the old man's breath
tears russet pages
from ragged books

The actor Anthony Perkins
ate jar after jar of gherkins.
Green with rage he knifed Janet Leigh
what a murderous pickle to see!

suffused with
spectral footfall
the promenade
fades into grey
winter stone.

With crumbling
smiles, pierrots
sally in monochrome
frames and the
dead bones of
donkeys rise to
cloddy beaches.

Through salt
burned eyes,
torpid seas
heave like heavy
blankets over rusting
lungs; the pulse
of slow decay.

Auburn leaves
skitter an autumnal dance.

Season’s breath;
nature’s invisible broom.

Sweeping; conducting
life and death's romance.

The final grinding
winter? Mankind’s doom.

as russet leaves fall
each crisp lonely step
evokes you

dripping fire
the oak's toes are nibbled
by rimy teeth

...unwinds from the silver birch.

Sinewy branches, twist, rip,

Dangle and fall; crushed and swept

Under carpets of roots. All

But clustered dust, resting now.

Eating light and digesting darkness
the breeze whistles over fleshy bells that clang.

Windows stare into space and time; vast panes, beyond minds and placid lakes - the secret sepulchre.

Hume's bundle - laundry of the senses.

The breeze that ripples
through the clematis vine;

shakes the aphid cloak
glutting on its purple pendants.

Worn shoes -
friction burns on tired soles;
griddled pancake strides.

Scuffed leather -
peeling flakes of desiccated fruit
kiss frayed laces;
knotted serpent tongues.


Burning in Nevada;
a thousand miles from carpenter's tools,
a hundred steps from Vegas lines.

Tap, tap
at the door,
the news
brought home…

carsick
journey,
no map
no compass…

just a face…

a face in
the crowd,
forever
impassive.

Nosferatu, Frankenstein -

Ice on spine
chillers from the
golden age of gothic ghouls.

What is so ball
scrunchingly creepy?

All that remains
are monochrome phantoms.

Serpentine prism;
flamboyant illusory arc
blown by daylight's kiss.

Fool's errand
pursued by youthful breeze.

Skeletal wooden frames,
    clad in the night’s inky veil

bend and quiver against
    breaths blown from Ural lungs.

Tractors of success rip
    asphalt from dying streets;

while streetlights mourn
    the birth of tomorrow’s decay.

And as two bottles of gin
    sway into each other's way

the stench of ambition’s
    corpse pollutes the air.

chestnut mushrooms
seasoned by springs sweet rainfall
chatter on tongues

lightning illuminates
****** signatures

    as thunder rumbles
and consequences quake

Stare
at the
universe;
backlit pinpricks
on card. Cosmic children in playful ruse.

Words –
hammered like
nails into
****** pine.

Spilt resin,
knots and splits;
scar tissue
planed and jointed –

a flat-packed son.

daffodils unfurl,
green stems scaffold the essence
of spring's ambition.

Scudding clouds -
a marshmallow armada,
invading summer.

The tree,
like a curtain,
veils the clouds.

Dawn's raging furnace
succumbs to moonbeam fingers
clenching throats.

Scars and skin -
millipedes roaming baking flesh.

Inner canals -
Venetian arteries/gondola full.

Then the marrow. The MARROW.

That dripping core slipping away.

Food of decay.

Flossing detritus -
this is LIFE.

Extreme
mastication -
bowel breath
death.

Shivering in the
corners of shadows;

clammy skin writhes, alive with
the gritty shuffle of feasting beasts.

Razorwire slices; evisceration,
collapsed innards, black bowel splatter.

Swathed in laughing black
clobber, mouth pinched in sneering folds,

the spinning turnip
crashes, reduced to trampled mush.

Dark roots and boughs -
tentacular wraiths
poison earth and sky.

The free market ecology blooms.

Empty,

your armchair sits in
the corner of the room

and I wonder how the
enormity of you ever fitted there.

In days of shadow, the frayed
fabric forms your silhouette;

the imprint of a
man I cannot be.

My memories of you
are like every season’s rain,

a permanent lens of grief.

How could I ever fill
the empty space you left?

The empty spaces
that are everywhere.

Light bounces from
the wing mirror housing;

for a moment, a window
into the universe opens.

Ludwig’s largesse,
to the Corsican Fiend
reached a coda of lament.

Odes, condensed milk;
Reduced, sweetened brevity.

Gossamer-winged
illusion winking at the
periphery of thought and vision.

Hinterland elfin mischief maker
sparkling in ethereal glitter;
dancing through the realm of eternal dawn.

The knife struggles
to slice cheese,

  the blade hampered by
a resistant truckle.

  Existential friction makes
an unmade sandwich.

Dead comrades –
desiccated fruit,
plucked from iron vines.

Sensitive minds
at rest; while
psyche's quake.

The sponge
is soft and as
light as innocence -

the colour of
honey and distant
fields of corn.

Lemon zest hangs
like paper lanterns
in vanilla coombs

and sugar glistens
like specks of glitter
in children’s dreams -

illuminating
crumbs in the
labyrinth of ****.

the osprey plunges
slicing surf smashing spume towers
skylarking talons

In the card-stiff stillness,
trapped between sentiment and truth;
the creaking jaw whines.

The bus stop
was there,
but not quite there.

Something was
missing. Or had,
perhaps been added.

Buses passed,
all with the
same driver.

That was odd,
but not quite odd
enough to be troubling.

The F11 wouldn’t stop.
Yet, it stopped long ago,
a green streak fading –

a tail of memories,
the ghosts of boats –
under Bella and Bertie’s gaze.

Going back
can never
be going back –

chocolate bars shrink
and the wrappers
rustle, differently.

The osprey
plunges

an unerring
spear

with
atlatl instinct.

Talons
slice surf

a
loch picked

of
thrashing rainbows

Icarus’
folly eclipsed.

The osprey
plunges

an unerring
spear

with
atlatl instinct.

Talons
slice surf

a
loch picked

of
thrashing rainbows

Icarus’
folly eclipsed.

Rolling sky like,
the grey and blue pushchair
became a cloud.

Rolling sky like,
the grey and blue pushchair
became a cloud.

...moon's shadow,
Intentionality free -
A lacuna exists.

On beaches of buttery biscuit,
Martian fruits drip
                                  red
                                            syrupy
                                                          goo
Onto time frozen swirls of cool surf.

Inextricably bound,
our lives pass through straws;
externally opaque tubes,
revealing little to the observer.

Winter beckons,
as humanity laminates the Earth,

shamefaced, we
falter and play in the snow.

Names etched in sand;
snaffled by the surf's frothy fangs.

Lemon grove -
celestial pendants;
awaiting gravity's pluck.

The red dress hangs, still.
Awaiting your form and flesh -
A matador's swish.

pillars reflect water
fireflies skate on optic nerve

Lime –
virid
plum-shaped gem;
citrus drizzle
flows.