So I’ll let your garland of notes
glide over, heal me as if
the pinnacle of medicinal
discovery, vibrato in my arteries;

even the bass, its storm-cloud
laconic dialogue
can be a remedy, prescription-free
pipsqueak blue drops,

each cymbal hiss
a swig of thick ginger fluid
will calm the throat but
keep my heart revving over;

the glass is raised, melody
you give in waves, a tincture
applied to cool, a salve
to channel salvation.

You don’t know how long it’s been,
a leftover, how many times
my chalky residue, the what remains
after the batteries run down,
has glided through these rooms,
liquid silk when you’re sleeping.

Pearlescent appendages,
no junction of veins, heart-clunk,
see through what once was
a sac of odd-shaped blobs,
viscous memories gone to condensation
as if fiction, recycled in silence.

No wonder you feel the chill.
An anaemic blur down the stairs
unsurprisingly frightens but know
it’s only my gaseous way
of trying to live, the only way
to breathe to leave ellipses of smoke.

gives the poem momentum.’
Tuesday afternoon seminars
and your photocopied stanzas
are like ***** shots to me. I don’t
say this, a spaghetti-haired boffin
opposite mentions pentameter
but I almost drool at ‘fizzle of static
the luscious shock, / honey, think
you’d taste like candy canes / waltz
on my tongue, my ruby

Bristol for uni. Last I heard
she’d got a PGCE, cushy position
at an Ofsted-says-good secondary,
good for her. The invite surprised me.
How many years? It’s all careers
and top-floor flats now with
the parquet floors, schamncy fridges,
not villanelles and criticism
meant to be constructive, comments
spiked with jealousy, and

A minute in, a cup of something,
voice long gone among the swill,
thud of a mid-2000s track blaring
obnoxiously through the top-floor flat
of the lad who played midfield
and his glitter-cheeked missus, who,
if I recall, moved from Leeds to

Tuesday.’ A lipsticked smile,
jeans with riotous tears.
Now I know what’s coming, the
pitiful shotput for attention,
the ‘truly marvellous effort
and the use of sibilance (insert
chef’s kiss sound).’ But I dither,
muter than a French mime,
hits me for six and I know
I won’t know you, not now or ever,
there’s never enough time

when I see you in the kitchen,
expelling laughter like it’s almost archaic,
the opportunity, missed, but all right,
it was indie-rock headaches,
cold in goal in the park next to Asda,
not a time to recite my saccharine lines
to a northern delight but I wanted to,
once, then, to know what might’ve been,
if I’d waltz on your tongue.

The silence stops it
from burning out, from you
snuffing out the dream,
the pile-up of scenes
isn’t a newsflash catastrophe
but a merry-go-round
of luminous make-believes,
could-soon-be-reals.
     It all depends on what you fancy, really,
     whether it’s my form, my dyshidrotic fingers
     knitted with yours on the maiden date
     (I’m free whenever)
     or if the typecast appeals more,
     Mr. Fifty Abs with his thousand followers
     chiselled for reality TV
     in a way we’ve seen before, creosote tan
     and judging others in the gym; even his speech
     could be made from sweat.
If this is how it will stay,
so be it. The seasons will squash
the unreal, allow us both to swim
in the ignorance we already bask in,
my mouth bereft of sound
when you approach, my name
never the bead of sugar
on your tongue.

You know the morning comes
with the ridged mirror thumbprint
post-shower, a buffoon on the news
with his breakfast’s semi-skimmed
still lingering on his lip.          Oh! There’s a wedding dress,
white mascarpone tones put the nation
in a hellish spin… They’re miming
about this online, believe it,
their history teachers know it
and they shoot their cars up with paracetamol;
doctors say it’s the best way
to keep the numbers
down to single digits.

Girl boy something other, you’d better
check those socials because
a no-faced stranger may incorrectly spell
mascarpone, how ***!! stop it you look,
not the waxy sheen of your blemished
history, and the rain, those scrawny
black instruments are done for,
we shimmy in semi-skimmed now
because the movies said so
and you must believe every word,
each glitzy syllable is like
a paracetamol shot,
you’re missing out, you’ll forget
so I’ll say it again, not really
‘cause you’re reading, you’re missing

breakfast’s ready.

Ache of an absence,
half gone
and seeing phantoms
in the place you used
to be,

a vacant hook
where a sunny cagoule
would slouch,
handwritten supermarket
reminders

slapped against the fridge.
What it’s like to lose
a limb, dim pulse,
futile scramble
for meaning in the missing,

and the morning’s severed
yolk bathes little but
the wicked iced side
of the bed where a spirit
disrupts your space.

Where The Sea Sprays

two-tone sand                  
mercury murmurs                  
out as far                                  
as the world
flips over
throb of a downpour
in the ripple
of a watercolour
mist-swabs
that prickle a cheek
chill nicks the lips
miniature blades
incisor eruptions
basalt cacophony
could be a chalk-like welt
with a thousand tiers
leave one foot
another mark
ephemeral label
on a foreign land

----------

four walls
spider’s thin sentence
the scene’s fracture
tree that used
to breathe
a wonky spine
hours-old blobs
corner huddle
on the other side
of a fire bullet
melting cherries
rainbow hoop
detains a web
of mouldy dreams
bar one pentagon
where foam
dazzles milk white
over jet black rug
where the trail
continues ad infinitum

Ad Infinitum