on the day that marks
his fortieth year
a doctor informs him
that his arthritis is worsening,

digits more like twigs,
mashed potatoes for knees.
the news is no surprise,
more expected mail.

when the band begins,
the cymbal sizzle
like vegetables in a pan,
crow horn squawk,

he places the mouthpiece
between his chapped lips
knowing that any day
could be the last day now,

so he thinks of Coltrane
and blows, hard, all he’s ever known,
eyes of a gaggle of strangers,
ping-pong ***** in the dark.

Water nuzzles ankles again
     sliced pomegranate sunset
footprint glyphs
   like our own Hebrew letters

legs half-bare is a rarity
   sand is orange zest
stippled against our fingers
   hair overflown champagne

down your spine
   thin ribbons of un-tanned skin
the sea like a wildfire of hushes
   each wave urging us on

I have spat out these words
so many times I have lost track

enough is what I tell myself
except this is not quite enough

still I stumble and search through it all
like some restless fox in the dark

but the goal one sleeve away
simple to grasp but too far gone

and that’s exactly right

we are made of filaments and zips

old buttons blue cheese and cheap glue


all we do is try to keep each other fixed

the fragments together as if we are vases

our pretty flowers severed and useless


I am swallowed by your dialogue

cool pool of letters and jet black gags

my throat muffled again squashed dictionary flat


what then the word for love among friends

perhaps no word only the sensation

the differences that swell similarities that chime

Love me in twenty-seven different ways

your selection box of methods

each one as tantalisingly exciting as the next


what blue words are pouring forth

oh I have done it again doing it again

your ruby red downpour could stop this


splitting egg headache but I know

you know how to call a truce

call the whole thing off


paint my skin in whispers

that you shouldn’t be afraid to tell

and I shouldn’t be afraid to hear

how I have loved what I have never known

these names that glisten like stars on a blanket of night

it is silly, I know, to swim in such matters

my mind a blizzard of moments splintering

in a million intricate ways impossible to explain

my heart is heavy and my throat clear of all words

and I think of your faces like a blue sky at sunrise

so unblemished so untarnished by my hapless errors

I couldn’t explain with the right expulsion of words

but know I knew how I felt

how right here in a place I am still trying to understand

you were present known and, yes, loved

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.