I come from sunlight,
      The sweeping of leaves,
      South London streets,
      Lurburnum seeds;
      Hot semolina,
      A spoonful of jam,
      Hands full of gooseberries,
      That's who I am.

      I come from rose petals,
      The sound of the fairs,
      The smell of candyfloss
      Mist in the air;
      I come from warmth,
      My parents hands,
      Outings to parks,
      Both small and grand.

     I come from knowledge,
     True and false,
     From nursery rhymes,
     And stories and pictures of God;
     I come from gentleness,
     A quiet afternoon,
     From visions of loveliness,
     Sewn on a spool.

    I come from two worlds,
    With different ways,
    A threaded pearl necklace,
    And sensible soles
    A mother and father,
    I think I knew,
    I came and I wandered,
    I looked at the view.

       By Mary **

(exercise madness)

put him to death and
in less time than it takes to draw
one single breath
the history of man began,
that's modern history and
not Neanderthal stuff
although there's not nearly enough
known about them,

and we end up with **** stars
and rock stars and star wars
and more ****** who keep scores
and play out the old wars to settle
old scores.

I'm lost in the maze of a manuscript
tripped up by Tryptanol and
being killed slowly by Kryptonite,
you'd think Superman might have put
batteries in this cheap watch he gave
to me
nobody will save me and
I'll go to the grave
unnoticed.

Friday
as reminder
of how cruel the time.
(Invariability)
Of how intractable the wind and weather.
(Inevitability)

I cry the cry of the reformed mean spirited;
the once-unholy-then-unholy-again;
the backslid.
It's been so long since I've sinned,
come short of the glory,
come at all (costs)
It would feel good to make a fist again.

Please render me in subtle shades
when you paint me into your masterpiece;
barely discernable from the canvas.
A ghost in achromatic acrylics.

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

She has never built sandcastles.
She has never toed the surf along the Gulf of Mexico.
She's only ever known these mountains;
these cold, granite monuments to impassibility
that reduce the sky to slits,
somehow managing to make the heavens smaller.

Half closed eyelids with their own trap-door gravity.

Short lives last eternities too
and there is beauty to be had
- even here -
It's just that everyone should get to build sandcastles sometimes.

It was an arbitrary day
at the arboretum
the ferns were all wondering why
a rash of rogue rhododendrons
were roughing up the azaleas
while mighty magnolias stood meekly by

A patch of tiny cyclamen giggled girlishly
while witch hazels waved green wands
and the willows wrung their hands
and wept and wept
'cause they knew what was really going on

Icicles drip from the edges of your car, but we're drinking up fire within
I lay back, feeling the clouds swirl around on the inside of my head
I'm slow, I told you,
I can't move too quick - I might just create a hurricane
And white rain is slowly falling, blinding your windshield
and talkative strangers who might see me sip smoke from your lips
I was almost tempted to kiss you
But almost isn't close enough
Better get me home before I do
And before the scent of you melts into my jacket
Before my mother smells the fire on my tongue

Find it in the sound
of the crick of your wrist

the crinkle of an eyelid
drooping by the gravity of sleep

there is laughter
to be found burrowed
down the back of the sofa

but people who live
in static images alone

headaches dissolved
in purplish juice

it is so easy
to dance wickedly in the dark

look how it holds you

right through to the bones

Claws at the doors but he's missed it by a whisker
the tube scuttles down into the tunnel below
oh bother
tarnation
I'll have to wait at the station.

So
I eye up the opposition
who take up position
along the length of
the platform

it's a war where words are shot
'Mind the door'
'Mind the gap'
'Use all available space'
or
something like that and
what for?
can anyone tell me
why the five thirty three
is always late to arrive?

Wednesday can take
a running jump
'**** day?'
more like
push, shove and bump day
but
every day feels like
Wednesday.

and redhead just
purloined the seat,
beat me to it
by
another whisker

I must be slowing down.