there were tears,
many, they
flowed regularly
from
porcelain bowls
down drains
I'd hoped
would separate
the pain, cleanse
them, make them
water again,
free to roam
amongst
their own in salt
lake streams, banks
bursting at
the seams with
ripe green,
so different to here
where all they've
ever known was
fear, housed behind
eyes, between ears,
counting each
shallow breath
like they were
anticipating
their death.

the one you used to
say, the one that you
have started to
hear yourself now
say. The one you
hoped and prayed
would come and
wipe away the
rot you had become,
you know it’s
fading from view,
that day you knew
is hazy now, more
dream than real,
more someone
else eating a
delicious meal
while you
stand in the rain
watching through
the pain, a life
you’ll never claim.

last night the world slipped in
quietly through my window;
police sirens, car alarms,
church bells, rainstorms
collecting in a pool
on my bedroom floor,
coffee cups clinked and
kettles boiled,
babies were born and
ashes were thrown
and though I was tired
I stayed up all night listening;
the collective madness
of the world
lulled me back to sleep
and i woke with its bitter
sweet taste on my tongue;
craving more.

You & me
     are entwined,
       a vine wrapped
    around your
rib; my spine,
your death
   does not sever it,
       I feel the pull
          at night in my
       bed where I
hang off your
every word,
    so much I have
      learnt to dread
        the cursed
   dawn; the way
it silences your
tongue, but this
   light is not for
       long, I wait
          out the day
     to hear your
twilight song

We don't 
speak
& so our
unspoken
words
retreat,
hanging
in the
air like
dying birds
whose weak
cries go
unheard all
because we
were too
afraid to
share, to stare
into the
abyss within,
let its icy
depths swim
up our necks
& do as those
around us do;
speak, one
syllable first
then another,
hoping they
can handle our
verbs the
way we have
theirs

today you
pray that the air
will hold
your weight,
that with
every step
the fear will
dissipate &
you will
be as ubiquitous
as sky, just another
passer by
who can force the
head & heart
to mend & for
a time pretend.

Beneath these
steady eyes
is a
tsunami
biding it’s time
like water
collecting
against a dam
it seeks a town,
host to roam,
something to destroy
and own.
You sense it’s unsettled
stirring but place
it out of
reach, choose to
work, shop
drive, dream
but
dampness
remains in air,
in gaps between
words, in car parks when
engines are turned off.

The fire in
you has dulled,
look for a cause
and there it is
bullet wound
where
world has
gotten in.
it’s sin and stain
and pain.
there’s no
medicament
to take
you must wait, feel it’s
searing
heat and bitter cold,
it’s love and
anger,
young and old.
When it finally goes,
seal skin,
take care
not to let its
madness back in.

You pray for the
voice not to break,
for composure
even though the
pristine walls are
crumbling,
and you see
through facades
into broken hearts,
see sunny days fading
away into war,
into a torn city,
a story  
you don’t
see but drift
towards like a
current meeting  
a person you never
knew but are close
to through blood,
skin, through the
wish to start again.

this head
is a blur to
you, an opaque,
one way mirror
reflecting back
your own figure.
so don't try to
guess, or project
how i might
think or feel,
i am a closed
book, and unless
i open up, there's
a cavern that
exists,
a wide endless
pit, a sea, a land,
a piece of sky,
a world growing
beneath hazel
green eyes.

that list of things to do
hangs like a view filled
with heavy grey clouds  

you watch & wait for
the bird that will make
the first tear that will crack

open the light with its flight
& flood the gloom, restart a
body, factory, city, awaken

it from its misery & allow it to
see what could be

you let
the pills
flow
down
your neck
and wait.
wait for the life
to grow
and the
pain to
slow.
wait for
that feeling
when you
will know.
but certainty
is a story.
a distant
object
bobbing
across
the current.
and that
comfort
becomes an
absence
so deep it
resounds
like cymbals
in your
ears as you
sleep.

the mouths
move in a
synchronised
troop but
nobody is
moved
because
nobody
speaks.
it has always
been
this way
the same
play performed
day after day
& night
after night
to a room
in the dark
that can't
find the light.

bang against
the glass and break,
sun against skin
porous thin,
window pane.
we begin the same
no name, no shackled
weight, no net we
seek to escape,
each word yet
unlearnt hangs
unheard
in some unknown
air, waiting to be
plucked fresh
from the vine
imbibed like wine,
into a part of
the heart that learns
the word 'pain'
too often to remain
the same.

i'm trying to
rewind,
to start anew,
but every
word i use
is tied to a
particular
time, and i'm
stuck in that
line of history,
a never ending
story,  even
with a different pen,
crossing it out
and starting
again, i can't just
leave, maybe the
epiphany is that
we're always here,
that we grow up
in the same soil,
means we all
share in the
toil, that we create
it after all.

as a girl it didn't
occur
         that blossom
would fade
from pink cotton to
damp,
brown mulch,
to a congealed lump
my mother would
    painstakingly pull from
  full pockets at the
end of the day.
  its bloom consumed
by rain,
  and left to decay,  
its perfume a memory
that filled the air,
that with
   time you start to
        doubt was even there.

You never stopped
to think, you
thought you did
but it was a trick,
just genes and blood
kept you here
in this groove,
under this sky,
until it died.
We are in deep,
carved in bark,
running through history,
an anonymous story
with no one left to tell.
One day some may
find a way out, a
path that’s clear
that can bridge a
gap across skin
and stars, finally
tell us who we are.

some pains
carry a weight
so great that
they rake up
the land, wear
it down
like a war & if
your bones
could speak they
would creak like
a dog left out
in the cold,  
howling into
the wind
whilst everyone
else too
burdened
by their
own minds
doesn't hear the
cries, they are
a sound
in the background,
a white noise
we've learned to
avoid.

i found the
path and
wound
around
and the weight
that fixed
me, that
buried me
in its territory
felt less heavy,
but there really
is no
heavens door
i see no opening
to the place i
called before
just trees
and cars,
flaws on
top of flaws,
flowers in the
crevices of the
walls,
an order in
the chaos of
it all.

you are lost,
     as lost as the next in line
at the store.
you are trapped
      in thoughts of war, and
environmental horrors
that are to befall us all.
you want to run
       to the edge of the field,
and peel the skin from
the base of your heel & peer in,
to find the glitch,
     because something is amiss.
the arguments don't resolve,
they become a hum
   that course down walls
like rain. some of us pray,
turn to religion,
   others look to games &
science fiction, all to drown out
the thought that
  the balance of good and evil has
swung & we're
     not quite sure which side we're on.

It came in with a
stir and a spark
a flame
so close we were
forced to give
it a name, to
say it ten times
a day but
it didn’t stay
faded away
into dust,
remembered
now only in
books, replaced
by another fire
that burns harder
and higher.
We crouch, cuddle,
feed it’s form with
wood, bits of branch
and blood, then
watch it consume us.

it opens
like a wound
a torrent of
flumes and
the worries
subsume.
the day has
broken
with a thud
& every thing
we are, were, was,
momentarily
stops.
a
system as
tightly
bound as
ballet shoes
loosens
and we
become
the mist.
and when it sighs
a part of us dies,
the world's
engine ignites,
and those
familiar cogs begin
to grind
inside the
mind.

Our marks
are made over
years,
          in earth,
scattered seed
for birds,
their hunger fed
          but never
sated, they
wander as lost as
this rain running
down walls
        trying to get
back to  
source, and if we
found it would it
call us,
a wilderness
of thoughts,
          syllables
that tell us who
we are,
and yet there
are clues they are
lost too, a
         stutter, a
loss of air, a
shrinking
of places it is
safe to be, to
breathe,
to really see.

We walked
out into town,
red bricks merged into
brown green blurs of leaves,
hedges, trees moving with ease
as chatter that was
there before
fell silent.
now just one voice
at the fore,
above floods of rain, words forcing
their way, a heavy
ricochet back & forth
nearly sending you off
course & you
remember
how easy it was before,
when every word
was not ignored but
knocked you to
the floor, but as
words pour you hold,
watch every element
& substance, slower
now, as if your flesh
could stop it all,
as if it could raise the dead
if that deeper voice
stood up and said.

Seal them
Within an
Envelope &
Post to
somewhere
Remote,
then let the
Moss grow,
The fall leaves
Pour and the
Winter winds
Roar, and when
It’s safe
go & find
That space,
Go where
The sea is
Cold and
Revisit the
Old, the things
You told
Yourself where
Too hard and
Too dark,
That left an
Indelible
Mark within
The heart.
Open and
Expose like
A lost film,
A reel that
Reveals and
Finally heals.

prize open
the core and its
crisp and the
blood is rich
and you remember,
and sew yourself
back together.

sometimes you
forget that your
real, that you come
alive at the seams,

that your lungs
spread themselves
out like wings,
and take in the
wind that cradles
your frame as
you sit under
the tree in the
dancing rain,
reminding yourself
that you have a
name.

Another day
     to wonder
if vows
pledged
       last night
will
withstand the
  coming light,
if they will
sprout
limbs & rise
with me in
this
      reality or
if they
will fade,
     grow pale,
shrink back 
      into dark,
never to enter 
     this world
& make their
    mark

our
hearts in boxes
sealed shut to
keep out the
cold and dust,
to keep the stars at
bay we bolstered the
ports, pinned
ourselves in,
in the low valleys
of the hills, shielded
ourselves from the
glint of seeing
for miles, the universe &
the skies, everything we
are so clear & wise,
we fed ourselves lies
with newspapers,
our skin turned
wrinkled,
crinkled, the
ink stained our
teeth when we began
to speak.

on this night    
each star is      
listening to
me as if we      
are lovers
whispering
I love you
across        
continents,
reaching out
into oceans  
of sky & 
plucking each
other down,
like a fish    
caught on
a line;
recalling    
how it felt
to be held 
by an orb so    
warm you
forgot the cold     
black hole
of old

The willow hangs,
drapes the ground,
dances to a tune
unheard in the hum
of cars and lorries,
in the commotion of
people passing in a
hurry, barely noticing
anything more than the
phones tapped with
fingers & thumbs.
But I notice,
I see it all,
the dance on display,
the symbol of sanity
I need today.

we didn't
know we wrote
          our names
   into snow,
scrolled
our
         soul into
soil,
our toil invisible
on
         maps but
held
as heavy as
breath
         in cold air,
our love, death
birth, despair
        who we
were written
indelibly
into this
               earth

When you write please tell me about your eyes,
How they look in the clear night skies,
Or the hot sunny days.
Ask others what they see,
and then tell me,
Because I'm desperate to remember,
You see i'm forgetting the very thing,
that held me together.