Unusually
in a pub
a mid-July evening

clutching a Coke
the tangled strings
of conversation

peppered across the room
and loitering about
for faces

I haven’t seen
in perhaps four years
to breathe

through the door
to begin
that mawkish process

of reminiscing
over protracted days
in carpeted classrooms

naturally chat
about the lukewarm now
present partners

jobs if we have one
and upon arrival I speak little
letting the cool

surf of familiar voices
refresh me
as some mysterious

but quite delicious drink
and there is laughter
delicate chatter

before we disperse
like youthful bees
to our own slices

of existence
separate but always
aware of what was

I think it’s very easy to fall.
To fall in,
and fall back out again.
It happens more often than not.
It is a very regular thing,
like slipping your socks
over your feet in the mornings,
or walking downstairs
in a still-drowsy state.

Falling in is perilous.
You may never crawl back out,
and the bruises will bloom
and never leave your skin.
Falling out is simple.
You only have to
wipe their name away,
as if it was just chalk
scribbled upon a blackboard.

Once again, we have returned.
Lunch in a side-street café,
window seat,
watching students
huddled together in duffel-coats
venture into this Christmas commotion.
George Michael’s voice emanates
from somewhere as a girl with golden
hoops in her ears
and fingernails the colour of lava
takes our order.
A stranger’s drained cup,
a torn open sachet of sauce
oozes wound-like,
then removed.
Two minutes pass.
A toasted baguette in a basket,
Coke pasting a fur on my teeth.
I could have had Earl Grey
or Breakfast tea or Camomile
but no.
I stick to what I know.
The blonde waitress
greets more people.
I do not know who she is.
And I have finished,
ready to be bruised
by the wind’s invisible fists.

Five days a week
   for six months now
I have crossed the street
   from work
to the little shop
   that sells sticky buns
pork nuzzled by pastry
   and perused the food
something for lunch
   and almost always pick
a baguette brimming with chicken
   chilled cucumber disks
a sprinkling of lettuce
   plus a muddy-coloured latte
for that extra afternoon kick

though today is different
   I’m feeling ruthless
a shimmery packet of salt and vinegar
   waits for me to pluck it
from the shelf
   squeak it open
the lady says hi and I reply
   with a we’ve spoken
five days a week for six months now
   and it’s about time I told you
these small encounters
   brighten my day
a rotten cliché I know
   so I leave quick with my grub
but a tiny grin on my face

unwrap the baguette
   take a satisfying bite

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
The way you count things
just with your fingers, or one time counted
the freckles on my face, final count fifty-seven,
or the way tonight we count stars in your garden
except there are not that many to count
and we’ll soon count sheep in our heads instead
but you are counting from one to whatever
a list of things you count as my best qualities
and I join in and count down
what I love about you, countless memories
we store together and count as treasures,
but to count them all would take so many hours
I’d be out for the count, sleeping by these flowers.

I am looking
at my naked self

   you are looking
at it too

my milk-bottle skin
     wisps of hair buttered up
   to the wrist

this is one of those
   mortifyingly awkward
   situations

     like giving a presentation

standing all gangly

an unwrapped
   second-rate present

     that you didn’t really want

   my clothes are
a primary-coloured splash
     by my feet

     and I expect you to talk
  
to cease the blistering
silence in the room
   but you only nod

eyes on me

   slither your bra strap
down one arm

In bed

     for the first time
I am watching you
  
   in the bathroom
     brushing your teeth

just the right chunk of light
     enough to see

a magenta vest

your only tattoo
sneaking out from the top
   of black shorts

your clock notifies me
   it is ten past twelve

a dog yaps in sporadic bursts
   outside a siren whines
only to die seconds later

     but I am captivated
by your shape

the backs of your feet

   a little fraction of skin
     under the belly-button

   and if this is to become
commonplace

an ordinary event

   I will sleep every night
with a smile

     painted over my dreams

the ink may pulse
from your fingernails
be seeping out your toes

cold and thick
azure puddles

chalk skies
banana lines

leaves outside
flutter in conversation
hush-hush

interior (red) / exterior (grey)

a thin transparency
between you and them
like squares of clotting water

what do you see
see what can be made

slosh of vehicles
in some sickly vernacular

muffled thrum
of the city
millions of windows

one of you

dans une ville de ténèbres
peut-il y avoir de mille feux
de susciter l'espoir ne pas peur

-----

in a city of darkness
may there be a thousand lights
to spark hope not fear

A throng of poppies
like a lolling maroon tongue
that slumps into water
hundreds of crushes
split the scene
sunlight licks through trees
with a warm caress

autumn foliage comes to play
a swell of golden shapes
dangle from spindly arms
dance over the river
shimmering cerulean
as molten steel
on a late October morning

Baby, I thought it worked.
Baby, I don't understand what has happened.
Everything we knew, the pieces
one discovers when it's more than holding hands,
we splashed red. That lovey-dovey red.
Valentine display in a shop window red.
It was serious. Intense.
Too intense? Who's to say.
We were puppets made of lust,
glistening in the night
like glow-in-the-dark stars.
But baby, I had buttons,
and you pushed them all.
Set me whirring away as a spinning top
off the table. But I did the same to you.
Got you all flustered, red-faced, wet-cheeked.
We liked to nit-pick our mistakes,
gather them together, scrawl them into a list
on the fridge so every time I got a drink
I’d be reminded of last night’s tiff.
Baby, what were we doing?
You slept with your back to me,
and I’d be all fidgety. I’d go into our bathroom
and get angry. Curse at myself in the mirror.
I threw my heart at you
and you blended it to bits.
Where’s the ‘it happens in every book’ ending?
Baby, the ‘get you hankie out, they’re about to kiss?’
The couple across the street have it,
the waitress in the café.
Our parents must’ve had it.
These things happen. But why us? Why now?
How can you tread water one minute
then face the fact you’re drowning the next?
Baby, I’m too broken to be fixed,
but that doesn’t mean we can’t give it a try.
Baby, can you hear me?
Maybe I’ll repair you
and we’ll both feel like new.

So we decided to light candles

the box at the back of the cupboard
collecting dust like a man collects stamps

and because there were so many
you had to use three matches

a coarse shriek as you scratched
the stick against the side

and you moved around the room
holding it between *******

as a lurid pumpkin glow
slobbered up the radiator.

Soon after a scent
resembling a shiny toffee apple

you’d used a ‘smelly candle’
a fuzzy aroma in my nose

and when we went to bed
the flames still quivered

pools of melted wax
like burgundy blood wounds.

The ****** fuzz of adulthood
on the horizon
appears nearer than ever.

Crossing into frosty territory,
the frigid space between young
and not so young.

Six thousand five hundred
seventy four days
to get used to this voice.

To become familiar with these bones,
the way they crunch,
toes bent like ancient forks.

Days will be bloated with things
we never thought
we’d have to think about.

The ECG lines of our lives
flapping up and down,
a white wild skipping-rope.

They say it’s down to us now.
It’s our generation who will destroy,
then make flowers from the rubble.

hair like melting bronze

long and thick as honey

coagulated to the waist

mellow slosh of water

viridian wrinkles

reflect a singed tangerine

shade of the bridge

a miserable dense fug

up above her head

lips like lavender

black sweater collar

cuddling her neck

and freckles dusted

slapdash on those cheeks

little marigold flecks

but her gaze grasps you

you can’t look away

she’s detained your attention

summery strum

jangly notes bounce
through air

smooth cold lick
strawberry ice-cream
dripping

pale curves
where a bikini lived

your legs shimmer
bronzed sunset

wind warbles
blonde hair
a reckless shiver

sun hits skin
with a blizzard of kisses

touch me

you taste of something
succulent

something you shouldn’t have
all in one go

magnetic electric physical

consonants fluid
like warm water

hands a slippery murmur
around your waist

an us
not an I

we are rapid fire
a hot knot
of carbon and calcium

our lips
mouths
moment

present

one

They are bringing the curtains
down over you,
the thick, viscous velvet curtains
and your story will end,
a final cut that runs
drunk away from the page,
as if you almost wanted it to happen,
like ‘here are my last words,
leave them raw and unfinished’,
a stream of ink your last remark.

Now, they all go fishing for something.
An ugly clutter of hands
picking at the pieces,
a hunt for golden titbits
to fizzle blindingly in their eyes
and bring about a shout,
a revealed mystery
which knocks them out.
Fifty-two years
of nit-picking through
the word-filled marshes
left behind
to last another fifty-two.

They have up-dug
silver slivers of your history,
re-heated them and rewound the tape
so they can swig your accent,
watch you unravel back
from thirty to twenty.
Book-club talks on your hair,
your scar,
your marriage,
every drop like a pinch of acid.

With a crackle, a drag,
it is said.
Is it done?
Is playtime over
with their favourite
aging marionette?
Maybe time has passed,
enough so they’ll only **** you again,
between the phone ringing
and the cup on its coaster.

My heart is like a fatty
red vegetable,
shuddering against
my celery ribs
making aches,
making sore echoes
in the apple core of my chest,
and your fingers resemble
chocolate buttons
when I tell you where it hurts.

---------------

I take a gulp of water,
its cool clear slither
as it slips down
my pasta throat,
scurrying around
with a chilled whisper
to my meaty beige stomach
where the cold vanishes
as quickly as it came,
wedged in the side
of a potato kidney.

---------------

With a twist
my ankle made of feta
jolts just a touch,
a blast of warmth
rocketing through my foot,
blossoming in the broccoli
florets that are my toes
and then up to the knee,
a lumpy lime
that jangles anxiously
in its socket.

I think of seawater
because of its briny tang,
because when,
by accident,
it trips into my mouth,
coats the inside of my cheeks
in a clear, chloride gloss.

I think of seawater
because of the way
it blooms along the shore,
dazzling white jewels
slinking up our toes,
our feet left with a glimmer,
slippery and clean.

I think of seawater
because your hair was soaked,
chestnut brown trickles
wriggling down your face
and I could smell the beach
in the pool of your neck,
fresh and transparent

at the crook of your lips.

at the back of the shop

   gawping around
   like a little lost boy

     you
trying on a dress

****

     a bit revealing

but not too revealing
and an utter bargain
for what it is
  
   you said

   I see your feet shuffle
under the curtain

Christmas is coming
so I think don’t buy it
   I’ll get you it for Christmas

     your face will shine like tinsel
a gigantic grin
job well done from yours truly

     but you step out
into the light
   body wrapped in blizzard-white

a blaze of lipstick
and my heart

roly-polys

twirl
   gorgeous

really
   yes

     you think so
as you check your exquisite figure
   in the mirror
  
yes yes

   wear it all day
   all of tomorrow

oh my
   steady now
yes yes

apart at the seams
apart
        at the

yes

me split
ting

stretch of whatever
   wet
blobs     leave
a st     ain

break
ing
cra ck ing

a clay *** in a kiln

pieces of myself
fraz
     zled
myself

coarse
          to touch

making beetroot
   pentagons on thumbs

these rag ged
moments
    
   they cannot be undone
I have not won

they only go
   on

In the middle
of a predicament

picking flowers for   you
   just because

rows of unusual names
green tubes dipped
with delicate baubles of colour

I’m eyeing up
   a volcano of roses

as a fuzzy aroma
   tickles my nose
   swirls into   my mouth

but aren’t roses cliché

aren’t bouquets the go-to gift
   for girlfriends
for friends   who are girls

I groan at the price
   but do it   just because

and because the woman said so
I choose a squad of others

so later

when   you place them in a glass vase

every time you smell that   funny smell

   you’ll think of roses
you’ll think of me

and us

our song is playing

every couple
seems to have one

   ours is a three-minute blast
   of hot rock

and for a moment
I am taken back

to the time we met

   you bartending
  
all blonde curls

squeezing lemons
over colourful drinks

   and unsociable me

awkwardly floating
   through young manhood

held in the warm grasp
of another crush

and like that

this is our song

I love it

   you say
as you scooch

   across the sofa
so our hands

our fingers
   touch

   then lock together

I am torn

between cookies and cream

or raisin and ***

   you have plumped
   for a vivid blue creation

it’s bubblegum
   you say

as it begins to
drip

   down your fingers

and I’m dawdling

so it’s raisin and *** then

two magnolia spheres
   glittering in the sun

and we walk down the street

with cold tongues

you are calling from the kitchen

would I like
   strawberry jam on my toast

strawberry jam?

   I think
I forgot we had some

in the refrigerator
   between the peanut-butter

   the almost empty jar
of gloopy marmalade

I shout back yes

I will have jam on my toast
   why not

   I feel healthy
I am growing a smile

there’s you and there’s life
and it’s only Monday

   you know

It would be easier, I think,
if my nerves were not so jittery,
wriggling under my skin
like small electric shocks

every time I nervously approach
an unknown thing,
a child handed a glossy new toy.
Is this how it is meant to be?

So young, so young,
life full with gaudy possibilities
at the arrival of another birthday,
presents losing their allure,

the rattling mystery beneath the paper,
my sweet cluster of friends
revving off into the distance
and I am left to wonder

who will fill the white, sad gaps.
I see you, I remember.
I see you, I remember you too.
A lengthy list splattered with letters,

wiry and black like a belch of string.
There is only so much
one person can do
when their hands are ravaged

by a peculiar numbness,
when their syllables and sentences
begin to stick together,
form a blood-red thick lake.

I'm at the very edge of myself.
The night has arrived, my body
shocked numb, a cold
I am now accustomed to.

My reflection shows a forlorn face -
I tell it I wish I could whisper
flowers, each one delicate and white,
so they could float on a river

of dreams I made real.

first flutter of like
becomes lust becomes a love
Thursday is date night

the palladium
their fizzing potential leaves
a stitch in my gut

The rain comes as a disappointing
flourish to the night.

I would go out in it.
I'd be away from my cave

at least. Nothing
is unusual these days. A time of

crookedness and dirt.
My events bleed through the present.

Some women will scribble your name in schoolbooks
but never spit it out loud.
Some women float away like dandelions.
Some women bubble so much they spill
over the side of your cup of coffee.
Some women will leave a minty taste
under your tongue.
Some women say they hate you but they don’t.
Some women are constructed out of paper.
Some women copy others to make themselves feel good.
Some women are as a juicy as a pineapple
everybody wants the very next drop.
Some women will call you and say wrong number sorry.
Some women win without as much as a line of sweat
on their skulls.
Some women carry names inside their jean pockets.
Some women want diamonds.
Some women loathe other women but never explain why.
Some women will tear you open like it’s Christmas.
Some women live as if on the edge of a cliff.
Some women want thin.
Some women like big.
Some women won’t care if you don’t party hard.
Some women dance so well you will fall
underneath the flashing disco lights.
Some women have you as their favourite headache.
Some women teach better than any professor.
Some women hate the size of their *******.
Some women swipe husbands and keep a tally
below the floorboards where no-one has to know.
Some women have been singed
you could set them alight.
Some women won’t do what you want them to.
Some women count stars until they lose count.
Some women click their heels and make a wish or ten.
Some women can see their futures glistening
in the corners of their eyes.
Some women **** men with their lipstick.
Some women know with just one look.
Some women squeal as though
a toaster has been tossed in the bathtub.
Some women want three words three syllables
to swirl manically through their veins.
Some women would prefer it if you split the bill.
Some women choose click-flicks over ***.
Some women cheat when playing Monopoly.
Some women are left-handed and until
they write the wedding invitations you won’t even know.
Some women are fake outside but real inside.
Some women judge books by their covers.
Some women bleed red if they’re feeling blue.
Some women prefer Pepsi over Coke.
Some women drive wildly because they can.
Some women turn bad when they get drunk
they won’t remember but you’ll never forget.
Some women dread the moment
anyone sees them with no clothes on.
Some women are like morphine.
Some women will watch you crawl away and laugh
the sound smacking your eardrum again and again.
Some women will treat you like their next cigarette.
Some women will offer you their Vimto hearts
beg you to keep them beating.

I. The Black Eyed Peas.

I told you a fib.
It was six years ago
so I doubt you’d remember.
Regardless, during one lunch-break
on the cusp of summer,
a matter of weeks before
we all exploded away from each other
you somehow had your legs
wrapped around my waist,
an unusual unexpected embrace.
A joke.
We were teenagers
and we mucked around more then.
Pulling me in yet
you seemed to lose magnetism;
strange - you always shone bright,
your laughter coiling round the room.
I stuttered for too long,
barely delving under the surface,
missing the sparkle, your diamond delights.
You are miles gone.

----------

II. David Guetta.

Not enough.
A corridor, a sprinkling of minutes.
My head in a whirl,
as anyone’s would be.
Like a firework, your white tendrils
splattered across my dark sky.
I couldn’t even call it trying.
I fumbled my words
as if fastening buttons
with my lesser-used hand.
Falling deeper into filthy water,
unable to hear your eyes
or see your words.
A loss.
A bout of crushing shame.
You deserved more,
not my faulty lines.
It couldn’t have worked,
it closed with a groan
not a radiant shout of ecstasy.
What are you saying?

----------

III. Example.

The grand peak of my weakness.
A clumsy rush of flower petals
smothered inside grey paper.
I burrowed further than before,
the soil dusting my fingers
but no more than that.
Swinging in my chair
for another look,
spouting brittle jokes
that melted in the heat.
I knew what I saw and I liked it.
You threw slivers of something;
I caught them, a hopeless
unknowing scarecrow.
Time sneaked away from us.
Naturally - it happens.
Your name has never left,
a crash in the air
like the blast of a trumpet.

----------

IIII. Miley Cyrus.

I repeat myself so many times
I want to cough on my fingers,
chuck it all on the side of a wall.
Every adjective worn down
to a rancid pulp on the ground.
There were moments
fizzing with optimism, the potential
for colours to rush back in,
to drizzle across my page
and slap a smile on my face.
We know what happened.
The string grew in length
and snapped,
my body jerking every which way
as if attempting some dreadful dance.
There wasn’t a sigh,
more a sound of acceptance,
the knowledge that again
I had missed the mark,
a bullet leaving the gun,
screaming the wrong way.
It is over now.

Then it slammed on your skin,
right in the kisser,
the leathery wallop
ski dd in g m a d l y t h r o u g h y o u r m o u t h .
Next came the blossoming pain,
a stinging ring
where the fist made contact
and you stagger back
in a muddled shock.

It was an accident;
I was getting into it,
thumping your left,
your right hand, fury
brewing inside me from somewhere
like a bonfire beside my heart.

I kiss you where it hurts,
the tingle of your stubble
rolls along my bottom lip.
What have I done?
Did I mean to leave
another burn on your face?
You don’t even blink,
a lingering black stare
and whisper with your eyes
what was that about then?

A chuckle skitters into the night.
Thought it was nothing
but now seems it’s something.

Let’s keep going.

It can be forgotten.

You jam the glove back over my wrist
and I’m ready again,
maybe, just a maybe,
hoping that I miss.

I am not drunk you will have
to have me like this
and I’m sorry about that
with my teeth pumped full of silver
my toes like awkward twigs

now my hand is on your shoulder-blade
where I taste honey
and I find the scar you said you had
a misty oblong splash on the back
of one arm

then I seem to lose control of my lower face
the biology out of whack
it is moving about as if
yawning but not yawning
more chewing a wodge of sickly toffee

you are on me
touching me like this happens
to anyone with a wonky pulse
a gurgle in their gut
that sounds like a faulty washing-machine

have I made this up
am I zipping seamlessly through
each lucid scene without so much
as a blink
a sour cough

does it matter
you are playing me
as your favourite guitar
twanging the strings
to make me sort of sing

I have miles just miles
of words to spill out to say
but I don’t know how
to rotate them together
just yet

You won’t remember this
but that time we sat
on the steps of your cousin’s place
in Brooklyn, Hewes St., one October night,
where we stayed out
and talked till three A.M.,
our fingers chapped,
our noses tinged crimson.
I remember it because
you were cold and I gave you
my jacket, the black one
I’d only just bought the day before
and you said wow, look at those goosebumps
popping up along your arms,
but sorry, I’m colder, I’m wearing this now.
We’d been to see a concert
at Madison Square Garden,
and they were all there,
Billy, Dave, Hayley,
to celebrate your birthday five days early.
They knew, you knew
every single word,
hurling them at the band
like verbal snowballs,
your hair a brunette blur,
strobe lights in our eyes.
We left with headaches
bursting open as flowers,
sweat trapped in my fringe.
Dave was into you,
did I ever mention that?
He’s been to see you
and sometimes speaks
but he finds it difficult.
We all do if I’m honest.
Anyway, we took the F
and then the J.
By 11.56 we were tired
but not quite tired enough.
I was going to walk you home
but we never left those steps.
We looked up and down the street,
said what cars we liked and why.
A Honda HRV, avocado-green
stood out to you, a hulking skeleton of metal
I said looked ugly.
You were lonely then.
Any attention was guzzled up, I could tell.
I rambled on so much
it stopped sounding English
but there was giggling, smiling,
puffs of breath whirling away from us.
You told me your only friend
was your reflection in store windows.
Surely not true.
We all said that.
Hayley told you to snap out of it
but you didn’t know how to snap out.
And when you rang on Friday morning
we all should have listened,
clutching our phones
making sense of it all.
Now you won’t remember
and there’s blood on my wrist.
that came from someone else.

we’ve created a mess
and we don’t care
grooves in the sand
where our feet
have been dragged
in a deluge of passion
jeans sprayed a sticky yellow
trickles of sweat
a discrete tattoo
my hand on your thigh
under your vest
a ***** hair-dripping bomb
you tug me closer
the catch of the day
I touch your lips
glistening in the sun
lose a breath
and fall into a fever
a flood of red and orange
and a thousand others
heart smacking against my ribs
a ferocious rhythm
as I taste your kiss

what is this life?
what is this gelatinous mess?
what has been done
has been done
willingly or reluctantly
   - I know the moments
that have seen me
judder the gearstick the wrong way
that have seen my bones
rattle with a dreadful calcium clatter
my lungs like sandwich bags
flimsy against my heart
which throbs as some malformed peach
when a white chocolate blonde goes by
it reminds me of ice-cream
the chilly fuzz inside my skull
my nerves anesthetised
gone blue gone slow
   - names clamour over one another
until I can’t separate the letters
the worth keeping
the junk mail
a train spewing passengers outside
I am knocked all over as a conker
bruises blossoming into pools of Ribena
where is the asphyxiate button?
that would wipe this page clean right?
   - here is what I offer
passion by the bushel
and while I have not fired Cupid’s bow
or slurred my way through a Taylor song
I can make it work
I can learn to drive
and stop being a moth toward the light
flapping my epileptic wings till they burn
   - I will scrub the soil from my skin
latch onto you and be the best possible me
float within your ripples
swig the air as if it’s lemonade
just taken from the fridge
say I am not who I was before
I am new I am fresh I am sparkling clean
like a toddler as they wobble
to make their first step

the [ sight ] of a couple
here is the MAN
mid - 20ies
younger at a     push
c/h/e/c/k/e/d u n b u t t o n e d shirt
lARGe looks-em   pt   y rucksack
on his back
a sort of sil very-mist colour
and black skinny jeans
every1 seems to where
I’ll admit
I have a pair - pair
but they’re not wright
for my job
he (sees) me
Ilookawayquickly
but He knows eye saw Him
arms (((locked))) in a ring
a round the waist of a gir!
exhausted and eyes <shut>
flower-crown droop:ng
down her $four head
as she drops d ee per
into sl ee p
murmurs some-thing
just muFFled syLLables
probably went to a ‘gig’
music still rrumbling
as an     empty     stomach
in her ears
so maybe not a couple
friends more likely
a girl and guy hhuggingg
friendlee
friend ship
whatever it is
the train comes
screeeeches to astop
and within a minit
they are gOne
I am gOne
and yet #goingnowhere

Second-hand smoke
thrums within my ribcage
and I notice every atom
from top to bottom
crannies and nooks
mahogany lava
flooding over shoulders
blue-streaked toes

I can't look away
I don't want to look away
at the way
she holds a cigarette
lazy between *******
and the impish half-smile
that says everything perhaps
and perhaps nothing
a Picasso masterpiece
but it's only lips
it's only the girl
they all call Alaska
a walking storm in flip-flops
from room forty-eight

the static we have
simmers upon my tongue
or is it just Mountain Dew

words belonging to Vonnegut
drop from the leaves
sparkle like drizzle
and kiss every clover
good evening goodnight
goodbye

I have plunged into her pool
of wine and waterlogged literature
I see it I know it I want
to take a drag of her
glide inside her nirvana
hear her smile
with a crush of emeralds
wild in my eyes
a throb of electricity
that rockets through
my crooked veins
and I want a taste
as if squeezing a lemon
and the sugar cascades
liquor-like down my throat
straight and fast
to the last frontier

I see a chain of daisies
gush from her chest
crash at her feet
to be continued
I hope I hope
a phone is ringing
what country is calling?
is it where her vanilla whisper
leaves me wondrously numb?
a fuzzy echo hums
inside my ears
I ask is it over?
Is it done?

and then ****
I'm awake
and her name
has vanished
as fast as a ghost
disintegrated
like the cigarette she held
lazy between *******.

sun forms lemon stockings
     on legs
          bent like anglepoise lamps
     turn the page
          sparkling water
how do they make it sparkle
your earrings sparkle
     two in each ear
tiny frosted spheres
          empty liquorice heels
dead on the ground
     flaking purple toenails
     a relative’s name
in fancy font above an ankle
          you say
what are you looking at
     you know the answer
I feel it in my cheeks

the gurgle of your laugh
   is mouthwash
in the bathroom sink
charging across beach
   like zips on coats
yours is red
   breath ragged
a tyre with a puncture
but keep revving anyway
   feet crash as bells
**** as waves
   cheeks like the Japanese flag
raspberry-ripple drink
this fizzy petrol
   makes us buzz
our vehicles rumbling
   full of three-dollop ice-cream
rattle of matches
in my back pocket
   hear the scratch-ffttth
as I let one go
   lob it towards the sea
grab your hand
swirl in a circle
   so we become smoke
swarming from incense sticks
   then we go back
the way we came
over our xylophone footprints
   if they could chime they would
me and you now froth
   spilling down the side of a pint
dialogue luminous
as a blue margarita
   ankles chatter together
ladder on your tights
   and we sail in bathtubs
to where we’ve never been
wearing sunglasses shaped
   like briquette-black hearts

It’s the one
I’ve heard a hundred times before
track number twelve
belching out the stereo.
It’s either six or five AM
anyway the horizon is orange
like a papaya
and I’m next to your window
with a glass of flat 7-Up in one hand.
No alcohol all evening
but tipsy somehow
maybe the music got some hormones
smiling inside me
or your dancing in next to nothing
gave my brain a vinegary kick.
Now you ask again
I say I have two left feet
you pull an I-couldn’t-care-less face
so it’s settled
I’m dancing but not really
and my arms are thrashing about
so much I worry I’ll belt your lampshade off
and then you jump on the bed
and Teddy goes flying
and somehow I’m quickly up there with you.
We’re teenagers at our first festival
location - your bedroom
headline act on stage
and we’re going effing nuts
at the front shrieking lyrics
hoping our sweaty faces are on BBC Three.
I’m totally knackered so I pant to you
that I’m totally knackered
and you lean in for a kiss
but bump my nose instead
and laugh just as you’ve done all night
so loud so lovely so couldn’t care about
what comes next.
We lie down now
to catch our breath
except you don’t catch your breath do you
it’s just a thing people say
and our four feet are together
naked red sock naked blue sock
you say the song listen it’s ending
so it is
fading away like every night
that comes and then goes.

the water grips my reflection

all wobbly head
     quavering legs

a swathe of hillside
     like an avocado slice

trees squashed together
     in a bristly embrace

gluey splodge of cloud
     on a periwinkle sky

shimmer of sunlight
     across the lake

illuminates your face

Straight on a plain, miles with the blowing wind.
Miles on a plane, nowhere near the mountain ranges,
nowhere near the Atlantic shore, no lapping sounds -
Just your gentle breathing
I’m just happy you’re alive.

This bulldozed land is barren,
dry like my eyes like a dirt road.
I’m stung on the arm by an imaginary bee,
flung out the open window.
This reminds me of the pleasantries we exchanged.

How polite we used to be.
And now your tired arm is slung over the wheel
angry with me. “Can you just
shut the **** up.” I’m not saying anything.
Let’s pull over at the next petrol station
get some Red Bull and make out like we’re American.

Lick the sting. Does it taste like Pepsi?
Can I be your blonde baby or your Barbie?
These dust clouds are haloing the sun,
as we sing out loud and off tune harmony.
It’s just you and me and nowhere baby.
So use me up until I’m gone. Drag on me
like a cigarette and extinguish me on the lawn.

---------------------------------------------------------
­
Nowhereland.
Head ready to burst
like elastic bands around a watermelon.
I’ve been getting angry.
Snappy again.
The long drive has left me whacked,
our conversation gone putrid,
the air swimming with expletives.
Hay bales.
Green fields.
Lost track of how many.
Wasn’t counting anyway.
Into sixth gear then.
South Dakotan sun
stretches into the car,
over your body;
I knew it well. I know it well.
The milometer slides
to fifty-seven thousand
and the silence stings my skin
like a small fresh burn
so I raise my voice - your mouth is closed.
I toss an empty Coke can out the window,
hear it scuttle over hot grey road.
Then you begin to sing, so I sing. Why?
Awful. Wrong key. Don’t care.
You look across,
destroy me so well,
the tumbling heart in a tower of cards.
I know. Stop the car.
Find a bar.
Let’s numb ourselves together
so we feel something,
gorge on US TV
till our eyes go red white and blue.
Look what we’ve become.
Just your gentle breathing.
This is what alive feels like.
Now give me a drag
of whatever it is you’re having.

Driving for hours.
Nothing but road.
Me, head slumped
on one shoulder,
watching the rain
screech across the window.
You took over
as we crossed into Wisconsin,
the pattern of the steering-wheel
embedded in your palms.
Still got coffee from a café
a hundred miles back -
now like gloopy mud stuck in a cup.
The radio throws out
another Bon Iver track
as the wipers squeak
from side to side.
Both of us tired.
I see your eyelids flicker
between awake and not quite awake.
We stop for gas in Mazomanie.
The engine wheezes to a halt,
I hand you thirty bucks
which empties my wallet.
You stumble from the car
in a sluggish daze.
I try to shake my body alive,
my limbs heavy,
bones cracking.
Phone barely has any juice.
Enough to text home
a be home soon.
As we set off again
you give me a kiss,
a dash of caffeine on your lips.
I pinch my skin to a light red.
This is not in a dream.

charred exoskeleton
with a spider-like crown

   empty network of wires
   skinny black straws

a burnt-out wreck
of salt-flecked bones

   mottled gaps unfilled
   now an eerie static abacus

a blemish in the sea
crumbling like stale cake

slapdash rush
collision of lips
that open like flowers
eyes acorn-brown
red lust flush
blooms from fingers to toes
tingle of fire
licks through veins
like dripping water
skin on skin flickers
and hot sleepy breaths
quirks and delights
together as one
potent potpourri
taste of oranges
and cinnamon
something entirely
new

faint ****
     rise fall
          of feet
               round holes
                    where toes poke
               water wrinkles
          like little knuckles
     two three prints
sunlight swims
     subtle curve
          backs of legs
               delicate corners
                    creases in skin
               her anatomy
          sealed into dreams
     delicious whisper
and I follow

Love, the sky is blank
mist hangs like a million ghosts
car tyres splatter on a distant road
in the bedroom clocks stutter minutes slow
the vacuous writer snaps shut his book
In another place 11 years from now
I taste your breath on my tongue
you're drying your hair by the mirror
take a long sip of warm peppermint tea
your echo kisses the windows

Si   lent
             fig   ures
                           un   der   a   du   vet
I do not know them
                            the pic   ture is not clear e   nough
                            I simp   ly can't
i  ma   gine   the   breath
              on a   no   ther one’s skin
                             crack   le be   tween   fin   gers
and so - called sparks
                             but I would dis   cover
                             the wi   res that con   nect us
und   er   stand our net   work
              like a be   guil   ing lab   y   rinth
                             quick blink - touch   es
qui   et   ly
                            crad   le your name
                            as if it were
a snow   flake

Fingers fumble at buttons
liquorice in our breath
misty fug of your name
still lingers on the window
it watches
toes like bent paperclips
fidget impatiently
glass half-full of lemon and lime
little bubbles little fizzes
mute television
goldfish mouths with no sound
this evening
'vamp' your chosen shade
exposed navel heartbeats
blood thump in ear
a sock falls off
the other overboard already
twenty fingers
it's alright
I say it's fine it's alright

fully clothed

champagne waves
dripping translucent

seaweed hair
ankles drowning
sunken soles

shoelace ripples
grubby knees
buttoned shirt

salt freckles
stretching light

wet lips