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A Palette of Sunrise

Bronze spears waltz with pure aubergine
amid cauliflower cumulus –
gold touch-paper.

Sugar sprinkled wash with
candy pink bubble-burst
stains church spire and oak.

Saturated in spongy tangerine
night-shapes meld into broken egg yolk
coffee spills through fields.

Foggy wool tufts
grasp mushy-pea hillocks,
sweat drops from tired shoots.

If I was a mender of souls
I would prescribe
five minutes, twice a day.
‘You’ll make it worse’

she said.  But now her eyes
were fixed to Matt Damon’s ****,
hands full of Malteser mess.

My chubby digits do my walking
a finger-tip rub round the rim
takes the itch away.

I must have got bitten round her mate
Skanky Tina’s.  More hoover – less cat.
X     STA    CY

Now I’ve caught the edge.
pull back the scab and
in the popcorn bag.

Blood.  Oh my God, blood.
It starts to well, then trickle
down my leg toward the sofa.

If   I   can     balance      right
kitchen towel   just    too     far
wait, the pizza plate.  Perfect.

Tissue soaked in tomato grease
fits the bill just right.
‘What the Hell are you up to?’
I lie and listen to her breathing
like the whisper of seduction.

The murmur of a promise
the sigh of a summer breeze.

The scrape of the chair
the roar of an engine.

The sand in my trainer
water gurgling through the pipes.

The turn of the wheel.
The meaning of my words.

Back to tranquillity
and she is once more

the wine in my glass
the cork in my bottle.

Marks to my Spencer
my chip ‘n’ pin.

The stone in my cherry
the warm breathe of the oven door.

Candyfloss at the fair
Blood in my veins.
Lying just under syrup-film surface
St Vitus’ dance, pushing against ductile bonds
back-flips and breaststroke.

I, with my rolled up Mirror, swatted
surprised eyes followed the arc and    plop!
That lemonade is useless now.

What did it think as it drew its last?
Enjoy the tang?  Panic?
Does it realise?

Will it feel the bubbles push past?
It could grab one, **** the air.
I might dip my finger, crush or flick.

Gran and Granddad chatter drowned,
roast lamb, pipe and sunshine.
I twist the glass to get a better view.

The twitch slower, body fizz-jiving
will it sink to the lemonade-bed,
limp and cheerless?


I could stop this, the thought pushed aside by fascination.
Minutes tick past, chimes cut with miscounted accuracy.
I realise the last witness feels sad.
My ear, still wet and ringing from beer-breath secrets
where I leaned to hear the tin-can submarine story -
then had to leave.  The constant tick inside my head

louder and louder since our call,
me: somewhere in the South Atlantic
you: in Milton Keynes.

Inside the black wells between the orange hiss
of sodium lights
my firework nerves crackle -

the splutter of a coffee machine
hides the arrival of the 10:43.
The scent of your lips deafen me.

Wind slices the platform like the shrill pain
of The Surgeon when he hacked at my toe-nail.
(It was one of those nights.)

Two express trains pass and we are caught in a vortex
of crisp packets and *** butts.
A tissue hat, green and damaged, floats onto the track.
Coffee mists the window as leaves dance,
blown by autumnal gusts;  summer is gone.
Your presence is in memories,
and life goes on regardless.
I yearn for the soft embrace
of a mother’s love.

You could not love,
not once in our twisted dance.
I am left with the harshest embrace,
the chance to redeem  gone.
I am a man regardless,
surrounded by my own constant memories.

I hide behind memories,
turn them into excuses against love.
My liberator slices through regardless
of my erratic dance.
Lessons learned are gone,
captured in love’s embrace.

I turn to a child’s embrace,
the birth of new memories.
All thought of you is gone
pushed out by innocent love,
learning a new dance
irrelevant of a past regardless.


I am in your shoes, your influence regardless.
A responsibility to embrace,
side stepping your dance
learning from my memories.
Bad lessons of love
Now gone.

The pain of passing has now gone,
despite all, I mourned regardless.
There should be a hole of missing love,
a divide I would happily embrace.
It should be filled with memories
of a family’s dance.

I am sorry for your loveless embrace.
Bitterness is gone, I am content regardless,
my memories lead me through this dance.
For two weeks, waiting.  Pacing.
Twitching with every ring,
the call home.

You are turning,
finding your way out.
The hospital.

Waiting.  Groans of pain. Impatience.
More striding across the room, nails bitten.
You arrive.

The midwife holds your unwrapped body, you are awake,
turning this way and that to see the world.
Our eyes meet.

You are in Mum’s arms.  Head turns.
You stare into my soul, flick the switch.
I am born.
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