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

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

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

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

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

I'm at the very edge of myself.
The night has arrived, my body
shocked numb, a cold
I am now accustomed to.

My reflection shows a forlorn face -
I tell it I wish I could whisper
flowers, each one delicate and white,
so they could float on a river

of dreams I made real.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The night sky is wrapped in curls of black
and the air purrs, fizzes with the sound of hot
fluorescent lights, choking the air with vacation colour,
blinking fast like there’s something in their eyes.
Gulls guffaw in circles over 174,
where inside old wallpaper is torn
and dated lampshades dangle from above.
Two pegs on a line outside my box,
the bed is rickety and isn’t as fit anymore.
The novices, the returnees
seek silver and gold in the oasis
before their feet sting in scorching sand.
Win what you lose, lose what you win,
hold onto it before it tumbles back onto white cushions.
Money hiccups out of ugly machines
when they have a session of indigestion.
Young girls, carefree and cute walk around in a daze
as chubby men waddle along the pavement
thinking of that next pint.
Lined up at the bar with peanuts and bottles,
the large screen projects to all.
A clink of glasses and a click of snooker *****
past nine, past ten, past eleven as well.
And then the plug is pulled out,
everybody settles down to sleep,
but we all know they’ll do it again
when tomorrow’s summer evening calls.

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

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

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

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

our song is playing

every couple
seems to have one

   ours is a three-minute blast
   of hot rock

and for a moment
I am taken back

to the time we met

   you bartending
  
all blonde curls

squeezing lemons
over colourful drinks

   and unsociable me

awkwardly floating
   through young manhood

held in the warm grasp
of another crush

and like that

this is our song

I love it

   you say
as you scooch

   across the sofa
so our hands

our fingers
   touch

   then lock together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I saw a scarf wound
too tight round
a young girl's neck,
tighter with each breath,

tighter with each tear
from her eyes, sliding
like her life down her
pallid cheeks.

I saw a cardigan
on the floor,
the one she wore
on that date

three weeks ago
when the boy said
'why not?' The zip
broke that night.

I saw a shoe
under her bed,
just one,
coloured blue,

worn just yesterday
when she was at school,
in English, Math, History
bored, exhausted, fed up.

I saw a belt
hung over the chair
vivid pink,
the one I think

her boyfriend bought
last year before
he went away
to purgatory.

I saw a hat,
it sat on her shelf,
I believe she had it on
the other day

when we went to the cinema,
me, her and the gang
to watch a film
she recommended for us all.

I saw these things
as I entered her room,
where the scarf I unwound
and we made not a sound.

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.

how do you stop them,
these pipette-fed ruby furies?
it is the escape that paints itself
in a shade of night,
a chain of palms away.
thinking makes it so,
   so right.
look how they stay silent,
mouthless ghosts,
floating
     and
   never
          fully
     formed.

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

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

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

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

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

I.

You scribble your name,
   spaghetti letters
on my arm
   in sky-blue ink
so when my eyes open
   I’ll be able to remember
when you asked
   if you could
write your name
   on my arm.

II.

Where did you come from?
The waves
must have done something,
the water
glistens on your legs
like a hundred
million silver sequins,
your hair
melted toffee squiggles
oozing
between shoulders.

III.

The longer I stay,
the more the empty pit
   he can’t ignore
   will froth with pink bubbles,
gurgle as a kitchen sink
gulping soapy water,
   spill over in a torrent
   of sugary sentences
but it’s OK;
I ought to tell him
   I like the electric rush.

saffron wings
sleeves of copper
vanilla ice cream heaven

which was
a carnival of stars
in the first yawns of morning

which was
the first tepid trickle
of something returning

yourself
behind the wheel
sand snuggling your toes

which was
yourself with arms open
breathing again alive     alive

the gurgle of your laugh
   is mouthwash
in the bathroom sink
charging across beach
   like zips on coats
yours is red
   breath ragged
a tyre with a puncture
but keep revving anyway
   feet crash as bells
**** as waves
   cheeks like the Japanese flag
raspberry-ripple drink
this fizzy petrol
   makes us buzz
our vehicles rumbling
   full of three-dollop ice-cream
rattle of matches
in my back pocket
   hear the scratch-ffttth
as I let one go
   lob it towards the sea
grab your hand
swirl in a circle
   so we become smoke
swarming from incense sticks
   then we go back
the way we came
over our xylophone footprints
   if they could chime they would
me and you now froth
   spilling down the side of a pint
dialogue luminous
as a blue margarita
   ankles chatter together
ladder on your tights
   and we sail in bathtubs
to where we’ve never been
wearing sunglasses shaped
   like briquette-black hearts

you’re telling all I’ve heard before.
ugly bubbles of language,
sentences spool out like half
torn cassette tape.

I’m as salty as the sea,
aubergine bruise drinking my shin,
my phone on 2%
and my watch five minutes slow.

and you go, Mr. Yo-Yo,
leaning in, backing out,
eyes like mucky puddles,
crescent moon split lip.

what a way to trigger
a new age, tobacco kisses
on my skin, mud blotch on my skirt,
Your gift, love you.

The dog scrabbles
in the lady’s arms,
tongue flopping every which way.

‘He’s only young’ she says
as a bark coarse as sandpaper
rips through the cabin.

A man with teeth
briquette-black
chuckles at us, at the mutt,

its hair like chestnut
paintbrush strokes
slapdash around the mouth.

The lift judders to a halt.
We go one way,
the dog goes the other.

I sit in a bar
drinking a cold beer,
my vision’s not clear,
I shouldn’t be here.

I turn to you, speak,
‘Our lives are unfair,
no one seems to care,
they so wouldn’t dare

try and help us eh?’
I am going mad,
I guess like my dad,
it is rather sad

how my life has gone.
Supping beer with you,
I don’t have a clue,
maybe I should do

something else tonight.
I’m gonna be sick,
don’t throw up you ****,
and not over ****,

he’ll **** you you know.
Look at me, a prat
with his beer and hat.
Ah well now. That’s that.

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.

watch you go
cherry-red motor
dots that look painted on

no bigger than a fingertip
contact lens bonnet
millimetre-thin wires for legs

shuffle not scuttle
climbing the stem
before you open up

unfurl acetate wings
brisk flicker into
a speck against the sky

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT
• Oligarch
• on TV tonight
• minimum wage
• a prime number
• reduce fuel consumption
• might happen in the future

WHERE
• Treasure is
• to watch Euphoria
• hot in April
• next Olympics be held
• in Paris is the Eiffel Tower
• I can find happiness

WHEN
• The clocks change
• we were young
• I grow up
• Internet invented
• it rains it pours
• you wish upon a star

WHY
• Always tired
• feel dizzy
• eye twitching
• hurts to swallow
• I want to work here
• we should hire you

WHO
• My MP
• won the boxing
• Romans
• win Eurovision 2022
• the next James Bond
• Banksy

HOW
• The Queen
• make pancakes
• first human made
• I met your mother
• Earth created
• war end

I.

snowdrop flourishes
frost-baptised in dawn’s first light
rows of white applause

-----

II.

gathered family
state of gratitude and warmth
lights twinkling on tree

-----

III.

transient language
Boxing Day trodden whispers
in sky’s yuletide gift

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.

I think of seawater
because of its briny tang,
because when,
by accident,
it trips into my mouth,
coats the inside of my cheeks
in a clear, chloride gloss.

I think of seawater
because of the way
it blooms along the shore,
dazzling white jewels
slinking up our toes,
our feet left with a glimmer,
slippery and clean.

I think of seawater
because your hair was soaked,
chestnut brown trickles
wriggling down your face
and I could smell the beach
in the pool of your neck,
fresh and transparent

at the crook of your lips.

And it happens.

For a moment, a silence
that encloses us,
a cool, transparent blanket
for a second of a second.

Then his body, limbs, flailing,
drunken puppet,
small spheres of mud
drip off from his skin.

An ankle trembles
in its socket,
a foot spins the opposite way,
a crack nobody hears.

There’s a whistle in the ears
as his torso judders
into newfound positions,
death already in the bloodstream.

Nothing can be done,
you knew this could happen,
my voice says in my head
as blood erupts from a wound.

I know it as soon
as his body smacks the earth,
his life evaporated,
his name floating to the clouds.

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.

life
segments
through the letterbox

a horrid shriek of sludgy colours
or always cooking
in the oven

friend to stranger
words to page
quiet to quieter

hours where nothing glistens
liquid seconds

the picture of your voice
could be my vicious heartbeat

just a ghost with an alarm
where the mouth should be

I’d tell you if something new
was constructed

but no colourful bubbles
are trundling off from my tongue

the silence is no special treat
it is a regularity

a present transparent being
with lips sewn shut

a stranger is waiting
I’m told

but for the fully-formed
or finely moulded

think you've read the ending before
you probably have



a light switch in a dusty room
somewhere surely a hand

somebody strikes a match
outside the corner shop

at the park the team are using
jumpers for goalposts

you put your lipstick on
in a hurry this morning

dropped your Tube ticket
somewhere at Caledonian Road

a teenager sings Dancing Queen
wears an Adidas sports bra

the old man is sleeping again
you saw him two days ago

phone’s on 22%
brother’s birthday is tomorrow

in a second-hand shop
with its own brand of smell

the spines are cracked
the pages have yellow breath

lunch is barely a fiver
the guy on the till is called Brian

if you could you’d tell
a person how you’ve looked

for this one story
but there are too many shelves

and no person
to help you look

all the places I’ve never been
cannot exist

they are just curls of ink
repeated tens of thousands of times

an image is somebody’s own
slant on the city

the pre-storm sky
bruise of cloud

a second-speck
that cannot be mimicked

I heard you were on the move
again

I gnaw the inside
of my cheek

the letters form
monosyllabic words

you have the real thing
I sleep with a globe

If pink
is the softest colour

I shall bathe in carnations
every morning

the steam from my herbal tea
dancing out the open window

It is easier to imagine
than feel the real thing

but the real thing
is not your imagination

swell of a voice
like a bullet of sugar

too much and you’ll sink
in a lake made of smoke

a blueprint of love
splashing on your tongue

At some point
before dawn

I navigated my hand
into your hand

and now we swirl
like shiny balloons

from one lucid invention
of the night to another

the coffee
is so nice. it is
so nice,

so nice,
kick of cardamom.
girls play

beach volleyball,
white globe
arching, arching,

side-fist-bump up again.
severed pomegranate,
crimson insect crunch.

forgive me,
I started drinking
without you.

you say
shalom,
your eyes the blue

of the sea,
your hair
a flood of coffee.

And this is who she is,
dancing in the space between shadows,
making squiggles on the windows,
singing when the toast sneezes
out the machine for me,
a bloom of strawberries in her bowl
ready for breakfast.

She calls me on my lunch break,
I ask how the painting’s coming along
and when I come home
she greets me with colourful fingers,
a shout of cherry on her cheek
and a cobalt wrist.

And she is the one
who puts up with repeats on TV,
feigns interest in football
but makes a great cuppa
at halftime, barefoot walking
back to me with a grin.

I know the blueprints of her skin
like my favourite book,
or a song from my youth
on the radio one morning
but I still know all the words.
It sounds good, just like it used to,
like it still does.

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 have been together,
give or take, for fifteen years.

Their marriage in the clasp
of puberty, its voice deepening,
its stubble sprouting.

Not long ago, shopping.
Necessary. Kid’s birthday.
It comes around quick,
like lunch, paying for the Ploughman’s
at the self-service in town
when the clock flicks to twelve.

Her right hand on his right hand.
They still do this,
though not quite as often.

Today,
he returns from work, wrenches
the tie out from beneath the collar
of a shirt she ironed yesterday.
Son, out.
Daughter, also out.

The fridge plagued with magnets
and a list; Milk,
                  Bread,
                  Eggs?
Inside, two beers,
sweating cold.
Later, he thinks.

How’s your day been darling?
We need to be at the school at six.
Oh yes.
They need to hear
how their progenies
excel at the expressive arts.
He hasn’t been expressive in years.

Hours expire.
Now his bare feet slide
under the duvet.
The wife reads a while,
Sunday Times bestseller.

Then she hugs him,
touches the skin she has known
since she was nineteen
at Northampton, literary sponge
absorbing Shakespeare and Joyce.

It is warm.
It is something
that has not changed.
The two of them are content.
They know they can
always have this.

I don’t mind, not at all,
just place your head on me,
let yourself become
immersed in my comfy haven.

Every night I am yours
you are mine, a relationship
that has lasted many years.
Many more to follow.

We never talk, we just lie
enveloped in darkness.
I care more than you can know.
I will never leave,

cheat on you when I have had enough.
Do with me what you like, turn me over,
drool over me, move me into
whatever position you fancy.

But then you leave me. I become
cold and alone once again.
Not to worry though, because I know
you'll return when you need me.

months
blend together

head steam-swollen
by lack of action

daily ladder
aging technicolor

but enough
to want to be made

from crystals
see-through

to see me
you also

handful of glisten
rare element

visible amid
the cool stream

the flames
are engaged
in that wicked dance again

licking all spines
with buds that scald
carnival of scars

each shameless twist
gift-wrapped in yellow
every coppery belch

a steaming stench
into rust-daubed sky
its silent gesture

rampage of hollowing
tongue-heavy haemorrhage
laced with ignition

screaming
out for something
wanting it
as a child’s hands
in the air in an attempt
to reach the teddy bear

one is in London
their name grows
like a yellow flower
I want to smell
and touch with my brittle fingers
sleep in the creases
I could be a ghost
or an outline of a figure
with a blueish hum
an inaudible echo

they dance under
streetlamps I have not seen
and **** in the glow
of others of course
who are painted
in shades of utmost tranquility
assured in their abilities
I want to reach into their mouths
and heave it out from them
have it all for myself

I feel the water
slip out from me
as if a rusty sieve
and nobody is catching
the little hexagonal pools
in the palms of their hands

streets my feet should be on
but a riddle of issues
erupt from the page
bad acne teen
harsh black bullet points
sinking into my lungs

there’s anthologies to share
splash through my dreams
because you can
I tiptoe into tomorrow
with holes in socks
uncertainty my electricity
finger at the switch

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

Perhaps it is simply a case
of stepping on,

fingers bent into palms,
knuckles milky white,

the typically British palaver
of locating a seat

with their tasteless patterns,
a table with the sticky

residues of fifteen coffees.

Perhaps it is simply a case
of zoning out,

reels of fields.

Perhaps it is simply a case
of a phone turned on,

a book with the spine
not quite fractured.

Of course, of course,
perhaps it is simply a case

of not stepping on,

of wallowing in your ragged
safety net fashioned

from string, from dead skin.

But, of course,

you shouldn’t, but you will,
but you can’t, but you can,

but you want to,
but you won’t do.

Perhaps then, it is simply a case
of one foot in front of the other,

stepping off, fists unclenched,
pulse regular and thumping

at the wrists,
your own language of success.

In the darkness
I hold the trickle of your whisper
like a falling feather

feel the contralto tick
of a heartbeat
skin against skin

holding each other
as if flowers
delicate in the breeze

tumbling through
a carmine flush
of desire

splice of sky
like a nerve pinched
to nick the horizon

     temporary fissure
     thorns that blind
     make the whitest tears
    
storm illuminate
with electricity lick
missable schism

    but for its remains
    protest from beyond
    as though disturbed sleep

new coat

soul free

till your rise

from white sleep

invent veins of runes

frozen breath parcels

garden enamel

your morning photo flash

leaf plink and dribble

window peck     shiver

squeak and drool

off from your rooftop

there in the heart

of your hand

my noiseless bleed

goodbye

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

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

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

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

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

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