potent blue sky but ground laced with blood
stench of death in the air and on that August day
he joined the deceased Spaniard in the sun outspoken
generation of ’27 with the taste of poetry on his tongue
called a socialist partaking in abnormal activities
never found a single shot or several nobody knows
during La Guerra Civil the voice of a nation
quenched in the blink of a second

like the cellophane wings of a dragonfly
torn from its body so the whirr vanishes
or fire strangled out of someone
drenched with bullets of water

como las alas de celofán de una libélula
arrancadas de su cuerpo
para que desaparezca el zumbido
o fuego estrangulado afuera de alguien
empapado con balas de agua

So I drink
the voice from your throat.

If diamonds
had a taste this is it,

it goes down
so well. It goes down

so well
in mouthfuls that shimmer.

December, end
of year, end of something,
my acquaintance will be forgot.
Ode to divorce, if we were hitched,
but hey! To a new beginning.

Night like charcoal
on windows. Out of bed,
coffee, new machine, shiny black
juddering awake,
spurting caffeine
into the vacant cup.

   You’re doing my head in, you know that?
Yesterday’s game, lobbing
words, ping-pong tiff, oh
you didn’t think I’d forget?
Regret it? No. I was on top.

A dog barks.
I think of my grandpa’s Alsatian,
bounding tennis-ball-in-mouth
when I’m fifteen, hands sticky
with slobber, for a second,
when you were unknown.

I sip, finish, got new batteries,
make that gawky move
with the jacket, slip on trainers.
I take my Soviet Kitsch, Sigur Rós,
and your Killers. After all, the latter
is how it began, ‘it’ being us, your lips laced
with lager, my Dr. Peppered self
gushing with excitement
at being out of the house.
  Didn’t peg you for a fan…
   I guess I’m not what I seem…
ain’t that the truth darlin’? Everything
will be alright. Look

at me now, opening the door so quietly,
cold latching onto my skin
like I’m a magnetised substance.
I like how you don’t know.

Ginger cat scurries from under a car.
I think it’s running away too, running
from us. Right idea ****.
You know ‘****’ means kiss and ‘tom’
means empty in Swedish? I think of that
now, funny how a strange thought
can leapfrog to the front of your mind.

I can’t drive, you can, but you’re asleep.
Boy, you’ll be wondering
where I am, but I was never
there anyway, really, I don’t think.

Hours from the shock of me, gone,
for reasons unknown,
a magic trick with
Carbon Monoxide in my ears,
your Brightside too.

Me in jeans plus four others,
the nearest a guitarist,
black bag shape slung
over a seat, his sleeve
rolled high enough
to see a clamour of ink
in his skin, a ladder of colours.
He listens to music, white worms
lodged into ears.
Another, female, older,
glasses two-thirds down the nose,
much wrinkled Times between
her wrinkled fingers, glint of a ring,
the only one it seems, fatigue
rolling over her face.
The third, sweating, texting,
doesn’t look up, unaware to
anyone but the swirl of letters
on the screen beneath his eyes
where only he knows what exists.
The final guest is asleep,
or is pretending, head drooped
to a shoulder like a dog’s.
The train rattles on,
Monday night,
metal vessel of mysteries.
The musician glances up,
notices he is among a clutch
of others, sees me
and for maybe five, six seconds
does not look away,
his muddy-coloured irises
pouring into mine,
his boots scuffed with muck.
I cannot help but acknowledge
this unexpected attention,
but, flustered, I rustle for a book,
even though my exodus
is minutes away.
I flip to page sixty-two, he looks away,
and then back, swivelling, as if unsure
which way to stick, and there is
a fleeting stab of fear,
of what if in a shred of a second
he lunges across, a tattooed panther,
pins my wrists to the cold window,
spews his breath to my face
and grunts in that appallingly masculine way,
a way that suggests he’s in control,
ha ha *****, what you gonna do now?
when he wouldn’t be, I’d know.
I’d have a clear shot at the crotch
and even if the texter, sleeper, reader
didn’t spring to life, I could put a stop
to it, shove him from me like
yanking a piece of furniture across the room,
crank my voice into a bellow.
I can imagine the stupid mask
of shock on his stubbly face.
He could hurt me, of course he could,
anyone can hurt anyone
how they please, and I’m just as capable,
but I wouldn’t, shouldn’t
launch an attack of fists and kicks,
inject my words with venom.
This thought shrieks in my brain
and dies, squashed bug-like,
its pulse destroyed.
Always assuming the worst.
I’ll learn.
I don’t look at him again.
I don’t know if he looks at me
but he probably does,
thinking of a song he’ll write
or leftovers to eat,
or a missed opportunity.
The book slips to the floor,
for a moment, I forget,
I am being transported.
Everybody leaves, I am no exception,
standing, moving to the doors
that will open with a quiet whirr,
it slows and then a bit more,
bit more,
his memory of me
my ***, perfect in these jeans.
Typical. At least, I think,
it looks good.

I put the drink to my lips,
bookcase brown,
not quite up and at them
at this mid-morning hour,
disjointed murmurs of strangers
ordering coffee,
the soft thrum of Saturday chat.

For a moment,
my eyes fixed at the map
that adorns the wall,
I feel myself shrinking back,
my head a *** of blue
nothingness, before
a flock of images

pop up like blood
from pricked fingers,
material that could be used,
a splinter of a half-told story
but no siren yowl,
more a coil of smoke,

and so it goes.
The flow stops, I thunder
back to where I was.
A child’s cry scorches the air.
I slip in and out of conversation,
picking up snippets
like the metal claw in a grab machine,

unfamiliar particles,
a peculiar curiosity,
a whirring like clockwork
of the recent expeditions,
how it felt

when you kissed her,
and the fizzy burble,
little glob of ruby
of what hasn’t been said yet,
or if it ever will.

a wodge uh Wrigley’s
  ‘ard an knobbly on thuh underside
uh desks

shufflin’ tuh DJ Caspar
  in thuh ‘all
unduh thuh gaze uh
  year three’s

it were
  packed lunches,
dislodging mi brace
  from thuh roof of mi mouth
like extractin’ a tooth,
  scoffin’ bars uh white chocolate

years-old Blu-Tack
  stamped black intuh carpets,
grey plastic-y chairs,
  writin’ learnin’ objectives,
underlinin’ dates
  with shatterproof rulers,
I upgraded tuh a pen
  in year four

same time
  remember listenin’ on the radio
in Scottish Clark’s mobile
  when it wuh Ingland v Brazil,
summer uh ‘02,
  thuh likes of Sheringham, Beckham
in audio only, no picture,
  and thuh TA came in
  ‘alfway throo a lesson,
said ‘we’re out’

and the time
  I cort that cricket ball,
dived and it stung mi hand,
  a crimson-drizzled palm,
throbbin’ ring

and the time
  we played football wi’ tennis *****
and I blurted intuh a trio
  uh eager classmates,
a tumble-shirt compote,
  knee flecked wi’ grit, mi own spit,
skinny whispers uh blood

and thuh time
  I plagiarised Potter
around Azkaban,
  got a Woolies notebook,
ragged Pritt-Sticked cuttins’
  of Watson in the pink ‘oodie,
but it wuh the seed
  for thuh next decade and more,
standin’ up,
  tellin’ a story,
somethin’ or othuh