I still have
the note you wrote,
kissed with your raspberry lipstick,
licked with your bedtime ink.

For years, left to dry
in a drawer, inhaling the dark,
I found it, like a stale apple,
blushing yellow.

I understand the words now,
the loops, the curves, a fairground ride,
that's what we were
before the carpet scorched our knees.

Did you keep the one
that I wrote you?
No, maybe, torn at the top
and stuffed somewhere.

I let your message breathe again,
swallow the days,
this red stain rages upon my eyes,
a note with no writer, how it all fades.

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.

Autumn’s still yawning.
Sunlight seeps between
a few trees and leaves pools
of yellow drool.

A crow nearby looks up,
a black speck
climbs the steps
but then, as a bullet, it’s gone.

Moss, like acne
tiptoeing up the track
around my feet
stains the ground green.

A broken-bone crack,
a twig split in two
joins other brunette arms and legs
strewn everywhere.

Clouds begin to blush
silver above my head.
I hope I get home
before they start to weep.

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

wouldn’t it be great to learn Greek
she says
quickly riffling
through the phrasebook
with a thumb and her tongue out
while I try to discover what
‘to speak’ is in Dutch

everyone uses English
you know I say
spluttering ‘ik spreek, jij spreek,
hij spreek’,
trying to nail the pronunciation
like the book tells me to
‘ick sprake, yigh sprake, hi sprake’

but they might appreciate
tourists knowing a bit in Crete
like ‘efcharistó’
or ‘ti ypérochi méra’ she mutters
but it all, literally,
sounds Greek to me
and we can’t visit everywhere

besides, she wants warm weather
but I’d be fine in, say, Sweden,
‘Där är den närmaste Ikea?’
or in Iceland, but I can’t
pronounce anything
the way the phrasebook
wants me to

so Greece is probably best,
and anyway,
she’s too busy
informing me that
‘monókeros’ means unicorn
and it’s 575 quid each
if we book now

Many evenings, the curtains drawn,
you slept restless
as a new-born accepting
their life and the world.

Quilted in night
but come morning
you'd rise again,
write the branches of your tree.

Black upon a fresh page,
every word still in the breeze
long after your roots
were destroyed.

I talk to you
even if I have
nothing to say.

My car sounds
like it’s got food poisoning
but I drive it to your house anyway.

I wear the same dumb boots
because I wore them
the first time I saw your face.

I pile up your laughs
in my pockets so I can pull them out
if the day turns to mud.

I hate the way you’re leaving
because everyone leaves,
but I’ll keep your poem

on repeat,
the words will cool my veins,
rock me to sleep.

Old school, gymnasium, Christmas fair, Thursday night.
Hoops at either end. Tables. People. A woman carries a baby,
could be the PE teacher’s. A Ugandan flag. Jars of dark purple
jam next to jars of chutney, perhaps. The youth, us once,
flit between here and the hall. A choir, maybe thirty strong,
sing Santa Baby. Parents watch, as do we. Half a minute.

The head. Still a towering, suited figure. Handshakes all round.
What are we doing now? Voices like knots of consonants.
Geography man. Flecks of grey stubble. Procedure repeated.
Finger pointed. Scrabble for a surname. Exclamation.
Years rattling back to the front. He remembers, as do we.
Head of sixth seven years ago. Instant recognition. Repeat.

Half an hour. The place, no longer ours. Never was.
Friends the same. Memories. Dust between dark and light.
Car. Back seat. Barely two miles. Little traffic. Turn
into street.  Step out. Chill drizzles the face. Handshake
again? Again. Time and place discussed before home.
See you tomorrow then. Yeah. Yeah. Front door key.

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.

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

-----

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

Sunday morning, my dad
with the News of the World,
picking Bob’s Your Uncle at 10 to 1.
My mum in a titchy kitchen,
joined by a ***
of pongy tangerine cells,
raw tongues in a pan.
The tang of frying bread
tanned brown tickles my nostrils,
sizzles like Velcro on trainers.

Now my brother
in crimson pyjamas
walks in, plonks down for a plate
of six-hundred calories
all before midday.
Three meaty tubes
next to two yellow moons.
The mist of oil,
of grease clogs the air.
Tuck in.

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.

I. (Girl.)

Young girl with blonde hair
peers at her phone once again
to see if she's loved.

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

II. (Black Umbrella.)

A black umbrella
even though it's not raining
to anyone else.

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

III. (September.)

The clock crawls to nine
as autumn comes to students
for an awkward hug.

The bag is half empty.
All evening, my right hand
swimming with cushions.

I pop in another
pink cylinder, squash the shell
with one bite.

A tinge of strawberry
coats the ceiling of my mouth,
swirls under my tongue.

Like scoffing
a miniature sponge, its insides
weld to every back tooth.

Once down my throat
I reach for the next softy.
Just one more.

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.

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…

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.

It was lust we were building.
Moving in the dark, all elbows and ankles.
Found each other’s lips, leaned in for a kiss,
the first of what would be countless that night.
Your mouth tasted of strawberries and wine.
On the stereo, our favourite song.

You said ‘I love this song’,
peering out the window at an opposite building,
one hand clinched around a glass swollen with wine.
We still wore our socks, cuddling our ankles,
and we kept them on throughout the night.
In my head, replaying each previous kiss.

We’d never wanted to kiss
like this before - as soon as one song
ended we did it again, the night
oozing like a wound into early morning, the building,
our bodies alight with desire, ankles
knocking between sips of wine.

We soon finished off that bottle of wine.
Drained my glass of red, placed a kiss
on your shoulder, shuffling my feet, my ankles
into a more cosy position as a new song
kicked in, swirled into the building,
a hot breeze of music disturbing the night.

I didn’t want it to be just one night.
There was more to discover and plenty more wine,
every word we spoke echoing through the building.
I could savour your smile with every kiss,
loved your freckles, the daisy tattoo near your ankles.
It felt like writing our own story, the lyrics to a song.

But you didn’t want to hear our song.
At the end of the night
you went cold. I wrapped my arms round my ankles.
I felt sure you’d gone off me. Maybe it was the wine.
My lips were anesthetised from every kiss -
when I asked what was wrong, you said 'get out this building.'

Something had changed; I didn’t know what. Night dissolved into day. We stopped listening to Kiss.
Your lipstick stains the colour of wine on my neck. Was it the final time I’d see your naked ankles?
I took a mental photograph of the building as I left, though I’ve forgotten it since. But not yet our song.

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?

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

Fingers locked
     in female hands
a riddle
   like legs     free of clothes
   crumpled jumpers
     in a corner
resembling a salad
of what-the-hell-went-on
last night   greeny-reds.

   Dolled up
bees' knees
     next time
not a person to     impress
or   dazzle   with a fedora
   top-shelf aftershave
charcoal-black shoes
gobbling     this week's wages.

Miss your     mouth
                              completely
see if you   tick
the thirty-one boxes
     know nail polish
     birthdays
better than second-hand
lips   and teeth   and tongues
   and lips
stash wit in a drawer
humour   under the bed.

Spot the odd   one   out
like finding a disease
     in a bloodstream
always observe
     an   owl   in the room
   watch others hurl feelings
I miss   you's   about
gobbledygook
resort to stories
     only your pillow knows
they want the     fire
not a                           lonely snowman.

The beautiful scar
deep in green,
peaceful question mark
loops through the field
in which I stand
on ground
soft as a soap-drunk sponge.
The sun,
a lit matchstick-tip
burns all shades of tangerine
and saffron.
The water I hear trickle by,
the water I see
flossing the weeds,
a turquoise flow of blood
from this vein
to the beating heart.

We found the thing
  on our walk,
   vacant, drinking the waves.
You tugged it
  from the mush,
   rolled your fingers
over its wet knobbles
  like kneecaps or ankles.
   What a find.
Held it up,
  let sunlight glimmer
   from its clotted cream body,
felt the smooth blancmange
  pink interior and said
   you have it
no you have it.
  I put the shape to my ear,
   listened for the sea
but heard hushes, whispers
  whirring within a dark room.
   I had to own it in the end.
Able to keep
  part of the beach
   but not you,
not you.

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.

charred exoskeleton
with a spider-like crown

   empty network of wires
   skinny black straws

a burnt-out wreck
of salt-flecked bones

   mottled gaps unfilled
   now an eerie static abacus

a blemish in the sea
crumbling like stale cake

I.

Pringles are eaten
as gifts are slowly unclothed
might be pairs of socks

----------

II.

The Queen makes her speech
pigs in blankets passed around
crackers house trinkets

----------

III.

Adverts for sales
folks queue up hours before
for a new TV

In the end
we ended up in the pub -
now there’s a surprise.

Fifteen nights out of thirty,
at least. Cheap grub
and we knew the owners,

mates of my folks.
‘All right pal?’, he said.
‘Not bad’, I said back.

Our feet ached,
my arms cracking like conkers
as I stretched,

got comfortable.
And then you mentioned
the C-word again.

‘But in a few years.’
A nod. A sip. The cool slither
of lager down my throat.

We’d talked, of course,
about it before. People
expected, assumed

a kid was the next step.
You didn’t like
my quietness on the matter -

you’d kick my leg, teasingly,
as if kicking the answer
into my body, my mouth.

Honestly? I hadn’t given it
much thought. A sure thing
was my regular line of choice.

'You know, I fancy you
so much right now.'
OK, so I don’t know

what made me say that,
but it had already zipped
across the table,

buried in her ears
before I clocked on.
I really meant it though.

I think your cheeks
went cherry red -
there was a kiss, I remember.

I’d answer properly
later on, the pub
a foggy memory

and that night, I slept
knowing I’d fancied you
from the first second we met,

and that the C-word
wasn’t as horrid
as I always used to believe.

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.

Come quarter to ten,
sleepyhead, time for bed
with brother close by,
what awaits you up there
at the top of the stairs?

As night unfurls
each step groans
like an old gentleman,
you ask what will greet us
when we’ve scaled this mountain?

A monster, a ghoul
or nothing at all?
Something he says
different from the rest,
a sight quite like no other.

Before the clock strikes bedtime
a marvel for you two
that won't be forgotten,
the oddest thing you've ever seen;
the feast, the beast and one jelly-bean.

A powercut.
Lights go out.
  Fetch some candles.
   Fill the blankness.

    Minutes pass.
     Eerie solitude.
      See that flame?
       It flickers.

        It flickers like us.
         Uncertain, unsure.
          Left, right.
           Sometimes neither.

            Rain outside.
             Wet windowpanes.
              Sad little droplets.
               The sky is crying.

                Wax burns.
                 Time burns.
                  It drips away.
                   Like the rain.

                    Like our lives.
                     Unless we change.
                      Be positive, fresh.
                       A new outlook.

Illuminated room.
A dazzling new glow.
  The lights tripped.
   Now back on. Fantastic.

Everything is blue.
Sometimes, it is blue for you
like the tongue of the sea
or the Pacific
when the sun
drools upon it.

Other times - electric.
A bright, gaudy blue
nobody can miss
as the vibrant shade of the sky
or turquoise
in your teeth.

I remember when you longed
for blue, the darkest tones.
Your mood was deep blue
like the deep red of blood,
the colour of evening,
impending midnight.

You made everything ice,
the trees, the grass,
your digits chilled baby blue.
I offered you gloves
but you knocked them
from my hands.

Then, for a moment,
a pinprick of green.

Green was a gem.
Green was a rarity
like a white Christmas.
I told you to chase,
to run after it
but the blue held you back.

I said 'how are you today?'
Never yellow, never orange,
you spoke blue,
spat sapphires,
every object, item
glazed over azure.

I wanted you green.
Avocado, mint, emerald green
but it never stayed long.
Blue waves would come
and gulp
your good food.

Now you flit between them,
cellophane
dancing behind your eyes.
One day, drowned in blue,
one day, swimming
green.

the water grips my reflection

all wobbly head
     quavering legs

a swathe of hillside
     like an avocado slice

trees squashed together
     in a bristly embrace

gluey splodge of cloud
     on a periwinkle sky

shimmer of sunlight
     across the lake

illuminates your face

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Nightfall
and I cannot get over
the architecture of you

I could draw your fingerprints
from memory
with rainbow crayons

paint
how you scrunched your toes
like yesterday’s paper

whenever the water
threatened to soak
our undressed feet

We are here
talking about
anything everything

nothing at all
your words are my wine
I want to sip every drop

ask for another bottle
in the coal-black silence
and get smashed

wake up tomorrow with sand
strewn through my fringe
a silly smile or two

forget what is not
on this beach
and know only now

the tone of the waves
hue of your lipstick
beat of our hearts

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.

I write your name
                              in red
   sunlight
seeps through bottles
          on a windowsill
   margarine kaleidoscopes
         on legs

naked for a change
(early summer risky business)

Floorboards yawn
     under the weight of our stories
   I take showers
        as well as baths now
   Can't be twenty-one here
older   shush you couldn't tell

   Roll my finger
   make your piano tingle
like when our wrists
    bump together
    when spines crackle
on books bought yesterday
    this city   bubbles
        all fiction

You think
monochrome
     makes you look better
     camera   snap   done
jazz sashays around the room
    head out a window
hear people as nosebleeds
                    scrabble about

You flirt
        (what a discovery)
like flowers in a vase
   orange juice   bagels
ten-plus-ten toes

     (A moment
where your eyes ache
     into mine)

I hop
stepped jumped
into this mess

     you know as well as I do
     what a delectable
mess we are in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rolling with my thunderstorms,
violet shifts to black
and you run ashore.

Capsized outside a theatre,
I wrench you out
from the starfish glob of mess
I made, blow the grit
off your forehead,
scrabble for a candle
we can re-light together.

One time, mud snatched
at your ankles.
You screamed but I was seeing
drains and reflections
twisted in puddles
like fuzzy lines on the old TV.
A migraine came;
I threw it up into the sink
and slept.

Lost count of the times
you've tossed me out
in the snow, garbage among
banana skins, frozen earlobes,
but who chucks a duvet
over my frost-flecked skin
but you,
with a clumsy smile
and mascara raining
down cheeks.
Every time.

Tonight I find you
in the evening fog
after searching
every subway station
my legs would allow.
My shins cry for rest.
The busker plays
Bob Dylan out of tune
but can’t blame a guy for trying.

You discover my eyes,
put your face to my coat,
mumble words like you have
a mouthful of ice.

Lookin’ for a friend?
The 11.04 towards
Borough Hall.
We get on, I catch your breath,
count the hundreds
and thousands of steps
to home.

It lollops along
the soggy sand
in the sun,

all for a ball
its owner has thrown
towards the water,

rolling past tourists
in shorts, sandels,
sunglasses.

Its tongue *****
lackadaisically
out his mouth,

not a care in the world
on this August day
on the north-east coast.

Hours taken by sea
butter sunshine gone
to a chalky lavender smudge

our feet made prints
in piles of freckles
skin tickled by heat

are you in my head
pirouetting
between dreams

or real as diamonds
(so you’d know
about kisses)

you filled hollowness
with petals
cups of lust

played
my fragile xylophone
like an expert

swapped it
for a piano
made it sing

you’re the pearl
on my palm
in a thunderstorm

my sweet speck
of dark magic
at sunrise

I pull away
for you to tug me
right back in again

Somebody said
if you count to ten
in your head
while holding your breath,

as if breath is an object
with a shape and a texture,

by the end you'll have
forgotten how to breathe.

One.
Two.

And sometimes
you need to pause,
to let every black swatch
of worry evaporate
like crooked puddles.

Three.
Four.

And you feel a trickle
of something under your skin -
perhaps a calmness,
a word not yet invented.

Five.
Six.

In your mind, a clock face,
hands that aren't hands,
numbers.

Seven.
Eight.

Voices wrestle.
Your voice, your voice again.

Nine.
Ten.

Over.

Now, remind yourself
to exhale, see how the scene
becomes clean,
how it felt to hold in
such a temporary thing.

Oxford one Thursday before Christmas.
Down Ship Street for lunch,
sticking to what we know.
Inside, into warm familiarity,
away from the chirp of bike-wheels,
tuba players and cold latching
onto our cheeks.
A trio of guys, one female at the back,
preppy students sipping coffee,
crumbs scattered like sesame seeds
over white plates and laps.
Smashmouth on the stereo,
a choice between Coke or pink lemonade
(Coke it is),
a flapjack for one-seventy if I wanted.
My stomach growls for grub.
I think of winter drizzled everywhere,
scrawl all this upon a scrap of paper
using my father’s pen.
Then a black-haired girl
with a sincere smile hands over
my baguette, chopped in two
and I think of her until we are finished,
well out the door
with my coat zipped right up.

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.

the sun signifies
a deep bloom of affection
radiant in the heart

a kiss miles in the making
geography of your love
an extra horizon away

eager heartbeats
the ache of a touch
electrifies every nerve

warmth of a lemon embrace
light swims in
now watch how you glow

Well, you're in a good mood.
Those friends left and right
could learn a few things,
how not to whine as a kettle
until I notice the gold body,
black pearls for eyes.

To me it's a forest,
first breath of March,
winter locked up
and now leaves bleed green,
snow switched to slush.

Who wants to be raucous,
get sloshed, go hoarse,
slur every word?
With you each syllable
twirls through the air,
hopscotches from note to note.

We may cough/choke/sneeze,
as the curtain rises
but when you choose to speak
spring skips to my ears
regardless what month.

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

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

I am torn

between cookies and cream

or raisin and ***

   you have plumped
   for a vivid blue creation

it’s bubblegum
   you say

as it begins to
drip

   down your fingers

and I’m dawdling

so it’s raisin and *** then

two magnolia spheres
   glittering in the sun

and we walk down the street

with cold tongues

I. (The Gone).
They have gone.
Why does it bother me so?
A truth,
only a handful of gems
stay bright,
all others
faded
like pencil on paper
until a faint mark remains,
what was, what now is.
Names in conversation,
a drive down the alphabet
then and now,
clotted recollections
breaking apart
each time, stalled
in silent traffic.
A few, needles I suppose,
a shot in the arm
again, again,
I cannot believe
how many times
their voices
painted everything,
but long gone,
no abrasion or impact
to consider, to revise.
On occasion,
a stretch into fog,
icy melancholies
but not always
a echo,
moments to inform
me they can return
if they wish.

II. (The Bare Feet).
So, it is night.
Whorls of cream
came through the door,
sleepyhead next to me,
ragged, tired,
out of juice.
I can only say
‘I knew you would.’
This is not your home
but we’re not far away.
Lipstick less rosy,
sound of drums
still throbs in our ears
but it was worth it,
for confetti,
flecks of gold
whirling around
you, the crowd.
Peachy lights
spray across
your face,
piano black eyes,
warm bare feet.
It is not real
but we can touch,
we can speak.
On our knees,
we look at each other,
I hold you,
the minutes
stutter past
and for a moment
only silence,
silence is all
we need for our words
are used too much.

III. (The Next.)
It took
over a year
but we saw
each other again.
Since the end
of a grey June day,
two years
elsewhere,
forty miles the difference.
He quit,
the right choice
he tells me
as we reminisce,
that’s what it is
these days,
now he looks
for the next stage
and soon
it will be me
who must fully
step into adulthood,
like a foot plunged
into a bath,
too hot, too cold.
Did we expect this?
If we could see
next year
would we smile
or scowl?
Tell ourselves
it’s just the way
things go,
on, on, on.
Now, as I look
out my window,
the faintest tinge
of orange
descending,
I know, he knows
we don’t know
what comes next.

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