When the time comes
to prise open the plastic
tomb that encapsulates your three
tiers of soft biscuit-toned sponge,
the creamy middle stratum
with pinkish strawberry streaks
I take a crew of old plastic
candles used for this occasion only,
lit, wished and blown upon eight times
previously when poked in cakes
of yesteryear, **** them in the snowfall
sugar cloak, spaced out, baptise them
with flame until their flickers
extinguish and your ninth birthday
burns on, mutely drips into a pocket
full of your own past.

what is the space between something that could be love,

isn’t love, the word for it, something that is just your own mind

playing a trick, telling you that yes, you are, for want of a better word,

falling, body tumbling down the very steps to your Technicolor dream,

where, in reality, the world turns a shade of beige, bruises erupting

like little violet volcanoes, and you realise it was all a vision,

your interpretation of what you so desperately believed to need,

but on it goes, your staggered fantasy, your ingredients for love

but there is no word for it, love that isn’t love but you feel it so,

like a hard squeeze in the chest, that elusive, addictive make-believe.

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,

will try to be good
hold your hand in thunderstorms
lightning in your name

---

will try to be good
ask the trees to yawn their limbs
reside in shadow

---

will try to be good
sync hearts to rhythm of night
drizzled desire

---

will try to be good
set our ellipsis alight
tomorrow’s burning

---

will try to be good
repeat as though private prayer
breathe holy sunrise

I swallow your silence,
the one ubiquitous drink
in this maelstrom of ambivalence,

see-saw of coming and going
as if elastic bands
snapped back

before we clinch what we need.
If I think, submerse myself
in the small pool of memories

in a sixteenth of the brain
occupied by you, I can almost recall
the waves of your voice,

each inflection, and your face;
now that, honestly, tricky somehow.
The weeks become a sludge,

each day with its own
carcinogenic tint,
pollution plumes.

What date shall I red-circle, our reunification?
We’ll clutch at our throats,
gasp at how little has passed.

morning. again.
must be another
from your record collection
fluttering past the door,
over the bed,
butterflies of song.

breakfasts
in pyjamas,
crooked floorboard breaths,
butter-knife bark
against bread,
triple ***** of the spoon
inside of the cup,
steaming bronze.

make a home
against your body,
hair almost dry,
toe xylophone,
hearts on the sleeve,
freckles that pepper
the cheek
on which I plant a kiss,
my silent lyric
of love.

LGW to SYD,
flight through time,
a while to while

away the hours.
As evening begins
its inky descent

to sleep, furry
green batons
trigger electric frazzles,

icicle-blue horns
exhaling light.
All we are

singular, miniature
among a crew of upturned
magenta roots.

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

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

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

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

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

don’t run into the darkness,
your nightmares will only bleed
through the pages, into the fabric
of your desperately created new self.

ready to retch, they’ll ask, you’ll succumb
to the shot of sugar proffered to you
on a blackened spoon, signature
by the opposite hand, vacant lungs.

I know you’ll query the fingers,
cold, gaunt runes around your neck
but in time you’ll learn to love them,
their unspecific touch, the frosted tips.

with a drip of blue fizz they’ll put you
back where you came, mail you
capsules that vanish in the throat
but taste of your blood, of peppermint.

now I must rediscover myself again

stretch the muscles, crack the bones

set the synapses back into action


what dazzling names will now come

to paint my throat, to whisk the mind

into some new year tornado


and the gap growing between us,

the existing handful, pinches of dialogue

that filter through the lightning cracks


sleep peppered with age-old blunders

what’s to come, a dull game

plagued with fanciful guesses

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.

after much deliberation,
you’ve decided on eggs
for breakfast.

standing by the counter,
eviscerated yolks in the bowl
fascinate you.

I offer, you slowly
churn the lemon mush.
four hands

then tilt our concoction,
dash of pepper, full stop of salt,
into the pan.

cooking solar system
coagulates, cloudy creature
you eye up

as I flop it onto your plate,
fork ready set
to burrow in.

Prom is two days away
and I’m telling Charlie to get a ******* move on
because this equipment won’t set itself up
and that his **** guitar needs tuning
for the billionth time
and that we only have time for three songs
(the three that we’ve been practising)
in his uncle’s garage for the past month or so
and how we need to get a **** move on
because we’re faffing like stupid flies around a stupid light

I am the drummer
at the back whacking the cymbals
   Charlie’s front and centre
all Jagger-strut spit-flinging
giving the microphone an earful
   Paul’s on bass
body popping like Flea
fingers red-hot fiddling the strings
half pro half nervous tic

the staff have given the go ahead
first track’s a la Jerry Lee
beat careening off from the gym walls
rockabilly kick that’ll pull the girls
away from their ******* phones for a while
then we’ll segue into something more grunge
Kurt Cobain half-slur moan and groan
that’s if the night hasn’t slid
into some hazy hive of idle teens
awards for most attractive
most likely to end up on reality TV
doled out before the limo back home

that’s when they’ll blink at their ceilings
in the first dustings of morning
their ******* bodies aching
from robotic dancing and kebab shop crap
know the names that danced on their tongues
will vaporise before long
and you know
I’ll be one of those poor suckers
but first there is rock followed by roll
if we get a ******* move on

…Run with the first line
then decide the form,
short line
or longer and whether punctuation
will be prominent throughout.

- By this point include a colour
but not basic red or blue,
something more visual
like RASPBERRY or… BLUEBERRY;
a part of the body is a fine

idea too, so mention …  runway …
of stubble, then a line or three
about weather, how raindrops
play skinny melodies
on the windows or sunlight

flirts - between - the curtains
as you sleep (mention another
person here, you are not
that interesting). Bring in
an unclear observation;

feet of treacle
make hurdling a challenge,
mist will only sting
if static for too long.
- Bring the piece

to a conclusion now.
Make trifling edits if necessary.
Only you can stamp
the page, declare this waffle final.
Name the poem.

I’d just returned home from the supermarket
and had put the bag-for-life on the table-top
when my mobile trembled. When it’s been that long
you do that silent slight stagger back action, at least
I did that Thursday afternoon, not quite able
to register the white pixels that had formed
your name, the jumble of numbers assigned to you.

So I answered hello and you spoke; I’m surprised
you kept my number all this time. You’d moved.
No, how would I know this, I said, sloping my neck
with phone sandwiched between cheek and shoulder,
draining the bag’s contents, when this is the first
communication in half a decade, if not more? Sorry,
but life got in the way. At that I could’ve yelled,

really let rip. Not one moment to call? Sixty months?
I knew what would unfold from your mouth next,
predictable as a non-White Christmas. I let you ramble,
I nodded though you couldn’t see, put bananas
in the bowl, grunted with each elucidation;
baby, job, car, sleep, money, partner, virus, repeat.
Then you said look, I’ll be in town, a few hours

to catch up over a pint, if you want. I could’ve said no
but actually, why not? Why not dip the toes
into that vast loch of nostalgia, memories like
jellyfish swirling below the surface? Could’ve called
you out on incompetency but maybe we’re all the same.
A Friday then, in two weeks, I said fine. I’d be sure
to remember. Just like you had remembered.

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.

A dismal bubble consumes the pair -

- the man, blotchy blue, plagued
with a sickness even he can't define,
his arms a hoop around her -

- the woman, lava-haired,
hot water drizzle no soothing salve,
no weather of comfort -

- even the kiss a torrid symbol,
blistering residue every time
they embrace. She wants to hold on -

- and he knows he can't escape.

I'm thinking of the sea.
I think we both said it was the clearest
blue we'd ever seen. OK, where you're from is lovely
and I know the place quite well now but
April’s are generally grim though not
where we were in that month, that year.
It was only my second time on a plane
and as it was a cheap deal we both said go on then,
let’s do it, and we did. You turned twenty-two
that week. Wore red and sang the song (poorly).
We found tasteless cupcakes from the ugly
supermarket down the road.
Laughed at how silly it was. No candles. The owner’s
tabby cat for company. You went in the sea again
the next day. I can remember the way it clung
to you, dripped off from you like little jewels.
I think I was close to being in love then. Yuck.
A painless vaccine but you know it's happened.
Strange, I suppose, how the smallest thing
makes you realise the massive. I knew it for sure
when you looked at me, handing over
a second two Euro lemonade of the morning.
The clearest blue, the sea
in your eyes. Every time.

As you launch
the mottled sphere
(no longer luminous yellow

after many a capture)
with a flick of the wrist,
all the neighbours would see

is a streak of black,
a charcoal bullet
between the trees

as your friend on four legs
fizzes after its prize,
jams it in the mouth,

lollops back to you with rapid pants,
clump of slobber, a monosyllabic
can I do it again.

you get thirty likes for one line

-----

love is banana pancakes and pyjamas

keep quiet in the graveyard, I say, for they can all hear us

falling is only falling if your head goes before the heart

breath is the unwrapping of a memory

your eyes are the rainbow kind of blue

I'd say I hate myself again but hate is a strong word

shakespeare, yeats, keats, plath and eliot laugh over breakfast

the clock cannot talk but tells me everything

sleep is the wicked playground of echoes and black eyes

do I like this what me you like me this

The forest holds our secrets.
Light slithers a path to us,
the sound of our breathing,
crackle of a splintered twig.

There’s a gurgle of water,
flossing the rocks of a stream.
Listen, you say.   A bird’s wings
applause as we go on our way.

I stop near a tree, its bark
sharp, flecked with moss.
No words, just immeasurable years
between us, skin against skin.

The smell we’ve been walking to,
lavender, tiptoes to our noses.
My fingers brush your hand
and we step forwards again.

unpack my dreams from the chest

unfurl the cardboard tubes   haul up the old honey jars

place them in a row on the well-worn table


in order of colour or order of shape

do they shrink with a tap   do they froth from the top

which one is your delicacy of choice


now offer a hand   feel it slither across the fingers

a temporary burn or just-melted ice

when was it when you assembled this story


take your selection let night tumble in

the tale stirring   the curtains rising

a dream of sleep and fabricated magic

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.

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.

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.

I will post you my name.
I’ve been meaning to.
That way I can stain you

like blackberries would,
a fresh, juicy punnet of them
bought that very day,

your lips stippled violet
and the single syllable you read
the dizzy sprint of sugar.

On the ceiling
or creeping out from behind
the radiator,

six brittle legs,
a body round as a
black Jelly Tot

or a miniature cylinder,
just enough to make you          jump
or eject

a shriek from your mouth,
this one double-clawed
creature you scoop up

with a cup, delicately
in case of a sudden scuttle, pop
back outside among the marigolds.

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.

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.

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 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

You make me miss something
I never had, every crushing syllable
like a wave from a faraway place,

our footprints the day’s tale,
curling as though ribbons
into a drenched chasm of lost stories.

Just like all things, this must end;
photograph-faded, awkwardly torn,
smudged by a briny thumb

so the memory half-warps
and could we remember it anyway?
Maybe this is supposed

to be, just now, one of us
to explain with crimped fingertips,
the other gone before it began.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I’ve displayed twenty different colours
                                                        to you

set myself aflame
or dunked myself in cold water

no not you
who makes the selection

myself making the choice
as though a t-shirt in the wardrobe

what you get
either side of a coin

take my apologies
in advance

never one
but often the other

And so,
as if the final
of the feline high jump,

our neighbour’s pet, piebald,
getting on in years,
sits on her side,

surveys its challenge.
Then, as if the crumpling
of ink-splodged paper,

she crouches, half
Fosbury-flops herself
up to the post, plops down

into our garden,
merrily saunters
across the rain-tickled grass.

Take me where your voice
is diamonds
but not diamonds, not really,
not as hard

but hopefully you know
what I mean,
a place I can smilingly float on
your lyrical clouds,

where I can taste the stardust,
where rain murmurs
on my tongue like a hundred
secrets

and Saturdays could be Sundays
or midnight
is our daybreak, orange crescent
sunlight on your cheeks,

so I can inhale as though
it’s something new,
an invention my body just made
and how delicious

to have your daisy-chain of words
or some other’s words
but from your throat, you know,
to breathe in,

sanctify my lungs, my brain,
I’ll thank you for it,
tell you they remind me of jewels so
I can keep on getting by.

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

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

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

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

Here at the Riesenrad,
black Eckelberg eye
observes violinists.
There, a choir of mustard leaves,
swirls of Ich and du
clog the air, night blanketing us
in a filmic noir.

Here, the chalky bracket of the Hofburg extends its arms
as if embracing us.
Inside: glinting-finger chandeliers,
ensembles of books
like lungs of rust,
children toddling past
with goldfish mouths.

Here, a café, early morning,
lemon light sweeping through the windows,
gurgle of students, old men
with a steaming großer Brauner,
a wrinkled Die Presse on the table,
****** of tablespoons at breakfast
and simmer of strings at evening.

And it was here, in ’67,
post-they-think-it’s-all-over,
where a barefoot brunette
sang a tune about puppets;
now our hearts tick
to an orchestral melody.

So here, under a periwinkle sky,
students with Zweig on their minds,
sizzle of German on their tongues
continue on their way, as do we,
footsteps waltzing through
the heart of Europe.

what has become of this,
maybe to arrange the words before me
attach them as if a jigsaw with
no picture or meaning,
no analysis necessary
for before you know it,
they dry, start to crumble
as if made with the cheapest materials,
not to be seen again
by any pair of tired eyes,
minds wasted on what could’ve been.

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.

I am thinking of the last time I saw you.
Six months ago, but feels longer.
Your threadbare jumper, certainly
unsuitable for August but one of your finer thrifts,
straggles at the left wrist, beige as porridge.
As such, I have sheltered my skin
in somebody else’s unwanted fabric
so we can be second-hand together.
  
You have moved the furniture, you told me,
in your flat, you said, a few phone calls ago,
the TV with its back to the window
so there’s no bleed of light blanketing the morning news.
The table, IKEA of course, coasters
I helped you select too long ago now,
sandy halos of many a midnight coffee
still there, I’m guessing, soon to know.

I'm warning you, don’t buy me anything.
I considered, dithered, made my decision.
A late Christmas present, in my luggage,
haphazardly wrapped as if done one-handed.
The shape, pure giveaway. A novel. Crime.
Books above your double bed like piano keys,
compendium of slit throats, of bumps in the night.

I repeat the plan. Riksbron, seven-ish,
all the way until I face the place, and you,
anticipating my approach from another direction,
hair a flood of cappuccino-brown.
As my suitcase stomach-rumbles, an audible gasp.
You whip out a cardboard sign, à la Thunberg,
my surname capitalised in dark Crayola.
A snicker hiccups from my throat. We hug.
Lift off. I taste your smell, my arms around your waist
as if holding something precious.

Ain’t that the truth, I wonder, as we spill our lives
into the refrigerated air, smiles thriving on our faces
where, I think we both know, they’ll rest for days.
At your flat you point out my Potter socks,
I ask if you’ve moved the sofa, knowing full well you have.
God’s sake as you begrudgingly, smilingly, unearth your gift
as a candle sheds cinnamon through the room.
I am sodden with tiredness but still we talk,
in person, a rare, valuable feast,
the endless almond sleeves of your jumper over your fingers,
touching my hands.

Spain in the core of summer
   thermometer under pressure

nosebleed heat
  skin butter-knifed with sweat

you having just arrived
   from the city with the Moorish palace

where I’d walked
  less than forty-eight hours before

do not ask me how to define love
   because it was not love

love takes longer
  photos doused in a darkroom

this was the first murmurings
  of something wildly unfamiliar

swirl of a heart
  on the roof of my coffee

when you spotted
   The Sun Also Rises

and sat before I had a chance
  to take that initial sip

hair like vanilla
   lips a tone of rust

and the city
   became the story we wrote

unravelling my r’s
   difference between perro and pollo

the switch from Picasso
   blue to pink

that first night
   I revised your body

as a saxophone
  squawked in a crowded room

the litmus test
   for what I’ve said wasn’t love

but the inaugural snapshot
   in a slideshow

of a summer
   of torso-clinging humidity

of siestas with four feet
   pecking the end of my bed