Under a blue blanket
I taste a breath
like sweet mandolins

rolling over
like some great green wave

out on the grounds
they plucked
plebby-skinned mandarins  

untouched by noon,
stepping gingerly
over the soft roots in the grove
with garbled syntax
worried about a tax on sin
plucking all the grays
from their skulls

untouched by night
plonked in a bed
never dreaming
but sometimes
wishing to be a bed,
or a wardrobe  
or an old chandelier
or dead.

Damp and brollieless
through an August rain,
until in a dim room,
I find you playing chess,
with the vigor of a fist-fight,
with a ***** in lo of a white pawn
and a bottle cap for a black knight -

Playing one of those
Chaplineque Men
who were not born
but one day
fell like a shadow
from the coin-chute of the pool table,
spilling out so stale
immaculate and unshaven
like any of those crumbling men,
who long ago left dreams
of living the life of a lotus eater,
to hark on,
                   prattle on,
                                     bore,
as if trying to empty
the contents of their brains
onto the floor,
or into you,
or into an ashtray -
You stare at the board
seems like months and months
as he relates in loosely related grunts
fished up from a sunless sea
speaks of how
the radios are smaller,
have clogged up the air
with more music than ever,
but with less notes than ever,
                 more talk, talk, talk,
with less...........pauses.........
no fingers to turn dials,
one now only need utter the words -

In the past, the future thrill us!

We should stop
meeting on rainy days
in dim rooms like this,
but on second thought,
sometimes,
all it does is rain like this.

Raincoats retrieved,
we left drunkly, drably
dressed in gray, and pale,
blending into clouds
like how Sunday stew
get in the air,
like how love get in your bones.

Remember love
when you lived by the river:
We'd return to remnants
resting on flattened grass,
abandoned fishing rods
with snarled reels,
chicken bones and orange peels.

We could stop
meeting on rainy days
and drink nettle tea
as if was absinthe,
drink nettle tea
and see if your lips sting me
as it were the logical last step of history.

Emerging like an aftertaste:
I only notice now
how sober a light
streams through
the curtains to
smear your cheek
In a milk white wash.

You far off there
wrapped in blankets
like a parcel,
limp limbs wrapped
around and about me,
the bent legs
and elbows jutting
in every direction.

A black trickle of hair
pillowclung,
Peppers its fragrance
like the soft tang
that gingerbread
imparts on the mouth.

We, wordless
and breathless,
were more than a little
ill suited to this,
like two sprawling dogs
on a hot trampoline.

In the city again
and it feels less novel than ever.

In the city again
waking up in my lovers bed,
she is still and soft like a loaf of bread.

In the city again
where people who are
busy, breathless and caffeinated
do not say hello.

In the city again
Where weeds wither on
a green roundabout,
where posh elongated vowels  
assault my ears
like a cold blue breeze.

In the city again
where political graffiti
and the same 3 tags
cover all like a blanket,
where yellow buses dissolve into the night.

In the city again
Where ancient corduroy clad men
stumble out of churches,
Where a secretary leaves a memo
for the manger,
where tinkers temp tourists
Onto a horsedrawncart.

In the city again
under the days dark weight again,
where we all attain
the usual filth under the fingernails.

In the city again
and it feels almost like a home.

We were soon to dislodge
ourselves from this
embarrassing embrace,
though longed to be
as permanent
as the trees:
Arcadian spectators
longing speechlessly to let
our discolored ancestors
live in a fortified mound of leaves.

A cigarette burning
at her elbow,
he proposed
“I will give you sponge cake and cider
in exchange for alcoholic lullabies.”

Too late for that now;
the stars pierced the pale vale
spread heavily
over an August night,

Far too late
She rose gauchely,
brushed sawdust from her cheeks
                        and wandered
out into the open,
into a reality that she knew then
would soon become
a stolid simple thing.

I admire the cluster
of photographs
hanging perfectly askew
as you carefully
put our preferred ingredients
between slabs of bread
that you place on plates
then place on the table.

Right now,
as the cat does a figure eight
around my legs
under the table,
you are one billion seconds old  
and have left the tea brewing for too long,
you say, assuaging:
'It takes on a slight bitter taste, but that's about it.'

Outside a country cottage,
where the road trails off like a song,
and the paint of its pebble-dash walls
play off the sky's complexion,
your indifferent eyes behold
the curdling clouds above
and scrutinize the strangers under them;
the expectations met like
a faulty firework firmly
mounted in the Earth.

In the garden stands
a Spaniard perplexed
by the novelty of fog
stranded on the hillside
and the absurdness of it
existing outside of a horror movie.
In the course of
a near imperceptible drizzle,
it seemed that the clouds
forgot how to float;
At other times, elsewhere, a refusal
to be so gentle,
to became fused with other things,
to be born from
the seepage of smoke
of more than a million chimneys,
some slink home through it
holding hand-cranked lamps,
others: smaller, older,
wrapped in white sheets,
cough up a whole city.

But we are not there,
we are outside this worn-out cottage,
where all the white cats have blue eyes,
where a bike rests and rusts on an oak tree,
where incredibility is murmured  
in hushed tones of veiled dialect,
where the conversation tapers off
like a half-learned hymn.

We amble on in.

Hard stomaching my insides
even before
these dull black undulations
of Guinness inside of me.

Sequestered in the echoes
of disembodied chatter,
the flagrant words
splutter to the floor;
whereas those same words were before
streamlined in marble aqueducts,
dispatched like love-songs to G-d;
meanwhile a door has opened.

I felt you take my temperature
in a fever-dream, I felt
even in dreams, your quart-clear hand
on a pale damp forehead;

The cold silver stethoscope
counting percussion in my chest,
with no whale-song nor rainfall,
no sound at all save for
the sirens and the foxbark.

Then after a while,
a night of mostly true silence
that left you with nothing to hear,
                 only the ****** functions:

Internal blood pulsations
rhythmically throbbing you find
some cells dying, others being born;
the anti-bodies of body,
the anti-thoughts of my mind.

She will make it better,
at least alleged to,
when, while her nocturnal
might she, with brown bandages
might have still acutely concealed
lips (now purple),
and the same eyes: Blue.
And I knew
that whenever the daylight lit,
didn't I slouch toward it
to be born?

Me, then, knowing no better,
to be warm,
and not yet cold,
not knowing of coldness
or anything at all,
any of it,
this 'this'.

When we shook off the mud,
and all in all in all, with
a wind westerly breaking
foreshadowing shatterings
of antarctic brass monkey *****.

Still some mutterings of mite,
practically blue and purple,
still some mutterings of 'might',
wherever first you felt a light go off
and slouched toward me,
with that stigmata your palm caught
in the crux of a rose-bush.

Wilting on a winter morning,
when foxholes sighed like
moon-creators that have
never know sunlight.

When all things thawed
and turned towards daylight
and shook away the frost;

Windblown brittle bird-nests quivering,
same wind that lashed your
goose-pimpled skin
beneath your raincoat,
your spine shivering,
beneath our blue creaked
lips twist two pairs
of gnashing white teeth
again,
This.

Wanting you mouth upon me
as if sprinkled in MSG,
I kept going back to it,
as if smothered in sugar,
tongue, licking it up quick,
like on a flickering candles wick,
I'll handle the blame,
carry the weight,
'till all worries drained away
like coffee granules strained
into the bottom
of your French press,
'I'll die in Paris' you say,
'in Montparnasse, maybe,
in November,
perhaps I'll haunt
that tiny old cinema
that only holds
12 creaking seats,
and stick the springs
into their backs.'

What is left of late?
Uttered the mouth out
to a sky, dull,
deadened with clouds,
snagged by cranes,
like scythes slicing heavenward;
49 crying horns sound.

What has happened?
Unhappily not happened?
What is left?
               Only the husk
and the head,
strange with sawdust,
and the eyes glace through glasses
as if through fog
at the rain,
    the rain,
    the rain,
the clogged drain.

'I'm told the dumb trace passes.'
said yourself, through the
pencil sketch of a smile.

With a passing glance of folly,
we, like gulls
mull over broken brollies.

Fluttering like bats abound,
each a failure to the
dampening shelter seekers,
their soul soaked,
their intentions drenched,
returning (rained on relentlessly)
     to their nest,
to dry,
to try and rest.

Alone now,
so could now,
the face felt
unsure whether
to freeze or melt.

Surveying the sky
whilst falling to the ground,
down I knelt.

It was when my waking eyes
shank into the dent in the bed
                                that I knew.

Torpid, little tense in the neck
the phone dead,
my hand snaking through
       a mesh of wires
to get to the muzzy
                  crux of it,
it was yourself
I turned up tangled in,
found ensnared, redrawn,
in throws, and throngs
            of a clonic cupidity.

That was us
who mangled in the night
like cobras with empty stomachs
Churning round
small nocturnal animals
         in the dark,
even in the dark,
I swore your skin was pellucid.

Sleepy-headed still,
I skedaddled outside
to swallow the rain,
and slumbery remember summer,
when I hopped as light
as bird from brier,
up rises my spirit,
down falls the foot
caked in muck,
schlepping slowly
through the mire.

You've slept in my bed
it seems, for as long
as memory serves,
just one of the many things on Earth
I've noticed and subsequently
           can't unnotice,
like the way in one hears a clock
tick.....tick.......tock......
only when one is listening.

I have noticed
that dent in my bed
grow into a dozing silhouette,
noticed the garden-gate
creek in F minor,
silver cobwebs in the loft,
               distant dogbarks
and a pomegranate stain
on your mother's blouse.

Once, so thickly laden
with expectancy,
                     now I know
that I am
                        no longer
                           Waiting.

Guarding the door,
like a bulbus Heimdall,
a blank pumpkin sits,
internally unhallowed,
without gashed gaping maw,
nor knife-notched nose,
nor eyeslits: triangular and odious.

Its inertia, serendipitous,
not for a moment did it greet
children asking
"Treat-or-Treat?!";
Never a one did it glow for.

Encased within, like
those stringy pumpkin guts,
is the puckish Pagan spirit,
craving bones ablaze in a fire;
Lost Loves manifested as moonlit
flaxen apparitions,
finding them Angelic
(yet unchanged),
easily as a ring
found in barmbrack.

A return to the turnip.

Ambling along ferns
rusted that same shade of pumpkin,
pondering the dead, and where
I long for them to reside now;
Rose, with her heaven,
Ryan, his Valhalla.

To each their Kingdom
of eternal inviolate peace.

Under a certain light,
with calm mollifying gleam,
at the touch of a hand
aphasia sets in quick,
sudden and sweet, and
submerged in a pool of milk,
I become a toy submarine.

When candles did die,
burnt to their wicks,
I hear you sing,
holding up half of my skies,
convulsive muscles flex,
as if a broken thing
was longing to be fixed.

Surly time stilled passed?
Though from its presence,
we were absentees,
too preoccupied with
our arms stretched outwards
weightless as bodies
on the Dead Sea.

A shaky hand that
possesses paper cuts
and letters of lovers' past
is bleeding brilliant
as a sunset.

Bespectacled milky eyes
twitch in and out
of consciousness
like a revolving door
with no exit.

Misshapen ballerina feet
seize up and cramp,
often their hue goes from
the colour of raw meat,
when until becoming still,
settle into blue.

Warmth goes,
the whole of the body
like a pound-shop doll
after too much play,
is reduced to
an artifact only to be
handled by white gloves,
in a dim room smelling faintly
of dust and mahogany.

In such rooms
often there are
recollections of
the whole of the body,
dancing dances
of rapture and grace
on the tips
of ballerina feet.

What name can I give you?
Surely there are none
and it is pointless to try,
like giving names to
celestial bodies,
or quantum particles.  

I thought I could capture it,
that the gaps would be filled in,
like space between
crocodile teeth
clasped on a zookeeper's hand.
I thought
If I could paint like Wyeth,
I'd have my Helga.

What name do I give you?

Maybe Odessa,
laughing on the crest of a wave,
dragged by purple currents,
among gulls on Earth,
and storms in the sea?

Perhaps Athena,
with gleaming eyes
and an owl in your hand?

Or Queen Maeve,
raw with beauty,
buried upright
facing your enemies?

Infeasible,
but it must be something,
for the shake of necessity,
So as to call out when
loitering on lake's edge,
or from across a room
when I see you there,
uncanny as my reflection
in a convex mirror.

I'll call it out.

It's not that I want to,
but that I do;
Just as frogs jump,
just as the tongue
pushes on the aching tooth,
I see Venice in
cheekbone crevices,
smell Vienna in a tangle of hair.

This tropism is
an elephant stomping
the marrow out of me,
and it's alright,
it feels good,
and Wisdom is her name.

I ate the whole world to find you.
Yesterday, and days before,
these are just bohemian villages to me,
where a boy flies a blue kite,
sees the sun on your back
and rainclouds in synecdoche.

Today, tomorrow,
but mostly today,
when the clogs blossom
yellow daffodils that
hide bare hairy heels,
bold and black
as Twiggy mascara.

A thousand phone calls later,
there won't be an answer.

For all our intermissions
were like cancer
ward smoke breaks.

Purple hands stained yellow,
with a dark blue mouth saying,

"Hold me, please just hold me".

Even if just for the warmth,
warmth which was
lacking here,
as cold as inside Russian tanks.

We hugged,
with all the surprise and violence
as an acid attack
on supermodels face,
we hugged.

Then after that,
tried as Latvian money,
half-alive in a ditch
pining over you,
the way a cat's tongue
pines for milk and breadcrumbs,
Tasted like salt, they did,
The tears that were shed,
Giving drinks to the mice.

The sun first rose
when I set sight on you,
the one who crushed up
all credence
with mortar and pestle,
pulverized until
finer than milky
Spanish sand
under the bare foot
of a fat British tourist,
gazing at half-buried
Camels mouthing
the words

"fumar mata."

In a desert,
I waited for dawn,
I danced for rain,
I thought of you,
and that somewhere
there was a little stray
dog lapping up puddle-water,
a Polish beer bottle pressed
to a drunkard's swollen lip,  
like a hose filling up
a plastic blue paddling pool,
while the children stood in the sun.

Bent over double,
my spine crinkling
and made from tinfoil.

Like an old concertina,
you wheeze from
the stress of it all,
so do I, quietly
to myself.

You're startled upon
an anthill's discovery,
as if it were found in
a lover's rumpled bed.

Beetles clamber away,
away from the sweat,
from the sighs
given freely away
to Mother Earth,
or anyone who'll listen.

An emerald frog
springs from
a verdant patch,
into a wet ditch.

Unkind to the body,
is this toil,
but the thoughts roam,
like a pig in muck,
laughing,
if it could.

White cotton flowers
coat the ground,
like peckish gulls
         on a landfill,
or a sailor's corpse.

After tracks are made,
here left for there,
blood trickles
down shins,
knee-deep
in brambles.

The nest of the lark,
the hive of honeybee,
the owl doesn't dare,
the sweet tooth,
nor bare hand,
doesn't dare.

I go on walking,
with Quasimodo slouch,
feeling the spring
of the cracked ground,
kinetic and tepid,
under my own weight.

I could sleep
easy and dreamless,
away in a damp ditch,
pillow of frogs,
(still soft emeralds)
blanket of muck,
stiffening under
the sun on high,
shimmering soft and
red as a Bolshevik.

Then,
in 2,000 years,
I'll join them,
those who I saw
in a museum once,
with skin like
bog oak,
jaws ajar,
with eyes of dust,
they couldn't
look away.

She’s filled with colours.
They emanate as if
from a beehive,
fill this head,
make smooth all edges,
and borderlines of mine.

An orange August sun at dawn,
Risies like a lid.    

Wake me, wake me,
show me now,
please,
show me
colours again.

Oh, to grow!
the quickest I did it
was in those
first few weeks,
away in the womb,
but
if I was to grow
as fast as I did then,
by 50,
I'd surpass
Mount Everest.

Warm daze, when you wore flowers in your hair,
sleepless nights with your shawl wrapped 'round us both,
under glowing moon, paradise was there,
the blue of the night from the undergrowth,
down a dark garden, so far from daylight,
sharing the night with the sounds from the wild,
if the howls frighten you, I'll grip you tight.
With black flowing hair, in perfect mess styled,
take me to the beach, bury me in sand,
don't you know you are my approaching tide?,
the broken finger on the other hand,
for you, all of my doors lay open wide,
to places unknown and all things unplanned,
we'll hide there in golden castles of sand.

All along the cove,
a rare pretty sight,
the beach, hot as a stove,
barely a breeze to fly a kite.

When strolling down the strand,
no matter how far I go,
always a few shoulder deep in sand,
thankful the tide is still low.

Inevitable company found here,
Whether wanted or not, fine,
men slugging warm beer,
women sipping white wine.

Lazy Sunday afternoon,
Here, no worry at all,
we leave having done so too soon,
all along the cove, just having a ball.

Candles.
Must get candles.
Did I get them before?
Sure where was I before?

I was nowhere.
Biting chunks out of the doors,
lumps out of the floor.
Try as I might,
I can't leave.

Now?

Not in this.
The snow's falling sideways.
The state of it,
all nimble and white.

A lot of tears last night;
and tonight?
No great difference,
but perhaps it could be worse?
Worse than before
I was nowhere.
Among the thorns,
incorporeal save for the
trampling anvil of brambles
rambling, rumbling,
pricking against the flesh,
the skin, in it's
folds and ridges,
veins and arteries
underneath and within,
without scandal,
I wriggle and wrangle
Against those thorns,
their tight strangle,
and this incongruous
state of affairs of mine,
for now.

Must get candles.

By fireplace,
growing colder,
the instinct coffee,
a soiled sorry bath,
had a foamy continent
he struggled to slurp down.

Shuffle down the hall,
shuffle off this mortal coil.

Trousers clung to the waist like
an autumn thing ready to die,
my mother about to cry,
clung to brittle hand and
brittle arm.

Her and I, in
parentheses
escorting
A coffin,
lungs lousy
with sawdust,
coughing up
black maladies in
silver spirals
to fade
In the air,
Always, and ever,
It seems,
The Christmas air.

Through the gloom,
The air's brisk bite
Shovelled through and
Down my throat.

As I stood with them,
But alone
Outside your window;
Inside,
Memory
Came back to a mind,
This mind,
Scatterbrained and
Singing lyrics we
Once bellowed to eachother.
You sing and laugh in there still.

The things done in that room which
I'll never set foot in again.

Catharsis and chocolate
Coat shingles of my mouths roof.
This is what happens
When you run out of nothing -
When only a Viking funeral pyar
Would do
For you,
All of you,
Even the parts you couldn't get back,
When you smoked a James Joyce,
While the nurse let you out
For a cigarette.

Girls in tears,
Boys choking on bones of regret.
We're just children
Wanting, teething, weeping;
With a few more grays,
A little less grace, and
Every heart swelling with love,
Bursting into song,
tears, flames.

In nights with no sleep,
Only conversation,
The morning was years away.

Thoughts about you,
songs about you,
These people about you,
no worries in this world
when they're about you,
nither do I,
I try,
I try not to try to try,
but you've settled down,
gotten comfortable
as if at home,
alone, dinner for one,
all up in my skeleton,
But did I made you up?
No -
you took me down
to the underlying
side of a
melting iceberg,
where the penguins sit upon it
as the sun beats away
like a burning want,
strange animalist desire -
There's no magnetic field on Mars,
There
I wouldn't be pulled
one way or the other way,
There we would
just drift, like
melting icebergs
along red sand,
along mountains
the height of Everest,
almost as high
As I hold
you in my mind,
My closed first,
An open mouth,
could wait,
but it's
adolescent
fantastic fanatic fantasy,
maybe once,
not now,
not later,
but after later
at least,
at last -
45 minute blissful stints
better
the days
after days
after days
of the dull,
and nights
underneath
nights
inside
nights
Of null.

The blood dripped like syrup from a Maple tree.
Your lips sourced the earth.
This was nothing new to me,
But you it must have been your Halley's Comet.

I could not see you, could only feel you breathe.
You wrapped around my fingers like a jelly ring.
On the dresser sat my eyes, sat my teeth,
It's such a shame this only happens once.

- Jamie F. Nugent

Take this safety pin of pleasure,
And ***** it under the skin,
Feel ugly bliss trickle down your spine,
And the breath of your conjoined twin.

Then chase it once more, twice more,
Like greyhounds legging after a rabbit,
Forever to be outside of an arms reach,
Downright devoid of all energy and wit.

- Jamie F Nugent

I met her first
in the afternoon,
in May,
When the streets
were crowed with people;
living their lives.
She stood leaning
on an old green postbox.
She was a friend of a friend.
She said she had seen
my face before somewhere,
I was not so sure, I undoubtedly
would have remembered hers.
Her face was like
an actress' from the '50's,
one that was usually
reserved in black and white or
preserved in monochrome,
Bette Davis style.
But nonetheless it
was there before me,
in youth and charm.
The way she spoke and
pronounced certain
words peculiarly,
she was very like
myself in that way.
Its been said,
that if you get everyone
on Earth to stand in a line,
one by one,
that you will never find
someone just like you.
But I think that
sometimes you
come close, and
I surmise that
I came pretty close
that day.
I wanted to tell her,
but did not;
Knowing how absurd
it would sound,
I grasped it inside.
She moved
when she spoke,
just a child would
be all jittery and
unable to stand
still after too many
sugary things.
Always, there was
that that hyper-activeness
running through
her body like
electricity.
But all the while,
her voice was silk.
She had my humor too,
anytime I made jokes,
she would laugh.
It was such a
brilliant laugh,
the kind that poured out
and poured
out in big bursts
and did not give a ****
who heard
or judged.
Even when she was
slightly smiling,
you could still
see her teeth,
perfect and white,
like a toothpaste
advertisement.
She was not afraid
to look anyway at all.
Her face was
naked without makeup,
she did not paint over
any blemish at all.
She knew that people
had their flaws,
and it was those people
who laid their
flaws bare to the world,
they were the ones
the brave ones.

- Jamie F. Nugent

After a while, all curious ears transfixed
On us, like rusty antennas tuned in to
The music pulled out by our hands, as if
Roots from the soil, the music that
Crawled from our lungs, like some small
Sea-creatures scuttling from under rocks.

They sang in our wake, feeding us a diet
Of Cork Dry, cheers and sponge-cake,
But then, and why, I do not know, but
The feminine insults thrown between punches,
The police arrived near 4am, we left at 5 past,
To upstairs, until all cooled off and over.

As the sleepless sun peaked in the window,
The guitars ceased to be strummed,
The bodhráns ceased to be thumped, and
Like vampyes, they hid from Sunday's sunlight,
Sleeping in careless places as I sipped on a
***** so I die a little more easily.

The morning poured me coffee and put it
In front of my heavy eyes. A breakfast plate and
A basket full of cold toast. We thankfully ate,
And talked about the healing properties of lizards,
The corruption of the Catholic Church and
Just what the Hell happened last night?

-Jamie F. Nugent

Love can be felt as
An open heart surgery
Done by ***** hands.

Love can be seen as
Torpedoes in a fish-tank,
Ready to explode.

Love can be thought as
A massacre on the soul,
Shot in slow-motion.


-Jamie F. Nugent

You wear shyness like a balaclava
At least we still see those eyes,
And all their infernal nirvana,
As they study the room clockwise.

Like a mental gymnasium,
You exercise my patience,
As I fill in the silence like
The staic, station to station.

Burning my fingers again,
It's just me and the ashtray,
Something of a Charlemagne,
Or least it's just feels that way.

A future full of plans defers
When you latch the door,
A completed mess stands
Disappointed in a downpour.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Take me where
The grass grows
Wild and old,
And wraps around
Our legs, our
Old grey towers,
Falling into grubby
Puddles -

Take me where
Beetle bites dance
On our skin,
Like little red
Flaming kisses,
And the bee stings
Taste like
Honey -

Take me where
Frogs crawl
Around our ankles
And slugs leave
Trials of slime
On our boots,
Like some sort of
Venetian Lagoon -

Take me where,
Our fingertips
Peel and bleed,
Like sap from
The Maple trees,
Swaying away
In the almighty
Breeze -

Take me there,
Take me in the
Mornings dawn, or
This red afternoon or
Blue evening, because
I might not
Want to be there
Tomorrow-


-Jamie F. Nugent

Sitting on the floor cross-legged,
Leaning against the radiator,
We looked at one another fervently
Through opposite ends of the telescope,
Are you seeing craters on the moon?
Or just the cracked pours of my skin?
When I took my turn I looked down,
Peering into your wishing-well eyes,
That glared through the gloom, like
A kerosene fed Victorian chandelier.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I wrote your name on steamed glass,
Condensation finger tips and a
Double glazed heart that drizzled -

I circumnavigate my room through
All the borrowed paraphernalia
Still holding your varnished aroma -

Your coffee hair,
Your coffee throat,
Under the Sun under another Sun-

Visions of the past and possible future,
Stored away in the attic of a nightmare,
Over the parlor chamber of discrepancy-

I will bite into you anytime you want,
Or even kiss half of your mouth; Subtle as
A China plate smashed to smithereens -

Others had me misshapen and crooked,
But you're the only thing that could
Contort me until I would snap and break.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Such a love, such a stranger is
A delusion sitting in the rocks,
Inside the water's waves,
A protruding razor-sharp
Mouth pierces the surface,
No other voice sings to me like this
Convincing doppelgänger
In tangled hair like a bird's nest -
It could not hurt that much,
The waters can't be that deep-
It is so easy to kiss lips
That are not that far away,
But In the end;
The animal dies
With fear in his eyes.

-Jamie F. Nugent

'One glass per person' said the garçon,
I already had more then one and
Didn't really care all too much about it.
But Dayna **** that rule and
Tossed it swiftly out the hotel window.

She started to take glass by bubbly glass,
When the server had his back turned,
There she was, a silent assassin
Gulping in clandestine mouthfuls
Of twos and ones, rarely threes.

Then and only then, when that failed,
Dayna flicked the switch on her
Light-bulb of charm and it shone,
Right into the servers eyes, it shone,
Just enough for a few more glasses.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Waiting on a friend, stuck in a meeting place -
Some people watch birds sitting in trees,
Other people watch other people existing,
I (like many others) prescribe to the latter,
All spying with little eyes wide open.

The day's sun bleeds through the grey sky,
Numbers taken notes and all minds worked out.
Studied and never they let the masks slip,
They never admit to it, and they are never hurried;
Outside of the florist that smalls of pollen and spring;

An elderly couple goes in, then, a few minutes later,
They returns with gardenias underarms, probably
For funeral for some acquaintance, family or friend,
It is not too hard to guess as much. I look on then at

Pudgy seventeen years olds addicted to coffee
Ambling by in bright outfits made for exercise;
Collecting dust like bowls of plastic carnations,
Otherwise smelling of sweat and cheap aftershave,
Just another day, just another flower-shop.


-Jamie F. Nugent

I went to her house last night,
It was a ornate little place,
With floors you want to
Walk barefoot upon.

Heavy stone walls,
Looming like doldrums,
Where I twisted to the moon,
And was teased by her blouse.

In the sitting room,
She drank *** and I gin,
Isn't it just like me
To be showing up like this?

-Jamie F. Nugent

Alexandra Road is found in the sea-side town of St. Ives, England. Russell Albright was found sitting on a bench on sunny Alexandra Road reading a 'Sunday Express' dated Sunday, 8th, July, 1962. Russell was a well-known Teddy Boy around the town, a cut-above all the others for miles around, always having the tallest creepers, the most flamboyant pompadour and the slickest suit. Role model Russell was epitomized by the young mollycoddle Teddy Boys and Girls and even the one his own age of 18.

Russel Albright sat alone smoking a Marlboro Red while reading about the 1962 French Grand Prix that was held at Rouen-Les-Essarts, but before finishing he was interrupted by the voice of Miles Welch, a boy two and a half years Russell's junior. 'Hey Russ, were you at the record shop lately?' asked Miles in a small, high voice. Miles looked somewhat in awe as Russell slowly lowered the newspaper as if it was a shield. 'Not since Tuesday' Russell replied coolly. 'Oh, well they just got in that new Bobby Vinton record' Miles said quickly, then saw the intensity in Russell's eyes. 'Not that *****, Welch' sighed Russell in near disgust. Miles' eyes opened wide and he stuttered out; 'They also have the new Francoise Hardy record, Russ'. Russell let out a faint glimmer of what could be called a smile. 'That's more like it, Welch, my son' he said, as if to repair the boy's feelings. Then Russell rummaged through his breast pocket and produced a Marlboro packet. 'Wanna a cigg?' he inquired. 'Yeah, sure, thanks Russ' answered a lit up Miles, popping the little white stick between his teeth, and sat down as Russell cupped his match-holding hands to light up the end. In a mushroom-cloud of smoke, Russell stood up, tall and skinny, and cocked his head in the direction of the record down the road, 'Shall we?' he asked Miles, in a false posh manner that made Miles smile. They walked to the shop.

The record shop was owned by Marshall Chapman, and it was always never empty, there was forever a bustle of teenagers in and out, buying the latest things that were in the charts. Marshall was in his mid-forties and somewhat of a gentle giant, he never really got into any rumbles, but this was most likely because of his great stature. He was always happy to see Russell in the shop, not just because kids would see him buying a certain things, and they'd fallow-suit, but the two were good mates. 'Alright, Russy boy? bellowed Marshall, upon seeing Russell enter the shop. 'Just dynamite, Marshall, and a little birdie told me about the new Francoise Hardy that you may have', Russell said Francoise Hardy in a French accent. Marshall put his massive hands into a drawer under the desk and fished out the record for Russell,'Oh, nothing but the finest for you'. Russell looked around the shop and was stunned in the headlights of a women standing at the other end, he tried to keep his legendary cool. 'I am a miracle worker expecting a miracle right now' Russell said to Marshall, looking at the cute blonde girl, and he walked over to her. She was tall, even without the heels. Marshall watched from a distanced as Russell stood over her, whispering sometime in her ear. The two then walked towards Marshall, who handed Russell the key to the backroom.

An apocalypse of agony approaches
Like a toxic hangover,
After a self-righteous drunk, with
Propaganda spiking our drinks,
A specter is haunting -

In the hearts of heartless capitals,
Our vampire-like Leaders proclaim
From their Parliament rooftops
'Invaders Must Die!' and
History repeats itself, again.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The trumpet on the kitchen table
Catches the sunlight and returns it;
Into the eyes, onto the skin,
Sweet and soundless.

There is cheap linoleum wallpaper
Trying its best to be fine stone,
It doesn't really look that bad;
When you're far enough away.

On the wall hangs a massive clock,
Ticking and toking as it does,
A few minutes too fast.

All along the counter,
There are sweet things half eaten,
And half-drank cups of tea (still warm).

In the press, the glasses are never used,
They taste too strong of dust and
The flavor will not wash away soon,
Although vain, the glasses still look nice.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Les weekend amoureux,
Ils ne parlaient jamais
Tout en sobriété,
Étrangers d'ici lundi.

Pas d'amour de lui
Il veut pas son amour ou son esprit
Tout son corps en état d'ivresse.

Solitaire dans ses bras
Elle maintient la mascarade
Elle n'a rien d'autre à faire.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Ro was one of
The prettiest girls
I have ever known,
Her smile was never faked,
Her eyes were rarely anger,
She exuded happiness -
She did not even care
About style or fashion,
She would wear whatever
Fell from her wardrobe first,
She did this unpretentiously,
Never 'trying' to seem nonchalant
As all her cloths were plain
Yet cool as vanilla,
But on the nights outs;
Ro looked like something else,
You should have seen her
With her glasses off and
Her, in her make-up and dress,
She was almost a different girl -
Ro baked cakes, but to say that
Would be an understatement,
They were not 'just' cakes,
They were flowers in pots,
Animals in spring, birds
And trees, and anything else
She could imagine - To me
Ro always seemed to be
More of an artist then a baker -
I hope that some day,
She'll open a little shop
That sells cakes decorated
By her kind hands,
Because I know that
That is Ro's own modest dream,
Because I know that
That would make Ro smile.

-Jamie F. Nugent

All I have to do is dream -
You sang in quivering vibrato ,
By the sparse light of a lamp
That shone phosphorescent
Onto your anatomy
All wrapped up loosely
In a black buttoned-up sweater,
Knee high socks and
Uncovered thighs,
Tender and shaking -
And if there is only -This-
Here, and now,
It is more then enough for me,
The fortress for two,
The cornerstone and
The dancer.

-Jamie F. Nugent

(I remember)

Your lips when red,
Your room and its mess,
Your shoulders hung dead,
Your birthday dress -

Our hands together,
Our sleepless nights,
Our plans together,
Our pointless fights.

-Jamie F. Nugent

We walked along the strand,
High up on the cliff,
We went on hand-in-hand,
Watching the swell foam drift -

The Atlantic kissed the horizon,
The way I kissed you on the coast ,
To words on benches we were drawn,
I felt sitting down there was some ghost-

Words written for our expecting eyes,
That told us that matter what we did or do
That everybody here sooner or later dies,
Just encase you had not already knew.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The tulips laid in a purple flower-***,
On the dresser top the way she laid
On velvet sheets of a big brass bed;
The radio-void was filled up gently
With classical music and static,
And her innocence showed
In the way she ****** on
A strawberry lollipop
Under velvet sheets
Of the brass bed.

-Jamie F. Nugent

We lifted the gates to move them
Over towards the hey-shed,
Spanning out our arms
As to balance the great weight,
Then we fixed them into place,
With twine and knots -
Sharpened a knife with a side-stone
To cut apart a hey-bail
Into more manageable parts      
Then we tossed in in to the pen,  
For nine Holstein calves -

-Jamie F. Nugent

She thought to herself,
"What if I am tired
Of living in a dream.
What would it be like
To wake up and
Everything stayed as it did seem."
She needed light
For that was the way she dealt,
Though truly she felt
That eyes look more beautiful
In the dark,
For then you can not see
How much they lack a spark.
The more of herself
This moment is taking,
Inside she is surely not making
Anything worth keeping,
Only a future that is breaking.
The thought of this
Always leads to her shaking.
Will they ever come back to this place?
The light shines now on a figure
She swore she could trace,
Which she knows will ruin her heart,
Yet she loves the way it makes it race -
How that beating-heart of hers
Rushed swift like some
Rachmaninoff Concerto,
How that mind of hers,
Waltzed around the room,
Not-knowing where to go,
Into those arms, and just
Linger there like an overnight
Stay at a luxury hotel,
And she will go and come,
Like waves on the naked shore,
Swelling toward tenderness,
The sun is forever orange there-
Now the figure is in focus,
Rushing her off her soles,
She never asked where -

- Lola Rose & Jamie F. Nugent