I.

unlikely there'll be
a white Christmas once again
when was the last time?

---

II.

streets are quite empty
but inside trees remain up
Brussels sprouts steaming

---

III.

socially distant
but there's a sprinkle of cheer
at these trying times

Down to this,
exposure that we, or just I,
never saw coming, for this did not exist

when I acted, chaotic and clueless
so long ago the memory
has puddle-warped around the edges.

Who for? To titillate the roving pupils
of a stranger, to express for a transitory
thrill, the static image your donation.

Now the ache in the stomach, latent
for years, spreads again, dull and stubborn,
my silly heart bruised in a way

these words cannot explain.

Every time a resuscitation;
what you have given me, always as if new,
the gift of a pulse to trigger mine,

your touch a rare, true thing,
exquisite among the dust
of a thousand expired days,

like a flame that scolds the frost,
your kiss the echo
in my creaking crucible.

If this is to be the rest of it
then your fingers
must be against my skin

like I am a delicate instrument
you are handling as though
it is an unexpected present,

but you already know
the correct notes, in the right order,
how to awaken me.

Thumb digs in,
removal of skin,
gashes expose closed fist
of moon wedges.

   Tug and tug,
   **** but for a sinewy
   plaque over the shell,
   a balled-up animal, perhaps.

Then the split,
extraction of organs,
furrowed foliage
all the same,

   a little damp
   in your palm,
   pouches of muscle and blood,
   broad, toothless smiles.

and it rings, and rings,
each shrill chirrup like a triumph;
your defeat, multiplied.

This is my own unanswerable riposte. A month,
almost, has passed. I know it’s you.
Once, accidentally, in a frantic, slapstick
dash from the bath, I made the blunder
and your voice slipped into my ear.
Your pitiable way of saying it was a mistake.
I presented you silence, gift-wrapped for free,
dripped back to the tub, each wet glyph
another step away from our despicable was.

Still, it rings.
I imagine them as punches to you,
not soft blows but great, leaden thumps,
a ricochet of knuckles on cheeks,
of these rings off from the walls
I deliberately, deliciously ignore.

Every quarter hour, a jolt,
a quick think of is this childish.
After all, at this hour and age,
must I resort to letting this black reptile
hark for my attention, coffees
gone cold, the LPs supermarket-queued
on the table we bought
with your mother's vouchers.

But yes. It rings, again,
I have lost count now the times.
I know it’s you.
The hour hand
pokes ten, the dog twitches
in its pool of sleep.
Still, darling, I provide my answer.

Sadly, the balloon leaves you,
its featureless, almost silken face
wobbling like a toddler in the cold,
the sorry string devoid of hand.

I am not the only one to notice.
Up, and further up, this hollow
blue-skinned sac rises,
a rogue comma against sky.

Now you only know what left you,
cheap, fleeting colour blush, nothing like
what will leave you in time to come,
how your cries could pierce the night.

Now I am in/tense -
hy-per-activ-e sand-pit of at/oms,
     Take these breath Flames,
   paint the wa-lls with them,
your rauCous redec-oration.

Now I am nebulous, standing fog, canines of ice, vacuum me up in one brush so I sleep, sleep, sleep

Now I     am iridescent
rainbow of     unnamed shade
ribcage glow     and  letters
that hum     along doorways
as though     injected neon

Now I am sog
gy
wet dog
cheek
to your wh
irl
pool of whis
pers
that salt smell
net
tle sting

Now I am drowsy,
arid mind makes tumbleweed night,
digestion dilution,
an absent something;
bathroom mirror memories,
green fraction of a voice,

perhaps a part of me
gone, like that first
chunk of apple,

transient taste
but then gone,
and no other apple

bite will be the same.
I went to them
positively enough,

thirsty cat
with just a splash
of trepidation,

let them coat me
in terminology
from above,

rinsed in apple green
and pink, the hollow,
missing parts

to be made big
until they sink, myself
proffering the anchor.

now, I have gone to grey
or almost white,
not quite snow,

maybe pathetic toast
and I unravel
the most littlest bit,

my toothache hurt
attempt to fill
the now half-moon

apple back again,
my repetition
my repetition.

On the first day,
there's a Pink Floyd prism, instant coffee,
the kettle at the back of the room, walls
with their primary-coloured displays with frilled edges,
words like 'spectrum' and 'clauses'
in a cursive font.

Someone is set to call. At this time
(8:36), I am alone, glue sticks suffocated
in their ziplocs, coloured spheres on a screen,
a board with the date, numbered.
Then, chatter. Tenerife is mentioned.
Somebody is blossoming.

It is the glassy unknown, mornings
to birth with breaths of fog, seeing the Co-Op
at the end of the road instead
of the bedroom ceiling. I am thinking
of seven years ago, autopilot, a dip in a park,
all of it, the years gone, time going on.

Baby, you know I get lonely,
like now I’ve turned the stereo off,
heaved the car into

a slot by the pumps
but I have your name, its letters
in your marque of handwriting

upon my irises,
so when I go to feed the
snow-baptised vehicle

I think my hands work but no,
heavy numb from an absence,
there’s water in my mouth

or a little blood, a man
stupidly asking if I’m all right
but I can’t make out his face.

After we have sweated the night away
it has come to this, myself, yourself,
a lamppost on the corner of Handler and Wilde
stained with the **** of many a dog.

Your cheeks, rivulets of black,
happy tears you said, your friends
for now and perhaps time to come, dancing,
heels like typewriter keys on the gym floor.

All Macarena-d out, panting
as though a Collie after a sprint in heat,
your found me two-thirds of a diet Coke down,
lopsided bowtie, pentagon hole in the shirt.

No kiss, but small talk. A botched triple jump
into the limo, hands linked, already spooling
back through the hours, the slow dance,
the walls dappled blue, a memory like all before.

Now the kiss. Brief. Nothing more.
This too, a memory. For a second,
marriage and children lucid theatre in my head.
The reality something else. I head home,

you wave and we're gone.

How typical that I have come to you late,
as if almost missing the capture of a spectacular
snowfall of notes,

a journal splayed open just
enough so I can memorise,
breathe between your fine lines.

- If I am to collide into autumn,
bruise my head with throbbing bolts and arrows,
you couldn’t possibly know

how I want to absorb your disclosures
from a speck of planet I’ve never been,
the words healing me like tears of silver medicine.

What I have learned
is your body,

the fluidity of it
like drinking

a burgundy glass
of pinot noir.

   Forgive me for this February
   pink rainfall

   but the stars of you
   make an exquisite ellipsis,

   your touch
   my private voltage.

I dream
your eyes at night,

sea-sprayed freckles,
salt-blessed lips,

your smile a welcome echo
on my own face.

   Is love
   only learning?

   If so, teach me
   so I learn and learn again,

   hand be the compass,
   the heart an atlas.

If you are to know the shell
of somebody else,
the taste of their mouth
as familiar as breathing,

     you are to swell
     with the installation of life
     within a fistful of seasons,
     (they’ll use words such as ‘glowing’),

and you will raise a hand
to shield yourself
from the gush of paper hearts
we’ll drizzle without a second thought.

     You are to settle in
     to bargain supermarket wine,
     the infrequent date night
     with no toddler caterwaul

and I will say what I always believed,
that the moment you disclosed it
was the moment that I felt it, again,
start of a sever, a languid dissolve.

I’m sure I was once told about the ocean floor,
now believe me, I see it,
am living there in the unfathomable blue
and black, as though the wasted ink of the world
is a swarm meant to hold
the very lost, the going and gone.

If my throat is dry, forgive me,
for there is little left that shines,
has been rubbed to an almost-new sheen
for my language has shrivelled like fallen roses,
the dreams, waterlogged, a charcoal tinge
creeping in at the corners.

Perhaps it is the next necessary,
to douse the lungs in the spent blood
of everybody who has come before,
for there is no swimming, just floundering,
a fallen mannequin with a hyphen of light
one stretch too far away.

when all is said and done
whose body will be next to my body
this unexpected wondrous being

to pilfer kisses
blemish a cheek with a breath
and say it will only ever be me

and I will cup the words
as they slip from your tongue
pretend they are strings of pearls

In the space between
the slab of land I am from
and the place you’ve never been

I have tugged the rental car
with its hoary exhaust
to the side of the road

the heat assailing me
like a faceless boxer
with flames for fingers

and I see a trio of vehicles
windows wound down but unfilled
the drivers inside

this tumbledown café
the sort with a plump waitress
gnawing gum and spraying flies

but the drivers, yes
wolfing down a hastily-half-cooked
brekkie and a sand-coloured cuppa

before trekking the countless miles
to whichever terminus
they’ve fed to the sat-nav

and outside I inhale hot air
my lungs leaden somehow
as though you clasp my ribs

from a distance
to let me know you wait
and I am another seventh of the way

to you
in your air-conditioned apartment
with the cupboard teeming with tea

I capture you,
upturned blur,
feet pressed to the panels
that now hold
your moving murmur,
like a separate soul
in a dimension caught cold.

Shout and a sound
lost to the elements,
snaffled by the breeze
over snow-dipped mountains,
sky washed eggshell,
grass an uproar
of unlit matchsticks.

With a crack and a glimmer,
glass floor fissures,
feels the weight of our stirrings,
your red boots ablaze on the surface
of this something fragile,
frosted imitation, almost
as if it really knows you.

how much longer must I miss
what I never knew

twisted nostalgia like a drop
of lemon on my tongue

sent sugar-dizzy
   by the crystallised

thought of you
in that black dress

rainfall we knew   was coming
like another disappointment

   days become water
maybe they   already were

their silence     bruises me
in new yet   unsurprising ways

I am assaulted
     by their     idiocy

you wouldn’t believe     me
if I said   this was a     slip

     my head the     forest fire
   the drought     to     come

you the     flood
     I foolishly   crave

I see you awkward dancing

and somehow I am thinking of myself

two to three decades ahead of time

rainbow strobe lights and 80s synth-pop

headaching in my mind as though the first time

a missed opportunity like trying to catch

the sun before the horizon snaffles it first

When I think of you

I think shampoo and strawberry ice-cream

weekend tangerine sunrises

atlas of freckles and new rain on cheeks

my hole-strewn t-shirt against your skin

so it’s like I’m there with you, almost

It’s probably best

to keep matters simple

and say that I love summer

because you are it

the tall cool glass of lemonade

sunflower with its happy lemon petals

Night-time looking
over the Liffey,
slate grey artery,

flurry of merry music
like a band of castanets
still in our ears.

The cèilidh at Shannon’s,
man with a bodhrán
and a pint of tar

at his elbow,
girls in skirts
a blizzard of colours.

Róisín’s at UCD
but tonight, here,
the silky lilt

of English
pouring from her
emerald throat,

her hand in mine
as a crew of mangled gobshites
stumble home.

We swim in our jollity,
BYOC (bring your own craic)
in the city

where three times
in the 90’s we were kings
of the castle.

You say your father remembers ’62,
when I look in your eyes
you say coinnigh mé anois.

What’s that mean? I ask.
Hold me now.
And I do.

Your lips taste of Guinness,
my head foggy
with you.

The Seine a tongue of midnight ink.
Montparnasse, a tepid August night,
star-bundles like quartz-splinters in the sky.
     The Dingo bar the place.
Jazz coming from somewhere, melody of mystery,
throng of conversation and smoke,
grey curlicues swaying above our heads.

Hemingway, feuillemort shirt, telling me I look rough.
   ‘You sleeping well?’     ‘Well enough.’
   ‘That wife of yours is pure mayhem, I tell you.’
The same old chatter. Besides, Isadora was worse,
cradling her drink as if a glass of jewels.
Then he was onto his Pamplona jaunt,
a heat that careened off from the streets,
undulations of warmth in the air
quivering like whispers.

  ‘Look here, we’re the best writers in this city
   when you’re not gallivanting over to your wife.
   Two women, one body, you know it Scott.’
I sighed, ordered another gin.
‘Transparent poison’, Ernest said again.

On the way home, faded trill de trompette in my ears,
night thriving to every pocket of Paris,
fields of unidentified liquorice flowers.
Young and in love - young with intimacy
skittering around our bodies
like delicate bees.

the
     children
          in
     the
park
     are
          chasing
     stars
again
     the
          dog
     lolloping
along
     all
          tongue
     flopping
spit
     chucking
          sky
     is
a
     tapestry
          of
     blueberries
and
     giggles
          fill
     the
night
     hunting
          all
     the
teeth
     the
          fairies
     pinched
before

somebody set it on fire
somebody ripped the match

trio of wedges
Irn Bru orange

speckled with cherry
on a canvas of night

I am calling
from the flag square

near the building
constructed from crystals

this could be London
migraine of chalky lights

a revolving iris
far out across the bay

I’ll be home soon love
I know it’s strange

that work has dragged me
to this unpronounceable land

sweating skeleton
spilt milk network of streets

upside-down e’s
c’s with çurls of cable

and I hear the muffled diction
of EastEnders through the phone

can picture you
in strawberry-lace-

shade-slipper-socks
glass half-swollen with wine

the space on the sofa
where I should be

here because it makes sense
here because all roads lead to here

here because the button
the one from your Camden

charity-shop coat
dozes in the palm of my hand

that prickly sort of fabric
its bands of dried blood maroon

you might remember this
in a way not the way I remember

the discovery of someone’s
shed secondary skin

lived in now to be lived in by you
your magnolia branches

but two winters later
the button fell off

brown bauble
walnut of doom

and now here between the bras
the much slept with stuffed teddy

I hold the last inanimate relic of you
the coat’s smell a waning memory

disfigured mineral
on pinch
of water
ghost exhalations

   nearby *****
   at least sixty walk back
   and forth

sky like orange
juice puddle
on a sapphire
carpet

   this ice
   that does not
   melt
   but what if
   I am

your
last text
a chip of frost
almost
pricking my heart

   truth
   exposed as if long
   dormant
   under
   gowns
   of snow

Two years,
but will we make it to three?
   Pimple a stipple of red paint
   on my chin,
mouth scarred pink with the last deposits
of lipstick.
   I am making an effort
   for myself, then himself.
He has booked it all,
a mildly impressive stat. A restaurant
   where a bottle of ooh-la-la French wine,
   sweating its chill, costs both arm and leg,
where meals take up a sixteenth
of the plate, christened with a garden leaf.
   I do not speak of my concerns.
   His face is awash with tiredness,
his eyes somehow a darker sea-blue
than our first meeting, several iPhones ago.
   Our speech is exhalation brief,
   each syllable like a book
falling in an empty library,
everything written, little said.
   The wine dyes my inner cheeks,
   but the food: Greek salad, crescent moon tomatoes,
vinyl cucumbers, feta cheese slabs
and tang of onion burning back of the mouth.
   His, souvlaki, fish cadaver on the side,
   wine also white, extortionate, though I haven’t paid.
I look at him, assuming this is our last meal.
If I tell the sea, will she wash it away?
   How lovely he is. Really, I mean it.
   He must believe we are forever and ever.
I count the mouthfuls, the tiles on the floor.
His chair squeals when he leaves for the loo.

It bleeds into white
blobs, squiggles set into ceramic,

bouquets of colour yawning
to every corner.

Orange ovals
give way to petals of blue

or a static ship
on a swathe of sapphire,

clouds that cuddle
like a band of bruises.

Now the plink of guitar
as fado hopscotches
along the streets,

a crowd of terracotta roofs
and the sea, the great road
of the Atlantic,

where there is Amar Pelos Dois,
where saudade flows,
champagne-made sadness.

The sea strokes the horizon,
plays its teal melody,

the luscious tinge of Portuguese
on my lips as the sun
presents the city a warm kiss.

October 1888. Oil on canvas, 72 x 90 cm

Slaapkamer te Arles. Not really.
‘His own ear?’ she says, a twentieth time.

A Wednesday, fortnight before Christmas.
Her idea. Evening flight out of Gatwick.

I’ve been before. Amsterdam that is,
with the lads, before the grind of Year 13.

Pure banter? Far from it. But the chemicals
jived in our lungs, made us all skew-whiff.

This week it’s been Anne Frank,
koffietijd and stroopwafels five at a time,

a bartender called Luuk plying me
with Heineken. Liquid emeralds.

Anyway, the painting: forget-me-not walls,
golden bedframe. Then onto

Sunflowers, or in French, Tournesol.
Turning with the sun.

‘His own ear?’ I hear again. I say really. ‘But why?’
I sigh, wonder where the knife is now.

They hauled them
from the river
after three weeks

discarded dummies
skin puckered
like crushed lavender

nails loose
or gone completely
in one case one-handless

no identification
no indication
of men reported missing

but the imagined flashes
of each inhalation
lungs liquid-swollen

a burbled
aidez moi
in their soggy cradle

before the knockout
instant finish
Polaroid into death

-----

were they lovers
I wondered
on the Metro

home to Aubervilliers
an office affair
an online fling

one of those things
where the picture
doesn’t add up

but a shake of the head
dangerous to guess
before I know it

my mind whirring
to accidental strangulation
dual opioid overdose

the papers will speculate
gorge on rumours
like mould on stale bread

tomorrow’s Le Monde
with its letters of silence
deux corps retrouvés dans la Seine

men of the river
barely thirty
lives filched by the water

Picture this.

Two sides to every story.
Myself, on the left -
Europe, the last continental crumbs
before the disintegration into sea.

Ahead, Asia,
the buildings like cereal boxes,
first speckles of another side
of this sprawling cobweb city.

Students stroll down
Independence Avenue in Beyoğlu,
that half-swallowed ‘g’,
lozenge-shaped baklavas in hand.

A bevy of Galatasaray fans,
Aslanlar shirts, bypass a moving tram,
the air dense with the twitter
of the Turkish lexicon.

Two men, whirling dervishes,
revolving waves of white.
A self-waltz of sorts
around a bangle of spectators.

I see only passionate folk.
Veins thick of flag red.
One half of a world spliced
by a liquid thread.

Спорти́вная
- My first thought is how clean the place is,
how swanky, perhaps that’s the right word.
- This isn’t London or New York that’s for sure,
marble walls that could be made from banoffee pie,
blue and white quadrats for the floor,
patchwork of tiles making up the ceiling.
- Eight hundred rubles for a week, barely a tenner,
Moscow’s take on the Oyster, just cheaper.
- My mate of fifteen years has Henderson on the back,
I’ve come as myself.

- A crew of fans gush out behind us,
- flags made into capes.
- Two own beards, great hedgehog-type beards
taking over, stippled ginger,
another has a drooped trophy slapped on a cheek.
- They are already singing, if you can call it that,
adding that extra syllable, a staple of the patriotic chant,
IN-GUR-LAND.
- The Croatians in their classic tablecloth-type tops,
 (Modrić x2 and Mandžukić x1)
look aghast, probably whisper their own version of plonkers.
- Congested, headache already brewing,
needing fresh air before the Mexican wave.

- Лужники
- My first thought
is that the view isn’t actually that bad.
- We’re fairly high up, middle row,
sandwiched between Brian from Bolton
and a foul-mouthed Mike
from Welwyn-Garden-City, I think,
but I’m getting into the spirit,
my mate already shuttlecocking half-xenophobic jibes
across the pitch, a paper aeroplane or two
gliding, colliding into backs of seats.
- Anthem is maudlin, Croatia’s more jaunty,
and then the players are moving like felt-tipped beetles
across the tongue of grass.

- The free-kick goes in after a while,
cheers a chorus of roars
that zip into the cold Russian air.
- Strangers shoulder-shove, voices sandpaper coarse,
that blasted tune ringing out
from the mouths of a raucous English bunch
in many an old Umbro kit
swamped with sweat and blots of beer.
- My mate can’t believe it, he’s got a tenner
on 2-1 to us, a modest bet.
- Mike from Letchworth Garden City
is bellowing out the scorer’s name
each word croakier than the last,
one hand crushing the lions on his chest.

- дополнительное время
- Our first thought is that penalties
are coming up, our foe, our football swine,
but on 109’, the guy from the back
of that earlier guy’s shirt flicks out a limb,
pokes the ball past our keeper.
- Mate goes ballistic, his face
on the brink of full-blown beetroot,
while Brian from Bolton appears mid-coronary,
too whacked to crank out a sigh.
- A bloke to the right, a few rows down
jokingly mentions Hurst.
- This brand of heartbreak we know well.

- Later, surrounded by smokers named Dmitri,
shots of Smirnoff and the dull ache of knowing
four hours back to Heathrow awaits,
we’ll reflect on the could’ve-beens.
- Mid-sloshed in Red Square, more my mate than me,
(he’s a tenner down after all),
mumbling Qatar in four years under our breaths
while Croatians tumble through
this giant cyst of a city.

Four nights a week, one thing only: pool.
The cloth ain’t great, ***** scurrying to the cushion
every time, cues skewed high as we feather the white,
chalk up another foul.

Tonight though, an epic night.
The culmination, attend one and all,
old guys with dodgy hips, teenage mothers
with their children’s cries high among the elements.

Final few frames of a marathon encounter,
the east coast’s known nothing like it.
I select a gleaming cue, send the white
careening into the triangle of notes.

Crucible of sweat. Back and forth
between swigs of squash. Left-hand side,
a smashing *** to the top right leaves the black,
my opponent seeing defeat like a neon Vegas sign.

Stick between thumb and finger, the kick
and slip into pocket. A cheer leaps out my mouth,
claps echo between the grab machines.
I meet my opponent's eyes. Another tenner

is tossed across the baize.

I don’t know who he is, OK? I never really know. What I do know: Italian. Blaze of beard. Here on business, apparently. Lard-y skin. A filling, upper-left. An anchor on the ribcage, monochrome. What I do is I let them talk, pretend to absorb. I hear ‘married’, ‘two kids’. He plays squash. I giggle, then accordion-yawn.    
Anyway, the deed is over quickly. I do not ******, as if that’s a shock. He grunts as though chopping wood, a digit of sweat slipping down a ******. My lipstick a little smudged but not OTT. I leave him in the casino where we first met, mouth ajar.  
I wake at eight, pins and needles submerging my legs. I shower, the water a blizzard of ice, scrub my name backwards in condensation, silver burn.  
Now I’m drinking a coffee from a Styrofoam cup. The view, Lake of Lugano. Another man. I hold his eye. I almost choke on the sight across the street. Followed me from Frankfurt to Cannes and back again. There’s a slice of a smile on his face. I know he likes the footwear I’ve chosen, ******-skewered piercing obvious through my shirt. I assume he’s ******* me, but not really, you know what I mean. Black jacket, gush of stubble. I taste his name on my tongue already - acidic, delicious. He knows what I did last night. I know what he did last night. So, naturally, we know what we’ll be doing tonight. At least I’ve gone bra-free. It only slows things down otherwise, if you ask me.
A bell moans out from somewhere. I know how it feels, each tone in time with my steps, my feet moaning from these cheap strapless heels. A Swiss flag on a window, typewriter-chatter of the language hopping out from a café. The lake almost curdles at the very thought of me, surely, slowly, embracing my next mistake.

your opal flowers,
strings that nick the side.

watercolour ribbons
far out, to the rim.

marbles I am lost in,
window of delicate threads.

spider-web of you
I hope leaves space for me.

At dinner I am retying my shøelaces
when yøu say ønce møre
gø øn, again
is what I hear
   what the waitress hears
as she dumps
anøther blønd-haired pint
in frønt øf me with a grin that clearly states
she’s telling yøu høw tø say that phrase is she
the three-wørd term
unsayable tø øutsiders

høp step jump
øf a phrase
the language fluvial
like a lake sluicing weeds
cønsønants like dripping water
vøwels that huddle tøgether
as if the cøld is cøming in
the irregular phlegmy intønatiøn

there are candles here
whøse lives expire in silence
a glut øf armchairs
where what cøuld very well be
the wøølly Jumpers expø
før the year cøngregates
triplets øf fingers running
thrøugh their straw-bløøming chins

despite the side-track
I still døn’t knøw why
the ø’s are impaled
my møuth and tøngue
haywire as if tøssed in the wash
the demøn shibbøleth
øffered tø me
and that tablespøøn øf mucus with it
rull grull mel fluøl

the wørds dribble øut
bunch øf slushy søunds
she laughs
says I’m a løst cause øn the matter
and that I’d be better øff with hygge
which is surely the søund made
when løng yawning in the mørning

feel guilty spoiling your frozen heaven
looking up at roof of bronze

walls blushed with scorch marks
trees like wrong-hand scribbles

my bones chilled
your skin ice-flecked and old

where’s the red flag of the battle
shivering from the sky?

a dusty sliver of history
as my watch trips past seven

sun kissing Hermann
and the song of joy

chorus of cornflowers
blooming again

Over a year, close to two.
I am passing through for work
and to see a friend,
our communication meagre,
reduced to pixels on a screen.

Rue Sigefroi, one of the city’s arteries.
Clotted cream buildings,
concrete mugs clogged with flowers.
I see French, German,
the country’s own compote of the two,
umlauts sprinkled like confetti.

He has invited me for coffee.
There is a gangly embrace,
smiles blooming on our faces.
Wine bottles, maybe empty
tickle the top shelf,
books half-blotto behind the sofa
where I sit as he orders, my face in the mirror,
all wiry hair and pips of stubble.

The cup comes accompanied
by a dice of brown sugar.
Immediately he invites me for dinner.
A gasp hurdles out of me, stupidly.
I accept. He tells me this is excellent news.
We fill in the spaces
of our ever-growing crossword puzzles.
As you do, a lot is glossed over,
metaphorically kicked under the carpet.
He has no intention of moving back
but his father, he says, is unwell.
His image cabasa-rattles to the front of my mind,
the man who introduced me to Prufrock.

- The meal this evening is pleasant.
His wife plonks a quetschentaart before me,
galaxy of singed plums,
a star in Van Gogh’s view over the Rhone.
An occasional judder of laughter between us.
The evening begins its routine for sleep,
the sky embarrassed with clouds
over the Alzette, our stomachs content,
our friendship granite-solid.

Ponte Sant’Angelo,
my thumb brushes
her crimson emblem.

Images slosh in my head of her
cycling, channelling
her inner Hepburn,

sleep and poetry on the steps,
talcum swirl of a *** and raisin gelato,
tiddlywinking a Euro into the Trevi.

This is stop four
on her grand tour,
gap year girl

glugging the lingo. I touch again
her Ciao in curly black,
her **, her airmailed red peck.

Running before he even knew
what had hit him,
centipede stain of blood,
staggered breaths.

The first, point-blank,
shock of bullet sound
ricocheting from the windows,
instant crumpling of a life.

The second, a swing and miss,
then the flee through a chilled
capital night, punctured by my blunder,
the headlines ready to bleed.

I assume he is dead.
These words scrawled, emaciated letters,
the weapon they can never find
burrowed into my palm.

The journalists are poised, ready to sting.
I already know the grim language
they will use to blame,
allegations flying like agitated wasps.

Is this my confession?
Perhaps, to myself only,
my closing calamity, my sugar-rushed finger
on the trigger. Reckless.

And her shriek, a shriek of horror
like a chimney of bees, my body
halfway up Malmskillnadsgatan by then,
your husband wheezing his last.

Take my truth any way you want,
they’ll be chasing me forever.
If they come, I shall admit;
I know ****** like the back of my hand.

It is mid-afternoon
in Schottenhammel
when a girl no older than twenty-five,
hair raked back in a ponytail
and wearing a mint-coloured dirndl
shoves a Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu
the size of my face towards me.

The mugs are spotted
with golf-ball-like dents
and a local man named Leon
has already interjected,
attempted to connect,
his shirt Coventry-blue and white
as a greasy spoon tablecloth.
A hearty slap between the shoulder-blades
and the batter-shade liquid
jerks, burps a little over the side.
Maß, he exclaims, specks of froth
decorating his jungle of stubble.
There is much swigging,
the sound of a hundred clinks
as drinks knock heads.

Three quarters beer, one quarter foam.
This is no pint down the Red Lion.
There’s music though, the slush of German
swamping the tent between glugs,
my liver already grumbling
as the cool drug soaks my tongue,
paints my throat,
chills the lungs for a bunch of seconds,
and rests.
Leon chortles. I tell him I shall settle
for just the one but he laughs
a deep E note laugh
that only unnerves my eardrums.

Some time has transpired
when a girl afflicted with piercings,
hair Ace of Spades black
begins dancing,
perhaps drunk, perhaps not,
her boyfriend I assume
watching on with a grin,
a ball-bearing glued to his bottom lip.

It is not quite time for stars,
but the sky has blushed azure for us,
a pumpkin blob nudging the horizon.
I fancy another beer by now,
the girl swaying and swaying,
her face a crush of diamonds.

or anywhere

abacus of Amstel lights

cube-stacks drizzled citrus

behind the iris

funnel of fauna

propped up by charcoal arms

violet grapes

avocado stone

raspberry drupelets

visible from here

market on a Monday

the hard ‘g’ of Maandag

a guttural language

my throat warms to

orange not my shade

but do as the Dutch do

plump cylinders of Edam

coated in red rind

oysters in their cots of silver

shrimp galaxies like tangerine hooks

Japanese tourists

taking snaps for the ‘Gram

everybody passing over the King

sun proffering a hand through the glass

Honest? I chose at random.
Got the grades, managed to squeak
through the door.

After three days, I had a girl.
Well, I say had. She weren’t convinced
but I’d got time.

Her name: Rhiannon.
Yeah, like the Fleetwood Mac song.
She loved that one, typically.

I was more a Zeppelin fan.
This was pre-punk, pre-White Riot,
pre-kids, house, diagnosis.

Runny eggs at the caff for brekky,
hungover Saturdays after a Seagulls defeat
at the Goldstone.

I smoked, quit, smoked again.
She got a peace sign stabbed
on her right shoulder-blade.

Some point later, I’m in a white room,
white man. Oesophageal.
I got the one I can’t pronounce.

I’m pinged out of the reverie
by two girls, one humming Waterloo.
Unmistakable.

I can give or take it, you know.
Like I said, I was into Led Zep.
ABBA’s more an acquired taste.

Still, I find myself humming it too
when the wife returns,
fish in batter like a ***** of gold.

What you should know
is that I’ve never done parties,
except that wasn’t quite a party,
more an excuse to liquor up
in the first week back,
tepid attempts to recall the faces
who swam past a year before
like scarecrows from a car, expressionless
in a chaos of fields.

Told this was integration
but anywhere else would’ve done,
mumbles like distant storms
behind closed doors,
footsteps a high echoed chime up the stairs.

The room, a tumble-dryer of conversation.
A brown drink, probably ***, or coke, or vinegar,
somehow navigated to my hand.
A pilfered traffic cone in the corner,
playing cards slapdash on the coffee table,
forgotten hearts, fading diamonds.

Somebody spoke, a game began.
Spilling secrets, unwillingly or too drunk
to care otherwise,
each hopscotch-like laughter another
thorn of headache.
I zoned out as if watching the shopping channels,
palms peppered with the braille
of my nails mining into my hands.

The spreadsheet of names scrolled down,
guys with over-gelled hair, ******* shirts
then me, trickling out my half-hearted truth,
quickly dismissed, knocked to the curb,
my social status cemented once again.
Then you, the last to speak
in this merry-go-round
clouted me awake as though coma free.

o Lychee-pink fingernails, slushie-blue eyes.
o Seashell necklace, skin several sunbathes down.
o Hush of a French accent, denim jeans punctured with holes.

The images, the speech came quick
as if behind the glass of a bullet train.
I tried to capture them like a cat
hopping up for dragonflies,
but these were more like snowflakes
perishing on my tongue.

If my mind hadn’t been frazzled
with the intricacies of anxiety
I would have uttered my name,
snaffled yours, an early birthday gift,
but no.

The evening capsized, us students dispersed
like birds barked at by a dog,
the clock’s downcast dialogue
of time gone, opportunities missed.

I stayed awake with the shape of your face
as though viewed through cellophane.
You mattered somehow, electrocution
right into my brain, your secret swallowed
by the ghosts of the night.
Hell, I thought, resting with my vivid
fabrications until the next day, the next year.

My father is saying nothing.
I know it, he knows it, and it is here,
the inevitable farewell but not quite.

I have told myself I am ready for this.

That I shall not be wrenching Bombay Bad Boys
from the shelves of an alien Tesco
to gorge on while On The Road remains unread.

That I shall not be downing shots of lurid liquid
with friends whose names do not yet exist
in warm bars where the toilets are pockmarked with sick.

I have assured him, and my mother,
and the punnet of mates I’ve accrued
this will not be my life circa one month from now.

The luggage has somehow trebled,
the back seat obese with a calamity of items,
an unboxed IKEA lampshade, unused cups from home.

In a second, a pat on the back,
a proud of you son, perhaps, isn’t that what Dads say?
He will worry, but mustn’t.

I think of my mother peering out the living room window.
Her eyes are flustered with tears.
The car seems to have stopped talking. I open the door.

That’s what they called this place,
flaking crucible,
immemorial immobile figures
gawked at by a deluge of tourists.

A German man sidles past
as we edge towards
the main attraction,
multi-limbed citadel.

I imagine the Propylaea
pricked with stars, the dagger of light
that cracked it open,
awoke the commas of fire.

We circle round.
Like a chalk house.
Here, where Athena,
frame of ivory and gold

surveyed all,
Phidias’s maiden
with Victory shimmering
in the heart of her hand.

Soon we discover
the Theatre of Dionysus,
lemon wedge
of staggered steps,

chipped thrones of marble.
Now, the thrum of many tongues,
the words of Aeschylus, Thespis,
inhaled by the Athenian sky.

A lot of people seem to be angry.
   I don’t know why they seem angry.
Perhaps they are threatened by something.
   By me.
I am not threatening however.
   I am myself.
I am only saying what needs to be said.
   Things they have not said enough.

It is all rather strange to me.
   There are people following me.
They are young and chanting a lot.
   Some are chanting my name.
They never used to know my name.
   Now I walk in new lands.
I am shaking hands and smiling.
   These strangers are happy to meet me.
They say I am doing good things.

I think on the television others are not happy.
   I do not care much for this.
I am told they are heavy on criticism.
   They think I am intimidating.
I am only passionate.
   This is what I am good at.
I don’t know why they don’t care much.
   Maybe it is because I am young.
They will have their silly reasons.
   I told them our house was on fire.
I hope they heard that.

I carry my sign.
   Skolstrejk för klimatet.
Kids are joining me and parents too.
   Bangladesh, Nigeria, San Marino.
There are too many to mention here.
   It is promising to see.
I am only a girl with a sign.
  I wear my blue hoodie and talk.
I talk when it is necessary.
  These are necessary times.

Wake up in Östermalm,     south to Gamla Stan.
I walk,
it is a cool day with albumen clouds,
rivers of snow gloss the streets ecru.

- Meet outside the bookstore;
Pippi Långstrump grins at me from behind glass.
The blue and yellow of the Nordic cross
prods out from a shop,     primrose-skin buildings,
streets riddled with syllables,
Västerlånggatan,     Tyska Brinken,
graffiti a ****** siren on the walls.

- ’75 the first time here,     Waterloo a year before,
birth of the famous foursome
to karaoke machines from Södermalm to south Japan.
And again,     new millennium,
a second time in ’16 where love was love
and peace was peace.

- Practise the numbers.     Seven is sju,
my mouth producing rare noise,
a wispy word between show and swear.

- We walk.
Splashes of island and butterscotch-haired teens.
A girl hums a Melfest song.
I toss a Sverigedemokraterna leaflet in the bin.

- The waitress could be Lisbeth and AVICII’s playing
and isn’t it beautiful,     you,     and this,
where we have found ourselves.