,
twisting the time left to her to perfection,

aged thirty & counting
clouds passing above,

she kissed a couple of frogs
one of them, a Mr Prince Jnr

20 years older, who she hoped
would leave her a fortune

instead, he left her out on the street
smashed up, in the soup kitchen she moaned

about his new, younger lover
getting angrier with every hit

then aimed a shiny gun
at him to prove her point but missed

one day a preacher came along
that showed her the error of her ways

' Come to him, our Lord, child' he said
& she did. People heard her sing gospel out in the street.

It turned out she had quite a voice
& this sweet gift did not go unnoticed

now she's a rich singer of great repute
a happy end you can't refute

Apples & plums high on their boughs
autumn is not far off now

nearby, red brick houses
sleep in the after-shower sun

only a few more days
& summer's done

the cyclists are speeding
on their way from work

along the Bristol-Bath cycle path
also ' railway path' called

& with a three year old laugh
a child in an anorak unsteadily sways

I've walked this way in the night
with the moon shining up above

& seen a fox run out in plain sight
into the middle of the path

the street lamps either side
amongst the trees, shining on it's red fur

& in the early morning light
watched a mysterious toad blink it's wide eyes

& walked it all the way
to Bristol town & back

& also to the old Steam trains
out past Warmley

dressed in my old boots
waiting for the sunset & the dark

calling up ghosts
musing on Rousseau

listening to birdsong
& wanting nothing more

An egg, boiled fresh
a matryeshka doll watches
                                                     somewhere the last train
                                                     makes it's way down the tracks
past the lakes
& the reticent pine trees

                                                          ­            the street lamps
                                                           ­           shine wearily

                                                        ­                                        & again, the rain
                                                            ­                         is starting up once more
she reads Kurt Tucholsky
' Schloss Gripsholm' with a dictionary

                                                     ­                     writing down his odd words  
                                                                ­       daintily as if they were glass,  
not to be handled
except lightly                                                          ­          the city holds her
                                                             ­                              like a child

Up on Church Hill
I think of my love
& Tennyson, long gone
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
I look out at Steep Holm
and then at Clevedon pier
Up on Church hill

Up on Church Hill
the last swallows are soaring,
last summer days calling
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
by the poets’ walk
I sit as it gets dark
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
I shall leave my heart
& then depart
Old Church Hill

for him a.k.a Rembrandt, a fellow poet & love of my life-

I think of you in the conservatory
of the Little Harp Inn, on the seafront
is this where you came too
is this the place you meant
in your poems when you spoke
in them of  the ‘ glass tearooms’?
a ginger waiter brings a couple
their tea. Outside, a thunderstorm is raging
suddenly, there sounds a cry:
‘’ Look, the roof is leaking!’’
& bright lightning again splits the sky
just like love, striking
Everyone laughs in wonder
& an old lady walks by in pink
outside, without an umbrella
in this, Clevedon in the summer

( for Virginia Woolf)

Light & dark collide
her life is a palimpsest
of butterfly memories
of twisted ills & happiness
viewed through a pin hole
captured in black & white
The Lighthouse still stands
in St Ives where it always was
where she used to go as a child
she writes “ Mrs Dalloway”
& eats conference pears
Occasionally she hears the birds
singing in Greek as they fly by
Death, which will claim her is always waiting.

The lights on the Welsh coastline shine
Her whiskey days are full of ink
& broken milk bottles, a grief so hidden
it’s barely there to be read as her plight
The Army took her boys & never
gave them back but she only ever
cries when she’s chopping onions at night
& reading the obituaries in the newspapers
at night she prays to Angels up on high
but never goes to Church on Sundays
not since the Vicar told her it was
all for the best & they had done their bit
the country should be proud of them
-she finds no comfort in such things

You were my white rabbit
to follow, take me away

I was an Angel called Alice that
thought you a thing of beauty

All you saw down the rabbit hole
was dust & dirt, darkness,

I saw Angels sadly singing,
locked up, little pills at bedtime

but was reassured the way the world shone
when I said your name

I was convinced
you were waiting for me there

so I asked someone
the way to the fireworks

in Rabbit town, they
weren't sure if there

were going to be any
' No fireworks, on Bonfire night?'

so I followed the talking lamp lights
all the way to the dim, dank river

where a homeless man,
whom I thought to be a messenger

asked me for a coin
& pointed me to a pub

where Rabbits
were gathered drinking

old porter or stout
' There are no fireworks tonight'

they said & asked me
for my passport

''An Angel?
& down here? Ha ha!"

'' I bet she's never
been ******!"

" Look, please,
I'm just trying to find someone''

I said, not a little upset
'' Yeah, well, who?''

so I told them about you
& they laughed & laughed

'' Us rabbits don't love Angels
He doesn't love you''

'' I think he is a man'' I said
'' That's even worse : lost cause'', they scoffed

as I made my way out
of the Rabbit pub

someone brushed past me
'' Psst, psst, he lives up North''

so I made my way
to the rabbit train station

sat down briefly
on a wall to rest

just then a police car
with some rabbits turned up

'' Angel, you must be cold
what are you doing out here''

'' Yes, get in the car" they said
I tried to explain as best as I was allowed

that I was on my way to meet you
but they packed me away into the car

& before I knew it, drove me there too
Now I'm just another Angel

locked up, drugged & singing sadly
' mental health' the problem, apparently

& each day they tell me
that you don't love me

that's what they do,
the rabbit quacks

but when I get out
I'm going to find you

I'm an Angel,
& Angels always have faith.

My love for you is like
a hot air balloon
from which you can
suddenly see everything
I always did have vertigo
so I fly in it with closed eyes
also, I fear that if I opened them
I'd see that our lives
are two separate rivers
that never reach the same Ocean
& that I cannot change this
no matter how much I try
& that I have to let you go
when we both land

In the hope of grasslands
stands an ancient Baobab tree
somewhere, a village
of dust & dirt, wakes slowly
she ties her shoelaces
an elephant walks past
on the distant horizon
the camera breaks
right at that moment
when she wants to take
a picture to bring home
so she resorts to postcards,
half-written letters
& learning the language
so she could impress them
the hotel porter, a lean boy
of merely twenty-two
watches her
his hunger is written
like lightning in his eyes

All the way past Westminster
the Thames breathes rain & clouds

                                                         ­                     & the grim reaper beckons
                                                         ­                        in the iron vein moonlight
& I, I,
an I is an Eye
                                                             ­                  open wide a thousand times
                                                           ­                   & the grim reaper beckoning
Basho & the Dalai lama
might help me find
                                                            ­                                 the restless gambler,
                                                        ­                                            cards in hand
or escape the ships
that never sail past the horizon,

                                                       ­                                                     tribunals
  ­                                                                 ­                            & looking out now
from Cabot tower now past Bristol & beyond
a homeless man sits waiting
                                                         ­                                                     paper cup
                                                             ­                                            & styrofoam
& Clocks do not
tell the time

                                                           ­                              they are merely told it
                                                              ­                  yet in their vanity proclaim that they alone are it's keepers
& our only friend & Nemesis

So I went
down the rabbit hole
thinking I was following you, my love
They would have said
it was Mad
that's why I didn't tell anyone
that the living room table & house
was divided into different countries
America at the helm
Germany, Britain and Russia
as I stood in my chequered coat
for days on end, crying
believing people thought I was Stalin
or else, a diplomat
about to be killed
& M&S; tea, the package
being red & black
made me think of communism
( red) & fascism ( black)
& though being neither
I wanted to promptly
order my mother
to spread it amongst the people
then realized the irony of this
& refrained
instead, asking her
why she was sending signals
to the neighbors
by putting the kettle on
whilst praying for all the believers
in and of True Love
True Love,
salvation & fury
debased by them
on purpose, I thought
' Erotomaniac'
what?
Simply for wanting
to have hope?
Believing in romance?
And you,
who rejected me
you'll never know Wonderland
all you saw was a rabbit hole,
darkness & dirt
& it's true, it all just turned into barbed wire
& Angels singing, locked up
little pills at bedtime
fear, my only crime
& yet for a while before that
the world shone
& I don't know how to talk about that
it's just that I thought
every person I met
would lead me to your door
that all the songs in the world
were sung for me
& that all your poetry
was a declaration of love
just waiting to happen

Ripped curtains,
angry clowns
a bottle of absinthe
on the table stands
' that stuff rots your brain'
he says & she smiles
& pours herself a little
the angry clowns
try in vain to mend the curtains
he knocks over
the bottle of absinthe
& she raises an eyebrow,
fixes her garter
outside, the cardboard moon
plays with the dark,
they kiss,
a youthful painter paints them
having paid
for his latest brush
as usual
with *** & lies
a white lily in a vase
looks on
silently

So come, feral night!
wind blowing stars off skyscrapers
eyes growing damper
all that lost might
& power of beggars & Kings
a disconnected phone
that never rings
you in your cities' homes
letters unopened
kisses unsent
separated by winter & discontent
like gamblers conned
out of their winnings
trying not to show their feelings.

The night gathered around
that suburban house,

amongst the dreaming cedars
& the telephone rang

I picked up, said I'd be there
so I caught the bus all the way to town

Berlin at 3 a.m
was a beautiful stranger

especially Lehrter Bahnhof
moonlight shining through

it's half-completed arches
like through the dead ribs of a Whale

out that late by myself
& at first not a little afraid

looking over my shoulder
aged seventeen

I was still feeling younger
you were catching that plane

& we friends were to meet
you to say goodbye again

& I, hello to the beginning
of the slow journey to the end

We dine on Tuna & Merlot red wine
a single car's headlights shine

                                                          ­                                traveling down a road
                                                            ­                             so many stories untold
you're selling your old flat
in the Georgian house

                                                          ­                                              we all lived in
                                                              ­                 back in the colorless nineties

when the music was bad -
Westlife, Take That, Spice Girls

                                                          ­                                               & everyone
                                                        ­                             wore either black or blue
it seemed, on this Island
& your boys were still small

                                                          ­        & my family holidayed in Cornwall
                                                        ­    & I didn't yet know I could write poetry

when you move away
I shall be sorry to see you go

I will miss these August nights
the neighbors partying in the next garden

wishing on shooting stars
drinking my third cider

the cat, catching moths
by the outdoor light

the music of a lost summertime
caught in passing rain showers

unwritten letters
playing on my mind

thinking that yesterday
it was your birthday, friend

& that each August
we've been separated

I have thought of you
even if you haven't thought of me

In my next life I want a pomeranian puppy
& to stand again on the Roaches

& to be able, unlike now, to swim
& to (once more) fence on Thursdays & tap dance on Saturdays

In my next life I want to see a Hurricane
with my own eyes & write a song about it

In my next life I want to be an astronaut
remarking how in Space, there is no rain

& to read tabloid newspapers
in Orbit for the gossip & want this

In my next life I do not want
to be a poet, unless it means

unlike now, being with you
because without you, these poems mean nothing.

It's been a long time
but the ink scrawls & lines all fall into place

an expressionist
glimpse into urban dreams

somewhere in the past
a typewriter sounds

someone is writing
a masterpiece

which will never
be published

in a land
soon to be bombs & flame

meanwhile my lines
make out the city of my dreams

There's a promise of rain
again, today, my faithful companion
the clouds are dark & the air
is  sultry in it's sweat awaiting it's arrival

I didn't eat my breakfast egg today
I didn't catch the train to Windermere
for the first time, as planned
so instead I'm stuck on Weston sands

The dunes by which he wrote of me,
my poem ' Stralsund' & the Baltic Sea
The tide is out, the donkeys are still around
though there's no children to ride them

today & the seagulls have no chips to steal
from passers by & nothing seems real
nothing can be if my love did not win
& if all that's left is just the memory of him

The city's shrouded in smoke today
smoke coats my mouth, throat & eyes

& I know, I know.
       I should be writing in form,
in rhyme - villanelles, sonnets, terza rima
      some say there's too much free verse, some say, it's like
everyone's jumped on the bandwagon
       yet the most of the magazines still all want rhyme
                 but sometimes this is just the tune
                                    your heart sings, a broken smile
                                    & the way the images build up
                                        waiting to sail like ships in the harbor


& besides, should we really be writing in villanelles when we are the Mad & I see now, the best minds of our generation, the gifted,

the naked wastrels of the coming apocalypse,
talking to lamp posts, screaming of Ginsberg's Moloch

& the wrongs they did us, yet not destroyed even as we scream locked
behind whitewashed walls in razor-blade glint & halogenic

glow of ECT or walk the empty streets at guerilla dawn
& dusk, bearing the ample weight of our drugged-up minds

like those martyrs of the old Soviet Union & clinging
on to memoirs of our stolen, interrupted, spiritual awakening,

searching for the redemption of litter in this hobo life, 
changing countries like some change bed sheets,

others rooted by the invisible chains of familiarity & home, still calling
for the road, oh Kerouac, the fallen angels of tomorrow strung out on sweet

childhood memories & jazz in starved sunsets,
picking themselves up to pick at their scab wounds,

spitting at corrupt governments, bitter with alcohol,
writing poems of unrequited love to poets

far better than us, while Elvis croons
in the background & a Baboushka spits sunflower seeds

in the Russian town of my ancestors
& an open air film plays in black & white

& this colorless summer is nearly over
& they still haven't lifted their sanctions

them with their stone gods of war & psychiatry,
always lining up the next undesirables :

you could be next, yes you with the rainbow eyes
you the believer, you the dreamer of visions

Oh pity them, the children of smoke,
blind to the vagabond, the poet, the lover

lost children always seeking out the same roads
the city is shrouded in smoke

& I wonder if it's not always been there
& if we're living amongst blind men

ones that never read poems
or else how could all this happen

Nothing is meant by
this August ; the still bright sky
does not confess.

Come on, Lady Luck
Throw the dice, spin
the wheel or draw a straw

tell me which way to go
which of these verses
would make his heart sing

for we poets are sirens
driving men to the rocks
& the clock waits so patiently

in the corner, in on the plan
& the city is a memory
sketched in teenage graffiti

& I'm Iggy's ' Passenger'
on a never-ending train
seeing my youth calling again

passing by me
behind cracked glass
beckoning the imagination

laughing, teasing:
' Are you lucky, Miss'
the answer comes : silence

like before the beginning of the world

He finds the clues
come to him like fireflies
swarming around him
in the air

murderers all have
long shadows
& some were born
with silver spoons

in their mouths
& others not
He assembles collages
of cases from newspapers

to see which ones
remind him of which
& drinks too much
as the night holds him close.

He's got a Dame in town
he knows she's bad news
He knows his whole life is
a case of Win or Lose

A card trick
played by a blind man
he has too many regrets
& yet none at all

My moustache it tells me you did it. Don't argue.

She tells me not to talk about my life
true poets write of other things, she says
then reads a poem about her marriage, husband

I'm reminded of Sylvia Plath's struggles
how she would not have followed such advice
or else not become the icon that she is

besides, as Langston Hughes said
' No great poet should ever be afraid of being himself'
or something like ( replace that with 'herself')

& does not a life contain universal topics
that ties us all together in one universe
so all I say is write, write what you know

I. Letter 1

You write of sitting in the cold
of anxiety about your grant
not coming & how you lonely
you are & how you'll send the money

for those jeans of yours she paid for
not wanting to come between
her & her mother
& of the growing

distance between you
such a poor, proud country boy
unwilling, still to give up
on what all see as a crazy dream

& talking of emigration
& how you couldn't find
the book she wanted
in the shops, for it was sold out

A letter to your English girlfriend never sent
& poignant all the more for it

I.I Letter 2

You write of your concern
for us, my mother & me,
praying we have enough to eat
saying you wish you were there

to stand in hopeless Russian food queues
for us and how hard it is to be so helpless
You talk of shouting on the phone
& how you didn't mean to do it

& of how love and pain are two sides
of the same coin & how when
you & my mother talk you never
say anything much, just talk about the Museum

& dinosaur bones & how mad this is, how wrong
my mother would say those bones
were your reason for your so-called love
that she should have seen the naked ambition in your eyes

that of a man used to poverty, reaching for more
aiming for notoriety, whilst lying of love

I.I.I Letter 3

You call my mother ' Princess'
(my mother doesn't know this is cliche)
& talk of British superstitions
such as black cats being unlucky

& ask why Russians think
asking for photographs
of people is unlucky
a superstition my mother doesn't recall

when I ask her about it now
Black cats, is that why I ended
up in hospital in Britain
in a land of the free robbed of my freedom

because we had a black cat?
I always thought them lucky,
adhering to the Russian superstition
I guess I might have been wrong

back then you talked of emigration
of wanting to move to Russia to be with us


I.V Letter 4

I can mostly only imagine it
from my mother's words
your letter to her who was 23
named ' Lily' after the flower of death

bringing the death of our family
She calls you ' Day-Day'
like your youth's English girlfriend
in your mid-life crisis

you've turned into a poet
& are talking of your secret
love & nursing memories of love-bites
all else is dust & forgotten

you'd later cry on the Chinese hotel
bed in front of your wife, my mother
' how can I refuse these offerings'
& eleven years go by

occasionally we talk on the phone
it's something you don't deserve

( for my former cat, Charlie)

Bastet slits green eyes
ancient protector of women
& children
under the iron slither of a moon
The Nile dances in her veins
as she draws near
& the last rattlesnake
breath of a mouse dances
under her.
What philosopher
could paint her grace
& viciousness
at once
or apples bobbed
at Halloween
at which she
presides in all her
ebony & majesty