The park gates keep the tangled
strands of street and brick away
from nature's pristine, geometric ways.

Grandiose, perhaps, with all the stone
and ironwork - why do we need a clear
divide? Is it pride? Should we marvel

at how far we've come from our earliest moments in primordial ****? Or perhaps
beneath the steely geese, dark water hides

a deeper fear - the knowledge we can never
tame the beast inside that bares its teeth.
We'll never know; the park gates close.

love led blind, through barren paths
ever stepping back towards
a singularity of fear
to question makes
it disappear
can someone believe
without questions
without answers
that's not what lovers
in hungered trances
can pretend - it's not enough
even Gods aren't made
of stuff that tough

It used to be quite unusual
to leave pound coins
in the money jar
and ever see them again.
Apparently, in my son's eyes,
each one could be
a Greggs sausage roll token,
to treasure after school.
I couldn't tell you when
I first knew about these silent
transformations happening.
In the beginning,
as now, the pound coins
just lay; untouched.
That's why, whenever
I see them lying there still,
I feel a little pang of sadness
at his budding independence
being robbed.

All my songs are love songs
Perhaps you cannot hear
The words are woven from the strands
Of lovers’ ashen hair

My melodies are whispered
There’s barely any tune
The rise and fall perceptible
In phrases of the moon

My chords are jarring, hollow sounds
All glocke without the spiel
An empty rib cage rattling
Beneath the Catherine wheel

My rhythm’s mostly regular
A symphony of clocks
It lacks a beating human heart
Just ticks without the tocks

All my songs are love songs
For lovers to find peace
You’ll hear them in sea shells
When all the waves have ceased

Twice, recently, I've seen my daughter's stuffed toy Moomin
lying on his own in the hall and it's filled me
with an intense sadness.
Today, she'll be back to pick him up - her constant childhood companion - she'll squeeze him tight, love him, kiss him and
send his once white fur ever more grey.
But tomorrow? Or the next day?

underneath Kentish Town
the fine Fleet flows down
sneaking out dammed ponds
slidden across the thistled Heath
the source that took relief
hidden, next to Anglers Lane
a vanishing of oyster shells
flicked by idle ghosts of fishermen
who spit a murmured gargle
deep below in sewage world
a water's roar
silenced to hush
by the concrete poured
over centuries of bricks

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.

Half raw truths
Dressed up as familiar tragedy
And swallowed bile-like
Between a drizzle of words
Familiar words
Soaking me
Waking memories
Indistinct figures
Move behind a frosted
Glass panelled door
Prisming their edges
Into ever diminishing
Stranded light and dark
My hesitant thoughts
Punctuate the gaps
With questions
About you
Stranger
My stories
Join yours
Whirl circles together
A dizzy hand holding
Look-into-my-eyes
Wheel of forbidden romance
Until our arms tire
And we let go

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.

It is a fact
That as you get older
There are more certainties in your future
Than there were in your past

The stray dog watches me.
Tongue draped sideways.
Under the dancing shadows,
Cast by dusty olive trees.
The wind blows, across my
Lyre strings. Distant memories
stirring, but I cannot dwell.
Once, when I doubted, I looked
behind and deep regret has
plagued me since.
I am a shell.

At dusk, as the air stills
And the solitary bat tosses zigzags
Over neat rows of back gardens,
I can find a pause for my day.
The soft chill from the greying sky
Excites my skin with goosebumps
And ****** me into stupefied vigilance.
Venus overhead, puncturing the ether,
A single grain before the steady stream.
This same air, grasped and gasped
As we first arrive, now smothers me
Into bold passivity. Gradually I recall,
Something beyond my daytime scratchings,
A solemn profundity that earths
Me back into this ancient ground.

I don't actually shrug
at least I don't think I do
I just feel the shrug
my shoulders relax a little
as I bury my disappointment
and my expectations
are gradually eroded

as I cease to connect

after a while
this shrug
this metaphysical shrug
has become part of
my armour
my insulation
it's not really cynicism
because I'm not expecting it
but it's there when I need it
do you understand?
perhaps not
shrugs

we chose
  to orbit
the same sun
  spin through
the same unknowns
  rock up
at the same
impromptu kitchen discos
  fuse together
until the current melts us
  because together
we become
  better and better

you enticed me to show off a little
and hammed-up your surprise
even though you smiled nicely
it felt a little contrived

follow me, do not fear
please believe me and stay near

walk behind, all the way
I'm alive, so cannot stay

I will sing, once outside
you'll be with me, at my side

make a sound - are you there?
for a moment, I dispaired

when you left, my world died
thinking of you, trapped inside

almost there now, can you see?
I can't believe, you'll soon be free

I can't hear - are you there?
just a shadow, fleeting where

the dark and groaning dead
treading silent without end

For a moment,
I fully expected
to see God's face
staring back at me
in the onion I had sliced.
But I didn't.
Soon after,
the onion sizzled.

are an unforgiving itch
they stir in stillness;
scratch the skin
unsettle what
I've settled in.
It's often when I'm vulnerable
that I explore
the fragments
that they lay
  before -
like evidence of my ill intents,
your honour, what I
  should've
   could've
    would've
meant, had I only done things different...
As I stagger through this baying crowd,
their voices swell fubarbaric loud,
until I reach the fire escape
and briefly pause -
why hesitate?
Outside,
the comfort of the night,
the solid floor,
the starry skies;
anonymity will protect
me from my own
(too human)
de-
fects.

It looks like I'm marooned here.

I've checked the fuel; it's not good.

There's simply not enough for the journey home.

Not enough inspiration, nor enthusiasm.

Sensuality night work, but there's little to be found.

If the landscape wasn't so bleak and inhospitable, I might be able to mix some kind of cocktail. A Martini. Or a Margarita, perhaps.

Wearily, I open the door to the engine room. A familiar white light shines over the chilled glass shelves. I tell myself it's going to be okay.

it must have landed with a thud
but no-one could have heard
it lay there then
below the grass
beneath the leafy oaks
butterflies, flit white like flies
across the fearless summer sky

the rock lay still
like every other rock
when held against the earth

once silver trail
so short delight
slit silent dust
across the infinite black night

Did life come here on some cosmic speck?
A single cell inside a shooting star;
I wonder if we travelled far,
before we slid into the bubbling sprawl?
A place hospitable enough
for the stuff from which we're made
to grow and split and split and grow
before - ergo a beak, a stalk, a wink, a squawk,
a carnival of creeping creatures,
each one with its own distinctive features!
So when we pause to comtemplate,
the night sky's pinpricked winking lights,
is the flame that stirs inside
a homesickness for where we came?

Step into the night!
Kiss your children tenderly
On the forehead
Pull your collars up behind your ears
It’s brave, fierce work
Out there, on the cutting edge
Of hedonism
I wish I could be there with you
When you awake
But I won’t be
I’ll be lamenting the passed night
Gnarling my teeth from side to side
I’ve decided
So don’t try to tell me otherwise
Or I’ll despise you for trying to curtail
My beautiful free spirit
You’ll thank me for returning whole
Then quickly **** my selfish soul

As the days of holidays
flicker with the day and night,
I see the signs of innocence,
returning slowly to my dreams.

Slights or disappointments
from sunlit days of youth,
raw as when the blade first bit;
initials carved into the bark.

If scars are just an open wound
held together with a will,
then self doubt is a scurvy
that can split them up anew.

Let's take a bus!
Visiting universities with my son
Remembering / trying to forget
Listening to paper-thin academics
Peter Pan never-grow-old boys
Who outstayed big school
Not like all work no play dad
He's back where he once
Puked-up on the steps of libraries
He lived with hardback books
Cramped in, just one gas ring
Not now, all digital innit, mister
My old lecturers must be very old
Spewing memoirs or just dead
We go to the City Art Gallery
To find out where life pauses
And rest awhile together

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

soon after the dying Christmas tree
started scattering its needless
needles throughout
the house,
life
stopped -
the nagging dampness
of winter dewing the red bricks
until flakes of paint drifted onto the
floor like snow. Here, among the spider's
threads, where invisible worlds claw
at our heels, some newish sickness
was brewed into being. And we
didn't notice. Our muted
festivals weren't
enough to
mark
the subtle
changes of the
seasons outside, so
every day drifted into the
next one, like waves tumbling
onto distant sandy summer shores

They've always been there; the perverts,
the pederasts, the paedophiles. When we

were young, our mothers knew. "Not a nice
man" or "The bad Mr ..." so and so. But they

didn't tell us, didn't warn us - they just herded
us with coded subtleties, like sheep into a pen.

We learned through whispers, slanders, filthy
rhymes and songs. But some didn't. Was it

shame which kept us ignorant? Shame that
in the grown-up world there are broken people?

We would have understood. We'd seen bullies,
heard foul deeds, sensed danger dressed up

as kindness. Yet here we are; older and wiser
but still incapable of protecting all our children.

as the shortest day peeps out
from underneath the winter's grasp
the steady robin sits aflame
a flickered dance upon the fence

his eye an ever sideways trance
a grace note tucked within a song
for every hop, a little bow
the worldly nod to his know-how

I wish I had just some small part
of the patience he exudes
returning every darkened day
to flaunt the patterns of his art

“You’re original!” she said
As she kicked a stone across the path
We didn’t look up
We barely looked down
It was late to be out in the town
I knew we were different
But some small connection had been made
I wanted to acknowledge it
Before the moment passed
But the pressure
Of silence
“Show me your hand!”
I held out my hand
I had nothing to hide
She looked at my palm, smiled
And ran away
I looked at my palm
My foot lent on its side
Beside an old railway arch
Alone, familiar, but comforted

I awoke from a dream of fishes
And realised the fish was I
He swam like all the other fish
With flapping gills and beady eye
His self was him and not me
But I remembered when it was not that way
My feet still twitched
The fin of me
And tears ran down towards my ears
As I lay and thought of floating
Far beneath the surface
Did he know I?
Above his house
Where wind was tide
A bird sang in my garden
Each note a bubble of air
Floating down in answer to the fish
Through me where I lay
On the reflection
Inside
Outside
And resting on my bed

Take me to a place both green and blue,
close to where the milling tourists stay.
I want to curse the kissed white marks,
of sea salt on my cheap brown shoes.

I long to wither underneath the warmth,
as scented gardens chirrup along.
The dusty dogs will keep their idle guard,
on winding roads through olive groves.

Feed me plaited bread that's baked
by hands grown wrinkled from the sun.
Buy tomatoes, aubergine and thyme,
from the market's wooden trestle tables.

Smash a wave upon the jagged rocks,
hear the crackle as the wave recedes.
Annouce the glowing summer's carnival;
a paean sung for all the working bees.

Count the ways the world can end
Or wait until their numbers wane.
Everything that's ever done or said,
Outnumbered more than ten to one.

When it started with a word,
Did He foresee it all as now?
An instant of infinities,
The careful placement
Of each speck and star.
Or did He say, "My work is done,
For every one there is another"?

There's nothing I have ever dreamt,
That's turned out as I thought it would.
So now I'm coming round to think;
It's the counting that will keep us safe.

You stared, so much, intently
Prying, perhaps, believing an honest
Love with no dark motives
Parting the strands of cynicism
That dangle around my bald head
And he noticed but did not react
(forgive me if I have misled you!)
Even to appreciate your awe so deep
And full of naïve beauty
I might have said a couple more
Would do the trick
But hid behind an alien
Shell of tears perhaps not unlike
The condensation on your glasses
When you frowned and wrinkled me away
Three is freedom when anonymity
Crowds around the table
Lopsided amongst being both
Wanted and rejected by your
Secret lover’s code

You can't say they're an imperfection,
unless you criticise the whole invention.

It's as if that everything
We ever made or did—
Paintings in a distant cave
Every minaret and spire,

Each telescope or microchip,
Washing flapping on the line
As No. 5 sits down as a family,
Silently, to eat their tea—

As if all those things
Were only ever real
In the moments when a dream
Is shook out by awakening.

A distant eye will never spy
Another fading star in the night sky.
And when all we have to say is said,
We'll notice that there's no one left.

on my wakeful mornings
before my sight has lost
its foggy nighttime hue
I'm balanced unsteadily
between speckled worlds
black spots poised
like tiny lizards
in neither of the realities
that silvering glass creates

PSSSST!
Yeah, man, I mean you!!
Are you looking to score some ... poetry?
I got some of the good **** here.
Uncut.
Just in.
Here, smell this ... what you think?
Lover's tears?
Wistful reminisces?
Distant zephyrs, tinged with cardamon?
Man, I told you this **** was good.
You sure?
Okay, but take it easy, start with a little.
I might be a dealer of poems,
but there are some things
I don't want on my conscience.
Smoke it, snort it.
Hell, some people even like to read it!
Yeah, it's been a pleasure.
You know where to find me next time.

YOU BOUGHT WHAT?
Did you even THINK about
HOW this stuff gets made?
Yes, tears are shed.
Yes, hearts are broken.
I think of it like this;
it's probably someone poor,
in some far off land,
scraping through any number of
Emotionally
Challenging
Real Life
Experiences.
Of course, that's how it works -
- the more raw the emotion
- the more raw the poem.
Well. You've got it now.
The damage has already been done.
So.
What does it say?

when all our words have withered
and our lips are cracked like wetted sand
  standing still
    still like the wind
  holding hands
    hands together
just three squeezes of our fingers
  as we turn to face the west
where the sunset spills great orange thrills
  across a cutout paper sky

The flicker of a whispered ghost
On baubled beads of glass,
Flees a world daubed dismal brown,
With mud trod over grass.

A dampness hugs the sagging sleeves
Of shoppers' weary arms:
Their stooping arch more drawn to earth
With every charmless charm.

Is inside where the magic's coiled?
Inside every ***** kitchen.
Endless chinking glasses raised with
Chunks of ice cubes glinting.

And through it all I stand and grin:
Half braced in case I fall.
I'll never last til Armageddon -
I've already hit the wall.

At 8pm, he emails and says he misses her.
I know he's drunk.
I wait until the following morning to call him.
He's still drunk.
He talks about Preston Sturges.
There's a turbulence, underneath, he says.
Sometimes, a little bit comes to the surface; enough to try and guess at what's going on.
Not with Dickens, he says.
With Dickens, everything is behaviour.
I'm regretting calling.
He talks about taking responsibility and how some survivors came out of Auschwitz stronger and some blamed it forever.
I lay the phone on my lap and look out the window.
There's a white mist in the distance, covering the city.
Only the tops of the tallest buildings are visible.
But I can still see the skyline.

how do we know when we're true?
if our heart charts a course
through a sea of taboo
or we feel our desires
swell up at the moment
they're not quite required

when an arrow is loosed from the bow
it will fly straight and true
as we very well know
but our insides aren't wood
so we can't feign surprise
and pretend that we should

all that nature produces is bent
and as we're her children
we should know how that's meant
maybe carry less weight
or take comfort just knowing;
true doesn't only mean straight

When I'm little spoon,
I feel secure.
But please don't leave me
In the second drawer.

We both saw the young lovers
Stepping quite oblivious,
Holding outstretched together
Forever awkward hands.
Seems we're growing old together.
Our sorry kids now don't care to see
The stunning bluebell studded
Woods of Wanstead Park.
Does your heart swell still
With that same coy pride
When we're alone together?
Ahead of us, a skylark dips,
The dew soaked marshes
Dampening each sodden step
Towards certainty.
I am forever glad
Of finding warmth.

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

Young, bold, reckless love,
Breaking hearts and mending.
Spilling silky words in minds,
Regretted after sending.

Peer inside the blackened ***,
Where witches boil their potions.
Born from stirring body parts,
These spells for false devotions.

Give me love that's grown old,
Through wrinkled hands held fast.
Carried high on effervescing
Bubbles from the past.

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.

In the end, it took us almost thirty hours
to hitchhike from Utrecht. The raw night
air of Dresden hung inside us; smarting
where the autobahn had spat us out and
left us brooding under concrete skies.

We'd stood apart, this close to surrender,
when the silver cavalry arrived;

  Mein baby ist der schönste kinderen!
  Jawohl! Jawohl! Der schönste kinderen!

Jakob with his one cassette. Once proud
child begat another. On we raced. Gloria,
backseat hiking sister, now slept against
a pram.

The rolling streetlights crept up Jakob's
shades like rockets, lauched into the sky.

Du weißt? I did not. I held the tiny photo
of his child and watched the wild roadside.
I willed the darkness stay outside. ******
built the autobahn. Gut für Panzer. Du
weißt? We crossed into Poland, greeted
by the broken lines of garden gnomes;
tinker, tailor...

Stopping off for sausages - du magst? I did.
The dawn smelt red above the hills. I lay
my palms upon the dashboard, felt the
purring engine breathe. I smuggled angst
enough for all tomorrow's sorrows; I hid
it in the narrowest of breeze.

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

Empty flowerpots, their soil crusted
Insides clue us to once precious
Clasped bouquets. Will they hold
And love again some tender stem?
Discarded with the half-bricks,
Where the millipede roams, his
Thousand miniscule feet implore,
Beating the whispered rhythms of night.
By degrees, with each passing season,
The gathered moss gently mutes,
A glorious world of commerce,
Erupting between the little things.
Imperceptibly, away from brash
Petalled beauty they find
Steady destiny. Outside
Expectations and away
From where we see.

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.