It’s winter
and the radiators make for hot summer bedrooms,
fake heat for a false season,
high humid air in the canopy,
a western, British, Tunisian bazaar.

But outside the window frame into
the rooftop mouth
of chimney teeth and foggy breath,
a pair of speckled starlings,
with deep coffee eyes and rings
of white for plumage decoration,
nest in the wound of this building.

Surely if they migrate,
to warmer climates, past
the Spanish-African gate, they’d
be able to bask in the dawn desert
sun that’ll drift slowly overhead,
raise their young their instead.
I’d like to migrate too,
leave this town for
somewhere new.

Last night I danced like my dad
with a girl who resembled a dictionary definition
I read not long back-
charming.

Graceful eyes that could
stop traffic with a blink,
and engaging lips that
would smile to sooth the pain of
the midday, gotta-get-back-home-now,
commuters whom step
on pedals with haste.

I lied. My dad can’t dance, so last
night I made a fool of myself
in front of a girl who resembled
a dictionary definition I read not
long back.

Children are walking in flour again,
though these grains are the symptoms
and the symptom is pain.
Resting upon donated metal table,
this child is lifeless with only a label
around his ankle for identification.
Part time doctors and full time others
walk and pace and cry and panic around the mother,
lifeless, with a document for identification.

This is malaria.
This is infant death.
This is an epidemic of hysteria.

I did not kiss anybody last night,
yet my body-
from the lips down-
thinks I did.

Clad in a cotton armour,
like a pitch again tent
in a miserable northern monsoon;
the chest is protected from the disappointment,
the ribs are protected from the disappointment,
as for the heart, that’s the one that gets drenched
in drops of distress-
for it is the one ***** that gets played
by the hand of the female chess player;
knowing and knowledgeable, out to get
your king for only profitable stings
and club-night-pictures-check-the-website-for-more-details,
kisses.

And we carried that mattress
as if it was coffin;
high above our heads
so the stench of cat ****
would travel down to another
Sunday-night northern family,
probably watching some ****.

Don't think there's a lot of this
going on regularly,
but when your cat has bladder problems
it's best to get on with it.

Which do you prefer, Haunted Girl-
the city street sidewalk churned
up by heel and brogue
or,
the sweet-talk waves of home?

Settle in the sand while fingers
meld and touch the palms of hands,
let the hour glass beach pass
time between our toes,
have an appetite for shallow
dives amongst wave-tip whites;
whipped up by swell’s whisk,
stare until we sing for the dead men,
fire flares of affection in the form of kisses!
use a tool to sketch our future floor plan,
comment upon the Moroccan oil hair tan,
watch that man trace the coast of France upon his wife’s thigh;
hear her cry as he reaches Cherbourg,
talk of Vienna flagship stores:
forerunner fashion you make look lace,
mention the trees and the shipwrecks,
past relationship breakups and upcoming commitments,
describe, in detail, what you hope to happen
and what happens to that hope.

Fly back home.

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.

Scribbled in a pre-*** haste
of hormones and awful
music taste,
your name on the back of a receipt
is no way to treat
a one night stand
that you met at the bar;
held hands with in the street;
and subsequently left when
the night became light and neat,
tidied up in a 10am alarm clock
call.

Could’ve waited until
we were both awake,
that way the alcohol would’ve warn off
and we could take this major issue
for what it was-
excitement;
and much anticipation; and placing into
action every lesson learnt from Nick Hornby books,
or pieces of information tucked
deep within our internet bookmark lists.

At least stay until after
Desert Island Discs
next time,
because then buses shall be running
on time, and you won’t have to risk
the public transport roulette table
that spins around this town,
this great noun in the Anglia east.

Now it's the news, and the news
is you've gone.  For a moment
I slipped back into a sleepy cement,
making for rough fingers-
that last night made the ascent
up to warmer climates.

And now back to lonelier nights
and Nick Hornby books,
afternoon wake-up calls
from Mum, back home,
asking how to download
the latest Google Chrome.

Over staffed and under fed
Spanish waiters
rush around with
waistcoats of wisdom
wearing black shoes
of sordid shift-work soles.

They greet and speak to every new
tourist, and regular, as if a
brother, sister, mother, second-cousin-twice-removed
stepmother, yet really they are:

the ephemeral fodder of the
cheap, low-cost-airline,

the flash and it’s gone spine of most cities
on the map,

the ‘Sorry, I left it in a Barcelona Café, could I get it back on insurance?’
baseball cap, that most sightseer marionettes wear, back to front,

the standing in line, waiting to complain,
tourists that know nothing of decorum.

So the Spanish waiter served me my coffee
and whispered in my ear,
‘Disfrutar de su día senor’,
that was,
'Enjoy your day Sir’.

She was a dancer,
caught off beat
by a neat little stranger lurking
in the body of the womb,
where once she strayed from danger,
within a motherly costume.

After show drinks, stage
& waits in the green room,
were pipe dreams for this
Mum without a groom.
Yet still, and continuing so,
she provides for two girls,
her blonde Monroe's; be that lifts
to school or another
big shop so the nonstop
keeps from turning blue.

But how up North can you keep from the cold,
when constant frost creates the vignette
to the serviette snow out there?
Cheap beans and even cheaper bread
won't make that meal you read and said to be good,
any better than it is.
But a text, fax, pigeon post fast, to your Mum back home
wipes clean these thoughts of being alone
and underfed,
and instead; restores your faith in everything
and anything you may do in the future,
and what you said-

to me once on that walk;
will stick with me until we next talk
or, maybe quite possibly, drink
until glasses are empty and
the wine bottles clink.

*for the Carters

Tried to decipher
what this couple was
and who they were.

Husband and wife
on an anniversary night?

Girlfriend, boyfriend,
on a first date trend?

Paid woman of the evening,
drinking his cocktails, ignoring his ring?

Well here are the facts,
the things that matter:
she had red hair to match her skirt,
skin coloured boots
(the height of the lights)
that blended in,
smudged in with
her thin skin-tight tights.

We could tuck ourselves in a crevice,
between a wall
and view the stones
for what they really are.

Let the light loom over us,
shade us from the heat;
The warmth of a halogen bulb
highlighting the street.

And it’s there we’d kiss,
and spark cigarettes,
and forget why we came here,
and let no one in, let alone near,
and we’d have a private joke,
like small font liner notes,
and for that two minutes,
(more work for the coffee mule)
we would overlook the important
stuff, for
that’s what it is,
another 70, at best, years
of toil and fluff.

*This tableaux love affair
will be omitted in years to come,
filed under the ‘lusts that resulted in
no fun, that night’ folder
in the great green cabinet of bills,
bills, bills again invoices.

A leer leapt across his face,
it was not a surf smirk
that rolls up from coral cheeks,
but a snide smile that
surprised everyone there.

Coffee shop stopped and halted,
for this man fell to his knees
and asked to wed,
a girlfriend of small brunette proportions,
whom sat next to him
basking in good fortune.

Golden orbit
of metal bound
and knit,
graced her finger, slipped
down the knuckle,
fused to the skin
as every buckle ever worn.

For these two would make it,
sworn to mourn when the other fell.

“I wish that I could see the light,
before you put the blinds down
on the edge of night”

She packed an overnight bag
for her next day flight
back home to somewhere
where climate exists,
another girl from the Tennessee state, kissed.

Appalachian Mountain eyes
with summit mist
smokers eyes,
deep brown pupils
drowning among the whites of her eyes:

*it’s the eyes that I remember, as well as our last encounter in street-alley December.

on the way back
met every man and his dog,
but leaden skies persisted
and the hills, up above,
got lost in the fog.

with a halo of snow,
just tipping the brim,
gray-clouds-tumble
and fall at the knee,
the limping limb, of
the deer stood in front
of me.

eyes of forests-yet-to-be-
discovered stayed in focus
not getting lost, nor twitching
for the frost nor
the freezing droplets that
cease to progress down
fur and neck.

This is a club scene poem, so
imagine classics from the nineties
and fearless girls drinking from beer tins-
this is that night you want to omit
and not remember,
this is every night you’ve had to dance
and not wanted to.*

He dropped his drink
for the red-bra-girl;
she thought it the rain,
but instead it were a wasted
drink down the cigarette drain.

Girls in Jack Daniels
who don’t like whiskey
nor dances,
nor the sting of alcohol
upon their tongue.

Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.

The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.

Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.

Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-hom­e-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.

He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.

Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.

We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.

Egg cell boy was
nurtured in a
test tube home.

What he was rested
on shelf after shelf,
a museum to himself.

Hawk eye dreams
stayed stale in a thick rimmed
case of glass and class,

though he never
saw what was in
front of him:

a blind love that
would not materialise
into anything but,
time wasted under sheet and cover,
and some lies to warm that
comic book heart of yours.

Northern light eyes
born in a northern town-
south of the river, dense
in flood creeping higher,
hourly by the night.
Another thousand horses charge down
canyon stream, to much applause
and to many a scream.

a poem for the presumed dead, French Hostage, Denis Allex*

An unmapped forest
grew upon chin
and cheek;
3 years in the making,
the no shaving,
helped to grow by
his tears from his crying.

Orange, orange,
orange again jumpsuit,
prisoner in the arms
of those whom shoot-
not to wound, but fire
with the intent to surround
and then to
close in
to cap a bullet for the ****.

Fire flares into the night
so phosphorous full
stops hail down, and on
the floor in front of the believers,
a paragraph shall form, with perfectly
placed punctuation;
detailing and listing
why they plucked this man
from a French farmhouse village,
and let him grow young,
in fear,
in this far, middle eastern haven.

The fireside retreats
into the wall
as another TV Christmas special repeats,
with its sound echoing in the hall.

Tangerine,
Satsuma,
Clementine-Orange
peel litters the tabletop;
orange runway for the action figures,
plastic arms, moulded hairs.

Nina Simone plays loud,
'Nobody Knows When You're Down And Out',
Christmas is over,
and now there's nowt to do.

What did you do to your hair?

It is not fashion or regarded as a
good sight, for sightseers whom fight
for the best sight to see.

Nor is it complementary to your main meal face,
no condiment would ever accompany you,
let alone a boy in a start of the month, moon-a-new,
relationship-race.

It is not natural, nor be it an attempt to
blend into your surroundings at large,
as a red and blue fringe
will never be camouflage.

So, what did you do to your hair?

“There’s a strange stalker in my chest, walking fast, unable to rest.”

And how you know it,
feel it every day,
sleep with its weight
as your comfort and dismay.
A blanket of shame to wrap yourself in;
another way to get warm,
another game to play.
Sleep alone and sleep thin
thoughts, weave them into dreams
until you feel distraught.
You
killed
a child
you
didn’t
want,
moved away back to Vermont.

Hello chimneypots and aerials,
the birds sitting on the rooftops,
window ledge, hello to you too
and to the flower *** that sits atop you-
hello.

You don’t have to wait
in line behind the boys in the band,
just to kiss that one girl’s hand.
Birds, you know nothing of the
subtleties of the relationship. Our
legs can’t fly in like yours, swoop
a female off her feet to
reside in your nest for one night.
How we have to learn the ways
of the woman, find out their likes and dislikes,
what flowers they enjoy and not hate.
Aerials, you’re strong willed and
stay tall in all weathers. All that channels
through you are the fake love affairs
that show up on pixelated squares.
Chimneypots, how I want to be you-
to smoke all day and still last a lifetime.
I’d be around for a century or two
and see suns, skies and moons
both come and go-
get destroyed by man
and his Average Joe.

I’m the son of my Mum,
product of Dad-
just with his mid seventies look instead.

Sown and grown in a house
from the past,
fixed by the full swing of
the can-do and will do,
not by the we’ll get through
or the *******.

****** by the plum tree
because its root system
sat lower than the toilet seat,
in the downstairs bathroom,
working radiator- never any heat.

Tantrums on the second step
because bad-mannered children
never want what they get.
But in hindsight, and I’ll admit,
they were doing it good, doing it right,
doing it by the book
printed in black and white.  

Nothing but rocks and stories where I’m from:
pebbles in the path
between the herb garden grass;
box hedge borders that’ll protect
and last;
stone walls hiding cancers and dangers,
unwanted gifts from door-to-door strangers;
postmen in shorts
with their all-weather legs;
women up the road
with their cool-box eggs;
neighbours behind curtains
hiding help not guns;
children in the street,
they’re somebody’s loved ones.

I’m the son of my Mum,
product of Dad-
just this time round
tall, grateful and glad.

And when we devour our fantasies,
love interests of reality will turn to misery:
nothing lovely will exists again,
nor any news worthy items upon CNN.

And we detach ourselves from all conversation,
listen to no new information:
brains will meld into unfathomable canyons
with sulphur red walls, fossils for companions.

But with elbows akin to mine,
(wrinkled and creased sheathes of skin)
our dance will be passionate and fine,
one more smile, another grin.

Hooked and hung to the chair,
tethered by a strap-
colour akin to your hair-
you sat and stared
at another essay to be handed in
by three pm, next-week-Wednesday.

A-future-whatever is another
lustful thought, failed and
let down by little taught.
Again! Why a wife is so hard to find
in brambled streets or box hedged
squares, rectangular and receipt like?

Give up and give in,
walk drunk drinking sloe gin.
That way love is but blackthorn berries
the controversial, speechless adversaries.

When home feels like
a hotel and
forcing water down
like its wine in a glass,
warmed by a MDF fireside-
you know your real bed
is a world away.

Cars that laugh
wait at the lights,
as they become
just another set of traffic,
set into the night-time tarmac.

So where does she go when
she's been fingered and drugged,
abused and sexed up?
That's right, the end of the bar
where they'll never find her,
let alone kiss her.*

Tucked behind her right ear,
blonde hair fell as if a tear
from cheek to chin,
bowling ball to bowling pin;
stacked at the other end.

This poem is for you long-blonde-hair-behind-the-bar-girl, written down by paper and pen.

Your quilted jacket,
leather in material,
won't keep the cold out;
only a white-stick-arm
will warm, guide and
ignite you home.

Fill the wardrobes back up again        
with hangers plucked and picked from the
carpeted floor.
                        Lay the lover down amongst the sheets
                        only the whisper sweet thoughts and memos and
                        kind words in low tones
                        into her ear.
                                           Kiss her neck and grace the thigh,
                                           build
                                           up
                                           the
                                           courage
                                           to
                                           last
                                                 all
                                                    night.

Here comes the rain
the weatherman said would come,
and arrived just like a train.
No wait at a platform
or delay for a death,
just precipitation
and a whole lot of wet.
Wet windows and wet grasses,
moist tables left from the summers,
plant pots turned bowls,
to catch the water that floods and falls.
Here comes the rain again,
that the weatherman said would come.

It’s a 5 day world out there,
followed by a 2 day scare
of baths and walks
and holiday forecast talks.

Planning goodbyes before you’ve left and gone
whilst sitting still on Subway platform one,
with stationary thoughts
like the stationary train,
wiped down and dried
by the city state rain.

It’s a 5 day world out there,
followed by a 2 day scare,
together another
7 day affair.

Ideas are darkened figures,
built upon pigments and ideas.
They can whip through gallery doors,
the canteen,
across mezzanine floors.

Ideas are hotel love affairs,
with their take away trays;
they’ll check up on you
every once in awhile,
with a phone call diverted from
the Hotel Lobby’s, binary file.

Ideas are those ghosts of girls,
pale skinned beauties that’ll pass you
in the street,
only to unfurl at the feet
of some other man
as a fireside treat.

Depends what your idea of colour is
or if your forever will ever exist.
Too many ink lines on one too many lists,
another reason for you to invest in one kiss.
Visit them, pay them,
lay next to them in Milan:
as there you can let every crease
unravel and unfurl,
let the block roll on,
like every Italian street.

Here, a fake friend has helped you
write a novel,
she helped you out of that darker hovel-
where you once sat and laid,
cut yourself off from
apartment rent and all the prices paid.

Time called,
it wants its watch back.
So too did love,
it wants its fake relationship back.
Literature left a message for you,
the book you stole should be returned.
Oh! You’ve just missed music,
it said that album you murdered is pressing charges.
Time called again,
just to make sure you got the message.
Check the machine,
there’s one from Platform Eight.
Bonfire night 2011 just hung-up,
it wants you to know never to return.
An email just came through,
from that film we knew every line too.
What was that,
you use people?
Oh! Politeness dropped by,
he said he’d like to slam every door he ever opened for you
back into your face.
Wait a second,
I’ll put him through-
it’s time, he wants to speak to you-