Before I started school, I ran carelessly.
Flailing propelled my growing body
Up steps or over barely audible roads.
Oh my! Have I grown?

The wooden disk atop the May Pole
Would snag and wobble as the ribbons
Pulled taught. I barely saw the girls
Below. Dressed in white, stained by grass.

Every time we stuck, weary grownups
Picked us up, turned us round, put us down
Like whirring clockwork toys. They spoke
In hushed voices. Bad men walked free.

I am proud of our resilience. We clung on,
Little limpets that we are. Without waves,
Our rock pools glisten in the autumn sun.
We are still breathing, we are still one.

We walk the narrow
Night-time streets
Alone together
Our low whispers
Not loud enough
To wake crumpled beds
We're in a labyrinth you said
Drifting without a breeze
You tell me how
You came to be
And I sip upon
Your words
Like wine

Involuntary and silent,
I mouthed a Bless You
To the breeze.

It's true, I may not be as fun as I was
Perhaps I am a little selfish too
But in the morning I will wake early
Slip out whilst you sleep and
Walk a little in the sunshine
Buy a coffee and drink it sitting
On a bench as the world rushes by
I am finding other ways
To treat myself

I'm meeting an
Old friend today.
Not someone
I know that well,
Just someone
I worked with once.
He's flying in from
Mainland Spain.
Not only to be with me,
He said he's meeting
Someone else.
After all, he's
Just someone
I worked with once.
He's asked to meet
On Brompton Road.
Not somewhere
I know that well.
It's all a little posh for me -
The sports cars and Versace bags,
Eyebrows tamed until they shine,
Cuffs with cufflinks,
Men of means.
Not things I need
(although I'm careful
not to judge).
Judging is an invitation
And I think that
I would rather stay,
As someone that
He worked with once.

I spurn your waken world
With waken hoops
And waken tops
And folk jig cut pegs
What shake and split
With every gust
Of waken stoff

I spit your waken ways
Caring sharing nasty glib
Like every scrub
Crack nub and ****
I will not be that thing
Not me, for any
Wanton spicy sniff

Aye aye lit the ways
Of pepes with straight put
Gnash and brittle thot
I fit not nor I want no mix
I rather hit a spon with slot
To sound a clanging
Bowl of frog

The rivers on
A corrugated roof,
Will meet the sea,
Eventually.

Your dead maps
Cannot match the ways
The shifting earth
Will lie.

Lines that you once
Thought straight,
Will never now
Be true.

On each cracked page,
A fearless canyon.
Each fold can hide
A crooked spire.

My north is lost,
So lost beneath,
A careless dry
Pressed flower.

I am in an unfamiliar city,
Feeling lost inside a familiar hotel.
I am, plate in hand, skirting
Round the breakfast buffet.

Each dish is neatly labelled;
Scrambled eggs.
Breakfast sausage.
Local cheese (soft)!

Another man is standing
Motionless. Is he praying?
We shuffle around each other,
Replacing lids, laying spoons,

Filling our plates with all types of
Exotic treats. A whispered song to
Breaking bread. Just two strangers
Orbiting the food we eat.

Underneath the slanted parasol
Eyes half closed against the sky
All sound is mixed
With sun and spray
The mama
Her indignant child
A distant beat
Beyond the crowds
The lapsing rhythm
Every wave
Too soon I slip into the depths
The sweat and suncream
Milk upon my skin
Did Cleopatra swim?

Shout it with a friendly bark
Or sing it in a football chant
I'll have no sorry frowns today
Oh, give me love that's simple

A variation in a minor key
Is nothing like the melody
If notes are always black or white
Then I'll have love that's simple

If sadness has your duvet pulled
Above your ears to muffle out
All sounds of dogs and crowds
You won't hear love that's simple

So ask me why it is that I
Would still believe a patent lie
I'll tell you when we win the league
Oh, give me love that's simple

Where is equality in distance
between Time and Space?
Ten years to one mile
seems about right.

Thirty years ago we were in Kilburn,
three miles west of here,
acting out our early twenties
with hedonistic disdain.
Clubs and bars would *****
us out into the night air
and we would scamper off
like single ants, unsure where
we might refind the scent.
All those roads are still blurred.

Perhaps I will make
sliding box puzzles
from obsolete copies
of the London A to Z.

I read that the majority of car crashes
happen within three miles of
where the driver lives.
Isn't that self-evident?
Aren't most journeys
journeys to or from home?

Somewhere in amongst the grass,
There lies a piece of meteorite.
A silver shard from outer space,
Resting in this blackest night.
An owl hoots. Branches sway.
Did they see the final flash
As cosmic dust laid down to rest?
Or did this piece of Icarus deserve
No fanfare from the rest of us?
For the fragment this is one brief stop,
Across the ever winding Universe.

My future, sealed by a cross,
I must forever stumble.
I'm carried in a silent wave;
its dampened roar, quite lost
within a labyrinth of cul-de-sacs.
Further forward, over rocks, carved
smooth by endless years of swell.
I reach out just to try to touch,
but touching is beyond my reach.
Would you join me on this ride?
Together, when our bodies crash,
we'll know it took some other force,
to overpower the both of us.
I'd rather leave my tiller free;
let my rudder make no odds to me.

Lift me up, I am an angel.
Tie me down, I am the dark.
Let me slither with the reptiles.
Hear me cawing with the rooks.

Wrap me up, I will never fade.
Crush me, please, I won't forget.
Round me off amongst the pebbles.
Dash my head against the rocks.

I can warn you when there's danger.
I can scare you when there's not.
I am a friend to loveless lives.
I am nothing when forgot.

Poets are selfish *******.
They pretend they write for others
But the words are really theirs.
Shall I compare thee?
Try to stop me, more like,
As they go on with the rest.
Break their dreams
Or **** yourselves,
You're never free to choose.
For the selfish bunch of poets
We are nothing but their muse.

Lambeth Hospital closed down,
four years after I was born.
I refuse to believe that these
two minor events are unrelated.

My own trajectory was set long
before my birth. Necessity paved
the way to planning the new North
Wing of nearby St Thomas'.

Just as planetary alignment will
shape us, a city council understands
how their work changes destinies.
So what about free will, you ask?

We are free to believe in whatever
mysterious forces we choose; banal,
supernatural or otherwise. Damage
from wear and tear is not covered.

The dying tree
is no longer in
the living room.

I am driving on the Marylebone Road.
Waiting to be carried on the crest
of the next green wave.

I have always travelled headfirst.
As an aeroplane child, I lent forward
with my arms outstretched, humming.
Later, I perfected the same trick
without any hint of movement or sound.
I arrive awkwardly in conversations,
my head bursting through thin walls
unexpectedly like a jack-in-the-box.

Whilst queueing, I argue with the people
in front, indignant that they are only
ahead by some mishap of time or space.
I am a gargoyle, forever watching,
cursing all the decent people
as they file beneath me. I contort
in public for I am a private person.
Love has eluded me, until now.

When I'm asked, "Would you like a seat?",
I will reply, "Parallel lines never intersect."
To be aloof, takes practice and hard work.
"Pierrot, you must be exhausted!" is a
common refrain, but only from old people, young people seldom give
insights without provocation.

As a baby, I was doused in talcum powder.
My inner fire extinguished, I was deemed
ready for a neutered life. When it is dark,
I stand quite still, like a mannequin.
I live only for the attention of strangers.

We meet up early from afar,
eager beavers that we all are.
Patted shoulders tell me how,
we're stouter than the boys we were.

Squashed together in our booth,
the food is just an incidental course.
It's wine is what we need to spill
the gibberish across our bowls.

And did you watch that film? The one
with whatshisname who's married to
the one from ... our phones can rescue
all the many names we can't recall.

All too soon we're done. The catching up
complete, we float back through the
empty streets. Our separate ways are lit,
by some small flame that we have shared.

At home you ask about their wives
and other things about their lives.
I don't have anything to share. To which
you rightly ask; were you really even there?

Faceless morning winter moon
My walking makes you wander
Kiss the treetops as you pass
Bright disk above the branches

Twisted heart and sap unite
Throughout the veins of every tree
Damp leaves lay lifeless on the path
All but dust in this perpetual world

Perhaps a little part of me lies broken
In amongst the trees, behind the falling
Fading moon that promised everything
Too soon against the brightening sky

I wish your voice had sounded clearer, but you
were driving. Driving through some winding
country lane, I guess; trees bending over
the road, eavesdropping as we tried to speak.

I was in the kitchen, mobile wedged between
my ear and shoulder, peeling potatoes. Coils
of brown skin flopped into the colander. I told
you how my work was unbearable. Thankless

days. Endless asks. Joyless tasks. Finally,
I told you how I'd fallen. Your words were
clipped by empty spaces as the signal faded.
I scarred my forehead as I fell. Healing now.

Better than it was. I imagined the rhythmic
cat's eyes, punctuating the road like tiny
shooting stars as you drove homewards
into the night. Underneath the waning moon,

far from all the bright lights.

I saw the same sad magpie twice today.
Does that count as joy?
Solitary bird.
Sat beside the greenest grass.
Sat upon the safety of the fence.

That night he sees the moonlight in a pool;
"I'll keep this trinket in my nest".

My uncle Paul. Born when other people
wanted to forget the war,
twenty years before I arrived.
We drew grey tanks on scrolls of paper,
splattered soldiers with our red felt tips.

What do you do when the sirens start?
Turn off the gas. Seek shelter. Do not panic.

In my grandma's bathroom was a box,
made from a hollowed out tortoise.
Inside, snug and heavy, like the last
solid Russian doll, lay the grenade.
Safe. No charge. So my uncle Paul said.

The earth still smoldered when the tortoise
first walked. A survivor of the last Great Dying.

I've never seen a bomb explode.
I've not been deafened by a blast, nor
smelt sulphur tinged with rotten meat.
What is war without the dead?
An empty stage but for the props.

The heavy velvet curtains twitch,
as the stagehand checks the house is packed.

A single spotlight swoops then rests;
illuminates the uncaged beast. Scales, horns,
bristles, teeth; frame his clammy goat-like face.
Seven magpies peck the boards. A cacophony
of squawks drown out the murmured audience.

I am a dying memory.
I am lifeless as the hands that made me.

I thought it was you,
but I wasn't certain.
One last glance back,
your sunbed definitely empty,
  towel crumpled / empty shell
I follow you out to sea.

Squinting; without glasses
I cannot tell if it's you.
Your head bobbing.

Alone.

The hazy afternoon sun
creates dancing ripples
of horizontal light.
As I swim nearer,
still uncertain,
I see you - but you as a boy.

Suddenly, I feel the same intense love
I felt when little you would stumble
back into my open arms
  laughing / crying / needing
needing me.

I reach you, but I see
the fine young man
you have become.

Floating together,
smiling at one another,
I am filled with a sad pride;
family holidays were always too short.

I'm in Italy once again, my love.
But why is there no architecture?
Endlessly winding, the streets narrow
until the cars can no longer turn.
Did we come here? I easily forget.
All my pasts return to haunt me;
shambling, drunk creature, I dared
to love. Now the heat makes the
veins swell beneath my upturned
hands. I wonder what became of you?
Timidity hid you, even then. Only now,
I truly appreciate your fading smile.

the rain falls against my window
the rain doesn't fall against my window
I am inside
I am outside
I am inside and the rain isn't falling against my window
I am outside and the rain isn't falling against my window
I am outside and the rain is falling on me
I am inside and the rain is falling on me
I am outside and I am wet
I am inside and I am dry
I am outside and I am dry
I am inside and I am wet
it isn't my window
the rain isn't falling
it isn't raining
the is no window
there is no rain
there is no falling
there is nothing

As I lie in bed, I hear the street;
the cars that pass like waves,
the pavement tapped
by rhythmic feet.
And by my side, my love lies still.
Her gentle breath, as slow as breeze,
beneath the humming of an aeroplane.
Above us all, the arching skies
stretch further than our heavy limbs,
can ever dream of traveling.

Underneath a trestle table, the sagging
boxes sit; their edges gently tearing
with the leaning piles of books.
And every book is bending.
And every page is worn.
And the words inside
are cluttered now
- like the mind
that stacked
them there.

In deep ground,
where other bones
lie very still. Or
under a twisted

soil wrapped root,
from a tree too tall
to fall, until the day
it does. Long

shadows are broken
sticks that snap;
over a floor, across
a crumbled wall.

Here, beneath my ribs;
underneath the chewy strands,
my lanky ambitions, naked
without sense. As a finger
held to thumb, between
a petalled gift. Kiss each
inch of me. Make me sigh.
Roll me only when I'm dead.

I feel it in my crooked toes
and in my wonky two front teeth.
I see it where my clothes are worn
and in the gaps around my shoes.
I notice it in others too; in the little
signs of wear and tear,
in the slog of getting old.
Poor is all wrapped up cold,
inside a shabby winter coat.
You can try to hide it
while you're living
or **** it like a sugared treat.

Just before a falling,
the tilted horizon decides
it must be right.
Perhaps it's pride?
The lilting ship is oblivious
to each stumbled embrace.
The breathless drunk, stands
leaning on a brick wall.
I recognise it in solitudes.
I heard it many times;
between a dozen tolls
of midnight's bells.

I'm unnerved by hearing flattery.
Did I invite it with my neediness
or coax it with a smile? Perhaps
the words that follow are less
appetising fare. Or is the flatterer
expecting reassurances in return?
Unless I'm sure it's quite sincere,
I'm left unsure what to say.
I add a simple "Thank you"
in the hope it goes away.

I have drifted slightly
from my steady orbit.
Just far enough to see
myself still living out
my usual life, whilst I
watch; a casual ghost.
I catch few words from
all my conversations.
None of the meaning.
Nodding. Without. Really
listening to the steady
falling of the universe.

The parks are all much duller now
the children have gone home.
No little shrieks to spike the peaks
of every skybound swing.
No swipe of vibrant colour from
the roundabout's slow spin.
Instead the frames of metal poles
lay dormant under coats of paint
so thick and black that even
crows can hardly dare to perch.
Outside the old dogs eye us both.
Their long stares soaked
with yearning
for the real wilderness.

Forgive me, but I don't
want to explore my feelings,
backpack through insecurity
or interrail across buried pain.
There is no pride to be found
in travelling to those places
or even in a triumphant return.
Instead, I'll make my feelings
comfortable by giving them
a seat inside a steady room,
beside a window with a view

What will we learn
from our reflected
selves? Movement,
  reversed. Light,
changed course.
The truths we hide,
but secretly know
(deep down inside).
Each little smear
distracts. Illusions
are a fragile gift
that's best
kept wrapped.

Before important business
can start, there's a general
sniffing of the night; a stale
nose of fireworks, perhaps
the evening star? The moon
adds a drop of essence,
beyond the too damp wet
piles of autumn leaves. We
walk, stopping frequently to
sample other joys; a scent
of fox, a whiff of squirrel.
Inside the wine shop I am
greeted by an offer of tasting.
Good boy. Sit. Strong tannins.
rich summer fruit lingers after.
Honey. Figs. Redcurrants.

Bequeath your final skin to dust.
Watch the ferrous atoms gather
as the rusted cosmos rots.
Feel the cogs still turning,
churning seasons to a pulp.
Hear the solemn promise
autumn whispers in the dusk;
I am just an echo of the darkest
night of all. Will our children's
children still believe our great
great selves? Will Old Mother
Hubbard leave her own bones
upon the shelves? Will Old Father
Time's paternity outlive all our
foolish fears? When the edge
of you is nowhere and the end
of you has come, then you'll
understand that living was
a fraction of the whole.

Sometimes,
  when I'm walking my dog,
    I pretend
      I'm flying
       an upside down
       kite.
The kite pulls me.
  The kite gets stuck in a tree.
    I pull the kite.
The kite gets tangled
  with another kite.
The kite stops;
  scared of shadows?
Eventually, I find an open space
  and I set the kite
                                     free.

We're living the lives we led before.
Always rushing, perhaps, even, a bit

more grumpy on the wet mornings.
You said you missed our lockdown

lives. Simpler, you said. I'm not sure.
I can't compare how I felt, just what

we did. Most of the uncertainty we
shared has gone again. Our old fears,

less relevant now and our new fears
still not fully formed.

my dog barks
when things are hard
he snarls when he's afraid
and when he finds it
all to much
he skulks back in his cage
my dog is just like other dogs
his heart is there to see
I'm not sure if
he's learnt these things
from watching
other dogs
like me

all sounds are muted
as the muzzled wave
shakes the street-stood
to their rubbled graves

an act as black
as snow is white
paints a greyness
in its blinding light

every single
pane of glass
once drum taut now
scattered by the blast

and on it rips
sad dandelion
blow the hours
from the rising sun

I know this fear
I've swallowed threads
I'm nothing if not
shaken by the dead

my smile
stitched my face
like a crocodile
beaming
top deck
of the 63
as we ride
the dark
outside

my old dog feet
won't
carry bones
padding over floors
tiny paws and tiny toes

in a street of lights
new smells
hollowed out
do you see reflections
of the wonders outside?

downstairs stop!
am I
lead right?
as plain as pain
my heart is a bleed

bathe me again
buckets
soapy warm
may well never
fill me to the brim

My city is awash with dreams,
some are painted on the walls;
they're lurid like a migraine,
lucid as a hummingbird.

My lover is a dreamer too,
she speaks a partial truth;
her words are like a fragment
of my city's only street.

She told me how she's searching
for the palaces of glass,
but every pocket map she's had
is a labyrinth of folds.

When all the squares were folded tight
and pressed upon themselves,
she walked along the creases
and fell into my world.

Beneath the neon blindness
of a piercing blue night,
we fused into a lump of clay
and lay down on the earth.

My city is a towered forest,
tearing pockets from the skies.
Crowds in heaven peer below them;
a precarious insight.

little man, big man
funny Mr Punch
tangled up his string
turned into a glove
was a man above
now a man below
swinging at the missus
in his very own show

bad man, devil man
anger in his bones
fighting the police
with a ******* rod
has he a conscience?
has he any pride?
what about the real man
who is hidden inside?

I don't know how long.
Before I understood it had changed?
An hour? A day?
The señora appeared on her balcony;
gathered washing,
glanced up,
closed the door behind her.
I blankly searched the empty sky.
A seagull swooped.
Gradually, boats in the harbour turned,
now facing the other way.
Suddenly, a new wind blew;
hot, breathless gasps of air.
No cicadas.
Silence.
A few raindrops fell like birdshit,
splatting on the stone steps.
I'm sure all these things have names,
if you were local,
you would know them all.
I have no other words.

We'll live
We'll live with it
We'll learn to live with it
We'll need to learn to live with it
We'll learn to need it
We'll need it
We'll live