A lot of people seem to be angry.
   I don’t know why they seem angry.
Perhaps they are threatened by something.
   By me.
I am not threatening however.
   I am myself.
I am only saying what needs to be said.
   Things they have not said enough.

It is all rather strange to me.
   There are people following me.
They are young and chanting a lot.
   Some are chanting my name.
They never used to know my name.
   Now I walk in new lands.
I am shaking hands and smiling.
   These strangers are happy to meet me.
They say I am doing good things.

I think on the television others are not happy.
   I do not care much for this.
I am told they are heavy on criticism.
   They think I am intimidating.
I am only passionate.
   This is what I am good at.
I don’t know why they don’t care much.
   Maybe it is because I am young.
They will have their silly reasons.
   I told them our house was on fire.
I hope they heard that.

I carry my sign.
   Skolstrejk för klimatet.
Kids are joining me and parents too.
   Bangladesh, Nigeria, San Marino.
There are too many to mention here.
   It is promising to see.
I am only a girl with a sign.
  I wear my blue hoodie and talk.
I talk when it is necessary.
  These are necessary times.

Winter,
and with winter comes a girl.
She greets the weather as a friend
she has not seen since last Christmas,
grins as the snow
scrunches and squeaks
as green Wellington boots
on a wooden floor.
Two men walk past her,
reeking of yesterday’s brandy.
One has sloshed a lot
down his front,
a dark claret patch
like a seeping **** on his chest.
Someone is playing an instrument,
a saxophone,
and the sound
sprints fluidly along the streets
into taxi-cabs and terracotta
coffee-shop windows.
She smiles again.
One dustbin’s been KO’d,
trash trips out
in a puddle of colours
like unwanted confectionary.
A teenage couple are kissing,
their heads a swaying metronome
and the boy grips a Starbucks cup
with one limp hand as if to say
here you have it.
Evening gushes over her
like a rush of bad acne
but she loves the sun
as it pecks the cheeks of buildings
and the jingle from her phone
which reminds her,
the movie starts at eight.

What you should know
is that I’ve never done parties,
except that wasn’t quite a party,
more an excuse to liquor up
in the first week back,
tepid attempts to recall the faces
who swam past a year before
like scarecrows from a car, expressionless
in a chaos of fields.

Told this was integration
but anywhere else would’ve done,
mumbles like distant storms
behind closed doors,
footsteps a high echoed chime up the stairs.

The room, a tumble-dryer of conversation.
A brown drink, probably ***, or coke, or vinegar,
somehow navigated to my hand.
A pilfered traffic cone in the corner,
playing cards slapdash on the coffee table,
forgotten hearts, fading diamonds.

Somebody spoke, a game began.
Spilling secrets, unwillingly or too drunk
to care otherwise,
each hopscotch-like laughter another
thorn of headache.
I zoned out as if watching the shopping channels,
palms peppered with the braille
of my nails mining into my hands.

The spreadsheet of names scrolled down,
guys with over-gelled hair, ******* shirts
then me, trickling out my half-hearted truth,
quickly dismissed, knocked to the curb,
my social status cemented once again.
Then you, the last to speak
in this merry-go-round
clouted me awake as though coma free.

o Lychee-pink fingernails, slushie-blue eyes.
o Seashell necklace, skin several sunbathes down.
o Hush of a French accent, denim jeans punctured with holes.

The images, the speech came quick
as if behind the glass of a bullet train.
I tried to capture them like a cat
hopping up for dragonflies,
but these were more like snowflakes
perishing on my tongue.

If my mind hadn’t been frazzled
with the intricacies of anxiety
I would have uttered my name,
snaffled yours, an early birthday gift,
but no.

The evening capsized, us students dispersed
like birds barked at by a dog,
the clock’s downcast dialogue
of time gone, opportunities missed.

I stayed awake with the shape of your face
as though viewed through cellophane.
You mattered somehow, electrocution
right into my brain, your secret swallowed
by the ghosts of the night.
Hell, I thought, resting with my vivid
fabrications until the next day, the next year.

A tooth wrenched from its socket,
a lost sock, footless, flapping
soggily in the breeze,

pint glass shatter,
alcoholic splatters
make for kerbside bloodstains,

shopping trolley
on an empty stomach
stands forlorn in the car park

but the graffitied pub wall I luv u
etches to your eyes. No surprise.
That means something, doesn’t it?

sun forms lemon stockings
     on legs
          bent like anglepoise lamps
     turn the page
          sparkling water
how do they make it sparkle
your earrings sparkle
     two in each ear
tiny frosted spheres
          empty liquorice heels
dead on the ground
     flaking purple toenails
     a relative’s name
in fancy font above an ankle
          you say
what are you looking at
     you know the answer
I feel it in my cheeks

sun begins
bow to sleep

sets sky
in vermilion haze

present me
with palmful

of touch     touch
pacifies palm

could be lined
with sunshine

happy lemonade
threads

Night-time looking
over the Liffey,
slate grey artery,

flurry of merry music
like a band of castanets
still in our ears.

The cèilidh at Shannon’s,
man with a bodhrán
and a pint of tar

at his elbow,
girls in skirts
a blizzard of colours.

Róisín’s at UCD
but tonight, here,
the silky lilt

of English
pouring from her
emerald throat,

her hand in mine
as a crew of mangled gobshites
stumble home.

We swim in our jollity,
BYOC (bring your own craic)
in the city

where three times
in the 90’s we were kings
of the castle.

You say your father remembers ’62,
when I look in your eyes
you say coinnigh mé anois.

What’s that mean? I ask.
Hold me now.
And I do.

Your lips taste of Guinness,
my head foggy
with you.

the sea will take you
if you let it
so don’t let it

the horizon
is a riddle
you’ll never reach
or come to answer

but there are bright faces
on the shore
poised to haul you
out from the crumbling waves

with hot chocolate
ready in a large black mug
and words from their throats
that will warm your core

Before you came,
the lighthouse.
   Aging, silently,
   saw it blink
   as if it knew me,
was stalking me,
a tiny inflamed eye.
   Reds popped as corks,
   smudge of blood
   on a north-eastern
summer sky.
And then,
   in a second
   as quick as a pulse
   on a wrist,
a flick to white,
a shard of champagne
   light latched
   upon my attention.
   Back to red.
And back again.
Two colours breathing in,
   blowing out,
   calling you.

the ink may pulse
from your fingernails
be seeping out your toes

cold and thick
azure puddles

chalk skies
banana lines

leaves outside
flutter in conversation
hush-hush

interior (red) / exterior (grey)

a thin transparency
between you and them
like squares of clotting water

what do you see
see what can be made

slosh of vehicles
in some sickly vernacular

muffled thrum
of the city
millions of windows

one of you

space between adult   more adult
the unmarried   and married
trundle through mid-twenties
roads slobbered with snow
fog-licked windows
friends skidding
into what is expected of us

invitations in the mail
like tiny sirens
reminders
of that perennial question
if not now when
is it your turn yet

You must be a dream
and yet the lines on your hand
know the lines on mine

Spain in the core of summer
   thermometer under pressure

nosebleed heat
  skin butter-knifed with sweat

you having just arrived
   from the city with the Moorish palace

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

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

love takes longer
  photos doused in a darkroom

this was the first murmurings
  of something wildly unfamiliar

swirl of a heart
  on the roof of my coffee

when you spotted
   The Sun Also Rises

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

hair like vanilla
   lips a tone of rust

and the city
   became the story we wrote

unravelling my r’s
   difference between perro and pollo

the switch from Picasso
   blue to pink

that first night
   I revised your body

as a saxophone
  squawked in a crowded room

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

but the inaugural snapshot
   in a slideshow

of a summer
   of torso-clinging humidity

of siestas with four feet
   pecking the end of my bed

Ache of an absence,
half gone
and seeing phantoms
in the place you used
to be,

a vacant hook
where a sunny cagoule
would slouch,
handwritten supermarket
reminders

slapped against the fridge.
What it’s like to lose
a limb, dim pulse,
futile scramble
for meaning in the missing,

and the morning’s severed
yolk bathes little but
the wicked iced side
of the bed where a spirit
disrupts your space.

what feeling
    like a chunk of gum
numbed    by a dentist
     knowing Santa isn’t real
     milk    and cookies
gone
anyway

     lost in streets
   lost
    darkness thrills    you
chills you
   as rain on the first day
of spring
    love is a mystery
odd   one   out
among liars
lovers
     extroverts

     yet
and   yet

    feels red
when windows   creak
   open to greet mornings
musty     novels
wedged like teeth in boxes
     take them  
just a pound

slivers of kindness
   smiles to say  
   I know     me too
smell handwritten letters
     phone-calls under    swathes
     of duvet
     at midnight
to someone
their name sounds   just   right

pangs of solitude
   muted by a voice
a touch
     some words
   thrown      together

It’s a heat that skims
off from the ground
and soaks the bones.
Music burrows
into the ears of suited men,
eating calorie-clogged burgers,
dripping onions
and then you’re in
a restaurant with blue tiles
hugging someone you haven’t seen
in six years
and time slips as treacle
under lights
in the bowl you sit in
with UFO’s blooming on the ceiling
like mammary flowers
and there’s a woman
with a bra on her head,
blonde hair like a mini blizzard
as for a moment
a throng of teenagers
in stripy socks
share sweat to Fleetwood Mac,
bees shimmying at something pretty.
It’s a scene you couldn’t picture,
except you could,
everybody has their phone out,
a flurry of colours
and drumming that drums
into your skull
like a shot of adrenaline.
Businessmen outside
swallow wine,
sit on the tube with blue ties
and rustle
the Evening Standard and its headlines
streaked with gloom.
Ticking towards Tuesday,
another man
eats another burger.
The hours pass,
the heat stays,
the music remains.

A dismal bubble consumes the pair -

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

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

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

- and he knows he can't escape.

Love is a funny word,
tossed around
recklessly,
thrown as if
a polished burgundy cricket ball
you’re supposed to catch
before it crosses the boundary.
It’s just a word,
no different than tea
or jodhpur or penguins
but we treat it as more,
said too little
or far too often,
a glittering jewel
seen as a trigger for something.
Use it if you mean it;
don’t mean it, it’s no use.

petrichor hour
colour bundles
on the windowsill
amber and blood
blood and amber petals
flecked with blobs
of rain

child chases the dog
by the love-lies-bleeding
amaranth ponytails
a rainbow somewhere
hemispheres of dandelions
breeze-swing
wet dog chases child

Tonight
the stars pulsate
alone.

Our hands
twinkle with sweat,

words blend
together like clouds.

Our laughter
skitters through grass

and
I feel the lulling
throb of your blood.

The moon
glows white,

evening
loops itself around us.

Спорти́вная
- My first thought is how clean the place is,
how swanky, perhaps that’s the right word.
- This isn’t London or New York that’s for sure,
marble walls that could be made from banoffee pie,
blue and white quadrats for the floor,
patchwork of tiles making up the ceiling.
- Eight hundred rubles for a week, barely a tenner,
Moscow’s take on the Oyster, just cheaper.
- My mate of fifteen years has Henderson on the back,
I’ve come as myself.

- A crew of fans gush out behind us,
- flags made into capes.
- Two own beards, great hedgehog-type beards
taking over, stippled ginger,
another has a drooped trophy slapped on a cheek.
- They are already singing, if you can call it that,
adding that extra syllable, a staple of the patriotic chant,
IN-GUR-LAND.
- The Croatians in their classic tablecloth-type tops,
 (Modrić x2 and Mandžukić x1)
look aghast, probably whisper their own version of plonkers.
- Congested, headache already brewing,
needing fresh air before the Mexican wave.

- Лужники
- My first thought
is that the view isn’t actually that bad.
- We’re fairly high up, middle row,
sandwiched between Brian from Bolton
and a foul-mouthed Mike
from Welwyn-Garden-City, I think,
but I’m getting into the spirit,
my mate already shuttlecocking half-xenophobic jibes
across the pitch, a paper aeroplane or two
gliding, colliding into backs of seats.
- Anthem is maudlin, Croatia’s more jaunty,
and then the players are moving like felt-tipped beetles
across the tongue of grass.

- The free-kick goes in after a while,
cheers a chorus of roars
that zip into the cold Russian air.
- Strangers shoulder-shove, voices sandpaper coarse,
that blasted tune ringing out
from the mouths of a raucous English bunch
in many an old Umbro kit
swamped with sweat and blots of beer.
- My mate can’t believe it, he’s got a tenner
on 2-1 to us, a modest bet.
- Mike from Letchworth Garden City
is bellowing out the scorer’s name
each word croakier than the last,
one hand crushing the lions on his chest.

- дополнительное время
- Our first thought is that penalties
are coming up, our foe, our football swine,
but on 109’, the guy from the back
of that earlier guy’s shirt flicks out a limb,
pokes the ball past our keeper.
- Mate goes ballistic, his face
on the brink of full-blown beetroot,
while Brian from Bolton appears mid-coronary,
too whacked to crank out a sigh.
- A bloke to the right, a few rows down
jokingly mentions Hurst.
- This brand of heartbreak we know well.

- Later, surrounded by smokers named Dmitri,
shots of Smirnoff and the dull ache of knowing
four hours back to Heathrow awaits,
we’ll reflect on the could’ve-beens.
- Mid-sloshed in Red Square, more my mate than me,
(he’s a tenner down after all),
mumbling Qatar in four years under our breaths
while Croatians tumble through
this giant cyst of a city.

I should warn you
   I am made of glass
spli nters for fingers
one touch and there’ll be
                                            a wicked
                                                          ­                  
                                                                ­                                   crack

as part of me ruptures
like a wound breaking     open
   again


you can paint me
   whichever colour you like
but whether I’ll stay that way

is     another     question

and that’s all there’ll be

questions dro
                  ppi
                  ng like hail

with a thunderous          smack
and sandcastle answers

sturdy at first
but quick to cr
                         um
                          ble

in the brittle          distance

                                      ­                                                             of a second

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.

what is this life?
what is this gelatinous mess?
what has been done
has been done
willingly or reluctantly
   - I know the moments
that have seen me
judder the gearstick the wrong way
that have seen my bones
rattle with a dreadful calcium clatter
my lungs like sandwich bags
flimsy against my heart
which throbs as some malformed peach
when a white chocolate blonde goes by
it reminds me of ice-cream
the chilly fuzz inside my skull
my nerves anesthetised
gone blue gone slow
   - names clamour over one another
until I can’t separate the letters
the worth keeping
the junk mail
a train spewing passengers outside
I am knocked all over as a conker
bruises blossoming into pools of Ribena
where is the asphyxiate button?
that would wipe this page clean right?
   - here is what I offer
passion by the bushel
and while I have not fired Cupid’s bow
or slurred my way through a Taylor song
I can make it work
I can learn to drive
and stop being a moth toward the light
flapping my epileptic wings till they burn
   - I will scrub the soil from my skin
latch onto you and be the best possible me
float within your ripples
swig the air as if it’s lemonade
just taken from the fridge
say I am not who I was before
I am new I am fresh I am sparkling clean
like a toddler as they wobble
to make their first step

When I think of you

I think shampoo and strawberry ice-cream

weekend tangerine sunrises

atlas of freckles and new rain on cheeks

my hole-strewn t-shirt against your skin

so it’s like I’m there with you, almost

I.
Snowman in the park,
not there yesterday
but watching all this morning,
eyes that don’t blink,
black as a crow.

II.
Children **** him
with a vegetable,
a tartan scarf throttles
his frozen throat.

III.
Button-like holes
form a grin,
a banana of circles
fingertip-made.

IV.
Sphere of snow nearby,
an unfinished friend,
project abandoned.

V.
Went to see it,
the skinny veins
of our footprints
a chain around
its podgy white body.

VI.
Sun sploshes the face,
squeak as we touched
its cheek,
residue on our gloves,
signs of decay.

VII.
Doesn’t talk
but sits ignorant,
questions not answered.
Kids get bored.

VIII.
Why will he vanish?
Everything is temporary
a parent explains,
cold as a cube of ice.

VIIII.
Days later
we see it crumble,
great clumps that slump
to the ground,
shedding limbs.

X.
Gone until the next time
I say.
Gone and forgotten,
I bring the scarf back in.

He stands up, moves towards
me. I anticipate the
hug I’m about to receive.

It doesn’t come and instead                                                          ­      
he picks up the remote. His huge                                      
body leans over me.                                                              ­        

He then goes                                                       
and sits back down. I stretch my legs,                                              
look up.                                                              ­              

All I get is a                                                      
quick glimpse. I’ve had enough
of this now.                                                             ­             

I move, rest my head on top                                                              ­
of his knee. He glances down                                                      
at my face.                                                            ­            

He pats my head                                                        
and I realise. His affection for me
remains after all.

Once again, stranger, I am thinking of you,
atop that hotel in Catalonia
on the cusp of a new wave, 
sun blazing, streets like a hive,
the fizz of euphoria.

The first time you ever held a gun,
made in Oviedo, the M1916 Mauser
slung over one shoulder, a glint 
of a smile on your face saying nothing but 
more than enough nine decades on.

Crow-black hair,
uniform with the sleeves rolled up,
face of anti-fascism
but you didn't know it,
nor did you know the hotel

your feet graced would be gone
after bloodshed, your later years
in the French capital,
the photo of you stored
inside the crucibles of time.

Around the room
I parade your stain
to gaggles of impassive faces.

Nobody asks where it came from,
who published their carmine
mark on my cheek.

But as I say hello to whatshisname
I rerun last night’s episode,
the Merlot-riddled memory.

The way you gently leant across,
your decorated lips on my skin,
and afterwards.

or anywhere

abacus of Amstel lights

cube-stacks drizzled citrus

behind the iris

funnel of fauna

propped up by charcoal arms

violet grapes

avocado stone

raspberry drupelets

visible from here

market on a Monday

the hard ‘g’ of Maandag

a guttural language

my throat warms to

orange not my shade

but do as the Dutch do

plump cylinders of Edam

coated in red rind

oysters in their cots of silver

shrimp galaxies like tangerine hooks

Japanese tourists

taking snaps for the ‘Gram

everybody passing over the King

sun proffering a hand through the glass

On the day the first of my friends marries
I am in my father’s car with another friend,
his partner, on a stretch of the A6
between our hometown and the hotel
where the wedding will occur.

It is an uncommonly warm evening in April,
no breeze. I am in a checked shirt
and corduroy trousers, an envelope
in my hand that contains a little something
I wrote just a few days before.

It is less than a decade since school,
sixth-form afternoons, but now my friend
is settling into what is expected of us -
a person to love, nuptials in a room
brimming with those I don’t know,

the obligatory search for a home,
the space between kids and no kids.
Two nights ago we went to the pub,
me and him. We laughed, he fretted
about the speech he hadn’t yet written.

He is a happy man, a ring on the finger.
I will leave them to it, to bask
in the first pumpkin glow of married life.
Tonight is about them, so it should be.
Look at our lives, how we move on.

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.

Driving for hours.
Nothing but road.
Me, head slumped
on one shoulder,
watching the rain
screech across the window.
You took over
as we crossed into Wisconsin,
the pattern of the steering-wheel
embedded in your palms.
Still got coffee from a café
a hundred miles back -
now like gloopy mud stuck in a cup.
The radio throws out
another Bon Iver track
as the wipers squeak
from side to side.
Both of us tired.
I see your eyelids flicker
between awake and not quite awake.
We stop for gas in Mazomanie.
The engine wheezes to a halt,
I hand you thirty bucks
which empties my wallet.
You stumble from the car
in a sluggish daze.
I try to shake my body alive,
my limbs heavy,
bones cracking.
Phone barely has any juice.
Enough to text home
a be home soon.
As we set off again
you give me a kiss,
a dash of caffeine on your lips.
I pinch my skin to a light red.
This is not in a dream.

Hear the ***** of glasses,
shriek of chairs against wood,
photos streamed across walls
elbowing for attention.
Smell the sawdust simmer from the floor,
knife-carved letters etched
decades before by dead hands,
wishbones strewn around
by lads who never returned.
The stubbly Irish guy pours a McSorley,
watch the marigold glug into the mug
and froth over the top.
A gaggle of women natter at the back,
the flatscreen, out of place, chatting away too.

light-wisps
     tiptoe     through
gauze of green

     piccolo     chirrups
woodwind     refrain

     water burble
sweep     scattershot     rocks
     teeth of giants

pebble ensembles
     paths     buttered
with hair of Meliae

     brisk glottal     stop
pecker     on bark

     dead skin
and these taupe
     bones

almost tibias
     swell     skywards

sprout
     arthritic     fingers

that will fall
     amputate     beneath
                                       my feet

Why do you wear that thing?
Not nice to embrace
the coarse khaki coat
wrapped round
your whole body.

I don't want to touch
your untrimmed chin,
what's underneath?

When I remove
the fuzzy item I gasp -
black pin-****** all over your chest
and grass stains
like rays of light too.

You never blink,
just stare at me with wet
creamy-coloured eyes.

They hauled them
from the river
after three weeks

discarded dummies
skin puckered
like crushed lavender

nails loose
or gone completely
in one case one-handless

no identification
no indication
of men reported missing

but the imagined flashes
of each inhalation
lungs liquid-swollen

a burbled
aidez moi
in their soggy cradle

before the knockout
instant finish
Polaroid into death

-----

were they lovers
I wondered
on the Metro

home to Aubervilliers
an office affair
an online fling

one of those things
where the picture
doesn’t add up

but a shake of the head
dangerous to guess
before I know it

my mind whirring
to accidental strangulation
dual opioid overdose

the papers will speculate
gorge on rumours
like mould on stale bread

tomorrow’s Le Monde
with its letters of silence
deux corps retrouvés dans la Seine

men of the river
barely thirty
lives filched by the water

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.

Then you said something about
how this shouldn’t
couldn’t happen again

picking your shorts
off the floor
squirming your legs into them

like milky straws

me in bed
your reflection in the mirror
one hand in your hair

strands hurled
back and forth
as if throwing last night

out of your head

red streams in your eyes
stains on the table
and I’m static but inside

all over the place

I see you awkward dancing

and somehow I am thinking of myself

two to three decades ahead of time

rainbow strobe lights and 80s synth-pop

headaching in my mind as though the first time

a missed opportunity like trying to catch

the sun before the horizon snaffles it first

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

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

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

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

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

each day with its own
carcinogenic tint,
pollution plumes.

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

Look at the ones
with beehives for mouths,
ejecting out opinions
to anyone caught in a net
of overworked words,
every opinion delivered
with a lethargic varnish,
each one a sting
as a glob of soap in the eyes.

But we use our voice
with our lips tightly shut.
Let the art inside us
buzz like a sneeze
waiting for release,
blast out in a fizz
of ink and smudged fingertips.
Hear the consonants trickle
like a tap not quite turned off,
the vowels rising and falling as waves.

Spill your thoughts if you must.
Make a point.
But don’t hurl them at us
with a sour taste ,
sharp as an already grimy blade.
Use them sparingly and well,
let them linger before
evaporating in a trail of steam,
as if a ***** of sunlight
before it slithers
beneath the horizon.

Last night down Hanover Street,
that snaking backbone
  in the north end of Boston,
   you saw paper flowers,
    bursts of blood-red hearts
     and ruffled yellow fists

     and in the windows
    of limitless pastry shops,
   multi-story cakes
  slathered with icing
for weddings,
for partners in waiting.

Early morning drive,
the blur of landscape
past my eyes,
vacant fields,
stationary trees,
and here in these crooked hours
between the first papercut of light
and the salutation of sun
are when the memories assault me,
a ripple of echos,
champagne hair,
a voice drizzled in alcohol
and venom on her tongue.
I’d be rotated, a personal Picasso,
and I clutch the steering wheel,
the pulse of something strange
thuddering deep in my ear.

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

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

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

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

Straight on a plain, miles with the blowing wind.
Miles on a plane, nowhere near the mountain ranges,
nowhere near the Atlantic shore, no lapping sounds -
Just your gentle breathing
I’m just happy you’re alive.

This bulldozed land is barren,
dry like my eyes like a dirt road.
I’m stung on the arm by an imaginary bee,
flung out the open window.
This reminds me of the pleasantries we exchanged.

How polite we used to be.
And now your tired arm is slung over the wheel
angry with me. “Can you just
shut the **** up.” I’m not saying anything.
Let’s pull over at the next petrol station
get some Red Bull and make out like we’re American.

Lick the sting. Does it taste like Pepsi?
Can I be your blonde baby or your Barbie?
These dust clouds are haloing the sun,
as we sing out loud and off tune harmony.
It’s just you and me and nowhere baby.
So use me up until I’m gone. Drag on me
like a cigarette and extinguish me on the lawn.

---------------------------------------------------------
­
Nowhereland.
Head ready to burst
like elastic bands around a watermelon.
I’ve been getting angry.
Snappy again.
The long drive has left me whacked,
our conversation gone putrid,
the air swimming with expletives.
Hay bales.
Green fields.
Lost track of how many.
Wasn’t counting anyway.
Into sixth gear then.
South Dakotan sun
stretches into the car,
over your body;
I knew it well. I know it well.
The milometer slides
to fifty-seven thousand
and the silence stings my skin
like a small fresh burn
so I raise my voice - your mouth is closed.
I toss an empty Coke can out the window,
hear it scuttle over hot grey road.
Then you begin to sing, so I sing. Why?
Awful. Wrong key. Don’t care.
You look across,
destroy me so well,
the tumbling heart in a tower of cards.
I know. Stop the car.
Find a bar.
Let’s numb ourselves together
so we feel something,
gorge on US TV
till our eyes go red white and blue.
Look what we’ve become.
Just your gentle breathing.
This is what alive feels like.
Now give me a drag
of whatever it is you’re having.

Me in jeans plus four others,
the nearest a guitarist,
black bag shape slung
over a seat, his sleeve
rolled high enough
to see a clamour of ink
in his skin, a ladder of colours.
He listens to music, white worms
lodged into ears.
Another, female, older,
glasses two-thirds down the nose,
much wrinkled Times between
her wrinkled fingers, glint of a ring,
the only one it seems, fatigue
rolling over her face.
The third, sweating, texting,
doesn’t look up, unaware to
anyone but the swirl of letters
on the screen beneath his eyes
where only he knows what exists.
The final guest is asleep,
or is pretending, head drooped
to a shoulder like a dog’s.
The train rattles on,
Monday night,
metal vessel of mysteries.
The musician glances up,
notices he is among a clutch
of others, sees me
and for maybe five, six seconds
does not look away,
his muddy-coloured irises
pouring into mine,
his boots scuffed with muck.
I cannot help but acknowledge
this unexpected attention,
but, flustered, I rustle for a book,
even though my exodus
is minutes away.
I flip to page sixty-two, he looks away,
and then back, swivelling, as if unsure
which way to stick, and there is
a fleeting stab of fear,
of what if in a shred of a second
he lunges across, a tattooed panther,
pins my wrists to the cold window,
spews his breath to my face
and grunts in that appallingly masculine way,
a way that suggests he’s in control,
ha ha *****, what you gonna do now?
when he wouldn’t be, I’d know.
I’d have a clear shot at the crotch
and even if the texter, sleeper, reader
didn’t spring to life, I could put a stop
to it, shove him from me like
yanking a piece of furniture across the room,
crank my voice into a bellow.
I can imagine the stupid mask
of shock on his stubbly face.
He could hurt me, of course he could,
anyone can hurt anyone
how they please, and I’m just as capable,
but I wouldn’t, shouldn’t
launch an attack of fists and kicks,
inject my words with venom.
This thought shrieks in my brain
and dies, squashed bug-like,
its pulse destroyed.
Always assuming the worst.
I’ll learn.
I don’t look at him again.
I don’t know if he looks at me
but he probably does,
thinking of a song he’ll write
or leftovers to eat,
or a missed opportunity.
The book slips to the floor,
for a moment, I forget,
I am being transported.
Everybody leaves, I am no exception,
standing, moving to the doors
that will open with a quiet whirr,
it slows and then a bit more,
bit more,
his memory of me
my ***, perfect in these jeans.
Typical. At least, I think,
it looks good.

we have travelled
to the place you go to
to get away

     this time
I have been reeled in
your thumb

   on my wrist
as we step off     the train
into a city

that isn’t home.

In the museum
the sunlight
paints your face

cobalt eyes
   catch mine
between the     echoes

of our words
and if there’s ever peace
   I believe

   it is this
among strangers
and paintings

in the place
you go to
   to get away.

here because it makes sense
here because all roads lead to here

here because the button
the one from your Camden

charity-shop coat
dozes in the palm of my hand

that prickly sort of fabric
its bands of dried blood maroon

you might remember this
in a way not the way I remember

the discovery of someone’s
shed secondary skin

lived in now to be lived in by you
your magnolia branches

but two winters later
the button fell off

brown bauble
walnut of doom

and now here between the bras
the much slept with stuffed teddy

I hold the last inanimate relic of you
the coat’s smell a waning memory