I sit and try and be a lotus
after killing the third fly of the evening
with a pocket book of recipes and a
thirty centimetre ruler stolen
from bathroom **** measuring contests to our knees.

Young professionals tread these boards
and I watch, trying to paint them lotus.

I listen and learn like I was told to do
then clock watch, mop, cycle home to you;
I am still trying to be a lotus
even in wet shoes and no socks.

With less than five-hundred pounds to my various names,
an office-chair-***-clothes-horse, eight USB charging ports
and a future that stretches to Sunday’s last reluctant second,
I am sitting, trying to be lotus figuring out the professional path
David Attenborough heard in his gentleman’s class: that son of a-

- I walked into an army recruitment vault with dreams of being Gulliver,
though was asked to leave out the cat flap cathedral door back into war
as they’d got their laugh and didn’t applaud.

Perhaps I should’ve been better at maths
where apparently a career can be predicted on a scatter graph,
and the pigeons of today were the pigeons of next year and the months that’ll follow the century after that.

I am still trying to figure out the hoo-ha of *******
and ring fingers and collar sizes and the inner circles
of hyenas when the winter solstice splits the seasons.

There is no reason for this lotus procrastination
when what’s there to live for but a crooked world
and one bandage left.

Along with the last moment to complete any homework,
one was instructed to etch name, number and form
upon the tag that lurked within the rim of each new polo shirt,
every pair of trousers and that stretched, sleeved jumper
(better than any other in the house that were just the same).
Without those legal details properly stated you’d run the risk of losing them to lost property,
that orchestrated tub, dead sea stench, of pre-pubescent potpourri.

Now, all we wear is the earned income of a bestowed cognomen
and it embellishes the backs of our necks
and we mustn’t forget it’s all we have;
that, and our teachers.

Were we not once love stood in abbey shadow and sun,
were we not once lovers at the top of bowling alleys
holding, having fun?

As you showered, I
bathed in the oeuvre of your
aura opposite,
thought of
midnight scrambled eggs
     then bed
and the coffee to keep it company.

It’s then we woke
to the Sunday cacophony of avocados on post,
head to the second supplement in
to learn of the best twelve coasts where good lovers go to live,
where good lovers go to hide and give,
where good love exists.

If only the car wasn’t broken:
second hand, forecourt pile of ****.

Determined to have left by half-eight,
cats fed and plates away,
they were late.

This raconteur of the recce,
part time life model to Rosetti (among others)
had corralled cagoules onto arms,
thrown shoes their way, warmed up the car,
had marched across driveways, crossings, marshlands to playgrounds
and so far had lost none.

This was him without coffee, a fifth of his repertoire,
and they weren’t even his sons.

She clung to his waist as if the last fisherman pitched around a lake.
She was not gonna let go until evening
fell,
until they’d made their hotel;
eyes on the autobahn ahead.

They'd once trickled into terraced tributaries hankering after hidden
held waists on corners, continuously,
as they learnt of not letting go,
kept the sense of cologne pecked necks,
fuliginous chimney pots
and the fume of hollowed out leaves on rain soaked trees
stacked next to each other on the latent apothecary's patent leather shelf,
safe in the old factory of a shell.

Their single cylinder sang along the road,
and she did not hear him singing.

I dreamt of travel disruption last night
and haven’t woken up since; know that though,
a whole ****** of crows hidden along
the hemline of a coat was not the
reason I was late, nor were black stamps spat
out through mirrored windows, panes unmoored from
frames in the wake of two late goodbyes: one
said at a check-in desk disguised as point
A; the second, central, wrapped around an
orbit of children where they now lay.

This news- again, it is news- is an air-
bag of ears, of interviews, listening
so we don't have to, colouring pallor
in post so the ghosts of aftermath do
not go unnoticed when we believe it
may not of have happened.

I'm going to buy out the sky right of
tragedy and skywrite,
                                     vandals of companionship are not tolerated below this message, or above.

A fortnight ago an Algerian masseuse anointed each note of my joints,
spread thumbed cursive over my shoulders and
back around to my chest;
she spelt out how I'd be shivering now knowing you were leaving.
And last week you led me to an acupuncturist where he said,
Rob Frost had quit his job on point duty to become a receptionist instead.
I knew it was ******* by the way you barked in the background.
I knew it was wrong from the rumble through the stud wall,
sound of timpani, of gusto's drawl ringing in my ears:
the resonance of windfall if saved 'in the best ISA for years!'
This has been the best February since records began
and I thank you for being a friend.

One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.

You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).

I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next       in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.

Take your ******* fedora off you are not a Jones.
Kid, leave the captain's hat on, gods know you're going it need now,
those waves are knee dip and those rip-tides drag:
lay flat across the hull in dreams of concrete and something a little more stable
until someone takes over,
guides you back home to the lit terraces,
glowing apartment advent calendar,
lighthouses of cushions
and the sofa just how you left it.

Within simple pleasures sleep intricate tasks,
curled up dogs at the foot of fires:
someone please tell them their Dalmatian died whilst they were on holiday,
he was
below
the radiator in the spare playground.
Am I a weak man? it asked the black marble glare of the corner skirting board joint.
Am I meant to feel like that gasp after a slow kiss? that come back for more
               Godfather Part Two again,
               Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,
               rumble string of motorcycle parade through tarmac and your core
               sat crossed legged on any first school floor.
AM morning calls to vets,
stumble for words and
over the abbreviations,
the IAADP have got your back in case Gandalf ever witnesses your blinding,
forever led forth by a lead and little more faith in something worth confessing over.

Love is a tango
it's too hot to handle,
someone sang in a spontaneous smoking area
spawned from a spare terracotta *** and someone asking for help once,
so nervous their knees quaked,
slow down reigns not effective once their BPM was past 200 whatever
Jeremy Clarkson was screaming that week,
but their eyes,
they were knocking down walls with toffee hammers,
scattering chunks under werthy wooden horses,
rubbing sweet stud wall shards into coarse prison gravel with waiting soles,
whistling so not to give the game away.
Escape now back to a Lowell of an old park bench,
dig through **** and pipelines of earth for
canons of authors stacked high in front of you,
you awfully well bled individual,
the wounds from those words about to heal
all the slips you fell into
dragged yourself out of,
clawed back your fedora through more doorways than you can
remember: it always gets you into trouble.
Kid, one thing at once.

Somebody put Kylie Minogue on
from the wall mounted touchscreen one-pound-a-go jukebox-
Coldplay would've been better, but I should be so lucky-
and the rising water in the Titanic's engine room of noise
rose to a First Class stateroom chatter and Kate Winslet
and the queue to the bar grew a little longer

and then
you
walked
in
like
a
Sunday
morning
walk,

one long stroll by a river edge or lake side,
through a Westfield, Bluewater Meadowhall
in one long rehearsed map move entrance
dodging standing drinkers and their plus ones in Zara trench coats and Boden shawls,
and you left a wake of wet forest and crumbling beachhead afternoons behind you as you
walked
on
through
the
crowd
to the pool table at the back where you watched
*** after ***
after pint
after ***
after we need more one pound coins to play more pool,
and you went out for **** though you don't smoke yourself
and you looked up into the mist because you're the kind that would find New York Stuart Little big:
mostly building, building, building, window, balcony, bridge, statue and Central Park trees,
and you walked back in with river eyes, your lids moving from cold back to behind-the-fridge, pub-room warm
and they watered a little, Pacific blue sliding over eternal black;
I think she's the kind that needs a lion tamer not an orchestra leader,
but I've only got Petit Filous muscles and I had four raw eggs this morning and I'm still not as strong as I’d like to be,
(put the baton down, Tim)
a River Phoenix younger Harrison Ford stasis, one train wreck ride to remember,
nowhere near the lion tamer you need.

Kylie sings for the fifteenth time in a row,
and the bar is past last orders though cash is pushed under for pints
and you disappeared under bar light
and then into the moonlight
and now I'm sat grieving
the Golden Retriever of The Nutshell
in Bury St Edmunds this evening.

we stared at it for a good five minutes,
children around a rope swing body too afraid of the drop, so he jumped.
One of us poked at it, jabbed it 'til its petals fell off:
thrown flowers from the overpass above,
lightly dropped, not a touchdown distance here,
well,
whoever misplaced them was distant, over horizon line, past Joey joke,
they were stumbling upon well written blurbs of people
rendering all reading pointless, we're all the same, these flowers don't matter,
or they'd seen their other tired and said
please hide your luggage, dear, it's slowing us down
then stormed out and off, flowers in tow, Elizabeth's got her Way, let's leave everything here.

For this show of all things cute and affordable from Clintons
was an IMAX, Nolan Cameron's *** crack screen-shot of despair,
another pop at the small guy
kick him whilst he's up,
don't let that year 2000 pip of pulp sitting hammock in his stomach fool you,
that's perfectly normal,
carry on,
a meal for one in a **** themed restaurant,
this evening's more pointless than a mortgage on a salami,
sharpie on whale skin, what's the point in that,
probably something.

We weren't a we, but we should've been,
that would've been fun, something to talk about later on.

My tummy stood still; a statue of a stomach that paused as she passed by
to get into the used bookshop line to pay for her basket of titles and authors I'd
no idea existed, but I'd be willing to learn and read and not breathe until I had
enlisted the use of Wikipedia to find out a one fact about each of them so to break the ice
and breach that border of conversation, because I'd want to tell her in some Woody Allen
way that her eyes were nice and that Cambridge could be ours tonight if she wanted to.

This body is a poor man's idea of grandeur-
and Talk To Frank says that confidence doesn't come in tubes,
pills nor injections, but when tomorrow morning you
feel like **** with a stomach-pit of methylamphetamine
and a head craving caffeine,
you'll disagree and say to him,

*Look, I talked to a girl I wouldn't normally talk to and we kissed.

You've bruises on your thighs,
both sides of skin beat and red.
If this is how he says hello to you
then maybe it's time leave, or is
it time to relieve yourself with
hits and smacks and colourful
comic-book thwacks back so his
****** nose can complement those
he gave you that time in spring.

Take your glass slippers and be
one of those girls in red dresses;
dance, twist, and twirl as well as
the rest of them, churn up that
dance floor ring and take time
out for more drinks, rehydrate
before looking for another long-
term date to be a tactile touch-er
with, another involved and committed
lover.

Take note from the pint husbands
and their half-pint wives around you,
pen a note to yourself for the future
beginning with,
Listen,
then moving swiftly on with,
If you find another man that hits
before he kisses you than you've picked wrong,
ending with,
*You've plenty of time left, stay strong.

Beach, hotel,
One Direction and Bach.

Train ride, taxi connection,
Beer and other-language, confused information.

3 week realities and forgotten home-life mysteries,
Cat to feed, fridge to fill, neighbours to be neighbourly with.

You're a hardback book:
the coffee table photography type that
sits awaiting the agreeable eyes
of someone who likes what is inside.

Can I fall through into your black and white world
and stay there warm until the history books
catch up with me?

Because if I don't I fear I'll forget your face
and if you're ever on a shelf, with a Waterstones
recommendation below, and I fail to notice you
how can I ever learn again?

It's too cold to sweat
and I'm only cycling for a reason to be tired,
to be warm later on by the radiator fire,
to escape mad house choirs
that sing no song of comfort.

Time away from time
is how the modern stay young,
ski run routes that lead around towns
and back again through the Daily Mail nowhere-snow
that never came nor will ever come.

The rain makes your
veins look like
dark black bra straps
underneath a veil of Topshop sale items-
the bangles were bought elsewhere.
Though it's not their size that worry me,
it's what look lives within your eyes
every time you run a finger up your arm
and back down your arm again;
the charm in your slightly curling autumn leafed smile
curls a little more, turning smooth lakeside skin
into Nile-esturay wrinkles that say save me Tim.

Your red delta cheeks pulsate
in the late afternoon sun coming in on
a diagonal through the newly installed,
doesn't quite close properly, velux window;
you ran through fields only
to end up teary eyed in the kitchen
doorway threshold.

But here, here is where your river 
meets my sea, and turbulent tides
swell up to ferry us away to new coastline
continents:
forget we ever swimmed and swam,
poured sand from our shoes,
held hands and ran, and
forget we held hips on train station steps,
shared lips, left and then hid.

*When you see this you'll know it's an apology

World traveller.
Suit wearer.
Likes The Shawshank Redemption.

He's off to a singles party
somewhere in Doncaster,
it’s Christmas themed
and fancy dress
though it’s
planned for October the 23rd
during Christmas's only rest.

And I know that in Donny
you find love where you can,
and I know he spent hours
revising his master plan fancy dress idea,
but a raw turkey outfit, coloured
like **** semolina once bought
for a Jamie recipe that didn’t quite work,
won’t cut it on the dance floor.

Before I hide myself away
for another night awake,
I'll look up between letterbox gaps in the broken blind
to see the moon shift six degrees southeasterly and think that
in the next seven hours soft eleven light will leak through as
an alarm-clock-call no one asked for.

Before I walk out the door
for another day of yesterday,
I'll look for the wind coming down the road
to ask it if it's bringing me something new on its coattails.
Ikebana dalliance?
A chance blur with her?
Or something old and the same as before?

Creased lines in your cancer bed sheets
and red wine spills still remain
from that time you celebrated
your chemotherapy success.

Drug-blue cocktails were swapped
for beers from cans,
needles for straws and hospital-stock-
comfortable-armchairs for the advertised sofa in your part furnished floor.

Friends came with warm welcomes prepared
in the back of taxis coming from the city,
they came in wide eyed staring,
holding wine bottles remembering your once real wig of hair.

The car showroom warehouse unit has turned into a gym overnight.
Low lit lights
highlight the out-of-work-early
joggers and the two step, bought-a-new-ipod-for-this-run, sweaty runners.

Framed central in the glass,
they bounce on mountain passes
over Swiss clear rivers and
around back through
obscure European cities,
all whilst on the spot listening
to Radio 4 podcasts from the week before.

Low cut tops offer no support for the weary
and the lifting gloves of the man
at the back are fingerless and ripped,
unlike his overweight torso, though
his BMW makes him believe that
this warehouse unit on the outskirts of
Huddersfield is the Venice beach of the North.

another midnight I've seen this week:
bed times have gone from books and milk
and slightly ajar doors,
to long slogs far into the early morning hours-

-did I, did I try too hard to hold your hand?
If so I didn't mean to,
maybe the excitement of being held again
made my squeeze a little too much.

-

another morning afternoon I've seen this week:
primary education routines of get dressed
and ready for school have been lost to
fading light showers and foaming shampoos-

-did I, did I not follow the Curtis rules?
Should I run a bookshop? Be late time and time again?
Runaway to the continent and write a novel no one wants?
Lose a wife and fall for a model?

if so, I'm sorry I'm not that.

we met in Mexico,
slept rough in the back;
the seats folded down levelled out
and tacked down with two springs

we went by cities
not knowing their names;
stopped at payphone kiosks
shamed our pasts with left messages on answering machines

we stopped at toll booths,
paid for more road to play on,
to drive over smooth,
to cross another border before the noon

we deciphered restaurant menus,
ate with fingers crossed and hoped
the chicken was just that,
left a tip lost in another used ash tray

we wore sun cream
to screen us against the rays
and the glare reflecting
off the mineral water, natural bays

we walked up to bars
asked for drinks in cold bottles,
sipped and supped until kisses rolled out,
left holding hands like mannequin models

we kept the trip a secret,
kept it secure between you and me
and the folds in the bed sheets,
we only exist in hotel cheap suites.

for Beginners*

imagine a disposable razor
on the oldest face you know,
deteriorated and dropped,
the sun's shadow in the cropped crowd

               we forget he's there sometimes, they'll say.
               he always shaves on a Sunday, they'll pray.
               the dog died not long back, some'll whisper.

imagine a week's worth of beard
down a plug hole, some bits black
some bits gray,
some bits there 'cos he pressed a little hard that day

                              we forgot he was there, they'll say.
                              he always shaved on a Sunday, they'll pray.
                              only a week ago he went, some'll whisper.

imagine no one holding your hand
down the stairs, across the road, into
cheap 24 hour corner shops,
imagine no one holding your hand when it matters,

                                               or mattered.

Decorations are up
hung from fishing wire,
fishing for good luck.

There’s Christmas on her neck
and as she stretches out in front of me
a wake of cinnamon decks the halls.

It remains and lingers,
falls away past nostrils and
turns to festive well-wishes.

The market is in full swing
wrapped up tight in large scarves,
like a low cut sling cradling the cold.

Winter has the streets in its hold,
the wind is sour, bitter to taste,
and punters, commuters, Asian lost-tourists walk in haste.

Shop floors are warmed by radiators
hung above their wide open doors:
let the heat out, let the customers in.

And when the mid-November light dims
and the council gets past the
everlasting electrical admin,

streetlamp sticks will light and spark,
sending effulgent embers down onto
the Cambridge cobbles.

Children will peer wide eyed into windows
remembering names for their lists,
hoping to unwrap them as gifts later on down the line.

Adults, some probable parents and others newly-wed together,
enjoy the festivities, the weather, the bespoke crafts
bought from Argos sold as Handmade Swedish Chairs

And do they care? No.
It’s Christmas in Cambridge and
winter is settling in.

The evergreen edges of the newly cut
box hedge border look greener now
with its cleaner lines and stronger bark-spines;
the train's in an hour so pack up and go,
leave Christmas where it is,
leave Christmas at home.

Un-sent Christmas lists sit in the flue still,
they never got delivered and never got through,
houses stand with their lights on up the hill,
they blink and sparkle and blaze and gaze at the night
with competition, cheap goodwill.

Then there's the the nurses in blue
who always knew that we knew
that the news wasn't good.

Then there's the patient, whom jaundice
is rolling the dice for them,
sat still, long and thin
in a bed pinned to the ward
like a to do list on a cork board,
but the only job for it to do
is wait to fill out the paper work.

Then there's the family in black
who always sat back when
the funeral guidance guy visited with his hardback leather-bound funeral pack.

Then there's the sight of my father's eyes so red,
my sister's cheeks swelling up like that and
witnessing my mother bind a broken book back together again.

she'll walk off
and you'll walk behind,
you feel like a man
and see everything in soft focus exposure
and her walking ahead, timid and feeling triumphant.
this was your first kiss
and not your last kiss
but your most important kiss;
the foundation kiss,
the scaffold kiss,
cathedral columns holding up the whispering gallery of this kiss.

or did you walk off
and she walked behind,
did she feel like a woman,
soft, warm, and kind seeing everything is a hard focus exposure?
that was her second kiss,
not her last kiss
and not her most important kiss;
it was a mill stone kiss,
a grist lipped ground-down-again kiss,
a motel-hotel-roadside chapel of cheap kisses kiss.

Hook the loops of your bag
between your forearm crease,
let it swing not lag
whilst you walk to see your niece.

Your nephew is ill in hospital,
your parents too ill to help out,
your sister is depressed, it's postnatal,
and you've been there from the beginning, throughout.

Those aren't tears, but the effects of the wind
while you walk nervous to see.
******* in your cold coat you’ve thinned,
but no one will notice nor disagree.

As you’re there to help, encourage with wise words,
short bursts of helpful blurbs will
satisfy your sister just enough
for her to get through.

24 hours a day for the rest of our time together,
we'll walk with glutton in our shoes
walking with weight on our backs
covering distances only known in novels.

They'll get us you know,
those men selling cigarettes out of
office blocks, down that block there-
it's 62nd street and they never clock off.

What windows see aren't what we see.
Windows hear and feel and
we see and never heal;
we hold wounds like flowers bought
in hospital foyers, late to see a relative.

Buy ones and get some free:
it's a ploy so we spend that little bit more
than we need to.

train lines scar them,
the trees decorate them,
slip a red watch around your wrist to hide them
in the commuter rush,
the office dash,
to wet-sidewalk-up-leg rain splash;
she's lost in the swell of New York City
with red wrists, a scissor's nettle rash,
and she'll sleep alone tonight.

The air-con overhead
drowns out, not enough,
the couple on a date
next to me. His jeans have gathered fluff,
dried in a dryer, crinkled and in-a-rush.
Her shoes are clean though under the table
he doesn’t, and will not, notice,
the closest he’ll come to seeing them is
maybe on a bedroom floor in a month
or maybe two, maybe more if this coffee
date goes askew,
but for time being they gaze, stare
at one another whilst talking:
his plan is to set up an online outreach program,
take the money and run,
hers, to stay in education, an MA
in Creation Research, read and wait,
sit for Judgement Day.

Whatever is coming out from the chimneys
is catching the light in the distance,
it trails across the auburn tree tops that are
shedding autumn and getting ready for
the already-here winter,
then flails and falls down.

The train carries on
as does the couple next to me,
they're on about
what they've done and achieved in Leeds
throughout the day;
they paid for a first class carriage
but ended up in carriage C next to me.

Warmth is a jumper,
a knitted, sewn and cross stitched bunker
in which we exist and sweat in, let out sighs of
I am okay or  I'm always this upset,
and behind those patterns we see the world
through a window the size of a pea, an out-of-focus
key hole where we can watch and wait
and be warm in the thought that
we've no work tomorrow.

Warmth is a blanket on a bed,
a mass produced widespread piece of material
in which we can dive under and have serial sleeps
that carry on into the evening;
and the light coming in through the wide window
hits the Hiroshima shadow-damp on the side wall
making it dance with the commuting-home-traffic.

Market square died down this afternoon,
the day of trading over and over all too soon;
and the now the trolleys have been left out,
lights left on waiting for those customers to come again.

They'll hurry into their jumpers the traders and customers of tomorrow,
weather'll kick up and run up the coast in a rainy fuss.

Temporary clad walls that are there all year round
are dressed up from the ground every day, tied at the ear
of the frames that hang over corridor of cobbles,
scuffed with the muck from Armani plimsolls
and the heels of this week's Alexander McQueens.

*When the rain comes trading will cease and
they'll flick out their notepads to calculate this month's lease.

The Cam passes through
behind a chain hotel belonging to the Hilton
with its lights always on, a 24 hour midnight sun,
that lasts all day until a power cut comes along
and covers bedroom maids, halfway through a job,
in complete silence.

And home I go, slight lightening in the distance and
the road remains long, bending only once
and carrying on straight thereafter
mounting another road heading south until it meets no more ground,
except a bridge over a mouth of a river leading
to somewhere safer than here ever was.

My coat's corners misses your hand
and no expanse of green, mountainous land
could ever be sold or swapped for it.