what is the space between something that could be love,

isn’t love, the word for it, something that is just your own mind

playing a trick, telling you that yes, you are, for want of a better word,

falling, body tumbling down the very steps to your Technicolor dream,

where, in reality, the world turns a shade of beige, bruises erupting

like little violet volcanoes, and you realise it was all a vision,

your interpretation of what you so desperately believed to need,

but on it goes, your staggered fantasy, your ingredients for love

but there is no word for it, love that isn’t love but you feel it so,

like a hard squeeze in the chest, that elusive, addictive make-believe.

I’ve displayed twenty different colours
                                                        to you

set myself aflame
or dunked myself in cold water

no not you
who makes the selection

myself making the choice
as though a t-shirt in the wardrobe

what you get
either side of a coin

take my apologies
in advance

never one
but often the other

unpack my dreams from the chest

unfurl the cardboard tubes   haul up the old honey jars

place them in a row on the well-worn table


in order of colour or order of shape

do they shrink with a tap   do they froth from the top

which one is your delicacy of choice


now offer a hand   feel it slither across the fingers

a temporary burn or just-melted ice

when was it when you assembled this story


take your selection let night tumble in

the tale stirring   the curtains rising

a dream of sleep and fabricated magic

saffron wings
sleeves of copper
vanilla ice cream heaven

which was
a carnival of stars
in the first yawns of morning

which was
the first tepid trickle
of something returning

yourself
behind the wheel
sand snuggling your toes

which was
yourself with arms open
breathing again alive     alive

presenting
my next initiation
3D spectacle

in spectacles
language of rust to be wiped away
sand letters by sea

one day   as planned
I'll be the prism
my colour chart sprayed

on the walls   fruit salad
of a room made familiar
your mouths a shock of smile

my fingers un-twitching
the precise words unrolled from my throat
not these but

wish you could extract the words right out my throat

not the clusters of dust I often proffer

but little glittering jewels every time


I don't know how I'm supposed to run

is this body a clock

is this mind a million-piece puzzle


told to do it alone

but still submerged in a lake

chilled under a cracked translucent shell


so pop me back into my sockets

drizzle me in sentences

as if private rainfall on a summer night

blue like core of ocean
blue raspberry boulder
flecked with enamel

wind-ravaged land
far out full stop
unblemished by the likes of us

plastic population
whirling ball of selfies
and self-made destruction

but Neptune, blue
like your eyes adjusting to light
like the canvas of sky post-birth of rain