If all scars were purple
And all bruises red
And we could pour out
All the pain in our heads

If people were rabbits
And rabbits were dead
And all scars were purple
And all bruises red –

Would people be purple?
Would rabbits be dead?
Is it bruises that **** us,
Or scars to the head?

What is it that tortures us,
Leaves us all writhing?
What makes us stop living
And start just surviving?

What monster pursues us –
What ghastly condition?
The one deep within us;
The sick apparition.

This torturous bubble
From deep in our heart
Wells up, overwhelms us
And tears us apart.

I could show you such things as you never have seen
But I'd have to go back on my oath
An oath I never made, but which
Stuck with me, the most sacred of things
So sacrosanct that even to say the words of the oath itself
Would be to break it.
Rarely is holiness so raw
Yet when that place is found
When the moon descends
And the water rises
Something shifts: and the veil is slightly lifted
But only slightly, for
Personne ne peut enlever la voile d'Isis
Even if we know how
Especially if we know how
Yet sometimes, gods willing,
It thins itself slightly
But only slightly, and
We catch a glimpse of the way things really are:
The way things could be.

i do not want to sleep
in my clothes again
but i don't have the energy
to put my pyjamas
into the dryer.

Oh I do like to be in the countryside
where the branches bash against the windows of the bus
where the leaves on the boughs of the trees bow so low
that I feel I have to duck.

Where people know me almost better than I know myself
I can gesture to my figure when Brigitte says
"have you eaten?"
and she will reply
"but that means nothing."

Where I can tell Tracy all about my life
and she won't judge,
will look at me with the same quiet smile,
the same laughing acceptance
as she ever has, since the day we met.

Where Cindy and Cathy sit talking about the world
and tell me of their troubles
because they know I'll understand.

Where the sea pounds gently in the distance
whipping the wind sometimes into a frenzy
and molding my hair into a salt-ridden sculpture
on my head.

I don't miss it
when I'm in the city
on the contrary, I love the beat of the sun on the concrete,
the thrash of the trains in the distance,
even the wheezing exhaust fumes
feel like they fit somehow.

But it's nice to be back sometimes
where the trees still grow on the roadsides
where the fields are green even in winter
where the pubs are cozy and quiet
like their clientele.

I went back there today
and I loved it like always
I loved it as ever
I love it still.

i haven't washed myself
in days

there's no point
because

it can't be washed away
anyway.

It's like I know I don't fit in
I shouldn't be here, I don't belong here
With the suits and the boots and the people who have roots
My history's lawsuits and bootprints and long hard routes

Lithium, light they write,
Like it’s right, white delight
Striking bright, better tight:
Fine and dandy.

Glamourised in our eyes
The surprise as you rise
****** heroised,
Bitter candy.

Pump the ***, dump the dot
******* it hot, spatter spot
Sing a lot, dream but not
Craving luncheon.

Skagging sweet sweaty meat
Blisters well under heat
Take a seat, come compete,
Beating truncheon.

Vie d’artiste, or at least
Rising yeast, bubbling beast
Trickling triste down your cheeks,
Ever daring.

Rising up, sup the cup,
Acid drop, fizzle pop,
Shoobie-doo-doobie-***,
Death to caring.

A Volkswagen sinks in tainted ink
The purple bunny’s been painted pink
The hare is teetering on the brink
Of broken limelight square.

He rings the thing; it starts to sing
A duckling, suckling ****, goes ping!
A nettle stings the bunny’s wing;
The duckling gets no share.

A shard apart that scarred the heart
Ripped out the one who passed the start
And darting past her cart, remarked
Upon her vacant stare.

A stare so vast that sticks and lasts;
She’s passed the post, she’s missed the mast,
What matters most: what’s passed is past,
Surrendered into air.

"i used to dance" -
what a horrible phrase

"i used to take my body
and use it to create beauty
in a physical form
but now i don't"

"i used to hear music
not just with my ears
but with my veins
but now i don't"

"i used to feel myself
being pulled across the stage
a puppet on invisible
but beautiful strings"

"i used to see everything
in the world and in nature
as a barre or a stage
but now i don't"

"i used to dance" -
what a horrible phrase
akin somehow to
"i used to live".

If the Tiber floods and the Nile fails to
If the overflowing mouth of Tamesis runs dry
If the weeping willow withers as the blackthorn breaks
And the regal golden eagle fails to climb in the sky

If the dried-up land yields a drought so parching
That the overarching urge is to drink yourself drowed
If the Dead Sea waters lose their saline flotation
And the carrion-grabbing vultures wheel in from miles around

Then Gethsemane's gates will crack open just a little
And the flowers of the garden will give off a sour scent
As their brazen roots recall the night when they were fed with blood
Dripping softly on the hallowed ground of dying man's lament

If the water rises slowly and yet still without abating
If it swallows up the chariots of sun and man and steed
If the kings step out and stumble to the grave, their destination
Will be broken, bold and cheerless: will be harrowing indeed.

Of a night on a battered red leather sofa
It's moved with us three times
It sits in a room with a broken bay window
And we sit on it too
And we sit on it too

Drinking yellow anise from mismatched glasses
With ice, not warm water
Singing stories, spinning yarns with broken bottles
Of girls with leopard-print hands
And the straw man in the moon
The straw man in the moon.

The cord hangs on the wall:
A symbol, but not symbolic
As chords rise, break off and fall
All a sham, but not shambolic
A sham, but not shambolic.

Swapping tales and anecdotes of cars parked between cake stalls
And days with names that don't suit them
People dying for causes they don't understand
And war is an island; a land hyperbolic
A Green land, a war land; unplanned hyperbolic.

Linguistics are twisted and brass tales are dropped
A cork is unwrapped from the web where it popped
But the darkness is rising, the hours are ticking
The side is hitched up so we all know we're doomed.
We hear children singing in the guitar strings,
Their screeches rising as they fall,
Our speeches diving as they fall.

And speaking of speeches, he says, a performance is mine
But in France, man... in France the markets are open
And the fields of Provence roll down to the menhirs of Carnac
And Brocéliande lies to us all,
And Brocéliande lies to us all.

It seems like only yesterday
That the first lambs of spring
Were running, bleating, over the fields.
Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was.
As seasons rush relentlessly
Down tracks that may, or may not
Lead to hell, the dogs of hell
Are barking: Can you hear their demon cry?
They cry as one: wolves undone,
The hounds let down their hair.
The night turns to day and
The summer to winter. The winter to spring.
A pin drops: does a mouse
Hear it with an ear attuned to silence?
Or does it crouch oblivious,
Awaiting scraps and scrapes, cats and shapes
That shadow its every move
Along the wall? Whilst standing tall,
The ruthless dance: a dervish trance
Has them in its dreadful spell
And with its whirling wisdom
Leads them down to burning hell.
And us as well.
And us as well.

Watching through an empty window,
He broke his pain on the tears that fell
From his face

Like glass, they hit the ground and shattered
And his groans went unheard by the people
Who passed outside

It was not normal, this obsession, he thought,
Pulling another cigarette from his case, and
Setting it alight.

He watched it burn: burn long and strong,
The ash gathered grey on the end of the smouldering stick
Then fell to join the water
On the floor.

Who am I, he thought again, what do I do?
There were no answers to these questions.
He was in this empty house, overlooking the lawns,
Breaking the dawn with a glass of whisky
And a bottle of wine.

There was nothing left for him here.

If I want my gypsy life,
My solitary dream
It does require a sacrifice,
More than I can exprime.

Car dans ma vie bohémienne,
Je dois me tenir seule
Même si mes sentiments m’amènent
À vouloir être en deux.

Je sais que dans ce jeu de rime
Je râte ; quand-même, j’essais
Car sûr mon cœur tes yeux s’impriment :
La lumière that day.

The candlelight that twirled and danced
And lit up eyes and hair
As deep inside something woke, pranced
And breathed a fresh, new air.

This was something I'd never had:
Un sentiment profond
Regretfully I leave, though sad;
Mais l'route gitane, c'est longue !

The road is bare
The path is steep
The wood is thick and vast

The midnight air
Which haunts your sleep;
The moon is rising fast.

All through the night
Strange creatures dance
And cast in you their spell

In their dark light
You lie entranced
In woods you once knew well.

You visit her
You know she's wise,
You know she'll set you free.

And undeterred
Beneath her eyes
Regard: her pain you see.

She reaches out
Her hand takes yours
Her head turns to the north

From round about
Voices implore
They plead, they babble forth.

You're scared, and yet
You know her way
In harshness she is kind

You don't regret
The light of day
That you have left behind.

You join her in
Her secret place
She loves you, yet says no

You can't begin
You cannot trace
The path no man can go.

For in her den
Such secrets lie
That she just has to keep

For all such men
Who come to try
This river runs too deep.

And so she hides
Herself away
From you and from the world

Does not confide,
For there's no way
To own this gypsy girl.

Grim drops slowly through the window
His front door's broken, the lock is gone
On the way home from school he saw an omen
It told him tonight would be long.

Grim shouts his mother get your lazy **** over here
And Grim shouts his father get in here and bring me a beer.

Grim drops his schoolbag and walks to the kitchen
And plonks down a beer on the table for father to drink
With his TV show watching the Simpsons
As mother lies hazily under the influence
Grim leaks slowly up the staircase
Into his room with the chain on the door

He pours himself into bed, lies on his back
He looks at the clock and he's sure
Eleven eleven, it's one one one one
It's the omen his demons have told him about

Wish on a star they said, and if that doesn't work
Wait til the clock pulls you out of all doubt.

Grim waits for nightfall
He doesn't have dinner
He's been getting thinner
But no one has seen.

He seeps from the bedroom
Down stairs and through hallways
He knows he is going where he hasn't been.

Grim please don't do it his friends would all say
(If he had any friends but he doesn't)

You know teachers despair of him
Teenagers laugh at him
Old ladies scared of him

GO ****** GO

Grim sets his face to determined
He runs down the path to the cliff
He launches himself from the edge and he flies

For a wonderful moment
A heartrending moment
A glorious screamingly awesomest moment

And then...

Then all is Grim.

i like honey
it is nice
and sweet
it soothes my throat
keeps my voice
for singing.

it’s delicate and gentle
but thick and determined
it goes well with ginger
or lemon
or just hot water in a cup.

but the trouble with honey
is that it gets everywhere
i keep finding bits of it
when i pick things up or put things down

on the handle of the kettle
in the corner of the sink
under the cupboard door
- how the hell did it get there? -
behind the toaster.

i like honey
(and sweetness and light)
in moderation
but the trouble with honey
(and comfort and love)

is that when i have a lot of it
i start to hate it
see it as an infection
like maybe it’s not so sweet
after all.

i think really
that the trouble with honey
isn’t.

it’s the trouble with me.

"did she pray?" i ask
weeping gently, they reply
that she came, but slowly
softly stripped before their eyes
withered down so neatly
left her petals on the floor
in a pile so as not to
cause any mess.

swallow the stars
whole.

glow from the inside out
as the pain of what you've done
spreads seeping through your body
filling your veins
with excruciating light.

close your eyes against it and
find it's to no avail
the bright follows, the light suspends
behind your eyes, pinpricks
finding their way out
working their way in.

sell yourself for borrowed silver
scatter it on the ground as later
you cry out for a redemption
that never came.

finally
submit to the silence
you've swallowed the stars now
and there is no one else
there is just becoming
numb.

the sun sets on a horde of trees,
a flock of birds flying in one direction
then another
one another
one
another.

the screams of the forest are silent
and the chattering of the day for now
has dulled down.

in the town people sit
on benches and outside bars
toasting the day just gone and
bringing in the evening on the back of a beer.

no rain has fallen
and none is falling now
but the earth still holds that dusty scent
an inexplicable petrichor
that strikes deep into the very core of your being
as you observe
the passing of the day.

another one has gone:
another day has fallen and you are left
with one fewer soldier in your army
on the march towards death.

there aren't too many things you can say
to the people who pass by and
greet you on their way home from work
so you just exchange pleasantries
and pretend that is enough
for now.

pretend that you have not just watched
the sun melt down below the horizon
and the clouds sharpen in its orange glow
as if a great cat had ripped its claws
across the sky.

you cannot communicate this
without sounding mad
and so you smile tightly -
grittilly -
down another whisky
and that is enough
for now.

Inspiration from making amazing quotations
The nation's defending its life with its shields
But the swords are all rusted the kingdom's been busted
and the ******* are bathing in gold that they steal

While the people are lying their babies are crying
their rhythm is dying 'cause heartbeats are gone
But they carry it trying to stop themselves crying
as they can't do nothing but watch on and on

As the bankers get richer the poor men get poorer
the ones in the middle are learning to steal
Where before they just borrowed now they got new sorrow
but still they don't  know that they ain't down at heel

They think they are poor so they vote in the richest
just hoping the ******* will keep them in funds
While the genuine destitute lie in the street
and the taxes are funding those *****' cummerbunds

There's a baby who's crying not just 'cause she's some brat
who ain't got no ice cream she's dying of cold
Yes it happens in streets prob'ly near where you live
it isn't just something in stories of old

There are people out there in the gorbals and barrios
the projects the banlieues the hoods and the schemes
Where their lives are the ghetto there is no way out
but to hope or to rap or to wing on a dream

They ask why you ain't reading you try but it's killing you
trying to provide for a family of two
When your mother's alone lying slumped on the sofa
and work w-w-working is all you can do

When the **** do you think I'm supposed to be doing
this **** that you say I cannot live without?
If you listened to lyrics from songs you disparage
you might start to feel an iota of doubt

They're intelligent, eloquent, more so than you
with your old boy school accent and ballot box blue
Can you rap, can you rhyme, can you keep it in time
can you tell of the **** that your family's been through?

No you sit in your office and scoff at the people
who spend their whole lives in a world that is real
They don't give a **** if you judge them or not
but they just want to shout at you
FEEL, ******, FEEL

my friend did a tarot reading
and i told him that the catalyst for change
had already happened

he asked what the catalyst was
what the change would be

i told him
that i couldn't tell him one, and
that the other was just me
wandering through the woods with no map
and pretending i was still
an orienteer.

the baby next door and i sob in unison;
he because he has felt such love in his small world
and he wants it with him
all the time;
and i because my world is bigger,
and i know that there is too much world,
and too little love.

the people swarm like ants
that’s what they say, isn’t it?
but they’re not like ants
at all, really.

ants have a purpose, a structure
they scrabble across the pavement as the sun beats down
with a common goal
carrying huge leaves between them
thousands of times their weight

nor are people like wildebeest
who stampede wildly across the plains:
LIONS! RUN!
their purpose is logical
their goal is survival
but people

people swarm in great swarthy swathes
sweating their way through the summer
slipping and
shivering their way through the snow

there are so many of them, and
their goals are so individual
so complex

not for them the ingrained logical processions
not for them the sole desperate stampede away from danger
no.

they have a society
have a culture
and wrapped in the cloaks of their conforms and their norms
they slither through the daylight
take up the space around them
give no heed to how they’re filling it
or who must take it next.

it’s why i like the early mornings
and the late night times
when the world is empty
barren
silent and pure
untainted by the congestion of the day.

You wear a symbol of your religion
And I wear one of mine

But what is yours?
A representation of the torture of your Saviour
Some saviour he was
He couldn’t even save himself.

And what is mine?
Mine is variform
The woman, the moon in all her phases:
Maiden, mother, crone;
Waxing, full, waning;
Gentle and innocent, beautiful and wise,
Severe and ancient, a luminescent She.

Or is it a five-pointed star
Whose meaning is so great, runs so deep
That each point represents something
Many things:
Earth, water, fire, air, spirit

The dark of night, the glint of a blade
The roar of a fire, or perhaps an ocean
The life that rises inside me as I sit
Patiently, for I need not wait
For some saviour to revisit the world
In the guise of a man.

My salvation, my life, my soul is all around me
All I need do is not kneel
Is not pray, is not confess through a grid
To a faceless, nameless monk
Not spell out empty sayings with beads
Or contemplate the haloed face of a woman
Whose head must always be covered
To show her modesty
Her purity
Her virginity.

My god can be a temptress, or a man in the midst
Of a waterfall of pleasure
A cascade of love
For in that there is no shame.

Or she can be a ******, giddy and naive,
Or the young boy who watches her closely,
Blushing when she passes
On the road
For in that there is no shame.

She can be a mother juggling children,
Or one of those children,
Or the light of a single candle flame
For in that there is no shame.

But what she cannot be
She cannot be repressed, or tamed, or halted
(though she can be gentle)
She cannot senselessly abandon those who need her
(though she can harm if she must)

She cannot stand by and do nothing
As innocents are pillaged
Nor can she throw a grubby blanket
Over the heartless slaughter of black and white lambs.

She cannot rip at the seams of despair
Tearing them further still
Proclaiming all the time that despair
Is the only way to the great virtues.
She cannot do that
She cannot be that.

She will not be the one who extinguishes the flame
For in that there is shame.
In that there is shame.

as the plane came in to land
i believed i was descending into the very gates of hell
the mountains circling the area jutting like a devil's jaw
waiting to swallow us whole

ripping holes in the sky
clouds bleeding an unnatural red as the sun set.

in the hotel i turn off the light
and lie in the humid darkness
listening to the storm raging outside

the devils are hungry now
their stomachs yelling angrily
their eyes flashing bright across the blackness
as they hunt for their prey

and the sky cries heavy rains of grief
for its wounded victims.

I just want an imagination,
Something left to be
From which I can imaginate
A childhood fantasy.

I'd be a princess sweeping floors,
A servant in her court,
A woodland creature hunted down,
A ship without a port.

I'd be a bat, a moth, a worm,
A child without a voice
No noise, no music, no real sense,
If only I had choice.

I'd be so free, I'd fly so far
From that life which I knew
I'd show the world how one young girl
Can paint life her own hue.

I'd do these things, and many more;
I'd sacrifice my all
If only I could change the horrors
Back when I was small.

i don't want my skin to be baby soft
or smooth like a child's
i want it to crinkle at the edges
to wear the reminders
of every single time i've smiled

i don't want my hands to look young
untainted, perfectly just so
i want them to demonstrate
years of work, decades of holding
the hands of others
and cleaning up the messes of life
forging a better world

i don't want my body to be unblemished
unbroken and crater-free
i want it to be broken in places
to have scars and tiny stories
woven into its tapestry
marks that tell of the way it has stretched
and bent, and cracked open
to let the light of the world
all the way in

i don't want to look perfect
i want to look like i've lived.

Chamomile lines
In a cup filled with sorrow
As they swirl, rise and burst your eyes burn on.
Ice-blue, yet warm
As the morning in winter
Feels like I'm breathing dragons and walking through fields of silver.
Spider web catches
The rays of the sun
Rising on the horizon, is it called a horizon because of the rising?
Hawks drop and whirl
It's all so romantic
And it makes me feel sick to my stomach because I'm just a wandering girl...

You're a beast in the den
You're a wolf in the lair
You're the wood for my fire
You're the breeze in my hair

But I never asked for a den
And I wanted the lair for myself
And my fire should be burning with coal not wood.

And the breeze in my hair? Well that's just annoying
The affection you lavish on me feels like cloying
Reproaches from some kind of horrible clown
All lathered and slathered in wet eiderdown
It's leering towards me, its horrible face
Lifts into a smile, an ugly grimace

And I realise suddenly
That my mind is painting grotesque scenes
Over the beauty of the one that I love

But then how do I stop it?
How do I stop it?
How do I stop it?

You make me feel putrid
We laughed when he said that
Yet love lies niggling at my insides like a blister
That I don't want
And yet it's mine
Mine
All mine
And I want to keep it
Forever.

Two runners meet;
The lonesome path
On which they both do tread
Is shadowed by the maple trees
Which guide them in their stead.

my drama teacher told me when i was fifteen
you say ‘you’ when you mean ‘i’ if you know what i mean
she was right, she was right
what she said wasn’t a lie
she said stand up on the table
over there and close your eyes
and lean back, lean back
into their waiting hands
just do it, just do it girl, you’ve got to understand
this is life, this is drama, it’s a trust exercise
i refused, i refused to comply.

The hair falls, blonde and long:
A cherished doll. Birdsong
Echoes through the dale, as
Twilight casts its gaze and vixens wail.
Sparks driven out as spikes driven in
Places gone, things untold; people she's been.
An openness: the silky vapour
Evaporates, yet cannot escape her
Cocoa eyes, wide as the day they met.
He sees her yet. He hears her yet.
Though she says no words, casts a glance
Over her shoulder, flying askance
Ringlets quiver in the breeze,
Yet in the shadow of the trees,
No man appears. And yet she hears
A pheasant's cry: the yellowest canary
Its song a desperate scream, contrary
Muntjacs dance with target tails,
But the *****, ever hidden, wails.

i like it
when children are innocent
when dreams are plentiful
when lifelines exist

I was standing by the window,
Half-daydreaming, staring blind
Hearing winter's blustery wind blow,
Playing games inside my mind.

It had been a normal evening,
Nothing untoward occurred
Til I saw somebody leaving,
Walking by without a word.

She was dressed in summer clothing,
Nothing more than rags of grey
As the bitter darkness rode in
I could feel her deep dismay.

She looked right into my kitchen
With such deep brown staring eyes
Like she'd stepped out from some fiction
From which mystic creatures rise.

And as I looked even harder
I saw right back through her head
Wondered where this strange departer
Had a home, a life, a bed.

As I watched her disappearing,
Fading right before my gaze
I realised that her appearing
Had been but fantastic haze.

For the little non-existent
Who looked deep, with languid stare
Was in fact my mind's insistence
On creative twilight air.

A regal nose leads down to luscious lips
A tiny waist yields to imperial hips
The wasp-like figure zips past, fairy-fast
And leaves him dangling in her wake, aghast.

"Like young deer on the mountain-top" says he,
"They rise and fall as shivers come to me.
They rack my soul with conquests sweet as wine,
And raise me up to lofty heights sublime."

She smiles gently; wrens tap tiny dance
Upon her gaze, he looks and finds his trance
Her eyes as blackened hazel, all afire
With love and lust and mirrors of desire.

He reaches out his hand to touch her own
As skin grasps pastel flesh, lets out a moan
As softly she caresses him so light,
Then disappears into the dark of night.

"sturm und drang" sagt ein mann
on the train
it's snowing.

agley they gang, the best-laid plans
plus the pain
of knowing.

I lift it up, I plunge it down
And bang! There goes my childhood
Open my heart, yet make no sound
And bang! There goes my life.
I sit through life, I watch, I breathe
And bang! There goes my innocence
I turn, I spin, I help, appease
And bang! There goes my life.
I poke, I ****, I read, I write
And bang! There goes my memory
I lose my hearing, breathing, sight
And bang! There goes my life.
I touch, I tear, I bite, I kick
And bang! There go my youthful dreams
I run ‘til I make myself sick
And bang! There goes my life.
I hear the door swing back and forth
And bang! Remember vividly
A million times I’ve run this course
But bang! There goes my life.
I surrender, I wave my flag
And bang! My soul inside a box
And from the depths my self I drag
To bang! My way through life.

the sky dims dismal
over a washed-out landscape

harrowed, its holes fill furrows in the earth
and in the distance something cackles

a sound that splits the dawn
as the sun breaks over the horizon
its giant eye watchful but bleak.

a flamboyance of flamingoes and a ****** of crows
rise to the cries of battle on the moor
and nature's drums of war
beat a tattoo doomed
to eternally repeat.

and in the distance something crackles

the sun has turned to fire;
a spark
lies empty on the hollow ground
depleted of breath, it fades to ember
but then
but then

something startles it awake
the smallest of stirrings
for that is all it needs
and out of the crumbling darkness
the spark hurls itself
setting alight the expanse around it
and in the distance something burns.

She wants to wax artistic
Her audience so rapt
Are watching every movement
As something in her snaps.

She raises up the scalpel
Her canvas takes the brunt
Of artistry in temper,
Of truth she daren't confront.

Her pencil lead stabs slowly
In repetition bland
It draws out lines, it stabs out points
Misguided by her hand.

She lifts her palette higher
As red ink starts to dash
Down lines made by the pencil
On the canvas she has slashed.

She's showing her life story
For she knows no words to say
What the horrors are that taunt her,
Flaunt her, haunt her every day.

She spills a can of petrol,
She lights a tiny match
And down her canvas one last time
Her fingernails scratch.

She throws it in the fire
And she dances round the flames
Crying, screaming and repeating:
"My life story I disclaim!"

Je vois les ombres
Peut-être j’en suis
Le cœur tout sombre,
Cachée, je vis.

Mon âme s’est perdu
Mon espoir aussi
Donc sans aucune aide
Cachée, je vis.

Je chante des poèmes
Des livres je lis
Silencieusement
Cachée, je vis.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away
The number thirteen is unlucky, they say
But what do they know as they kneel, as they pray?
Very little, or so I suspect.

To know one does not is to follow a path
Down which Socrates travelled through Plato's remarks
In a dialogue 'twixt many men playing parts
In a drama we cannot reject.

The orchid expresses a *******'s tresses
He yields to a woman's flosculous caresses
Her petals wilt down as the flower undresses
With a perfume unbottled, unkempt.

The covers they rise and the muscles they twist
The lovers meet under a treacherous tryst
Yet nothing prepared for the moment they kissed
And their eyes met with love heaven-sent.

"Loco! Loco!" they bray, wanting neatness to stay
Tidied rooms, closing doors as they're lost by the way
Through which others have carried us day after day
And they're bowing, conforming to norms.

For it's hard when you're scarred to not simply be harmed
By the things that they show you when you are unarmed
By the people you see being not formed but farmed,
Staring blankly with evident scorn.

the world is hard today
but there is still

there is still a person smiling at a stranger in the street
still the trees of summer wafting in the breeze
still the light of a warm golden evening slanting through the park
still dust motes dancing in its wake
there is still

there is still the look on a child's face when it sees its first bubble pop
still the warmth of a fire, smell smoke and sound of crackling wood
still the feeling when cold, you get in a hot bath and your legs rejoice in the numb
there is still

there is still the joy of reading a passage and thinking "yes! this is me!"
still the tight hug of a friend you haven't seen in a while
still the first glimpse of an unexplored landscape from a plane window
there is still

there is still the pure lineny smell of the first ****** snow in winter
still the satisfying crunch of an autumn leaf under your shoe
still the gritty scratching of sand between toes on the beach
still the haunting melancholy howl of a wolf in the distance
there is still

there is still the way your favourite person looks at you when you walk into a room
still the beautiful moment of pregnant silence that hangs at the end of a sonata
still the feeling of diving dry into a lake and coming up wet and free
there is still

there is still, and yet
that's it really, isn't it?

there is stillness when the world creeps off
and you are left alone with stark reality in the lamplight
and then in the silent dark
there is still

there is still, and you sit motionless in it
and the world continues around you but you have retreated
and as it all falls away a voice within you screams a silent plea
and there is still.

"i shall bring you stars," she said
and she did
but the pleasure of her company
shone so bright that
it eclipsed them all.

She takes the pills
As if they will relieve
This deep ache that pervades her whole being.

Inside she wills
Herself just to believe
That she's not feeling what she is seeing.

Inside it plays
On a screen in her head
As if on a loop, over and over.

Nothing betrays
How she's feeling so dead
And the lengths to which wretchedness drove her.

grey
the sky is
the fields are sometimes, too;
it is England, after all

view upon view, an expanse of
dusty hues -
the sorts of colours you might find
locked up in an attic, unused
for years

the grey is a stillness, an unrestful quiet
that stretches out across the country
like a tapestry of disdain

we feel nothing here, because
the grey has taken it - well
has dimmed it; perhaps
it still exists somewhere
beneath the sombre sea

of colour, or a lack of it;
and i can make no sense of it, nor it
of me
because, you see
the grey pervades

it turns everything the same shade,
and impossible to pick out hues
it blends in one
leaving but an impression
of a world no longer clear

yet artists, poets, lovers and children still hope
and they stare expecting to suddenly see a sunburst of colour
across the grey.

i loved you
with everything that i was, but
that was the problem:
there was nothing of me left
to be my self.

first of all the school closed
for a little while, just a few days
as if in solidarity
but actually in fear
along with all the other schools around it
great hulking buildings cowering silently
behind meagre security systems.

when we went back we couldn't get in
we had to have passes
be buzzed in at the door like strangers
while a fish-eyed camera lens glared at us
metallic, stark, judgmental.

then the drills began.
lessons suddenly interrupted
taken over by escape procedures and gas masks
why were there gas masks?
i don't know.

we, as children,
were taught how to hide
how to cower under our desks
how to build ourselves into corners -
how a triangle is the strongest shape
(i tried this once,
a few months later,
in a different situation.
it didn't work.)

the drill would sound, horrendously loud
a bell screaming at us
hysterical, panicking
but we must remain calm
remain calm, the teachers said
get under your desks
or something stronger if you can
build yourself a fortress
don't try to be heroic.

our friends died in that massacre
and other people did yesterday
over the sea (ande bari pani)
and i cannot stop thinking about them.

i can't say i know how it feels,
because everyone reacts differently
in situations
like this.

but i have been closer than most
to this particular fire
to the feeling of ragged helplessness
as you stand at the sideline,
praying that the next person to stop drawing breath
is not one you know.

these thoughts haunt you later:
how can i be so selfish, you ask yourself
what could possibly make it ok
for someone else's loved one to die
as long as their path had not crossed my own?

tonight i sit
huddled over a notebook
crouched on the edge of my bed
as this gnawing physical ache
pierces further into my stomach.

i stay here in the silence,
try to write,
because i need to get out
what i'm thinking about
but there is no way,
not really.

no way that i can adequately tell
of the horror
the realisation of what has happened
that these awful things that you see in the movies
can also be real.
no way that i can eloquently speak
about the look on a mother's face
as she discovers that her child is gone.
"it's the wrong way round!" she'll scream later,
"it should have been me first!"
but for now she just crumples
her face folding within itself
her mouth collapsing in a silent scream,
she drains grey.

no way that i can really speak
of what i actually want to say
and so instead
i say simply:that

my thoughts are in connecticut
there are no words for this.

every other time
i have defined myself by aiming at what i want to be
and then moving towards that.
i have sketched definitions in murky biro
on rumpled pages of my notebooks
and then taken my aim.
i have written long-winded histories
describing the stories i want to unfold
the way i would want others to speak
as they told the story of how i was when i walked in.
i have used evocative words:
"creator" "badass" "gypsy"
to describe what i am, in some cases -
my race and the race
that i run, but also
the way that i want to be, and the navigation of
the path that i want to find.
but now there is no defining
no definition will do
because this is not me sculpting myself again
out of lumps of clay that i pushed back last time
and now am causing to reform.
i'm not even made of clay anymore;
i am not malleable, but stripped raw -
pulled down to the most basic of essences,
and yet i do not know
what that is.
perhaps in time i'll find out,
but for the moment
i don't even know how to try.

Perforations on a notebook,
Variations on a theme
Accusations in her writing,
Bad sensations in her dream.

Keeping up her outer image,
Dressing down her deep turmoil
Showing up for work and home life,
Damping down the blood that boils.

Inventory of her lifetime
Crooked story, twisted prose
Imagery of her writing,
Stationary English rose.

Holding still for family portrait
Holding fast to moral code,
Trying still to uphold values,
Thinking faster than she knows.

Ever trying, always failing,
All the while succeeding, yet
Ever after, all her chances
Always bring her past regrets

To the surface ever higher
To the eyes that burn with tears -
To the past her back is turned now,
Face to the future's outstretched years.

It's OK, the sea is here.
Yes I know she raised the cup skywards
In a menacing toast
Of the blood that will undoubtedly be spilled.

I know she had claws
On the ends of her probing fingers
Sheathed in shiny blue.

I know the cotton was not soft
That white does not mean innocence
That even seasoned She would be surprised
But it's OK, the sea is here.

I know that when the sun rises in the morning
It rises not with you, not before you
But after you.

I know you are awoken
By lacy pillows and fishnets and flying horses
And tendrils spilling from the wall.
But it's OK, the sea is here.

I know you watch the children playing at its edge
Not with the vigilance of a mother
Not with the wistfulness of a virile maiden
Not with an air of kindred playfulness
But with a dank knowledge of what life can be
A deep sadness, a nostalgia for something never had
Or had too much.

I know you long to sit on windowsills
Bathed in blue shadow, and watch
The man across the garden
Who always turns his light on
At exactly
10.33.

I know you watch the ship drawing closer to the horizon
And think of your driftwood wand.

I know how you long to wade into the waves
Bury your feet in mounds of beach stones
And stand there for all eternity.
I know you know you won't.

You know you'll stand up,
Turn your back to the wind for the moment
And head east.

I know you'll feel its pull
Especially on the full moon
And sometimes you'll come, but mostly you won't.

But in those moments when it catches you
Unawares
In the kitchen, a scent
In the bedroom, a noise
In the living room, a movement
In those moments, remind yourself
That it's OK, the sea is here.