Today, no yesterday
you purchased a raincoat
to drench you in grey,
way too expensive
but worth it, about right
if you hand over enough.

They will see you ride,
maiden on a bike
through the torrent in your new
good-on-the-eyes garment,
with just the slightest hint
of merry pink lining.

A night in mid-August
and you can hear them
from your house,
the drums begin
and brass sounds follow
like quietly excited children,
like the two who walk with you
over the hill.

The sun sinks
into evening’s quicksand,
your soggy clock
of adolescence
ticks faster than ever.

Scent of popcorn
excites your nostrils,
grey couples talk soft, slow,
and once your blanket
is draped upon the grass
you see an orb of hollow green
drift sleepily
up, up, over everyone’s heads
and you wish
you were that tiny balloon,
floating far away
toward something new
as each teenage summer
blurs into your brew.

For once, I watched
after waking early
the trick of the sky,
a vivid circle
creeping up
as an anniversary.
Half forget-me-not,
half sunflower,
a glowing hat
poised on the horizon,
amber flames
singe the first clouds
of morning.
Chimneys soak in light
and here
from the window
it climbs higher
ready to burn,
ready to blind.

A night sometime in mid-July
and darkness hums between the trees.
My eyes look across sodden grass
for another life to waddle past.

A creature,
a ball of bristles
appears from the bushes,
listen out for a snuffle, a mumble.

There, by the fence,
a wooden coat speckled with milk.
Its movement lazy like a man
on a summer Sunday walk home.

Does it come often? I wonder
as a breeze races over my lawn.
A sniff of a fallen branch
before shuffling along.

The evening crawls on,
a caterpillar over a leaf.
I decide to wait a while,
watch my guest awake, alive.

The blackcurrant words
     seemed grotesque to you
     on the vast tarnished landscape.
Letters curling as October leaves
     pricked your old silver eyes,
     slapdash lines
and glitter thoughts
     splurged upon your paintings.
     You were a poppy,
a dark, minute dot,
     but every idea burst in gaudy red
     from you.
The poems would arrive,
     would come eventually,
     leap from your fingers,
punch onto the page
     and would it be good enough?
     Your product, complete.

What you should have done
instead of throwing your clothes
was let the water run
from the rusty ‘H’ tap,
heard, watched it splash, gush
in the long white tub
to almost near the top.

Then what you should have done
is dipped your petite frame
into the steaming transparency,
feet first, felt it scald
every individual toe,
see the intense red
flush your pale skin,
blotches of crushed raspberries
rising up your **** legs.

Once under,
you could have sunk so far down
so only your nose and eyes were dry,
a scrambled mess of blonde straws
stuck to the surface,
and each muscle would relax
like an aged writer in an armchair.
You'd be cured again, new again,
if only ephemeral.

I think he wrote
while you baked,
made fairy cakes
or something of the sort
while the young ones
whizzed around
like balloons
released from your fingers.

I think he was
your applicant,
not a bad fit,
frothing with wit,
a kiss made you giddy
like a girl
on their first date
in the heaving city.

On a red day
I think you sighed
when hearing boots
in the hallway but beamed
on a blue day
when he strode
through the door, a tie,
another rough wool jumper.

When he rode
those capsules home
I think perhaps you
wished to nick
your thumb again,
see the crimson seep
and weep as a child
over their father.

I think you wore
the smile of accomplishment
on day forty-two,
enough had bruised you,
pinched your skin
so it hurt and burnt pink,
stung a cheek
and left a tender spot.

I think you didn't want to
but did anyway,
felt all your words
had charred and bled black
so inhaled the haze,
swam under the jar
for the last time, before it fell
and cracked on his floor.

For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.

I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.

Once a little sun,
black walls drooled over
by pumpkin light,
soaking the furniture.

We knew you were ill,
every hour dissolving
to a lukewarm puddle.

You began to weep
white chocolate tears.

Couldn't be helped,
the heat gobbled you up
in segments like a boa constrictor.

We said goodbye
as you slipped down in the earth,
a trickle of smelly grey smoke left,
all you were, melted.

Now for too long drunk in your past,
dunked in your past
and you know I can't swim,
thrashing like an epileptic puppet
as each wave gurgled over me.

I guess you were a magnet,
hurling me toward you like
a cricket ball in the air,
except I was never caught,
the shiny maroon sphere
nowhere near your fingers.

Had to go and ruin it,
spoil it, but there wasn't an 'it',
a malleable object
for us to **** and poke
into our chosen shape.

You can't swim back either I suppose,
for the city screams
at you like an ambulance
and my head bobs above the surface,
I see silhouettes
move no nearer, no further.

I told you not to forget
but you did,
a letter resigned in a drawer,
a story left to grow dust
and words to vaporise
like they were never written
and meant one thing.

I liked our kaleidoscope moments,
candy-colours in triangles and circles,
melting stained glass
but you broke it,
dropped it on the floor or something
and we couldn't fix it,
those reds and greens and golds
a sprinkled memory
at the back of our brains.

So we used a spinning top
and watched it ****
upon the table,
round and round
but it slowed,
staggering
like a man intoxicated
and it fell from the wooziness,
too sick to go on.

So we played chess
even though I am mediocre at it
and I was white,
you were black,
the little kings, queens, bishops
forced forwards by our fingers
until they didn't want to play anymore,
back in the box please,
and you won, of course,
you won every game with ease.

Said we'd play again sometime
but you didn't remember
and I bought a new kaleidoscope too,
just for us to use
but you forgot didn't you,
it happened again.

I found her sprawled on the stairs
with no shoes,
plum-coloured bruise
on the back of her leg,
I ask, how did she fall?

Hand slumped over a step,
a young girl climbs to sleep,
now still on these stairs,
all dreams wrapped in black,
bumped her milky-haired head,
but how did she fall?

I heard no commotion,
no 'ouch', no '****!',
no cry cutting the air to my ears,
I only opened the door
and saw you on the stairs
and I can only wonder
how did she fall?

Was her mind swimming in drink?
Eyes droopy and weak?
Unable to reach
her soft pillow in bed?
Now as the clock dongs
throughout our house
I still think
how did she fall?

I say aloud her name
but no breath, no movement at all,
she remains sprawled
near the top of the stairs,
close, not close enough
and I look at her there
unconscious, mind strolled off elsewhere
and I continue to ponder,
how did she fall?

Bright     blue      skewers      the      dark,
navy      fingers      grow­      into      nothing.

A   young   girl's   helium   squeal   hisses   high,
'oooh.....ahhhh.'
Emerald   gunshot   ends   another   life.

Velcro-splitting,
amber   glitter
sparkles   upon
the   night's   stars.

Toothpicks ***** the sky,
crimson ribbons dribble down
like blood dripping from a nose.

The orchestra of colour plays
before black devours them all again.

Black hair
like oodles of shoelaces
on the surface.

Skin turns to tough rubber,
fingers are lollies
left to freeze in a dank cave.

Above, a melting sky,
wonky blue and white
too far from wrinkled hands.

Electronic voices stutter
into her ears, a gargly reply
floats to nowhere.

Each second adds up,
each second closer to blackout,
perhaps a slow-motion wave cheerio?

She drifts deeper down,
a wrecked puppet
asleep in the sea.

Unable to inhale,
throat begins to scrunch
like a paper cup.

Bright vegetables of the sea,
disordered hair, thin arms.

Tubes protrude among vivid coral,
an array of shades against a sapphire canvas.

Wobbly vermilion wires poke out
from under rust-coloured rocks.

A clown swims quick through the middle,
orange in a forest of fingers.

Pink bonbons, candy canes,
an underwater confectionery store.

Some throb with electricity,
small pools of violet light near their homes.

Others ***** rainbows
from deep open mouths.

Waltzing in solitude
as tangerine horses gallop.

More creatures weave past,
realise they are in a multi-hued hug.

Hidden paint splatters,
are they aliens of the deep?

I want to feel those feelings,
those indefinable feelings
of hopscotching
towards it,
one foot in front of the other
to experience
the maudlin aqua-eyed
moments in rain,
jeans
and midnight skirts.

Taking every step necessary
to evade black lakes
down your cheeks,
hot blood on my fingertips.

And there'd be a song,
cordial and soft
on the piano,
delicate
like carnation petals,
writing lyrics
on each other's arms
in multi-coloured ink,
letters that hop
up to our elbows.

How to feel what it's like
with another one,
opposite and the same
all at once.

Cheerful dreams,
placid days
on streets, in homes
with brown drinks,
single and un-single friends
who say 'I knew you two would...'
and to show our love
our hands would touch
and our lips would touch
and the lights would rise.

I. (The Bubble).

Now, I don't like it.
The coming, the going
on four wheels
to the building
where we all drift,
told what is right
and how to write,
the same stories
in disparate voices,
A B C fail.
What is obscured behind the names,
cherubic female faces,
men from various places?
Who are you again?
We talk
but know little
about each other.
It's about you,
how to waft into
the social triangle.
We are transparent bubbles
that float and collide
and pop,
an insignificant extinction.
I do not like it.

II. (The People 'Just Like Me').

It fell into your lap
like warm spilt tea.
You took it,
the first,
of course,
but me?
Not a thing,
not a person I mean
on the other side
of the decrepit fence.
Forget, forget they say,
pick someone from that place,
figure them out
like a thousand-piece jigsaw.
But they are no good,
diluted colours
visible but not stand-out.
Where are the similar shades
of green
to paint themselves to me?
There could only be one
but forgive me,
I cannot see
for the steam in my eyes.

III. (The Resolutions).

These are the silent days
between pigs in blankets
and bangs in the sky.
Wet weather,
lights on.
The resolutions,
who keeps them?
Write better,
fair enough.
Be less inept,
but I am not anyway.
Cut down on complaining,
take each day
s t e a d y .
Breathe, move forwards,
only on occasion
delving into the sack
to pull out
unwelcome shards of the past
or vibrant memories
soon to vanish.
Are you sure you want
to delete this file?
Yes/No?

and we met up, same place,
seats still cold but comfy.
Your cheeks were fuchsia pink
from the squally breeze outside
and I had one of my scarves
wound around my neck,
red and black
like a chunk of children’s candy.
The story you'd started
was going well,
ideas popping up
as a villain would
in a hackneyed horror film.
I said a sporadic poem
spilled onto the page
but little else,
just comatose dross.
Twenty past,
coffee swam over our teeth
like sepia-bikinied swimmers.
Somehow you were more beautiful
but unaware of it,
your hair brighter
under the glare of the lights above.
The youngest pair around,
early twenties, 'whole life ahead.'
How wrong.
Our relationship a radiator
that fails to heat up enough.
Everybody has one.
I'll write about you someday for sure.
Some day.

I. (Wrap).

It does not matter
how they have wrapped the presents
but what lies beneath.

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

II.­ (Gifts).

Be thankful my friends
for what you have this Christmas
even if it's socks.

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

III. (Reindeer).

In all honesty,
should Santa and his reindeer
fly in this weather?

Snitch-catcher.
Cauldron-stirrer.
Wand-waver.
Quidditch-player.
S­tone-retriever.
Riddle-killer.
Buckbeak-rider.
Triwizard-enterer.­
Phoenix-member.
Snape-hater.
Voldemort-fighter.

The lady shuffles,
spindly feet across the wooden fence.

A blood red bug
flecked with dark black circles.

It’s as though a child
has painted her flimsy wings.

White marks
on her head like lights on a dark road.

Sunlight skulks up
to where she now stands.

I blink
and she chooses to whizz away.

A minute crimson blur
against the forget-me-not sky.

Why do they laugh at me? Guffaw until hoarse
as I walk through the fog?

Little copper feet strut across woodwork,
sherbet white feathers extend, retract.

A mob stands on soggy grass, wheezing
like old men on twenty a day.

Some yawn, open orange castanet beaks,
a boring morning for those who remain.

Clouds turn a grimmer grey shade
over me and these gulls.

Two of them spring up, higher than every tree,
wings glide through air as satin through fingers.

Tiny eyes will continue to scour this park
for another stranger to deride.

Every afternoon I walked past
and there, sprawled static
amid golden brown grass.

I thought someone would move you,
the stench, the gaunt body
obsolete in feeble autumn sunlight,
winter’s overcoat.

I could not look away
from the rough mustard
and chalk white hair.

Flies, bugs clung to you
like a strong-smelling drug,
ebony eyes open
but you saw nothing.

The gap grew each day,
a lump gone
and before long, the rest.

and we went for coffee
at the cafe round the corner
where the guy
who served us looked like
a wannabe rock star,
where the seats were cold,
a buttermilk colour.
I remember your lips
were strawberry red -
I wore a liquorice jet-black jacket
that was too small for me.
Then somehow
like a shirt in the wash
the conversation changed
to the other side of things,
what we both had written
over the days of dying summer.
'Plenty, you?' is what you said
sipping from the white mug.
'Not much, no surprise' my riposte,
glasses harassed
by caffeine-full clouds as I drank.
Then the fog cleared,
I could see again
sinking into your seawater eyes
and I muttered how I'd scrawl down
something about you
sometime.
This isn't it.
Here’s to another day.

Your fingertips
are icicles,
doodling
figures of eight
on my cheeks.
I see your breath
like little white clouds
of smoke
drift in the winter air
and vanish,
as if you didn't breathe
out at all.
The branches
of the nearby oak tree
sprayed
in whipped cream,
the ground sprinkled
with a vanilla ice cream-like
layer of snow.
And as it slowly
starts to melt
you lean in for a kiss,
the frosty blast
of mint
infecting my teeth.

I'll ask you not to turn off the lights,
I want them to blind me
with their brilliant filaments
until the bulbs break
like a vase on a tiled floor,
the walls, the door go back
to being charcoal black
as they have been so many times before.

I have started to abhor
the roads that define me,
the words that describe me
and my traits,
the way I must walk in wintery air
to a migraine inducing wilderness
to be squashed into old moulds,
will this be adequate for you now and when?

What is this fall,
does it affect you, your actions,
your jumbled jigsaw piece thoughts?
These bruises are purple,
this brain is strained,
inject me with zest
until my wrist pains
so much it must combust.

Out of the glass is nothing,
a candyfloss cloud, a tree, a lawn,
it bores me,
an artist is needed,
paint a new canvas
swathed in colour
and things from my weekend dreams
lucid and intense.

I am a ******* up ball
of paper, unfold me, still legible?
Fold it again, an airplane
chucked into an angry breeze
or please,
if the lamps are tough enough,
watch my words illuminate,
drool across the table.

Why do you wear that thing?
Not nice to embrace
the coarse khaki coat
wrapped round
your whole body.

I don't want to touch
your untrimmed chin,
what's underneath?

When I remove
the fuzzy item I gasp -
black pin-****** all over your chest
and grass stains
like rays of light too.

You never blink,
just stare at me with wet
creamy-coloured eyes.

I have basked in another beauty,
a sharp jasmine needle
that has pricked the corner
of the so-called snazzy ones.
A bright torch
in a dark blue drowned room,
crumbs on a blood napkin
and the one-tone words
drop out our ears
like heptagonal coins out of pockets
or tears,
tears onto pages
in a teenager’s diary.

And then we advance
into October air
where leaves tick and tack
as typewriter keys do
across soggy ground.
Ride, walk
and now a story begins.

Blonde after blonde,
strangers
stroll in,
no idea who you are,
not a clue where you're going.
I am among
a new wave of writers
with anxiety on the table,
pursuing acclaim for incoherency.
Some are absent
like a snowflake at Christmas,
failed to come forward
over the horizon
where rainclouds don't depart.
Naturally reserved
in our asylum of words
but it's a melee
to be heard,
to be seen,
a rising flower
on the cusp of spring.

Head sunken in a black puddle,
give me a sponge
with no holes
to scrub away marks
of irritation.
Drinking disease,
blood is a slush
like crushed ice in my veins
through dreary afternoons.
A headache burns
but how the flames must spasm
in the wind
and wax drip
as a tap not turned off right
to stir incoherent words along.
Are ears filled with filth,
eyes coated in a watery false film?
Dust the old ones from your shoulder,
move past the smog
to the probable.

I traipse along fractured slabs
to get away,
away from worn floors
to a place
of haunting silence -
just cope with it I say.
From the cavern
to the cave,
beneath ***** dishcloth clouds,
a monochrome Rubik's cube
of a mind,
sluggish and masses
of ******* ideas,
there
then forgotten.
Rummage around
in the green sack,
pick out a dream
to dream
tonight
before it melts
like Red Leicester on brown bread
into an image
hard to decipher,
a TV dotted with white spots -
smack me on the back
'til a picture returns.
Blindfold me
until I cannot see,
give me another sliver
of suspect perfection.

Now you are married,
may you spend several years
happy together.

Over the garden you droop,
crooked fingers
point in every direction.

When summer's gone
you shake, a wet dog,
the grass strewn with shrivelled waste.

"Not so young anymore",
a weaker wrinkled body
battered by almost all weathers.

A faded jade jacket
covers your naked figure
as the cold days come closer.

From my window I look,
and your strands of hair
nearly scrape the sky.

A chalky body
tainted with sticky ruby,
acne-riddled, dark spots.
Digits
spill out
over your tongue
onto the red floor.
Clatter,
now spin.
Watch through your dried blood fringe
as it revolves,
let the good times roll,
isn’t that what you say?
Now this is out of your hands,
out of your mouth,
blurred blackness,
your choice down to chance.
A low rotating sound
and it lands
next to crimson painted nails.
Your number is up.

As I opened my fridge one morning,
early on before sunrise,
I was greeted by the stench of tuna fish
which at that time came as quite a surprise.

And I poured myself a glass of orange juice,
the stronger stuff with bits in,
and then tossed yesterday’s Guardian
into the overflowing silver bin.

‘I’ll pull back the curtains’ is what I thought next,
nobody, of course, out on the street.
No sooner had I picked up the remote control
when I felt like something to eat.

‘I’ll get myself some toast’ I said in my head,
and smear it with some Marmite,
but my days, my eyes were so **** sore,
I couldn’t see if I was doing it right.

The years I’ve been waking up early,
every time it is the same,
barely making it down the stairs,
all part of God’s make-him-pay game.

But I finally sat down once more
and could now relax in front of the news,
only to see some cheery couple
with a glass of champagne on a cruise.

It made me wonder, what it would be like
if tomorrow I just stayed in bed.
Would I have an extra few hours to rest
or would somebody find me dead?

Then a van pulled up on the other side of the road,
bloke closed it with a very loud bang,
made me jump so much I spilt half my drink,
seconds later is when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I recognised the voice immediately,
a friend calling me at this hour?
They said how they wanted to pop round later
if it wasn’t going to be a terrible bother.

‘Sure’ I replied and then soon hung up,
my voice sounded coarse like Velcro.
Only then did my eyes see a black figure
standing right outside my window.

It's all about time and how we don't have enough of it.
It's all about money and how we need more of it.
It's all about petrol and the high price of it.
It's all about school and how we are so fed up of it.
It's all about guys and girls and how they don't seem to get 'it'.
It's all about family and how we don't feel part of it.
It's all about sleeping and how it takes ages to arrive at it.
It's all about a cigarette and how we shouldn't be smoking it.
It's all about a drug and how easily we can take it.
It's all about the bad dudes and how easily they can do it.
It's all about a gun and how simple it is to fire it.
It's all about health and how we don't look after it.
It's all about war and asking what's the point of it.
It's all about music and the messages within it.
It's all about poetry and what someone has to say in it.
It's all about ignorance and how there's too much of it.
It's all about religion and having a moan about it.
It's all about birth and how we should treasure it.
It's all about death and how we say we don't fear it.
It's all about life and how we choose to live it.

I. (The Upcoming Trio).

There are three.
Of course there is only one right now,
but still, there are three
and they are lurking nearby
like a daddy long legs in the corner of a bathroom;
the more they daintily move around,
the more the need to do something about it.
One is foreign, far away,
young and surrounded by superglue sticky air,
questions having already been posed.
Two will lure you in with lipstick
and teems of sienna hair
but is taken with a drink.
Three, my strangers, is a bit of an unknown,
beautiful with powder blue eyes,
somehow missed on the first of the week.
Older! Would never have guessed.
I ask myself if one out of this group
will join the list of failures-to-be
with their own letters
or flowers
or stories
serving up rich reminders
of amateurish errors.

II. (The Summer’s End).

Before we all enter fall
some actions must occur.
A chat with five of those stepping up
into the world of small rooms,
nights out
and a lack of coins.
A reunion with linguists
for a talk and some tea
after over a year
since food in the market.
There’s also him
before he goes off to learn to teach,
P who had results last time round,
her with guy issues,
a fan of shoes
and the one above the rest
incapable of any words.
Good times ahead
with friends I hold dear
that ought to take place
before we all enter fall.

III. (The Procrastinator).

A ******, a waste
and a bag of mice on the floor.
Newspapers
under every little helps.
Really must be done
now,
now,
but no,
later,
tomorrow,
weekend,
why?
You haven’t gone back yet
to the days of park crossing.
Sort it out mate,
clear some space.
No more than an hour, tops.
How do you expect
to get anything done
if you don’t get up from the chair
and begin to move?

The night sky is wrapped in curls of black
and the air purrs, fizzes with the sound of hot
fluorescent lights, choking the air with vacation colour,
blinking fast like there’s something in their eyes.
Gulls guffaw in circles over 174,
where inside old wallpaper is torn
and dated lampshades dangle from above.
Two pegs on a line outside my box,
the bed is rickety and isn’t as fit anymore.
The novices, the returnees
seek silver and gold in the oasis
before their feet sting in scorching sand.
Win what you lose, lose what you win,
hold onto it before it tumbles back onto white cushions.
Money hiccups out of ugly machines
when they have a session of indigestion.
Young girls, carefree and cute walk around in a daze
as chubby men waddle along the pavement
thinking of that next pint.
Lined up at the bar with peanuts and bottles,
the large screen projects to all.
A clink of glasses and a click of snooker *****
past nine, past ten, past eleven as well.
And then the plug is pulled out,
everybody settles down to sleep,
but we all know they’ll do it again
when tomorrow’s summer evening calls.

Legs on show down an aisle of fridges and freezers
and I am taken in by the red of your top.
A swift sight of a face, nothing much,
father nearby I presume, a brother too
but minutes later gone.
As the evening is reeled in,
I see the same flash dash into the palace
before I am certain it’s you once more.
I didn’t see you or the shorts again
but plenty of others were decked out in denim,
all aliens beneath the neon lights.

She walks through the congested room,
small smile on her immaculate face.
Battenberg pink lips in a place packed chaotically
with men in dark shirts, skin coated in shiny sweat.

But our girl is dressed in a see-through white,
clutching a toffee bag, she moves further into the pit.
Her eyelids flicker enigmatic ebony,
waves of bronze hair roll down past the shoulders.

We’ve never met, we may never meet at all
but my days she is dazzling, a rush of fresh air.
In a different place in a different time,
who knows? Would I be pricked by such profound beauty?

I don’t know how I came across your name,
found your photos and was taken aback.
Nevertheless glad my eyes have seen your brilliance,
but let’s get back to real life now shall we?

We walked back to hers the other night
from the bar, not drunk, not at all,
laughing a lot though, so easy
to make each other smile.
She leapt in all the puddles,
maize coloured swirls in the ***** water,
full of vigour, lips a kiss-me red
and she did this until we got to her door.
Made two herbal teas, stuck on a Fighters song,
mouthed the words into a pretend microphone,
thrashed her Irish orange hair in time
with the guitars, pretty beat by the final strum.
Flopped onto the sofa, hint of mint on her breath
as she cuddled up closer to my grey cardigan,
a furious fire before my eyes
at 10pm but the flames don’t seem to burn.

The guitar is out of tune
and the pillow frowns at him
on this cold February morning.
Books lined along the walls,
Spanish poetry, lonesome travellers
wait to be read on halcyon nights,
have their spines cracked by weary hands.
Solemn Jazz filters out from somewhere,
blue in a room where blond light
pours onto the floor.
Asparagus eyes struggle to stay open,
so much to do but no zest to get up,
crispy buttered toast lies half-eaten on a plate,
ochre tea still needs to be drunk.
He has plenty to say but does not know how,
his intellect cloudier than any lemonade,
track two begins and there are still no words.

X - The Aftershock. (June 2011 - June 2012).

Understandably dismayed.
Calmed down, got on with things.
Had to.
Went on holiday.
Up north.
Weather wasn’t wonderful, but OK.
Heard from you a few times.
Got into university.
Creative writing.
We arranged a cinema trip.
That never happened.
Why not?
Said you’d get me out the house thanks to your car.
Then that was it.
Erratic contact.
Not a word until New Year’s Eve.
I wrote poetry.
Fellow students read them.
No new substitute.
Only you, still.
You changed.
Redder hair.
Out in town more.
New guys in all the images.
You didn’t care much before.
You really didn’t care now.
Slow to reply.
Fine, you were busy.
What, drinking?
Couldn’t you let me know how you were?
Nine months became ten.
Became eleven.
Told I should move on.
Ridiculous.
Ought to have hated you.
Didn’t.
You were ignorant.
Different.
But I kept sending messages.
I wanted to see you.
You had copious chances.
Why didn’t you take them?

XI - The Ending. (23rd June 2012).

Could call this the beginning of the end
because soon you won’t be around anymore
unless there’s a unlikely turn of events.
I won’t say it, what’s the point, you already know,
but it doesn’t mean anything to you,
just some person you used to chat to,
laugh with, learn with.
A year ago since the last time.
When I think about it, we’re both different.
I just write while you go out and play.
Maybe you’ll want to see me sometime.
That’d be nice.
Of course it would.
Just let me know.
Don’t terminate it now,
what am I supposed to say
when people ask ‘who’s that girl in your work?’
Will I have to call you by your real name?
We hardly speak
and then conversation is short.
Whatever comes next,
wherever you are,
don’t disdain the times gone by.
Those other men won’t care as much as I do.
This is not the end.
Just don’t forget.

VII - The Event. (23rd June 2011).

It started off normal,
wispy clouds
on an unexceptional morning,
that’s what it looked like,

but no, was not a normal day.
Calm, unruffled, no fear in my head.
The exam started, albeit a little later than planned,
it went OK I thought, but the rain, the rain,

nearly messed it up for us.
But it stopped - an omen perhaps?
P was there
and into the unfamiliar we went.

Can’t thank him enough
for his help that Thursday afternoon.
He bought something to eat first,
this is what, not long after twelve.

Later, two bouquets, as I said, red and pink.
Delicate petals wrapped up in my hands.
Sat in this small park area, oh man,
people are going to see this, I was adamant.

My watch kept smirking
each time I glanced at my wrist.
When we got back
K and M

almost found out,
however fast thinking
saw the package stashed
behind a tree.

J was upset,
it’d be me later I guessed,
we spoke fleetingly
before the earwax bus arrived.

You were on it,
thank heavens for that.
I jumped high like a kid
who’d scoffed too many Skittles.

Pretty of course.
Part of me knew I wouldn’t see
anything so striking again
for a long time after.

Brown cake, brown tea,
brown hair,
I look at the pictures
every now and then,

I looked an idiot
in my cobalt cardigan.
Then as expected,
you ruined it.

VIII - The Non-Fiction. (22nd/23rd June 2011).

The boy and the girl are in love.
Urgh, *****.
The girl has to leave for the big city.
Not good.
She departs and the boy is distraught.
Oh dear.
He meets up with a friend.
OK then.
They choose to go and see her.
Excellent news.
They get to where she is.
How exciting.
The three have fun that evening.
Quite nice.
The boy whispers in the girl’s ear.
Say what?
The story ends unfinished.
**** it.

IX - The Event (Part 2). (23rd June 2012).

Why’d you have to get a lift?
Why’d you have to change it?
At the end of the class,
I fetched them

and you hugged me.
Didn’t want to I bet.
Everybody saw,
H, C, L and J (all three),

you with roses and part four
of the story.
Then gone.
Everybody gone.

On my way home
I saw S on his bike.
Said well done.
Thanks, but the icy actuality was there.

You were gone.
You haven’t come back.

IV - The Lost Trumpet. (April 2011).

A girl loses her trumpet
and she’s ever so sad.
She can’t find it
but a young boy does.
He searched high and low,
to and fro,
before spotting it
and giving it back.
The girl is delighted,
falls in love straight away.
They marry.
The boy stops a tormenter
from hurting his girl.
Ears bleed.
Then the girl says she is moving on.
The boy doesn’t like this
so tries to win her back;
he locates her and they sleep under stars.
They wake up together.
To be continued?

V - The Moment. (May 2011).

Bus.
Way back to school.
Can’t remember the day.
Talking as usual about the upcoming end.
P says how about doing a simple thing, not too big.
Something like chocolates or flowers, why go over the top?
Flowers, doesn’t everyone do that?
But it’s May, only a month to go.
Flowers it will have to be.
Red and pink.
Great.

VI - The Discussions. (21st/22nd June 2011).

So, are you ready? Here’s how it will go…
I’ll sit the exam, you turn up towards the end.
We’ll meet up in the common room and walk back to my town,
down to the florists, then somehow go back to school
without anybody seeing them all before quarter past one.
No, wait...

Later…

Change of plan, I’ll sit the exam still,
two and a half hours, I know, but anyway, you meet me
in the common room once it’s over, then we’ll go into town
because there’s actually a florists there, didn’t know that earlier,
buy them, make sure no one sees us,
head back to school, all before quarter past one right?
Wait for her to arrive, then you dash off with them,
I relax with a nice brew in class, and right at the end
when she’s getting on the bus I come up to you,
take them, run to her,
give them to her before she goes, mutter what needs to be said
and then it’s over. Maybe a hug, who knows?
This has to work. If it all goes wrong
there’s the envelope from the other month to hand over in its place.
Got that? Good.
She’s bound to ruin it though ain’t she?

I - The Proxy. (September 2010 - February 2011).

I don’t know how it began
and I don’t know how it will close.
All I recall is that of us together
in the dull rooms

with your male equivalent
and the girl who’d soon depart.
The first year is inmaterial,
the second is where

you came ablaze
like a torch in the obscurity,
intense and alive.
From blonde to brown,

unforeseen
but it arose.
You enticed me in,
as did the serpent to Eve.

So started more interaction,
regular, controlled,
guess I was foolhardy,
strained my luck too much,

ambiguous jargon
got me nowhere.
Blasé, shrugged them off
(but you knew didn’t you?)

and they soon stopped,
but the talking did not.
It became apparent,
she was sadly gone.

You were the substitute,
as foul as that sounds.

II - The Design. (March 2011).

Over again I thought, once more I attempt to ease into this world,
a world still hazy to me but I’d seen how it worked,
people happy, joyful, walking around with a little more happiness
on the soles of their shoes, or sad,
sad at the expiration of what before had seemed great
only to invisibly split like the skin of a bruised banana.
Me and P spoke for ages about what could be done.
What would she like? Should anything go ahead?
Three years in a row, but this one felt righter,
a genuine chance to get my feet over the threshold.
This couldn’t go the same way as the past.
Ideas were puny, rash, almost stupid,
it needed to be powerful, effective, simple instead,
I said all the time, stick to those rules, a plan will come up,
though days disappeared, notebook remained a vacant space.
But just like the first time, a night by myself in my room
an idea came.

III - The Envelope. (5th April 2011).

*You must understand that what you are reading could not be truer.

You know that I like you. A lot. I have felt this way about you for several months.

You know that I hate it when you (and I) have to leave, and that I miss you as soon as you are gone.

You know that you make me feel happier just by turning up to lessons.

You know that I think you are an amazing individual.

I know that you may not care, I know that I cannot stop you from doing what you will, and I know that I cannot force you to change. All I want is to be around you all the time, but that cannot happen.

Quite simply, if I do not tell you this now, I doubt I ever will. Even though you sometimes make me feel depressed, and sometimes make me annoyed…

The man decked in blue
     sits quite content
          on a sofa
               and observes wealthy offspring

               waltz in flashing their brilliant teeth
          glossed with potent peppermint.
     These teens
don't know love,

lust is all it is.
     While the Jazz bops away,
          more whisky is poured
               and they zip out to get jammy.

               The man, mid-twenties,
          kind of blue, dapper apparel,
     has one on the rocks.
Sees them

walk in most evenings,
     cute blondes with flawless skin,
          guys in suits, bow ties, the works,
               gaze into each other's pupils.

               There are regulars,
          Robert, the chap from Yale,
     Quentin, sly guy at Harvard
and Carly, still at school the man believes,

who's coquettish, fresh,
     these two want to have her
          but she's astute,
               knows just what she wants.

               They're all after her in fact.
          Every male in the room
     turns their head,
can't blame them,

she's like Candyfloss,
     all the men want a taste
          but there's not enough for everyone
               and they don't look like the sharing kind.

               The man in blue
          just grins to himself
     thinking how grand it is
that he's single, sensible, secure.

I. (The Real Poetry).

All these notions but nothing on the page.
Haven't we heard it all before?
Impetus from departed greats
wash ashore in our brains
but when confronted with an void white meadow
our hands go numb,
glued to the roof of a freezer.
This idea of mine is big, challenging,
but so far only a few thousand letters
have made ***** snow angels.
In its place, poetry.
Swifter to write, to read.
No rhymes usually,
just haphazard feelings lurching out my head
like a turquoise waterfall.
Sure I pace round the room
waiting for the next line to evolve
but who doesn't?
I write about real people,
people I speak to, people I know.
Do they know it's them when they skim my work?
Perhaps yes.
Perhaps they don't read them.
Perhaps best for all of us.
The book remains unseen, incomplete
while real poetry rushes into the world
like another superfluous boy band
playing more vapid pop.
Numb them instead.

II. (The Wind).

On a bench
in the garden
I sit with her
as she rests her frizzy Goldilocks
on my shoulder
and says I shouldn't go on Sunday.
A few years younger,
sweet and out of bounds.
Out. Of. Bounds.
So why am I holding her hand?
Doesn't mind from what I can tell.
She likes me.
No she can't.
When does 'the other side' ever like this?
I've told her about the one back home,
how she could be superseded.
I'll disclose, for a while now
I've seen photographs
and wondered what if,
what if the same way too feeling
snaked up the ladders
and throttled me?
What would her sister say?
'He's only been here four days
and look at him, cuddling
the queen of yesteryear.'
Her sister comes out, surprise, joins us.
Say no words, look at stars overhead.
The direction of the wind is altering.
Must be.
I unzip my eyes.

III. (The Sun and the Moon).

Half eight
a year or so in the distance
on a Wednesday morn.
A car.
Neither of us can drive as I write.
One of us is about to though.
London.
Why?
To meet friends.
Another reason?
A show.
A show of sun and moon.
A sporadic delight like a white Christmas.
I say to P it's one of those events
that must be attended.
I'm what, twenty-one?
She's gotta be twenty-four, five?
When will this ever come about again?
Have to acquire this chance.
He says if she'll be aware of the poem,
the one I scrawled down some time ago.
Doubt it, but you never know.
You never know.
Maybe it's true.
A young, beautiful girl
with a hat and a guitar.
There's something you don't see every day.
To the city.
*Rejsen begynder.

It begins brusquely in the dark, a hoary noise,
a tune which all the cats in town enjoy.
Yes, they stare at the stage for a sparkle of gold
to come forth from the shadows, the sound will take hold.

Rippling through the room, a devilish groan
rises, spirals high from an aged baritone.
The other musicians join in this depressing affair
and the men in their fifties are still fused to their chairs.

The sulky cello, whining trumpet slither into the mix,
the sadness fills the ears of several dozen beatniks.
Then with no caution comes a madcap flow
of music from the star performer, frantic yet mellow.

And it slows, then picks up, goes on for what feels like a year,
this rugged Jazz, no words but my, **** sincere.
Like something so eccentric that can't be left alone,
everyone captivated by the golden saxophone.

I do adore that jacket, its sleeves, its hood,
the way it envelops me in its temperate cocoon,
that jacket has been through a lot, put up
with my escapades way back when and then some.
I remember the way I first held it, delicately
like a handful of jewels, wore it next day
to a rendezvous, they all mentioned it in banter,
that jacket, its sleeves and its hood
look good on him is what they said.
It's black and red, never whinges
about where we go, what we do,
if it could speak it'd say it needs me
to fill those unoccupied holes in winter
when snow whirls around our arctic-like bodies.
Its cuffs are tarnished with tears for you
from over a year ago when I was so blue,
but that jacket's seen happy times too
with many more to come I am sure.
Later I will wear it yet again,
through the door I will walk,
it'll hold me closer than you ever have,
clinging to my arms like an itchy disease.