Diagonal flowers
Leaning towards the suns warm hand
Making themselves ridiculous
For the sake of survival

I’d like a black poets’ suit
single breasted
poets’ uniform
a suit
& where would I acquire
the suit
I now desire?

Is there a specialist tailor
dressing
the bards of our nation
so similarly
selecting incorrectly
the size skilfully
artfully adding angst ridden
creases

Around the thighs
Shaping bulging pockets
As if a tome of verse
Had just been removed
and ensuring that the sleeves
Were roll-upable
For pub gigs

I’d like a poets suit
in black
well weathered from
earnest waiting
nay celebrating
rail sides in winter
& the last train home

I’d like some Doctor Martens
black & comfortable
for performing in
and neutral fashion wise
in the eyes
of those that look
beyond the book

And I’ll wear them
With my poets suit
My white(ish) shirt
& splendid spectacles
& not only
Will I look like a 'poet'
But I'll feel like one too

You keep changing
by inches
ageing by moments
gradually shuffling
towards the light
but I only notice
when we are apart
for a while
when the hours and minutes
can be collected up
into a bundle of time
that means something
in the grand scheme
of things

Can I ask;  

Does life trouble you?
Because your eyes
Told me it might

Do you seek out smooth pebbles,
to touch and caress
absentmindedly?
Your finger tips shine like you do 

Is this journey one
that you sought to avoid?
Your toe tapping
white knuckle grip
on that letter
gave you away  

And yes
I am bothered
By what happens
next to you
Would a chat and coffee be of help
or just another presumption?

Her reddened eyes
reopened
it seemed
like she had been crying
but she hadn’t
Not a tear
But for that moment
as she refocused
approaching awake again
It seemed like sadness
burdened her
had surrounded her sleep
sending phantoms  
to populate her dreams

Think about it
The breadth
Depth
And length of it
This human condition
All of the buried skulls
Had smiles
All of the powdered hearts
Loved
We haven’t invented anything human
Any new thoughts
Something close to your every line
Has been said before
Many times
In many languages
We flatter ourselves
Many fold

Thank you
For not remembering
for not sending vouchers
for me to choose
something I like
or cash
for same

Thank you
For not dropping in
and presenting
hollow sentiment
before leaving for
something
more important

Thank you for
not forgetting
For finding a bright penny
from my birth year
for good luck
and that book
I once mentioned

And thank you
For spending time
understanding its value
and gifting me
your smile
a birthday
treasure

Tell me please
does the grey granite faced
northern heather scarp
or the smooth enchanting
Carrara marble cherub
move you to awe?
Does nature only
wintered weathered
sheer and simple
eclipse the man made
man handled
alabaster angel?

Bleak beauty

Tell me my friend
does your head turn
as the high cheek-*****
short haired
practical passes
a flash of scarlet
lipped?
Or do you arrest
as a foundation creation
glosses across your horizon
loping on heels and too knowing?

Bleak Beauty

I must ask you
my brother
When you cause to sleep
does your angel
appear
and does
the gentle
perfection of her
supra-sternal notch
ever stay with you
til morning?

The cicatrise of damage
Slowly softened
Worn smooth
By wind and weather
Water and tenderness maybe
Was once raw red and obvious
Now blended
Into your skin map
Your patchwork of encounters
With knife, heat and gravity

Some strange nobility
And ownership imparted
Not in your DNA
Inherited
Or chosen
But somehow valued
Like an old photograph
A Braille memory
Absentmindedly revisited
With evocative touch

Dysfunctional
this is not functional

Functioning badly
at best
not clear why
of course
until after the
functioning has ceased
long after

Not
Tibet
Our
England

Shredded
Coloured
*****
Flags

Railside
Tr­ees
In
Winter

Prayers
In
Disposable
Form

Flapping
Torn
From
Bra­nches

Votive
Gifts
To
Greed

Godless
Plastic
Rainbow
Church

Burning a picture
On the lively fire
Of us
Two
Happy smiling
In sunlight,
It distorts
Into screaming
Dark
Monsters
Twists
And curls
Painfully
Bubbling with
Blackness
Into embers

Black confetti
Takes to
The air
And drifting
Down
In the lonely
Evening
Breeze
Takes to my
Hair
And
Shoulders
And then
Like you
Becomes one
With the night

And is gone

Be that little girl for longer
stay there
naivety is easy lost
once you have
smeared
the make-up
of adulthood
across your beautiful face                                          
something goes
that you will
never
regain
not in the
pocket of
your red velvet coat
or your ripped jeans
or in your toy box
revisited
with a tear
in an attic
moment
when it is all
too late

Stay the charming boy
the footballing
***** kneed
rascal
stay in your
cowboy and indian
dream
your truck driver
hinterland
before the
bubble is burst
by playground
wisdom
and peer
group poison
cherish your Christmas morning 4am’s
for as many years
as you can
before you
know too much
about too little
and find
it all banal

A myriad
of subtle stuff
a deep and long sigh
a strangely
well chosen tune
considering his history
the right wine
(full bloodied)
in the right light
(half)
with the right aroma
(lavender and ocean)
And view
(a sunset)
With sounds and sights
(gulls and grasses)
and the touch of
thick well worn cotton
culminating in a memory
I keep close

And the cor anglais
Plays
The snake charmers
Medley
In the oriental artifice
Created for you

And the jasmine soaked
Velvet
Of the cushions and curtains
Masks
The devotion
Engendered by you

And the blue tiled
Fountain
And Moorish arched garden
Cool waiting
For moments
Gifted by you

Losing credibility
like the film star,
kissed
too many times,
by too many,
to be ever again
believably
in love

As a filmic experience
it left me rather cold
The dialogue was
at best
Improvised
And crucial scenes
fell out of focus
Amateurly so

The lead frankly
Disappointed
Wandering through
the plot
randomly
And cathartic opportunity
Was lost at every turn
Naively so

The fascination
is again immediate
it stops me dead
Automaton emotion
sympathy washing over
a feeling of something
out of reach
of privilege
of loss
It's something like
a girl friend I once nearly had
a song I had forgotten
a line from a song
that I always get wrong
a night that I want again
We are stupid
And we'll die
I never reached
an uneasy understanding
Something I cannot describe easily
It feels like a real future
somehow
Dystopian broken and flawed
of course
but even then...
Absolute beauty
the unknown
and dignity in death
dignity and poetry in death
light streaming through
and rain
of course there's rain
there's always rain
huge silences
and behind it all
that music
that music that makes
the future seem now
whatever that means
Doll
Robot
but still pain
still the knowledge
of what the end means
from learned
and invested
memories
so human
more human than possible
already dead
but able to share
the most delicate
honest
and fragile moments
that create guilt
in me
somehow
from somewhere
the link
is the sepia prints
on the piano
and the very essence
the thing that drives
the fascination
is The dove
and those lines
spoken like a king
like a saint
with a wonderful warm heart
full of all of my sadness
somehow
and
The unicorn
reminding me
that it was all
fabricated
by the hand
of man

I envy
The simplicity of the dog;
Thirsty,
drink puddle
Itchy,
scratch ear
Frustrated,
just bark
Bark!
Bark!

And when tired
sleep

You’ll thicken her hips
Forsake her lips
And then **** on her chips
That’s what you’ll do

Wisdom imparted
from an angled
grand grey person
to young me
as they seated
themselves
pained

I never dwelt
at the time
on its meaning
Was it licence to
be a hedonist
to burn bright
and short?

Or sage instruction
to refuse
time and pain
any influence
or maybe to go
find a cause
a war adventure

to take me early
just as their friends
had been
flaxen haired smiling
innocent of
everything
and never old

Thickening
Softening
Growing wisdom
From painful
Periods of reflection
Slowing and quickening
Deep deep breaths
Lost significance
And drift

So there’s this English Patient
cave set up
Cold, quiet and dying
Alone
and a sense of properly sad sadness
A deep and thorough sadness
not just dropped my ice-cream sadness
But dying alone and cold sadness
Could bring you to tears thinking about it
I expect
That kind of sadness

So the candle is flickering out
And no-one is coming for you
You realised that hours ago but never stopped hoping
And the end of your life is there – shadowing against the cave wall
Flickering in and out of view
Ethereal and unreal
And you laugh a little at the ridiculousness
Of your plight
And you trace your own fingers around your face
Your thirst is irrelevant
And you start thinking about what you have been
Where you have loved
And who
Pictures begin to come to mind of beauty and ecstasy
And then you fall into satisfied eternity

our kindred
coded
poesy
fading
failing
from the very moment
you found it
in your hands

my whispered
particular promises
for you only
petal borne
complex yet
simple sentiment
temporary
as our days

elemental
all of the things
I want to shout
I need
the world
to know
I cannot die
with this unsaid

pressed dry
safe booked
stored and secret
coded corsage
never worn
above your heart
our summer garland
dust

she
meticulously combs
her hair
for the lover
who never
came back

she
watches herself
crying into
the mirror
for the want
of a reply

she
unfolds the
picture of the boy
in her summer
both smiling
in blossom

she
warms herself
by the fire
in the autumn
of her solitary
life

she
sheds a smile
for the memory
of the fire
in his eyes
quite sublime

she
watches herself
crying into
the mirror
for the want
of a reply

As futile                                
as the listening thrush            waiting                                  
for worms                            
to rise                                    
on your neat
and easy
astro turf lawn  ‬

Paying hapless homage to your gods
to your demi-gods
to your latter day all saints
With your Primark prayer flags
gloriously wrapped about you
You wander through empty streets
empty High Streets
Towards the stained glass sanctity
of your worship place
Your prayer less
Hedonistic
Playground
High on powders
Pills and potions
Drunk on over priced beer
Shot for shot
for shot
Laughing like madmen
Crying like angels
Dancing like tomorrow will never come
Flashing your white teeth
Trainers
and eye *****
at the moon
Howling
for some kind of salvation
for some kind of future
Angry for the promises broken
marriages and hearts too
Finding time to spend time
on doing nothing
Finding energy to enjoy
what could be your last kiss
what might be your first love
And all the while knowing
That someone let you down

The young will know what to do
They always do
with their inate sense
of now
to act, react or start again
As needed

The young will speak up soon
They always did
permissions irrelevant
finding new angles
clearly seeing
that there is more to life than

Gods and Tigers
but not that much
They will set the new tempo
carve themselves some sense
from our nonsensical inheritance
In them I trust

as unloved
as a cigarette ****
she lies

habitually
daily
he bends to kiss
her tattooed
left
breast
goodbye

without ever
opening his
eyes

A summer evening
The thirsty dog is drinking
Making new music

her teeth in my bones
given gladly
unappreciated
to my shame
not eternal
though
none of them
her teeth
my bones
my shame
all temporary
at different stages
of  decay
slowly returning
to the elemental
for someone else
to give
to take
and perhaps appreciate

Revelling in your
disfunctionality
Your interesting
complexity
And the one thing
You are proud of
is that you have
nothing to be proud of
And the one thing
that you value
Is that you value
nothing

I don’t care
About your perception of my
Saccharin sentimentality
But I know
That on the day
That humanity kills the last Tiger
That the beauty in the world
Will have gone
Our science-fiction
Will start to be fact
And magnificence
Will be only ours to create
Melancholy though it will be
If we are to be Gods
And make this world our concrete
Functional costed playground
Then the poetry will need
to be **** good
The music  
Better
And we will need to
Reconnect with something
That will make it all
bearable  
forgiveable
and worthwhile

I knew you
in my dream
the scent of you
the sense of you

Unable to recognise you
across a crowded room
or know your voice
or even your perfume

But I knew you
In my dream
and shared
with you
a moment

I make stuff up
all the time
some stuff I make up
I think
You think
Is about me
when it's not
and some stuff
that I have made up
that you know
isn't about me
actually is
and you're in
some of the stuff
that I have made up
but I think you knew that

Secret movement
& murmurs;
I see you
in everything
Light and dark
combine
to make your face

Shadows and bird song
evoke summer days
When we walked
talked
& explored;
bonded by our blood
kindred in our kind
sharing nature,
time and contentment

Kings of all;
pathfinders,
brothers,
scarce valuing
sublime
extraordinary days

I am next to you
on the kerb side
about to happen
I’m in your sleep
latent and patient,
inevitable
I am in the water
about you
waiting to envelop
rinse and silence you
I am the bullet
anonymous and inert
until decisive
And I am the spark
the word
the reason
the consequence
Undiagnosed
and undetected
I'm not your nemesis
don’t expect me
But I will be
So don’t predict me
or hate me

not a papist or ****** or shapist
but enjoying a curve
not an escapist
lacking the nerve
not a florist, tourist or activist
unless its summer time
and certainly not an alchemist
no water into wine
a lovely smiley altruist or artistically quite loud
but sadly failed when drawing
kindness from the crowd
mist
gist
fist
hoping to desist in being a monarchist
and always very eager on not being dogmatist
but still I really strongly emphatically insist
that faddist, fauvist fashion
is only a passing passion
for the narcissists among us
realist
publicist
terrorist

humbly suggesting that zeitgeist
is an ist
but failing to enjoy the line
being a fatalist
not a facist, xylophonist or anything with isms
just a bad contortionist
with creeping rheumatism  
determining the future through a timely
cruel twist
whilst realising ultimately
I’m just
a sad typist

It’s ivy;
classic palmate lobes,
invasive
substrating you
totally
gripping grabbing
combining and climbing
through you
in you
and around you

It’s ivy;
removal fraught
with complications
without treatment
it will smother you
growing through your
lungs and eyes
stealing away your life force
naturally
yet unnaturally
brutally
yet gradually

It’s ivy;
rip away the tendrils,
superficial salvation
Roots and knots
woody and substantial
in you
Occupying your spaces
invading
pervading
all that is you
within and without
of your skin

It’s ivy;
evergreen
drinking draining
your air and water
Rapaciously
Disgracefully
and as I write
I'm still unsure
which metaphor
I was trying for;
love
Malignant Neoplasm
Or just sadness

I love moments like that,
when only a nod is needed.
When words would complicate
the essential understanding
that we both had,
of what can be left out,
what can be ignored;
when eyes talk to eyes
and understand
that the rest is just dressing
just unnecessary expression
beyond what is simple.

So simple that
the memory is stronger
when there are no words
to remember.

I sometimes let you fall
Not far
Not hard
But far and hard enough
That my hand
In the small of your back
Around your upper arm
Or waist
Feels heroic
At least
That’s what I hope  

I sometimes fall silent
Not for long
Not for effect
But long and with affect enough
That my words
When spoken
In our space
And your presence
Have weight & substance
At least
That’s what I wish for

Tired on the train
I listen
A young mother on her mobile
solemn faced but beautiful eyed
angrily confronts
her daughters father
with a maternal mantra
How do I tell her
When I have all her tears and questions?
I guess he keeps hanging-up
or the signal is lost
The words repeat
almost verbatim
and repeat
and repeat
No-one looks
everyone listens
And then in the vestibule
a smiling South African
recounts with passion
about the Jacaranda
turning Cape Town purple
around this time of year
...he missed his stop

Tonight I’m kicking daffodils
But you’re best not asking why
As I fear
that what you’d hear
would make you want to cry

Tonight I’m kicking daffodils
But don’t ask me to explain
As I fear
that what you’d hear
would make you share my pain

Tonight I’m kicking daffodils
Alone and in the dark
As I fear
that you my dear
might just be the spark

Tonight I’m kicking daffodils
Cos I’ve nothing else to do
And I fear
That it is clear
That all I want is you

The snow drops keep coming
Insisting their way
Through the matted detritus
of memories;
A dolls arm with a biroed tattoo
& flattened empty
colour points
Of crisp packets fading,
Wind-blown papers
& plastic ragged shamblings
Decorating the hedges
Sprawling with thorns and freedom
& the snow drops keep coming

The snow drops keep coming
Placating the gardener
Now sitting benignly
Tending own life
& net curtains blur the sepia view
Of the children once playing
Of the beer cans and bricks
& the solitary shoe nest
& the apple tree still giving
Now casting wasp grass cocktails,
& the clichéd swinging gate
Warns of a dog dead before Lennon
& the milk bottle earwig crèche
Sits quiet beside the snow drops
lamenting

Your fragrance remains

In high corners & cupboards

Your hairs painted into

The fabric of the walls

Filigree veins

Your very skin as dust

Sealed

Stratified

Into the place

Our home



Your finger print

Clear on the gloss painted frame

Eye lashes in the mirror corners

Your broken wine glass fragment

Beneath the fridge

With my contact lens

Staring blindly at

Each other

For recognition



Your rounded buttock curve

Sits in the leather

Of your favourite place

And your fragrance

In high corners & cupboards

Paris June 18th 1940

Dear Mother,
Beauty surrounding us
daily
but never more than a
street away
from another wall
with bullet holes
and flowers

Our relationship
Doesn’t work

You only need me
When it suits you
You only use me
On the occasion
Of maybe
Knowing
That I remain
Your only option

I won’t always
Be here
For you

And he showed me
his arthritic hands;
pink ginger roots,
digits disorganised
& apologised
for not being able
to carry his own
suitcase

Mean Windows

Mean windows
Small light
Mean architect
Limited budget
& imagination
Half-light estate
Small curtains
Mean windows
Early dusk
No street-light
Glass broken
Doors boarded
Mean windows
Clint Eastwood eyes
Tagged & Flagged
Grassless
Concrete gardens
Brown and grey acres
Mean windows
Closed shops
Citizens Advice
Misery
With chips
And mean windows
With small curtains
Saving on glass
Costs light

Find this remnant
in your imagination
because it makes
no sense to me

Is this the moment
when the mother ship landed
in the Pennsylvanian mist
unrecorded
except for one
never believed
in his part dressed
bare footed
madness?

Or the instant
just preceding
the screaming timber truck
wiping away a soul
craving solace
and kind release
to join his life love
so missed
so loved
so long?

Or maybe
God Fearing
our bearded
noble nobody
is standing
in the presence
of his God
and Host
meek, mild
and speechless...