hours where nothing glistens
liquid seconds

the picture of your voice
could be my vicious heartbeat

just a ghost with an alarm
where the mouth should be

I’d tell you if something new
was constructed

but no colourful bubbles
are trundling off from my tongue

the silence is no special treat
it is a regularity

a present transparent being
with lips sewn shut

a stranger is waiting
I’m told

but for the fully-formed
or finely moulded

think you've read the ending before
you probably have



a light switch in a dusty room
somewhere surely a hand

They have been together,
give or take, for fifteen years.

Their marriage in the clasp
of puberty, its voice deepening,
its stubble sprouting.

Not long ago, shopping.
Necessary. Kid’s birthday.
It comes around quick,
like lunch, paying for the Ploughman’s
at the self-service in town
when the clock flicks to twelve.

Her right hand on his right hand.
They still do this,
though not quite as often.

Today,
he returns from work, wrenches
the tie out from beneath the collar
of a shirt she ironed yesterday.
Son, out.
Daughter, also out.

The fridge plagued with magnets
and a list; Milk,
                  Bread,
                  Eggs?
Inside, two beers,
sweating cold.
Later, he thinks.

How’s your day been darling?
We need to be at the school at six.
Oh yes.
They need to hear
how their progenies
excel at the expressive arts.
He hasn’t been expressive in years.

Hours expire.
Now his bare feet slide
under the duvet.
The wife reads a while,
Sunday Times bestseller.

Then she hugs him,
touches the skin she has known
since she was nineteen
at Northampton, literary sponge
absorbing Shakespeare and Joyce.

It is warm.
It is something
that has not changed.
The two of them are content.
They know they can
always have this.

I simply cannot focus on my work
as all these animals have gone berserk!
Philippa, my darling girl, fill me in,
who on earth is making that awful din?

There’s an aardvark having a bath,
   and a chameleon rolling dice,
an eagle searching in the freezer
   and a goose hiding in the hedge,
an iguana eating our jam
   and a koala juggling our lemons,
a marmoset slurping noodles
   and an octopus carrying paint pots,
a quail wearing a ring
   and a squirrel making the tea,
a unicorn using the vacuum cleaner
   and a walrus playing the xylophone,

and finally Philippa, finally my girl,
   a yak fidgeting with a zip!

Where did they come from? I really don’t know,
but very soon they will just have to go!
I’ve had enough now of this awful din,
thank you Philippa for filling me in!

Somebody said
if you count to ten
in your head
while holding your breath,

as if breath is an object
with a shape and a texture,

by the end you'll have
forgotten how to breathe.

One.
Two.

And sometimes
you need to pause,
to let every black swatch
of worry evaporate
like crooked puddles.

Three.
Four.

And you feel a trickle
of something under your skin -
perhaps a calmness,
a word not yet invented.

Five.
Six.

In your mind, a clock face,
hands that aren't hands,
numbers.

Seven.
Eight.

Voices wrestle.
Your voice, your voice again.

Nine.
Ten.

Over.

Now, remind yourself
to exhale, see how the scene
becomes clean,
how it felt to hold in
such a temporary thing.

Look at this, I said.
Chalky expanse,
lonely, untarnished decoration.

Blush of cold,
branches rest as veins
atop a transitory skin.

Could be silk, maybe fur.
Winter discovery
like forgotten snowmen.

A footprint chime,
high note shimmering
through bitter liquid.

Murmurs of cobalt,
tongues of white,
our fresh heaven.

In the end
we ended up in the pub -
now there’s a surprise.

Fifteen nights out of thirty,
at least. Cheap grub
and we knew the owners,

mates of my folks.
‘All right pal?’, he said.
‘Not bad’, I said back.

Our feet ached,
my arms cracking like conkers
as I stretched,

got comfortable.
And then you mentioned
the C-word again.

‘But in a few years.’
A nod. A sip. The cool slither
of lager down my throat.

We’d talked, of course,
about it before. People
expected, assumed

a kid was the next step.
You didn’t like
my quietness on the matter -

you’d kick my leg, teasingly,
as if kicking the answer
into my body, my mouth.

Honestly? I hadn’t given it
much thought. A sure thing
was my regular line of choice.

'You know, I fancy you
so much right now.'
OK, so I don’t know

what made me say that,
but it had already zipped
across the table,

buried in her ears
before I clocked on.
I really meant it though.

I think your cheeks
went cherry red -
there was a kiss, I remember.

I’d answer properly
later on, the pub
a foggy memory

and that night, I slept
knowing I’d fancied you
from the first second we met,

and that the C-word
wasn’t as horrid
as I always used to believe.

dead bee,
   broken buzz,
black ball made of limp wings,
   cardboard-tube limbs.
it’s a schism,
   a fault in the system;
what or who did the deed?
   even the amber isn’t as lurid
as one would expect,
   now just a charred spot,
the life drained out of it
  like water streaming out

through a sieve.