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.

They lowered him on string,
his face unshaved and the coffin unhinged,
nothing broke his fall but a green cloth dressed in
storage-cupboard-fluff,
the first death of the second month.

Around him they said silent words, empty sentences
stretching the length of derelict paragraphs: morbid monologues
for the man who used words to **** up women
and tell them they were beautiful without them ever seeing it,
understanding it,
knowing if he was legit or not.

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.

Shadow coat, buttoned up to the neck,
disappears and reappears under the
sky and lamplight hanging up high, loose,
hurrying around with nothing to do; it does
not notice the suspicion walking around beneath it,
lost but going home, reaching that destination
before limbs give up, fail on the floor, found the next day
twisted in a combination no locksmith
can undo.

Queue for a dance with
ink upon your wrist,
paper wrapped tight and
a waiting kiss.
Princes march to their kingdom come, on
their checkerboard, light board,
dance floor hum.
Princesses in timely masks
of nightmarish dreams
hide their real selves in
plain sight, with
handlebar hair
cut into wigs,
only hiding scalps of shame.

In head, in thought, I spoke 26 words,
7 points of punctuation and 6
saintly verbs:
*You left.
a dance too short,
touch of the ***,
another ***** for the group,
feel of the ***,
smile and forget,
forget she ever asked.

The foundations are first to go
in a collapse of brick not known in this lifetime,
only that long ago,
though many people will try to reason it in rhyme.

We used to knock bottles off walls
throwing cancer and heart attacks
to watch the glass shatter
and fall,
break into jigsaw pieces on the floor

and now,

we weep into cups so not
to ruin the carpets the deceased gave us
and gave up.
Turkish yarn and rugs from town
and never knowing quality when we see it.

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.

White maze for the middle classes,
collect your museum passes at the door,
please
continue through into exhibitions,
photo pictures of art you won’t remember the name of
but because you’re educated you’ll hope to retain its
name, medium, date and frame size of,
and equate them with those pieces you Googled before you came.

Through the double doors
her cries walked down the corridors
whilst cradled in his hands, cradled carefully,
he stood upright in boots on the
newly polished granite, shipped-in, floor.

The art gallery Father and Daughter
are the hidden display
only found in writing in the pamphlet
for today. Some will see them
through cuts in the door,
others may hear them but assume
it’s ambient art-gallery-played-through-speakers
sound coming from the back room.

Make the shelter yourself,
source firewood from feet away
and filter the water the way you want it filtered.

Take nothing from the word of mouth
or 'I've got a tip mate' people,
cos they'll be the wake that tips the boat.

**** email systems that connect us,
the metro transport subway buses,
the happy involved, affair ridden couples,
forget them, leave those suppressed thoughts in
and carry on your day the way you began.

Service station blues:
another meal beside the news
station stand, and as Tuesday
clicks into Wednesday
I wait in no queue to be served
by no one.

From behind the
confectionery battlement,
decorated with the money-off-percent
products below,
a professional service station stalker
walked closer,
(hopefully to queue in the no one
queue beside, behind, next to and near
me).

We waited together for some
service in the service station queue,
as midnight became morning,
black sky to blue.

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.

Beyond the mountains, the mountains,
beyond over their bumps and hills and small pocket
paths tucked into the seam,
you're sleeping still,
still sleeping;
glass of water on the desk sat upright and uptight
next to a gathering of white sugar, they-will-work pills
that you've taken one of.

Before you woke the window watched
the street below, I joined in and saw
smoke and busses, taxi cab film rushes
uncut and newly coloured for the silver screen
that's too expensive to see.

That morning I tided your clothes in
neat piles and mountain tops
where the summit was socks ready
for you to wear again until you leave me lonely and go home.

When we got back together for the first time, in that
field after Christmas,
I still remember the cold.
Although warm from chasing a dog,
white as snow,
I was cold.
Winter’s air whipped against my cheeks
and you were there on the phone.
It was cruel.
He was sent to the abattoir
and we were happy.
And now you say you like men in denim jackets
and thick rimmed glasses.

Sorry my eyes are perfect. Sorry I like practical coats for the winter. Sorry I am not ginger.

Stay at camp and remember
what won’t be forgotten,
unless the picture you got printed
disappears and returns to embers.
3 months away is 3 months too long,
especially when every day, every day, every day
is reminisced, sicked up in the conversation ashtray.
Stub out the cig and smoke what is real,
as then the hits you score will reveal the hidden,
the truth and the tiny minute, microscopic detail.

Let soles touch floors
on hills, in bars, between cafe terrace doors;
beside scarred walls that bleed paint
of the young, naive, those who cannot wait;
only to be scrubbed down by the thick bristled
brush of the Gendarme in white.

I’m 22 in the 18th,
with a one bed roomed house
high above the wake.
Next door is a wafer thin, paper thin,
not-that-thick-let’s-the-sound-in
wall; the portal through
to another war, of words exchanged
by a relationship estranged by
lies, cheats, drug filled leaps, missed-another-call
in Tuesday’s heat.

Here we take tea without milk,
waste time on the Pigalle, free of guilt.
We let warm metro, subway air
melt our faces,
as we stagger back a few several paces
not to be knocked down by taxis, brimmed with cases of
those visiting and leaving, staying around until the end of the races.

When will you calm down Paris?
When will your children lose their
keys to their cars and cannot drive
quite as far?
When will the tourists leave, so to uncover
the real autumn leafed workers, stretched
inside suits and dresses, only to be late
to that members meeting starting at 8?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You’ve paid for somewhere pretty to smoke
yet not realised that your decorated,
thin cold icing and sweet to taste, lips
will be ruined from every second cigarette ****.

But I forgive you
because your eyes are olive,
tried and tested and true.

Seats sat around standing tables
void of conversation,
whilst waitresses danced around the homeless
clearing up their desperation with no fuss-
just a cloth wipe across the surface
and a smile to a lonely face;
hard wood walls closed in like
coffin-lid, coffin-hinged cases.

One man alone in the corner held hands with his coffee cup and looked up hoping for familiar faces.

And his finger snapped around the rim,
for this cup of coffee
was his only drink of the day.

And his fingers broke around its handle,
for this cup of coffee
was his wick and leathered-spine candle.

And his fingers melded to the cup,
because this cup of coffee
burnt like coughed-up cigarette ****-stubs.

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

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.

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.

They got dressed that morning
to go out and protest,
though whilst running
a bullet entered their back,
split their spine into shards and out spilled
blood as wine flowing from their oak made cask.

Now they lay and lie and cry silently
in a room where a man counts the corpses
and wraps them in linen,
hiding faces from families making them hidden.

Close their mouths with tissue bows
tied at the forehead for purchase and extra tread,
cover stomachs of starvation up
and say words that shouldn't be misread.

Photos of the deceased to send around the globe
from camera to probe, back down to internet villages and news room towns.

Outside the demonstration continues with howls
and flags made from sweet cotton thread
and the march continues being walked by
those with barbed wire legs.

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 dry dock cruise ship shop
sits still, basking in the
air conditioning’s cool breeze chill.

Makeup stays clad to the skin
of the marionette workers, well presented,
ever so stick thin.

Perfume scents the room as if a wrist,
but no carpals I know have
their own stock list system.

The ugly sit in seats made for them,
wide berth for the wider *** of
greed not guilt.

John Lewis is no place to be at Christmas,
as the hounds of cosmetics
will pin you down,
deep into the laminated, pretty white
ground

Decorum is corrupt, decorum is dead, the books we told were good
            have all been read.
Fitzgerald has been bled dry by institutions, teachers and those guys in
            red chrome cardigans.
Those Pennine walks have turned to drunken talks in the eaves of the night,
            high above conscious thought and the cold glow candle light
The long haul flights back to the heavenly sight of tyre black
            tarmac have become tedious meditations;
though those lamentations still exist within my wrists,
            a yearning for your riverside kiss.
Bus journeys along roads and routes I already knew are
            changing without consultation,
it’s temporary probation, an experimentation, a test
            of time well spent.
Time well spent in ground floor, high rent, properties,
            fading away into a slack attitude disease.
Needles and fluid, *** and Cupid won’t lift you from this
            perpetual stall,
nor will anything at all; though maybe plans scribbled down on
            napkin edge corners will.
With thought, white paper vertices can quickly become
            mountain range peaks.
Throw politeness out of your transport’s window
            and become a widow to the road,
black veil eyes, cold and grainy, lost in your endeavour
            to find somewhere new to feel safe and clever.
Take those books that you thought were good to tear
            into the new prose of the year.
Rip title pages and dedication pages and index pages
            from the spine
and throw them in the air
            to make a new line of literature and pain.
Take also your pencils and strip them of
            their back bone lead
and shave them into clean kindling for fire start
            shavings for a warmer lonely camp bed.
It’s there and then, in your fake polyester,
            four season sleeping bag womb
that’ll you’ll experience the darkened tomb
            of unbound freedom.
But like paragraphs of small print found in the back of the squint-again-magazines,
            freedom comes at a price, as if long hair and lice or poverty and bedroom escapade vice.

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.

Under the eaves we’ll be dryer,
sat down in those chairs so not to tire;
there’s a fire in the back slowly smouldering.
            It reminds me of your desire last Spring.

Below the light we’ll embrace once more
beneath the bed sheets that pour over us like tides offshore,
but you were different with your Trojan war, Iliad heart.
            The snow has fallen, outside is the core and we’re now apart.


Inside the cabin we’ll be warmer
laying loose on the couch like lost foreigners:
you used to be a charmer back when it mattered.
            Now the ground is firmer and the leaves are scattered.

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.

Sober in the ****** light
sees me looking out over an empire,
the chimneypot stacks pointing towards
gray weathered skies
and my clock lies,
it’s an hour ahead of time,
near six to be precise,
and my head is soldier like:
vigorous, vigilant and abled to strike.

Drunk in the ****** light
sees me looking out over disappointment,
a recollection from last night-
let me dance in an awful club with a girl whose eyes know what I’m on about,
and that my dancing is only a dance- not performance art nor a joke-
-and the chimneypot stacks are early with their smoke,
I am cold in this jumper
and my I lie,
it's an hour behind the rest,
just past four
and my head is all over the place,
unsteady and unsure.

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.

Chicago, where the rails become streets,
where the wind winds around corners to double tier trains that rain down with thunder below
cloudbursts of snow and slow traffic

Chicago, where cars and trucks stop at lights on the bridges, resting wheels on wet tarmac and men pass by wearing cagoules and flat caps: bohemian grandparents on northern fronts.

Chicago, where every building is a flat iron or a pencil windowed and widowed of safety net architecture,I look up from the window and flutter as she does, the suicide shipwreck standing atop a roof looking up and falling down, into river and rail track wakes.


If the dial-up allows it and this note finds its way through the orchestra, let me tell you this:

*You look lovely in your flower tattooed white dress.
I shall write about  you until you read about yourself and smile, the rest has
been thrown into the wind and has come to settle in the tidal flow, sit tight and see where it goes.