The bear was in the shed
hidden from us,
was fed before bed
without a fuss.

Tuesday, it was me
who crossed the garden,
saw the bear, the bear saw me,
I ran home screaming.

It's the killer baloo.

Mostly shame stopped me from
crying, telling anyone
about the bear that's locked away.
Too young to know what to say.

Then one night at feeding time,
it was cold and there was wine,
someone forgot to lock the door and
left the bear wanting some more.

It's the killer baloo.

The bear broke free
and ate the family.
Asleep in our beds
it ripped off our heads.

It's the killer baloo.

You run your
fingers tips
gently
over the
raised and
scarred skin
of the memory
molding
me

and we agree
our eyes will
orbit
our lives
until we feel
the calm of love.

I'd hold you
For a minute
In silence
Hearing all the
Sentence
Between us,
Signing contracts
For our futures
Finding love in secret,
Finding hope in seasons,
Forward motions,
Breathing,
Picking up the pieces,
Falling with a meaning
And I'd do it again.

I'd find you
At your desk in heaven,
Going through paper mountains,

I'd invite you to climb
All of the way up
To find love in secret
And hope in seasons,
Forward motions,
Breathing
Picking up the pieces,
Falling with a meaning
And I'd do it again.

I fell for you like leaves do,
I bent for you like knees do,
What could I do
But leave you.

Plans of mice and men, end,
And we lose our way,
And it hurts to care,
Picking stars from the air.

I played with you,
I hid from you,
I'll see you
Dreaming.

I'm like that puddle in the shade
that's afraid to let the sun dry me up.

I force walkers to play
hopscotch as they
trudge past.

But I know the sun will find me
and glare until there's
nothing left to step in.

Father's bear lived in the shed
hidden from his family,
fed it when he had time off,
all alone, secretly,

One Tuesday, he had went away,
his boy had crossed the garden
and saw the bear, the bear saw him
and he ran back home screaming.

It was shame that stopped him from crying, telling anyone
about the bear that's locked away.
He didn't have the words to say...

And then one night at feeding time
Father had drank too much wine
and had forgot to lock the door
and left the bear wanting more...

At 10pm the bear broke free
and ate all my the family
as we lay asleep in bed
the hungry bear ripped off our heads.

Why couldn't he get rid of it?
It was very negligent.
But what is worse is we all knew
but didn't do what we had to do.

If I could sculpt one memory
I would sculpt your eyes

looking like an enemy looks
at their foe's demise.

Looking lavishly and certain.
Certain, like a child

looks underneath a Christmas tree
expecting surprise.

You were engaged when we first met.
Teenaged and exiled

and still my counterproposals
trigger sorry sighs.

Hammer attack surgeries,
Farmer controlled nurseries,
A Llama themed bakery
And a duck.

I see my gross reflection,
It stares right back at me
I think that I'm two people
It doesn't think: it's me!

Pete told me he killed someone
When he was a policeman
He was only 23
Him and PC Brooks got called to
number 1, consista court
Arthur was an 84
Year old naked grandad
Arms and legs were red raw
As he lay in the bath
Quietly groaning
His daughter was sobbing
And Pete remembers it all

Brooks and Pete they reassure
Tell him he's a right plonker
And Pete takes the shower head
Tests it first and showers him
With cold water on his legs
Skin peels in his hands
And Pete feels something
That won't ever go away.

It's ok, Pete.

Pete's proud of his daughter
Shows me her on his phone
She competes in gymnastics
On a balance beam doing back flips;
He's met Elton John
Was given a tour of his home,
He earns enough to get by
But wants to start a landscaping business.

"Vale. Bien. Me voy."
And looking into his eye,
letting him know how those rules have made me feel -
how they've made me ache.
How I despise his way of life -
how it's so inhuman to me
and I'll look at him like I look at something grotesque happening
that I know I can't change.
Or better even, look at him like a
dying animal in its death throes.
And then let him disappear in front of me -
banishing him to those dungeons
that are my memories best
                                                left
                                                       alone.

Stuck
Fraught
Distraught
by thoughts:
echoes of intentions unfought.
Stalled by feelings unseen.
Stoppable without skills or a team.
Where's my tribe where my body can breathe?
Where's my test where my body can heave
all the weight of the world for a time and seize
a moment alive to lift the seas
and blind the sun with ecstasy.

I'm a puddle
in the shade,
too afraid to
let the sun
dry me up.

I make walkers
play my game,
it's a pain when they step
in me
as they're climbing up.

Why can't I be hard like stone
but cushion like velvet grass
and help all of the travellers pass?

Why can't I live in the sun?
It seems like so much more fun
than being a puddle living in the shade.

I think it's cool
how you dance with no song
And it's cool
when you tell me I'm wrong
And it's cool
Saying what you think
And it's cool
To have you listening


it's beautiful not to know
what'll happen tomorrow
lets admit that we'll have fun
and that we've already won
Let's agree to do our best
And to not get too depressed
Under grey and raining skies
Taking lows with the highs  


I think it's cool
How you can shake a hand
And it's cool
You pretend to understand
And it's cool
When you told that joke
And it's cool
You frowned before you spoke


And maybe we'll be just the same
As we were yesterday
But if we live like we will die
We would start to wonder why
We don't just do what we want
But don't get what we think we want
Stuck wanting what we want
Never wanting what we need
But maybe I'm a man to you
And if you're a woman to me
We might live happily
We might  live happily

Whose girl is this? I think I know
he lives in the city though;
he won't see me stopping here
to watch her smile and tiptoe

and give her harness bells a shake
wondering her first mistake
between her second g and tee,
eyes laughing helplessly.

The borrowed room is dark and deep
but we have promises to keep
and miles to go before we sleep;
miles to go before we sleep.

Teresa must think it weird
that I had quickly disappeared
with miles to go before I sleep;
miles to go before I sleep.

I only feel what's bad

and I'm really good at it.

I wasn't born

to be myself,

I was someone else's.

I got all the help money can buy

but I can't be helped,

but when you say that I'm your friend,

I really hope it's real this time.

I hope you're real this time.

Every day the sun sets the same
and night comes again
and we disappear into dreams until the morning,
to fight the monsters we imagined but couldn't see.

I treated you like any other girl

And I wanted you to want to **** me
and maybe you did
but you also fell in love
with my weaknesses and
that wasn't the plan but
what a relief it was
to drop the get-up.

My vulnerabilities were
delicious and your short-comings

****.

If I could sculpt one memory
I would sculpt your eyes

looking like an enemy looks
at their foe's demise.

Looking lavishly and certain.
Certain, like a child

looks underneath a Christmas tree
expecting surprise.

But you were engaged when we met.
Teenaged and so wild

And still those counterproposals
Trigger sorry sighs.

Can I imagine a future home
Which brothers and sisters could loan
And bring their blossoming born and bred?
And play and dance and keep well fed?

Could work be kind enough to bring
Dividends for me to spring
A coup to conquer the village's heart?
With smiles from all my parts?

And bring my multitudes of strings
And teach the young to strum and sing
And build a body: strong and bright
So God will keep them in his sight?

I am averse to scheduling
But sometimes love is a roof: therein
Lie memories to study and
Transform into the promised land.

My mother tells me that we will
Never be friends.
Today I believe it.
Love poisons our blood
And familiarity kills
conversation.
I look at her emotionlessly
So to block her influence.
She is an expert at exploiting
The slightest ****** waver,
Or any emotional advantage she
Could have over you.
She will make you wrong
Through verbal martyrdom.

I won't let her speak to me
Like she does the weak who
Are too polite or too submissive
To fight her.
Her style of English is cutting,
Self-righteous, honest, rude, unscientific, emotional, aggressive and often violent.
Never elegant.
She thinks the world is a battleground.
She is often incompetent and on top of that headstrong - to compensate for her ignorance.
She is sometimes funny, and sometimes kind.
She tells me we will never be friends.
Today I believe it.
I will not confide. I will not smile.
I will not joke, I will not listen.
I will help but I won't speak.
I will keep the talk small.
We will never be friends.

I'm just a point of view,
don't take it personal.
I'll point you towards the view
and we'll find a moment...

Now it's just me and you;
hold on to something new.

I'm not the kind of guy
who enjoys hurting you;
but I know you like it when
I make you feel small.

When you stand up
you're tall;
I'll help you enjoy
the fall.

I'm all for the highs and lows;
they'll keep your figure.
I'll stay through the lows
and make them quicker.

Don't think you've cheated life;
watch how the night's alive.

Why sell yourself to me?
I'll buy you for free.

Woke up wide eyed and broken into
like the conservatory door of nanny's bungalow.

He looked like an elephant seal,
Shrivelled **** like a decapitated eel.

I thought myself a
Killer *** bucket
As I smashed glass
into a sleeping skull
and eye socket.

Blood balled from the
Cyclopsed Weinstein;
I wailed at the crotch like a
CK fantasy.

An hour later,
Sounds from the crater,
Red bubbles from black
***** looked post-natal.

Dead man:
Kissed by sweet inequity.

****** by a ****:
That's my type of equity.

We were awake before the sun

chosen by a maelstrom

cold sweat soaked skin

I hear the ringing

of darkness

singing

forces

bringing

me
closer
to
it.

I see the boy I used to be
not in a dream but on the street.

He walks alone without a beat
or rhythm in his feet.

He kicks a stone.
His mobile phone is glued to his cheek.

He seems the very model of
a troubled teenage tearaway.

Nothings lead to nothings, lead
to nothing honest he can say.

He knows what others think he is
and he’s terrified.

He thinks enough to know that he was
born lost.

He doesn’t toil his wits,
unwind a coil of ignorance
or dabble in some dissonance.

He speaks with recycled bits
of other people’s words.

He likes to quote celebrities
who like to speak in major keys,
who comfort him like family
and apathy.

He knows their faces
better than his own.

He remains featureless
but will cast the first stone.

Use less the thoughts
which others give.
Use less the shiv
you stab yourself with.
Use less anothers *****
mirror.
Use less that man:
the lady killer.

Use more the third-person
pronoun.
Use more Arethra
'n' motown.
Use more the problem solving
thoughts.
Use more a racket
On tennis courts.

Spine clamped,
blurred sight,
and choked.

Brow furrowed
like an indignant dog,
or a suicidal brigadier ****
commanding failure.

Paralyzed in those
Past and future
tsunamis of shame.

Bunga Bunga everywhere,

a powerful man with silly hair
seduced a girl too young and scared,
was married too but didn’t care.
Corrupt and feared!

Bunga Bunga sounds like fun,

a swimming pool and saucy sun,
an Egyptian that was on the run
Or, under-aged Morocun
Who ****** the boss!

Bunga Bunga ***** and *****,

coffles of women to choose
and buy and grab and ride and use,
with confidence
and so much to lose,
but why didn’t he lose?

Why didn’t he lose when it was on the news
and hundreds of thousands of people accused  
him of scandal and incompetence?
He never revealed his conscience
or any remorse for play boy antics
so far removed from his pedantic
stereotype as a political leader,
more like a ****** wheeler dealer,
pervy old ***** geezer,
over cologned,
greasy,
heavy breather;
machinating falsifier;
misogynistic *******.

He prized a Ruby above the rest.
Bunga bunga, what a pest...
she leaked his private fetish fest;
poor Silvio, he tried his best
to hide the bribes and bets
and ****** and drugs and threats
but never could care
what was right and
what was fair.
Could only care
about the colour of his
**** hair.

The day I act like
I am my own father
will be the day I
become a man.

I ****** your umbrella high
enough so rain drops bounce
back at the sky.

We bathe in wind
like sparrows.
We dive through conversations;
our stomachs churn
as we leap from co-constructed
memories which float between us
then dissipate in the rain.

We find a bench to perch
and wait for a moment.

Today will be my holy day
Of personal reconciliation;
Of silent toil and transubstantiation.
A silent birth of brave thoughts
Which changes the body and blood.

Cut me and I will bleed a flood
Which will congeal and feed the urchins.

I put this painful tableau behind me
with some hindsight and fight the language attached and surrender to the voice of an inner father.

They look out from the terrace.

At the borders of sight
live rocky hills behind brown
and golden and olive crop
under a cloudless sky.

BANG!

An artificial cloud.

“Mira,” she points, “Venga!”

They fly down stairs,
diving like sparrows
into the street.

Boys sprint across pavements and climb;
men vault over fences in time
for news to reach ears.

"¡Ya vienen!"

Excitement and fear.

The rattling of cow bells
and galloping nears.

Men bait and dodge horns
and escape through doors
and up and over
red wooden bars.

Sticks beat on the concrete ground
and closer, louder, gallops sound.

Seconds away –
until the last,
he side steps into a house;
indoors,
apart,

he runs through the foyer
and up the stairs
around a corner
with long strides
too fast to follow.
She chooses left and
sings soprano
when doors won't budge
and
             it
                      crashes
                                ­       in.

She turns and the fear is paralysing.


"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"

He hurdles the stairs
and explodes
but it rams her
to and fro,
thrashing her head
against the wall
where horns
sin and gore
cement and brick.

He clasps the tail
and heaves its hide from
side to side as
hooves smash
crates of wine -
they slip and slide
in fractured glass;
he finds a horn
and yanks the head!
He's yanked instead
near dead before the men
arrive down stairs
to punch and kick it;
strike and stick it
smack and hit it;
'til it
fits and quits
and flees the foyer,
fast and frantic,
flying flustered
by the frenzy,
finally finding
pattering
paves
it
peters
off
down
the
street.





"¿Que ha pasado?
  ¿Quien ha sido?
  ¡El Balbotin
  y la Chicha!
  ¡Que una vaca
  les ha pillado!"

"¿Estas bien?"

Dizzy she's there
with searching hands
and scolding.

"Podria haber sido peor"

See hardly hedgerows
as wind gives voice to trees
and earth grips tight to boots
and rays see eye to eye
when oaks
steal sky
and
calm cries.

A beating heart
departs.

The sounds of weeping leaves.