Look up,
they'll be fights going on
in the deepest hours of the night,
all behind pretty-born neon lights.

Look over,
she'll be mid argument with him
using uncouth words that appear blunt,
all behind a red brick front.

Peak 'round,
he'll be throwing clothes into suitcases
clearing out the wardrobe, not leaving traces,
all behind walls of places

you know.

Wait for the door by the pillar
because she’ll be back again,
with an arm around her neck
to keep her warm against cold
eyes looking down, from the surrounding guys from around the bar.
Every jackpot ever, was won in their hearts that night
in that shadow of time that they called light.
Single girls will always be watched,
and those girls with a man attached
will always seem unmatched in the eyes of the lonesome.

I waited by the door and joined in with her stride,
a pace set with vigour and pride.
Did I speak?
No, never spoke up, just let it carried on
until it lit and flared up.
When that match hit okra runway slip
everything comfortable flipped and switched
into a cushion of stone that now dismantles backs,
blisters fingers and causes calluses that stop and linger.

Hate myself?
Increasingly.
Personification was me, to her
and to me, she was just that.
I should really get in contact,
and apologise.

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.

all faith was lost in a caravan car park with seats reclined,
a family of four, small and contorted, wrapped
around a car for an uncomfortable night of no sleep,
and for the soundtrack:
                                                propeller blades of the port and a grown man weeping.

now we understand and gather and know and grasp the concept of loss,
now it's a:
                                                brother to a younger sister
                                                and now a lost son to forever mother
                                                and a lonely child to a missed father,
                                                insurance-won't-be-done-on-time
                                                because the route-master turned up late.

now loss can never be found so it stays stuck in memory,
now memory is:
                                              reverse the car into the garage and don't stop for the wall,
                                              or bend over double and crawl into the back of a van
                                              duck down because you're tall for your age.

so now you're no longer and when this is realised
i will write this up into a stage play for you
to hide and conceal and disguise the face that will undoubtedly bloom in tears.

*Earlier my eyes wandered looking for someone through a window watching the main street in the rain. It's been a year and still you've missed the refrain, we'll try again on the chorus perhaps next year sometime.

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?

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.

Take my hand to continents only known in the books,
the blue maps on tiny tables sat in stacks
ready for the lesson on Mexico, or thereabouts- third this week because
the timetable is weak, poorly thought through and cobbled
together out of half-dressed evenings in the lounges of
teachers; ones once loved by the master and mistresses, leaders
of the well dressed and caretakers.

Take my feet and walk with them, balancing
on borders separating language and currency,
the gymnast's beam looking out over the forestry,
its taller trees than you and me standing upon toes tipping
down towards the urgent ground, urgently warning to stay
upright and stick around, with her holding your hand.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Taken, whisked, picked from the plug,
grass grows inside crack walled shrugs,
built by hand by a northern named man.
His dog lays still in the heather,
in the fog,
on the hill,
by the river;
resting in the bleak hill town, morning weather.

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.

“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.