Where The Sea Sprays

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

----------

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

Ad Infinitum

forks against turbulent sky
vivid cigarette flicker
like a stifled disturbance

the water holds what's high
fluvial duplicate shivers
in orange and jasmine

and the fog - great belches of it
day’s first gesture of mischief
by the house of power

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

very easy to soak in blue
as though a blanket made of shades,
the horrid, musty
smell of your own inertia,
the well that lengthens
inside, perhaps your ribcage
extending, cracking each time
you know you are breathing,
arrhythmic ticks in blue, blue,

but yellow, shapes seep
through your semi-conscious gauze,
name of the day, its contents page
slaps the window like rain-pellets
and the dust
                     trickles into
                                        a trench
                     of forgotten
history, and you can see lilies,
yellow glyphs, the way they ****
their heads  in the breeze; it is a greeting.

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.

baby of rust
bloomed from the womb
tether to the lost

lone orchid
by the too-big bed
memory left red

dream out in tears
odd choir of charms
sing a quiet awful song

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.

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.

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.

Dog saw the fault first.
Flurry of spots like acne
sprouting on a teenager’s face.

The ground, crushed pearls,
rubbery tones under foot,
bright white blotted by an exhibition

of crimson, as if seeping
through winter’s present of gauze.
Patches of darker red,

cherryade leftovers
of a sliced finger, a chest puncture,
nosebleed drizzle. No answers,

just a dash of human leak
to be buried by more
shavings of chalk from above.

No footprints but my own,
the dog’s own code
and there, one tree over,

a welt of lemon,
the culprit obvious, waving
baton of black leading me on.

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.

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.

The room
in a state of disintegration,
sense of an ending,
names, first and last,
pouring from our mouths
for, perhaps, the final time.

Tears like transparent worms
stuttering down cheeks,
a merry-go-round of hugs,
black jumper to black jumper,
white shirts plagued with marker-pen,
scribbles of our teenage selves.

Summer before change,
locations that will develop
into a second home, new faces
blooming into existence
as if undiscovered flowers, bedroom walls
riddled with our personalities.

There are those who cannot wait
to depart; maybe they already have,
the years crushed to dust
in the silence between goodbyes.
I stand, useless as a faulty lamppost,
the horizon an onslaught of fog.

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.

perhaps all we do

express

confess in droplets

or tsunami


and how many

to confess to

divulge the innermost

secrets from our sanctums


new decade crashes in

with your colour eruptions

what miles

seconds separate us


what to be said

said carefully

as if glass

in a child’s hands


confess our truths

at the time

await answers

like overseas mail


pen ink drunk

set for disclosure

answers to spark

for minutes for years

Two women, we think,
are on a date,
leaning forwards
across the wooden table
in this restaurant
called ‘ood’ because
the lights outside
are not all working properly.

It is that day after all,
the day of much gushing,
duvets peppered with flaky paper hearts,
florists raking the money in,
and in this instance,
two women having a meal,
maybe getting to know
each other’s little quirks,
the idiosyncrasies that make them them.

We can only assume.
The journey home,
the tension turning bonfire red.
What will become of them tonight,
in the morning, a double bed
actually used for two,
a bathroom mirror stealing
a newcomer’s face.

I turn to you
in my drizzle-flecked coat,
say maybe it’s just a business meeting,
no flirtation, just figures.
Not everybody does dates.
Except these women do,
or will do, we assume,
in the ten seconds it takes
to walk past
on our way back to your car.

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.

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

What have I learned
except to coat my tongue in sand,
incinerate what was never created.

My golden ones, you haven't seen the start of it,
the shirking and shrinking
like an aborted flower.

If this is how it feels we should say so,
my head a corroded oven
and how expensive are the repairs.

Oh say,
what a shame,
wooden shrine
coated with the breath of ghosts,
carpet of fingers
snapped, or arthritic,
wrenched from the wrist
in some grisly surgical procedure.

Tumble of rock, a table
out for the count,
a lone chair with a prime view
of what has become,
become of the place,
crumbling, stale,
wood daggers a derelict alphabet
dormant on stage.

The tunes, long gone,
harmonies engulfed by the breeze,
auditorium left almost lifeless,
state of half-eclipse
with the punctuation of a thousand strangers
and just the first strands
of spring sunlight bleeding
through the windows.

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

they walked together

having never kissed

having never confessed

in a Friday night fug

of second-hand smoke

and discounted *****

that one loved the other

a deep love with many roots


they held hands when crying

as if another’s warm palms

would stem the flow somehow

but it never went further

never tiptoed past the threshold

no dates in restaurants

with pricy wine and staggered chat

no letters professing  

a long-gestated love


they watched movies

recited lines for a hundredth time

laughter rebounding from the walls

uttered secrets in whispers

said they’d be friends forever

knowing they would be

because sometimes that happens

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.

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.

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.