Desert wasteland duvet cover expanse,
light filled from the open curtain above.

Desert wasteland bedroom floor dunes,
filled with clothes from the night before.

Desert wasteland wardrobe cave,
emptied in an attempt to look good.

Desert wasteland kitchen cupboard,
void of food and healthy sustenance.

Desert wasteland cup of tea,
reminding me of home, not of my degree.

Desert wasteland life,
make a to-do list and get on with it.

No one feels more alone when feeling alone in another darkened hometown.*

He went and wandered,
kerb crawled and begged,
asked for four quid
then left when he got it, though
two pounds less than he wanted;
away, away, away, away, away,
away he’ll go again,
vagabond turned drifter,
God talking, kneel praying, church attending, Amen.

When the already sirens
start up, wind up,
swing around merrily in their
egg shell cups upon and above
the panda-car-cop,
he’ll wake to wander again
until the day his body flails
and gives in, drops to the floor
in a melodramatic stop.

For this forever New York,
with its high rise chimney tops
and siren's scare,
is no place to sleep without
a home to go home too.

You don't know what you want
nor know what you'll become;
but in the years that'll drum on
you won't know what you'll have
before it's upped and gone.

Let palms and backs of hands
burn with pain, the wound of the twine.
Keep your kite from landing within the lambs,
break you back, but not your spine.

For your ambition is an anchor
in the deepest of seas;
it'll reel on down through the
breeze, past the knees,
collecting and acclimatising,
running towards your needs.

But only are they realised
when you're down on your luck
struggling to breathe.
No longer are you dynamic and living,
but a soul sat down
quietly remembering.

So keep your kite close
to your heart
and that anchor in the sea,
for no one knows what you'll become,
nor where you'll end up and leave.

She denied the note
with a wave of her hand,
a harsh slice of the independent woman,
right there next to the bookshop stand.

I could tell, you could tell,
the whole ******* shop could tell
that this couple was very much in love.
It was the constant kisses on cheeks and
that rubbing of the palms with thumbs,
that gave their game away.

Tucked beneath wet raincoat pit,
a brochure protruded and hit
every close contact enemy.
It was a bible of new houses;
psalms of yet-to-be-wet-feet-on-new-lino-floors,
prayers of neutral-coloured-baby-room walls,
proverbs of shall-we-frame-this-poster-or-just-BluTac-it-up-and-hope-for-the-­best?.

They left the shop back into the rain
to the sound of several sighs,
thank goodness for the gray
dangerous clouds of the sky.

Dear warmth,

May you rub your back against my shoulder
‘til the windows mist with condensation,
and we fall back into youth, hiding
away from the older.

May your temperature, rising to the point
of red cheek puncture, provide an oasis
under the sand of duvet’s cover.

May your hair whip around like every
flame I’ve ever seen, no agenda or judgement,
just sheer ecstasy and  excitement.

May you conjure up that lone shower feeling,
that one where for a brief slot in time everything
you know and have become floats away through
that extractor fan, out into the air- climbing higher.

May you provide that gasp of heat that
hits the cook in the face, after opening the oven’s
gate in hunger and haste.

May you be that holiday sun I always seek.

May you be the metal womb of  a car when
outside in the myriad hospital world
where it’s cold.

May you be humorous and humid and
totally lovely to be with.

May you be a heated conversation and argument
and disagreement, that torment of words
I need to hear.

May you be my laugh that bubbles up
from the volcano underneath.

May you be the heat caused by key
and lock, that one that stops
others from coming in and making
for ruin.

May you be that first sip of  ‘the
most civilised thing in the world’, as
Hemmingway put it, and let it ignite
a dance below.

May you not judge the mixture
of my grape and grain, and my love
for walking in the rain and my waiting for
ex-girlfriends every time they call.

May you always let me bed down
in that manger in the snug, though
Steve doesn’t know I borrowed his
blanket rug.

May you forever toast that bread
at midnight, just before bed.

Yours faithfully,
The Cold.