Never did a rose
bloom so sweet

                                                          ­                                              all complete
                                                        ­            with mascara & tracksuit bottoms

                                                        ­                                    bubble-gum brains
                                                          ­                                   hooked to her ipod

' Whatever happened to the days
of vinyl players'

                                            sighs her grandmother
                                                   & pours her

                                                            ­                                  another cup of tea
                                                             ­                                        she sneers

& leaves
later she's chasing

                                              paper aeroplanes
                                              smoking hashish

                                                        ­                           & stinging the bad  boys
                                                       ­                                           with her thorns.

her scars are hidden
in plain sight of eternity

Everywhere she looked
they followed her

it was obvious from
all the tattoos

they had on their arms
if she passed the test

she'd be one of the chosen
or else drugged till death

true love, her cause
true love, her wealth

' Stop struggling & we'll let you go'
they said & she froze

unwilling though to lose
their cruel embrace

while they were watching her
nothing could go amiss

so she said
' this is not a hospital'

& wept
they just looked on

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.

German rye bread & Chinese green tea
each turn of the knife
each touch of the kettle
& you send signs to the neighbors
the heavens above
a tapestry of eyes
salt water & tears
& your knees shaking
in little earthquakes
Fly the flag higher
Britishness is an art
in Earl Grey & crumpets
& mad hatter days
boasting of kisses
in mad houses
kisses you've never had
or else someone you shagged
but once
senseless & beaming
letters to Keats
& always, always
maps of the Empire
some builder nostalgic
for old might & power
& ships on the Thames
like in the old paintings.

In this silence
blindness permeates
Leaves dance unnoticed, whirling
dodging death cars swirl
a child slips soundlessly
to the echo of nowhere
hands lose each other
seagulls do not fly needlessly
washing hangs still on a line
an old couple
small & slight
& bent double
feel their old way to one another
as if searching for gold

The forest never
asks where it is
it always knows the way
be like the forest

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

I've never writ
a Haiku before
how about this

Quiet, hallucinating Ombrophile seeks Pluviophobe
to convert to own religion
Must like ******* in the woods at night
& being happy to fight

angrily over nothing & to believe
in little green men
My personal hobbies include punting on the river
& singing ' Greensleeves'

Seeking: sad sofa fingers to caress me in the pine dark night spine of the city
I want you like a loud fishmonger in smoke filled rooms of silence
the train tracks of jealous stars hallucinating the whiskey sky in black & white mercy

P.S : Must love travel & alcoholism & hate punctuation

Hello, Midnight
with your ragged stars
hidden behind clouds

Hello, Midnight
a *****'s salute
to restless thoughts

Hello, Midnight
a girl flashing her skirt
in the red light district

Hello, Midnight
calling with ******* & ket
at people's doors

Hello, Midnight
guarding the silence
in the dim suburbs

Hello, Midnight
whispering poems
to writers & poets

My life has shrunk
to fit the skin
of this small town

to live inside
the microcosm
of it's streets

to tell it's sad tales
of love & loss
& bygone travels

to walk the ways
I've known
since childhood

even the guest
that came last night
is from the street

I lived on
when I went
to college

& who was
also labelled 'mad'
here by the docs

this is a town
like any town
that locks it's dreamers up

& spits them out
to live branded
& afraid of their own shadows

a town
I want to leave
a town that once I loved

-for my mother-

Some days I catch you sleeping
my legs are as long as yours now
Somewhere in the past, slipping
about, I'm still learning how
to speak. Even all these years on
I'm still searching for my voice
which you've always silenced
the May rain pours down outside
the days are long & ragged
some nights we see the Moon
& it sings it's serenade to us
In our old place we used to play
the piano in our living room
Moon River, Edvard Grieg
& buy fresh brötchen from the bakery
or walk beneath the ginko & linden trees
or talk for hours on the phone
The phone never rings any more
You buy yourself Comte cheese
a memory of bygone luxury
& we leave our garden door
open sometimes when we're in
& watch the slugs come in
& think of how things change.

.*brötchen - bread buns ( german)

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

We go to Ikea having taken
the road through the allotments
& the Park which dates back

to Victorian times.
Inside the store
we grab at rugs & bowls

lie on the beds
until someone frowns
at us & we leave to

sit in the restaurant
with Swedish apple cake
& coffee, reminiscing

of the road we used to take
on the M48 bus to the store
which was near Spandau

one of the earliest settlements of Berlin
where the first Slavs
settled & lived

& how we had
back then a family card
to give us free coffee


before it all fell apart

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.

Ask me about *****
at the Pitcher & Piano
a woman sits angular
snow swirls in her face
the Tundra, a riot, an Izba
or a Romanov's Faberge egg
Lean into this moment
the curve of it's being
like a sail into the wind
or the Bering Strait neatly
amongst Icebergs
Canada
Marylin
The Niagara Falls
a Geologist's contentment
a backpack & a tent
ink& a compass
Omai resplendent

* Izba - a country hut ( russian)
* Omai - Mai, the second pacific Islander to ever visit Britain in the late 1700ds who became popular in London's high society

The poet stirs the
rain drops, the sky bends and folds
an old cat stretches.

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

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

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

It's time to stop living like this
don't you know

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

We meet by the lockers
at break
I'm still amazed
that this school
has Cheerleaders
that basketball
not rounders & netball
is the sport played
that we study
the Cold War
' Of Mice & Men'
& the War in Vietnam
that we have 'Hitzenfrei' days
that our German teacher
always forgives our mistakes
that boys & girls
hang out together
that we put on musicals
I've never heard of
That we celebrate the fall of the Wall
that we take school trips
to Concentration Camps
that there's no uniform
that the teachers
rarely explain anything
that the word ' rubber'
doesn't mean ' eraser'
here but something else
that there are stereotypes
like 'nerd' & ' prom queen'
that we welcome grafitti
that we believe in Love
above any kind of Study
that we have the freedom
to pick & choose our failiures
without being sent
to the Principal's office
that we read Kerouac
Carl Sandburg & Ginsberg
that nearly everyone
has lived in at least
two or three
different countries
that we rarely fight
that my crush
plays trumpet
in a ska band
that we go
to the nearby Lakes
on weekends
& the English language cinema
on Tuesdays
that we celebrate Halloween
bit by bit I nearly forget
my All Girls school days
in soggy Britain
where I had no friends
where we sang hymns
every single morning
where we didn't practice
the Love we preached
where our future
was crumbling old Oxbridge
where we had a coat of arms
where we had houses
named after the merchant ships
of our Founder  from the 1600ds
where we didn't dream
of becoming Presidents
or Astronauts but Academics
forever lost in musty books
the flower of our youth, wasted


Hitzenfrei days were days in summer when we were let off school because it was too hot.
Wall - Berlin Wall

I summon you Kerouac
from your travels
your sad sofa days
show me the way
to the stars

I'll try to find you
amongst sweet wrappers
mold you into a triangle
we shall talk about what matters
how the universe is an egg & you
are the golden tipped needle
ready to split the egg
& how stars & birds will fly out
when you do bend
to such majesty, loud
& impeccably candid
& the neighbor will ask
with a knock, if anyone's in
& I shan't answer, bask
in the glory of silence,
guarding  the future

It's not what you said
it's what the rain meant
it's not what you did
it's how the stars didn't shine
when you left

Those afraid of someone's Darkness do not deserve their Light

& 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

Love is this...
.......
............
,,,,,
catkin feet rotating the underdressed night under a casino wheel of stars
..........or else a Tempest of Soul loud as a fishmonger
...............99p cola bottles & lonesome underdogs
.............that time you laughed on helium
... '**** me' neon signs in the street
...................sweet onion breath delirium
.................Millais's Ophelia all wasted & peeling from suburban billboards.
......................the time Virginia Woolf drowned & all the birds
forgot how to sing in Greek.
..............are we there yet
..............are we feeling the beat, beat, beat
..............of this raindrop
.........................do we need postage stamps.
................................why is your neighbor called Pete.
.........why did you kick a dog, Mamma.
............nothing is that which is understood
............why are you staring at this poem.

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

Like a Japanese
lucky nodding cat
she has a round face
& a tortoiseshell pattern
on her back
she sleeps beside me
talks in queer chatter
as if to ask me
what's the matter
why aren't you
playing
feeding
petting
no room for writing
or forgetting
my small friend

Buy fish! Fresh fish! Sir, you drive a hard bargain!

Look, if it helps
scrawl ‘ I love you’
all over the school toilets
Use braille
to defy the government
Angels aren’t made
In barracks
War is the price
we pay for ignorance
& the last time I checked
all the tickets
to that movie you wanted to see
were sold out
so lets *** text through the night
write our own apocalypse
fishing for compliments
strung out on neon lights
& don’t forget to smile
for the camera

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