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

you are calling from the kitchen

would I like
   strawberry jam on my toast

strawberry jam?

   I think
I forgot we had some

in the refrigerator
   between the peanut-butter

   the almost empty jar
of gloopy marmalade

I shout back yes

I will have jam on my toast
   why not

   I feel healthy
I am growing a smile

there’s you and there’s life
and it’s only Monday

   you know

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.

'Ten years from my successful seventeen, and a cold voice says: What have you done, what have you done?'
Sylvia Plath - journal entry Wednesday 4th November 1959.*

Now, like a typewriter ribbon,
worn-down and weak
as a shrinking pencil,
but there are white days
among those fruitless, bare ones,
spasmodic,
where the machine
gorges on characters
you create.

Multi-coloured rhapsody,
confident stories
have upped and left,
what can you do,
what have you done.
Feast on unknown delights,
astrology or foreign waffle
and wait for them to come.
They will come.

Ten years, ten calendars gone,
now your hair is up
rather than tumbling down,
need some buoyancy in a bottle,
medicine again,
take twice a day.

What you need,
crave, long after seventeen
sleeps inside you
silent
and will come alive,
your small siren,
as will every pitch-black word.

after the rain
tide out
  the sea
   a sliver of mauve silk
    in the distance
     sand pockmarked
    with footprints
   like paintbrush stipples
  a mishmash of patterns
naked to the sky
all pastel hues blended
with a slippery finger
  ultramarine
   into a violet yawn
    into a lavender blush
     into an apricot kiss
    the mellow slosh of water
   chatter
  sun setting
as a pinkish glimmer
slithers over the beach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You were gone.
You haven’t come back.

scrunch your eyes tight enough
and the scene will play
the way you wrote it

give me smoke
and your labyrinth fingerprints
on the throat of a bottle

brand me with lipstick stains
my own shimmering pools of ruby
straight from the angel's mouth

hop-skip of our words
like stained-glass window
dragonfly wings

swelling with colour
but careful! they'll break
if you squeeze them too hard

let's pretend the morning
sleeps on the horizon
a charcoal galaxy of days away

we'll go walking together
in the summer dark
and forget what we're supposed to do
with our hearts

A month or two ago I read a book.
It wasn’t bad but I’ve read better
stories with more interesting characters in my life.
I sat as I usually did with a cup of tea
but I think my wife forgot the sugar in it
as usual. She always did this.

Halfway through I thought to myself, “This
is getting boring. I’ll put this particular book
back where it belongs, let it
gather dust. I’m sure there is a better
read somewhere on these shelves, littered with tea
stains, stains from my younger self, my younger life.”

And yes, it has been a long life
indeed. Now would you just look at this!
Surrounded by novels, lukewarm tea.
I mean, see my book
over there on my desk? Yes, that could be better
too, but when I had finished writing it

I was so chuffed. Sadly though, it
didn’t make me feel more jovial about life.
Didn’t get much praise at all. My wife said, “Better
go to bed, wake up ready to start again, a new book.
Whatever happens, don’t let this
get to you, like last time when you downed cup after cup of tea

every day.” Yeah, she got it right, down to a T.
Again and again, I always ended up doing it.
Then I’d sit by myself, plan to book
a holiday and think “It’s time my life
took a different path, writing garbage like this
is not going to make things any better.”

I needed to start afresh, anew. I’d thought I’d better
stop with my unhealthy habit of supping tea
and after months of misery put a stop to this
nonsense. The stuff in the past? Just forget about it,
move on, focus on the more exciting projects in life.
Get ready to stun the world with a brilliant new book.

I presume you have read this. What do you think of it?
I turned to poetry. Better than the mush I wrote before when tea
played a part in my life? Who knows? One day, you might read it in that book.

apart at the seams
apart
        at the

yes

me split
ting

stretch of whatever
   wet
blobs     leave
a st     ain

break
ing
cra ck ing

a clay *** in a kiln

pieces of myself
fraz
     zled
myself

coarse
          to touch

making beetroot
   pentagons on thumbs

these rag ged
moments
    
   they cannot be undone
I have not won

they only go
   on

I have not injected myself, felt the pulse
of illegal things under the bonnet of my skin
or swallowed a pill and let the room swirl
in colours from the mid-sixties.

I have not guzzled ugly orange drinks
until my liver aches to talk
and I erupt pints and shots
against ***-coated cubicle walls.

I have not had the awkward first
with one of my teeth knocking on hers
or a line of saliva in my stubble
that I perhaps should have trimmed.

Instead I drink tea with two sugars
and whizz through each channel
rather than absorbing stories for class
as best I can like a square of kitchen roll.

Instead I see streams of people from 20-whatever
take pictures with berries and apples
to remind themselves who they are
and remind me they still breathe.

And instead I write what I don't know
for if not every word burns black then dies
and so I continue to fight the other me
who will not turn, walk back the way I just came.

I.

The day will soon come
when your children discover
that you are Santa.

II.

After Christmas Eve
no-one really wants to hear
Mariah Carey.

III.

Christmas is about
gifts and time with family
and then *Doctor Who.

She didn't want spring,
she wanted autumn.
She wanted
the butterscotch leaves
snuggling the curbs
and porky pumpkins
with fire for a heart.

She wanted autumn
even when underground,
where seasons are unseen
except in the snow
sprinkled in a man's hair,
or heard, a sneeze and a sniffle
into a flimsy tissue.

She wanted autumn back,
like a first kiss over again,
like a childhood memory
flipped to the front of her mind
to stay there,
a vicious, intense red.

But she was stuck in spring,
writing about Octobers,
what happened back then,
how it opened like a flower,
and whether come next year
the season will breathe

orange again.

Eleven thousand
            three hundred
     sixty one miles away
in a place   I’ve never been,
     you are thinking
          of all the places
you have never   been
     or haven’t   been,
some for seasons,
          some for years.

A Paris   pomegranate   sunrise
     from the Pont des Arts,
     bright     colours     shimmying
at the   pulse   of romance.

The   blood   cell   rush   of Shibuya,
   Tokyo at night among
a river of     strange symbols,
   blinking   TV   screens.
  
Prague dredged in frost,
   feet-chatter   on cobbles
          past the Jan Hus memorial
under a   cool   periwinkle sky.

Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
   metallic curves,
   trill   of   syllables
     by the teal Nervión.

I think of you,          far away,
   same planet, different   spot,
the future washing towards us
   full of scrambled   images
and     white     noise,
a trickle of hope at your   toes,
   through my screen.

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

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

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

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

Katie sleeps alone
   her clothes are a Dolly-mixture
   riot of colour
on the bedroom floor
   pictures from years past
   splashed slipshod
on the walls  
   a medley of static flashes
   there’s half a glass
of a cloudy liquid nearby
   and her glasses
   decked in fingerprints
reflect morning light


Katie rolls over
   with eyes barely open
   as her phone spews out
a generic pop song
   and she groans
   and her hair
is a cream detonation
   on the pillow
   her mother is calling
Katie is running
   or rather snoozing late
   this is how it is she thinks
this is what I have become

It's a new morning
so get up out of bed
and wipe the dust
from your eyes,
let the sun filter through
the curtains, let your mind
become adjusted to where you are,
what time it is, where your handkerchief
is and what you are doing here
in this bedroom that looks
oh-so unfamiliar, unpleasant
with tissues everywhere
and a broken lampshade
dangling dangerously
from the ceiling, my God
what a dump you think
but who gives a ****,
you'll stay a bit longer
and then consider what you've done,
what you didn't do,
what you should've done
and how many missed calls you have
on your phone from friends
asking where the devil you are
because you left early
and didn't let them know,
it really bugs them when you do that,
they must've been a bit worried,
but they needn't be now
because you're in bed,
not the comfiest, not the cleanest
but in a bed with blood on the pillow
and a can of Dr. Pepper on the windowsill
in a room that looks like hell,
you feel like hell
but what the hell.

How weird
I am here
and you don’t know it.
Sleeping they say,
in a better place.

George on my right
has been gone for years,
even the flowers all brown
gave up God knows when.

I wonder if you knew
your neighbours
before the batteries stopped.
Did Edith know Agatha?
Did Frank chat over the fence?

Chris was seventy-two,
moved here mid-nineties
when I couldn’t yet hold a pen.
Now just a name
on a slab of stone.

There’s a spot near a tree,
no stone no dirt.
I think ‘that’ll be fine,
a place by myself.’
I shake my head.
They’ll stick me
somewhere else.

These aisles go on and on,
one giant Tesco,
nobody at the tills.

If you could speak,
the stories I’d hear,
the chapters spilling out
like salt from a shaker.
But you can’t talk
and I can only walk past
and wonder how you went.

I appear to have found your address
myself   I have lived in the same house
for twenty-two years
I have been meaning to write
leave an ‘xo’ of my own
tomorrow   I say   it will happen
so you know   today is not a blue day
but more   of course   will come
others from long ago
have blown away   naturally
age will do this to us
circumstances   relationships
only widen the gap
I do not converse with them anymore
they will miss my funeral   instead
I search for meaning in writing
happiness comes in ****** bursts
then vacuumed back up
I can only find solace in little pleasures
why has this not happened to me
what am I missing   did I lose anything
I point my finger  
I sigh   my fault
or so I tend to believe   so it goes
I carry myself as if I am a mirror
reflection the same but looking different
every day   I mean to play my guitar
in the same house I have lived in
for twenty-two years
besten wünsche   mein freund
I feast on your words
a delightful banquet
and so I said   your address
I will send you a letter

Part of the shop
I never venture into,

rows of bright
scented candles,
each name more
absurd than the last,

a child’s wish,
sunset breeze,
soft blanket,

since when have
they had a whiff
worthy of a jar of wax
I wonder

as I pop open
the lids of a few,
almost keel over
at the aromas

blasting up my nose.
I barely know the woman anyway,
so I ****** a
Raspberry Sorbet,

toss a twenty
on the counter.

Your body is as dark as the night
and I love it

if only I could slip
into your shadow

when the lights expire

my breaths
wouldn’t feel like flames

blossoming in my chest

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

Unusually
in a pub
a mid-July evening

clutching a Coke
the tangled strings
of conversation

peppered across the room
and loitering about
for faces

I haven’t seen
in perhaps four years
to breathe

through the door
to begin
that mawkish process

of reminiscing
over protracted days
in carpeted classrooms

naturally chat
about the lukewarm now
present partners

jobs if we have one
and upon arrival I speak little
letting the cool

surf of familiar voices
refresh me
as some mysterious

but quite delicious drink
and there is laughter
delicate chatter

before we disperse
like youthful bees
to our own slices

of existence
separate but always
aware of what was

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

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

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

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

She is there.
The return of the one, the irrefutable girl.
Butterscotch hair flows, water down her back,
eyes perforate the darkness of my days.
Bang! An explosion in the mind. The brain screams ‘again’.
Do not run. Wait. Take it in, a trapped moment in time.

Thoughts collide then disperse.
Colours writhe rapidly, a kaleidoscope
as she moves closer. I can see her face.
Sweet taste, smile so intoxicating,
nothing can be said to change this smitten fool.

Too precious to touch, she is the glass, me the reflection.
Not mine, not yet, not a chance?
This is it, that moment when.
**** that thought, curse you to hell and beyond.
Doubt, the enemy, the old antagonist, can’t you drown
in the ocean of loathed emotions?

A step closer, God help me now,
every breath, heartbeat, blink, heartbeat.
Her splendour is too much, this drug too powerful.
I don’t like this anymore mother,
can I go back inside now?

Too late, her hand is in mine.
Now I am lost, she will not save me from this tsunami
but **** me in, deeper so I cannot see, hear, think or believe.
It cannot be right, it so cannot be true,
but…but…it is.
It is.
It is.

“Are you coming then or what?”

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

Sometimes I only watch
the waves tumble
as a blue rug
over a flight of stairs,
other times I want them
to pummel me,
wallop into me like boulders
and smash against my ribs
again and again
and again,
feel my digits wrinkle
like a rotten fruit,
feel the water splash on my lips
and know it's alright
if I dunk down
surrounded by swathes
of aqua satin,
hear a rattling,
an amplified burble in my ears,
aware it's just me and the sea,
the sea can have me,
I'll allow it.

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

That Saturday
when they pulled your teeth,
he came at nine,
the smoker, the drinker,
the one with hard black pebbles
for eyes.

Your aim? To ******, to thrill,
the American ******
with daffodil hair.
Out from the rain and into a bar,
dialogue on birthdays
and becoming old.

A speck of seriousness,
your mood, spiked,
each 'conquest' you called it
so fabulous,
always this way;
you knew it would be.

Hand on waist,
you gasped for air
as if drowning in ginger ale,
one kiss,
light as a feather,
the first.

Positive,
it's only physical,
this lovely magnetism
but his burning voice
you clung to
like a thin cigarette.

Past fuzzy lights,
through a summer shower
that fell faster and faster,
just like that, another one gone,
another name
maybe thinking of you.

I went back.
   A week later,
everything foreign,
                                 off
the map.

Rain.

   I bought
a strawberry milkshake,
your favourite
from that cafe
we had breakfast in one time,
and you told me
   your middle name
with a mouthful of croissant.
   I still don't know what it is.
It didn't taste as good
and the price had gone up.

   Carousel was closed,
found a bench,
must've slept.
   Woke up soaked,
clothes clinging to me
like Velcro,
dog taking a leak,
watch said midday.
     Went walking.

More rain.

It took your footprints,
snatched them     away.
I couldn't find our castle,
that too had succumbed,
crumbled to pieces
like you     and     me
and     you.

   I can still smell the sea
   on your shoulder-blades,
in your hair,
on the gap
between your   nose
and your   lip.
   Didn't like being tickled
but I did it anyway...
you still laughed
and made black days
wildly red.

   A memory,
memories
trickling as bathwater
down a plughole.
   We ate raspberries,
     threw   rocks,
danced about like   rag-dolls
to songs we'd just made up.
I called you Ringo,
you called me John.

   Now the waves,
***** diamonds
scare me as soon
as they skedaddle
over   my   toes.
   You are not lost,
and yet
I cannot find     you.

Rain.

Something about gunfire.
Somebody says religion.
It’s an opportunity for the TV
to screen the same scenes,
the blinking blue and reds
of a bevy of cop cars
and the spooling headline
that assumes, then confirms
the worst.

And so strangers from all corners
spew their pennies’ worth
like bees fumbling for honey,
thousands of hypotheses
replete with exclamation marks,
the name of a Floridian city
swelling as a violet bruise
in the aftershock,
plunged into uninvited limelight.

The chief claims a ‘lone-wolf’ attack,
a man who loathed rainbows
then wiped his own life.
Talk swiftly turns to guns,
the increasing frequency
of wicked bloodshed,
the how, the why, the ‘this day and age’
and ‘the world isn’t safe’
and the nothing, still nothing is done.

Just one night before,
another tragedy,
a young singer shot
while signing their name,
fans left to clasp
the musical remnants
of a life snatched away,
the acerbic word ‘******’
in a nonsensical second.

Something so horrid
became something so common.
How many more gunshots
must shatter a night?
How many more families
must crumple like newspapers
peppered with headlines of the recently lost?
They are asking for answers.
We wait for them to come.

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

In bed

     for the first time
I am watching you
  
   in the bathroom
     brushing your teeth

just the right chunk of light
     enough to see

a magenta vest

your only tattoo
sneaking out from the top
   of black shorts

your clock notifies me
   it is ten past twelve

a dog yaps in sporadic bursts
   outside a siren whines
only to die seconds later

     but I am captivated
by your shape

the backs of your feet

   a little fraction of skin
     under the belly-button

   and if this is to become
commonplace

an ordinary event

   I will sleep every night
with a smile

     painted over my dreams

A black force erupted into your sight;
male, small and wet, it would be the last.
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Nurse came around nine, you felt some delight,
ready to relive the pain from the past:
a black force erupted into your sight.

Time dribbled by and then with all your might
cried for the child to arrive and fast:
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Years before, a thought, ‘Will mine be alright?’
Like Christmas Eve, a present in the post:
a black force erupted into your sight.

No wave of love upon him in the light,
what you wanted now here, but at what cost?
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Come morning the daughter, intrigued and bright
meets your son, awake after his first rest.
A black force erupted into your sight,
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

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

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

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

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

Are you feeling caterpillars in your stomach?
Will you give me a wedge of religion to chew on?
Is it possible, two weeks after moving in
to a third-floor apartment on the outskirts of town
I’ll discover hairs in the sink
like skinny black maggots,
wounds on the couch from a spilt glass of red?
Are you going to comment on my skin,
am I going to do the same to you?
Will we share baths together,
watch our fingers wrinkle
as we volley stories to each other
like we did when we met?
Or maybe you’ll thwack me with a pillow
if I begin to snore or drool,
maybe I’ll crank my voice up a notch
if you whine about work
and we’ll sit in different seats
with the TV turned down.
Will I be just too boring? Is that it?
The whiff of my aftershave,
the shriek of my knife against
the plates we’ll buy from IKEA,
all those things will bring about a moan.
Am I going to have to dine on politics?
Would you hate it if I checked the scores on my phone?
The *** might be so disappointing
we won’t even bother to undress anymore.
We are thinking the same thoughts here,
we must be.
Are we doing the right thing, darling?
Will it ever be time for the right thing?

I evoke that day in the park when
when you finally noticed my existence after months
of hoping.

Waiting. There you were, on the bench as
the snow began to fall, sipping that can of Coke
clenched in your hands.  

You looked glum; mind you, I was too.
That navy coat you wore, your ginger hair stood out like
streams of fire.

It was just me and you, you and I. My phone
rang but I ignored it, prepared to walk
towards you.

I’d say hello if I could but for some reason
(I should ask you why) you stood up, my breath
hung in anticipation.

The scrunch scrunch scrunch of
fallen snow, I looked up, there you were, falling paper
surrounding the two of us.

An invisible straitjacket
tightened around me, my voice box left on vacation
and you said…

When the rain came
he liked to watch it from indoors,
clouds, distraught,
dripping their tears down every window,
filling every drain
until they overflowed with woe.

When the fog came
he liked to dissolve into it,
pretend he had faded from existence,
strolled into a new life
where everything was coated
in the most brilliant shades of rainbow.

When the hail came
he liked to hear it on his roof,
bang, thwack, smack,
fill the plant pots
with frozen white spheres
like pearls tossed from the sky.

When the wind came
he liked to stand in the garden,
let it swim through his hair,
make it a mess
and wonder what would happen
if he flew up, away, and gone.

When the snow came
he liked to jump in it,
make a haul of snowballs,
throw them at no-one
and scour for footprints
that looked just like his.

When the sun came
he liked to smile a little,
only a little,
look at the view
and see the painting blend
from Prussian blue, to peach, to marigold.

First of May.
That peach tree you planted
now blooms, flushes pink,
the cherry ones burst purple.
Umpteen types of daffodil
sprout up to gulp sunlight,
flower beds house seeds,
beans and peas in abundance
in your vegetable garden.
Plum batons of rhubarb
protrude, threaten
your little portion of Devon.
But the finest thing
is the girl, the daughter,
a great blossom skipping
from spring to summer,
beaming like a lighthouse
to guide both of you home.

slapdash rush
collision of lips
that open like flowers
eyes acorn-brown
red lust flush
blooms from fingers to toes
tingle of fire
licks through veins
like dripping water
skin on skin flickers
and hot sleepy breaths
quirks and delights
together as one
potent potpourri
taste of oranges
and cinnamon
something entirely
new

You've done it now.
Opened your mouth,
hoping the ice starts to thaw.
Maybe you have to spell it out,
spill it out
to hit your mark.
Like a tree
I need to drop my leaves
and see if some person
catches a few,
a handful of paper-thin shapes.
Everyone moves forward.
Is that so?
The water around my ankles
has been here for years.

the heartbeat rumble
in your ears
is the signal
you’ve been waiting for
   a warning
that too much
has piled up
and your head
has gone all Kandinsky
   blood lights
blinking like sequins
in the crook of your vision
   tangle of duvet
half lolloped on the floor
   echo
of a neighbour’s conversation
a gloopy mumble
through the walls
   and you’re thinking
of skin the colour of wheat
un-lipsticked lips
   a song that hasn’t been written
but the words exist
longing for you to pluck them
like a novel from a shelf
in a second-hand shop
   a thunderclap
snaps you back
to the same room
the same face
looking back from the mirror
with its wet blueberry eyes
   and you say
you have a story
fashioned from mashed potato
and sticky tape
   all it needs is a listener
to kiss a whisper
to your neck
drip syllables
that glow as torches
tell you everything is fine
   your listener
as the shower rain
leaves a network of streets
jogging down your cheeks

and I never knew you
and you’ll never know me
but when I think

of you it’s your name,
like the clouds
cradle your memory,

over Star City or as
far as England,
or maybe flying,

sunlight signal,
a teenaged smile
never not alive,

forever with your
future years at the
tips of your fingers

my life is a million things or a million and one   look at this situation   words dribbling from my fingers like raindrops     I want to feast
on every piece
   you are willing to display   to roll out and reveal
     no matter how fragile
I feel my bones groan for you   but I all I have   are these syllables stationary   on a screen
the idea of something more   an improbability
we can share our language   and breakfast cereals   and our feet will rest
on the table   with the murmur of the TV     in the background   and oh my god   I am sprinting through a blizzard   as fast as I can   but I was never a good runner     my toes are almost numb   but I want want want   to experience it all
   ripples of reality   it has bypassed me
carved a pear-shaped
lump     out of me     I am ******* in string
I am oblivious   to kisses and loving   and intimacy
   the rush   the blinding delirium     I see everybody glisten   it seems so   but every person is ravaged        
   by a manic voice   flaws written high   and glowing
I try to explain   but my handwriting
indecipherable
   a blister-free   relationship   glorious silence   delicious shiver
of something like love   between us   over our shells     I am out of it   in a make-believe land
drag me to real life   and I’ll burn   like a slab of meat     before I trip
     into a lake of salty worries

It began to snow at midnight, and
we made our way home after a night down the pub.

We ambled past a torrent of drunks
but slowly continued on into the  kaleidoscopic blur.

We hope the New Year will bring joy,
instead of wishing the calendar disintegrates in front of us.

We have suffered more so than most
and our misery is intensified by the ***, the gin.

We know our lives are jagged, confused
and with little money, I certainly can’t treat you well.

We finally arrived home and flumped onto
the sofa, our eyes avoiding that blasted calendar on the wall.

We went into the kitchen soon after,
where it was warm, we swigged a glass of wine or three.

We saw the flakes continue to fall,
the clicking of the clock penetrating our minds.

We discussed the future, where we will be
in years to come. Eternity, won’t you lend us a hand?

For it is this eternity that is so uncertain,
unclear, buried deep under the crisp, white snow.

Coming down with something
     blame summer
     point a finger at the city
worn-down pizzazz
     drunk trumpets
and I hide in my coat
    
trees look better without leaves
is it just me?
   see the sun bellow
   into buildings

student affairs
   like heat rash
bounce along hallways

foreign mumbo-jumbo
   mishpelt words

they say him met her
saw six pictures last night

I haven’t met me
   books know truth
not brunettes

good poetry
better than ***
   they’re running running running away with it
between spritzers
   and sandwiches
   now snooze until Halloween
   brown back in fashion

    caught in the middle
    piedra de aguacate
I handle guitars
    they fiddle with women

now  
   let apple juice trickle
from my lips
   and a man gets out a taxi
    drops his phone

At one
with the wind
in a midnight dress
a necklace
dripped around her throat
   like raindrops
I didn’t buy
but should have
and

how she adored
the water-lily pond
I’d paint her
in delicious shades
myriad   colours
but only an image
in the end

static

solid complete
now

heading
to Bemelmans
down Fifth Avenue
she dances
          a dragonfly
in the winter dark
I catch her
   twirl her
and the trees
don’t seem so empty

savour her voice
like fine caviar
study the   liquid   flow
of her legs
heels   clicking on cobbles
my left foot
     twists
and I     wobble
breathe in her laugh

a detour
a walk into the park
skips   along
   snow-sieved   paths
her hair
a merry   jazz
in the bitter air
the strangers
think we are weird
and we find Alice

motionless in moonlight
a kiss on a cheek
sway     circularly
until everything
smashes into a blur

and we spill

giggle like kids
seventeen again
can’t drink enough
of the evening
I ended up
     in Wonderland

All we are,
delightfully lost.
Is that all it is?
Heading feet-first into sunsets.
Whirlwinds.
We crash, grab,
forget to blink,
rely on breath alone.
Here words tumble in a torrent,
recycle in your mouth
and back out again.
Clichés cannot die.
On a loop,
a worn-down yo-yo.
I roll them out for you
on a goldenrod carpet,
you skip across them
as though they are red-hot coals.

What set you off
like a sparkler in the night?
The sea brings us love,
vice versa.
Waves like mounds of sugar
embrace your torso
in a way I can only dream of.
Camera exhausted
under the weight of today,
puddles of polaroids,
enough to smother the floor.
I smell snapdragons,
candy fizzing
on both of our tongues.
Soaked.

Fade to black.
Your language
is blossom
slinking into my ears.
Wet sand
slips in a mustard waterfall
through our fingers
and I trip over my T’s and P’s.
I’ll keep your smile
locked in my pocket
for black-cloud days.

A triplet of cartwheels,
sticky palms
and panting as if
you’ve run a marathon.
Give it a go…
I try and collapse,
a soppy sprawled mess
gawping at the sky,
before blue eyes
smash into mine
and I fall again.
Dripping.

In-between seconds.
Flaccid strands of hair,
frizzled spaghetti
clings to your neck.
The blonde grenade
I keep writing,
cannot control
but adore to see explode,
catch the thirteen
or more little fragments
of you,
keep them ‘til next time.

When you leave
I can follow your footprints,
mementos back home,
tread where you stood
and exuded light.
We sit cross-legged,
water dribbling over our toes.
I memorise your heartbeat,
you plonk your head
on my shoulder.
Minutes wash away.
Stop the clock.

nothing new here
     lollygagging
sunshine feebly
sneaks across   feet
     tangled   duvet
xylophone of toes
bubbles   in     lemonade
   form a circle
drink fizzles
     like the death of a firework
four   high   heels
     foxtrot upon floorboards
rainbow notes to one another
spread   out   as   dolly   mixtures
   on a table
strewn in coffee mug stains
resemble sets of braces
     crumbs on a sofa
white socks   on the radiator
shrivel and   dry
     shave but leave
barbed-wire     stubble
in the sink by accident
     fingerprints
a translucent vine
on the shower door
mine     or yours
   skin turns lychee-pink
rare   fossils
earrings sparkle under a lamp
making   pancakes
     your specialty
let my fingers     blizzard
over every part
   I haven’t found yet
chuck the   ugly   bits of me
out the window
get whipped   up
in your hurricane
     speak your name

find your hand in the mist
chasing shadows bleeding into night

strawberry juice coating the throat
kisses are like a sunrise

if this is drunk then let me keep drinking
the sight of you

the bubbles rising to the surface
like some newly-discovered champagne