you’re telling me something
yes

     I know

this is a game you play
and I’m caught up

a scrap
    
     of debris

in your Kansas storm


each move we make
is dangerously
exciting

or the other
way around

or not exciting

     at all

words like cracking eggs

enough for weeks


your story changes
every time

truth

lost in the wind

ghosts don’t scare me

     real people do


if I’ve gone quite mad
you’ve fixed me this way

You take a picture
of a woman taking a picture
of the view
you can see,
the pastel tones sloshing
into one another,
synchronised just right tonight.
Steel blue that gives way
to tufts of lilac,
to a pink grapefruit wave,
the reflection glazed
to the glass beside you.
Slurry of chat in the air,
tourists and locals
hugged by coats,
sharing the same space,
silver breath that idles
before it scarpers.
Minute cubes of light
**** out across the water,
your city painted
in beautiful shades.

I don’t have to make much of a sound.
I can let the sentences coalesce
in the air, a dual carriageway of words
interspersed with a laugh.
The names I store are few.
I don’t have to yank them
from the chest, swipe off clumps of dust -
they glow when they need to
like fireflies swaying in the night.
I dribble out my current affairs,
watery vowels from my mouth.
Am I boring you?
Voice like an elderly hoover,
interest tumbling down the stairs.
You’ve done more in five minutes
than I have in five weeks.
I blink, then I sink.
It’s OK.
The days of rapid chat
are six feet under,
flaws knocked out of shot,
not as blindingly bright.
I wonder where you were years ago.
We’d know more;
my gawky movements less present,
my mind not pulsing
with impossible possibilities.
Still I shudder at the distance between us.
Pauses plump as bubbles
that can’t be popped.
The flow halted
by my wodge of insecurity.
No bother.
I swallow what I can,
let the taste coat my throat.
If you sparkle
you can help me too
without being aware.
The sludge will vanish for a while.
You don’t even have to make
too much of a sound.

Hear the ***** of glasses,
shriek of chairs against wood,
photos streamed across walls
elbowing for attention.
Smell the sawdust simmer from the floor,
knife-carved letters etched
decades before by dead hands,
wishbones strewn around
by lads who never returned.
The stubbly Irish guy pours a McSorley,
watch the marigold glug into the mug
and froth over the top.
A gaggle of women natter at the back,
the flatscreen, out of place, chatting away too.

Oh old sport,
it crumbles around me.
The lights have dimmed
to a feeble moan,
my reveries like shirts
idly blowing in the air,
head heavy as morphine.

I feel my heart throb
like a defective clock
as cool fall rain slithers
down the windows.
Every set of eyes
has turned away;
now sad spheres
that gaze elsewhere.

Her voice was my wild tonic,
her figure an enchanting breeze.
We’d unravel as hanks of wool,
kisses that would leave
a tingle on our lips.
There are no pills for what is now.
Past moments entombed
behind frosted glass.
Agitations that turn me
into a sugar-rushed flea.  

Look now Jay.
The water an awful, inky blue,
the pool a somnolent cavity.
I wish to fix it,
to slot the pieces into place,
the seconds flitting by
as if ash in the wind.
A pinprick of green
glimmers in the distance.

Old sport,
I swear I hear my bones cry.

A grotty morning.
Grass pecked by frost overnight,
lead fug in the air
and I'm walking a mile
in uncomfortable shoes.

The receptionist
warbles a song I don’t know.
Ten minutes of maths  
followed by the typical
compote of questions again.

Two year four children
navigate me past classrooms,
primary colours,
shaking hands and nodding heads,
facts that drizzle over me.

Hours pass, phone cries.
The answer swells blister-like.
It’s thanks but no thanks.
He pours advice, wishes well.
I hurtle back to the start.

Look at the ones
with beehives for mouths,
ejecting out opinions
to anyone caught in a net
of overworked words,
every opinion delivered
with a lethargic varnish,
each one a sting
as a glob of soap in the eyes.

But we use our voice
with our lips tightly shut.
Let the art inside us
buzz like a sneeze
waiting for release,
blast out in a fizz
of ink and smudged fingertips.
Hear the consonants trickle
like a tap not quite turned off,
the vowels rising and falling as waves.

Spill your thoughts if you must.
Make a point.
But don’t hurl them at us
with a sour taste ,
sharp as an already grimy blade.
Use them sparingly and well,
let them linger before
evaporating in a trail of steam,
as if a ***** of sunlight
before it slithers
beneath the horizon.