My mother kept a singing bird, just for herself
In the kitchen
By the door
In a cage.

She fed it herself
and talked to it
at 68.
What woman speaks to a bird,
perhaps one who knows
and understands.

All the peaks and trills,
the notes of song
she heard.
She knew its moods
and tunes, she sang along.
Their ritual of conversing
while washing up
and dry with dishcloth
or cooking
or baking her special recipe
apple pie.

Every night, she covered the cage
with a blanket
to keep warm the singing bird and
so the kitchen light would
not disturb
and in the morning,
she took it off again.

Then with silence broken
by welcome twitter,
she would tell
her grey and black wonder
of her plans whilst at chores.
When at elevenses,
she sat near the door
with hot tea and cookie,
she'd offer crumbs
stare ahead, a dreamy smile.

One day the bird died
and into her dishcloth,
she cried.

I traipse along fractured slabs
to get away,
away from worn floors
to a place
of haunting silence -
just cope with it I say.
From the cavern
to the cave,
beneath ***** dishcloth clouds,
a monochrome Rubik's cube
of a mind,
sluggish and masses
of ******* ideas,
there
then forgotten.
Rummage around
in the green sack,
pick out a dream
to dream
tonight
before it melts
like Red Leicester on brown bread
into an image
hard to decipher,
a TV dotted with white spots -
smack me on the back
'til a picture returns.
Blindfold me
until I cannot see,
give me another sliver
of suspect perfection.

at two years old,
your curious hands
happened upon a bottle of
flea medicine
that lay waiting on the counter.
your mother was absent as usual,
off on an errand,
or walking the dog.
unwatched,
your enterprising fingers
eased the lid from the container,
and you poured the sweet-smelling
liquid down your throat.
the world was still so new to you,
and it seemed to be made for tasting.
who could blame a child
with a thirst for more than
mushy peas and applesauce?
two days later
they released you from the hospital,
your stomach pumped dry.

when you were six,
idly exploring the woods of your mother’s
sprawling estate,
you paused a moment from imagining
faerie queens flitting about in the greenery
to take rest on a log,
your undiscerning eye not betraying
its secret: within it was a nest
of wasps,
and thinking they were faeries
you dared not move as they
rose in a cloud above your head
and overtook you,
leaving your body peppered with
painful angry sores.
you fell to the ground.
a hired man,
strong and tall as the oak trees,
saw your quick descent and
ventured after you,
made a hammock of his arms
to bear you like a fallen soldier
back to your mother’s house,
his tough sun-leathered skin
immune to the assaults of the
faerie battalion.

at eight,
playing in the small child-sized house
in your aunt’s garden,
you sought to make stained glass
from the broken shards of the playhouse window.
having no tool at hand,
what better way to
shatter the clear, flat plane
than with your fist?
before reason could take hold of you,
you drove your hand
through the glass,
and the raw edges cut deep into your veins.
blood flowed in rivers
from your wrist.
your aunt, ever watchful,
rushed from the house to
stop your body’s catharsis
with a dishcloth.
the jagged unpainted shards
lay forgotten on the ground.

I was 10
when I first started to
pray for the cabinet to swallow me whole.
To splinch my human body into something a deity won't pass up unworthy
to enter a magical realm where
I can meet a godly lion and a warmer sun.
I was 10
and, even then,
I wanted to be more than just the creaks of the floorboard, more than the weight of my innocence, more than a mere disdainful stare.

I was 12
when I first started
looking out the window,
waiting for a temperate owl on a tropical sky. I twirled the wood chips I tore off my mother's dresser
with the pink lipstick stains, and thought to myself,
my god, my god, what a life I am destined to live.
I was 12,
and even then,
I wanted to be more than just the creaks of the floorboard, more than the weight of my innocence, more than a mere disdainful stare.

I was 16
when I first started
distancing myself from the wardrobe,
from the wooden dresser,
from the creaks of the floorboard,
from innocence.

I flicked the ash off my 20th cigarette to the tear-soaked dishcloth I gauzed on my wrist to keep me from tracing the intersecting lines my father etched on the living room floor after a night of bowling and tears and tears and sadness.

I thought to myself, my god,
my god, my god,
what life am I destined to leave?

I am 20.  
I want to be more than just the creaks of the floorboard, more than the weight of my innocence, more than a mere disdainful stare.

In the summer
I add my heat
to a city already aflame.

In the summer
my thighs are in bloom,
perfumed and bare.

In the summer
we scent one another -
just animals selecting a mate.

Twine your arms about me
slick with beads of desire
and damp against my waist.

I turn into your neck
to swallow your salt,
surviving on a simple mineral.

The others press by us
women, flushed at the breast,
treat the season as a lover.

Fanning The Times, spreading news
of their ripeness.
Lifting skirts over knees
coaxing a breeze, however shy,
to poke its nose where the furnace burns brightest.

Males stare, with naked longing.
Summer makes meals of flesh
that winter would never allow.

This city cooks us.
Steeped in our fine juices,
we exhale hot breath
ingest of a pheromone feast.

So, come, eat me!
While the old fan creaks, and blows,
wheezily, through a wet dishcloth,
and ice makes the pitcher
cry rings through old varnish.

Dizzy Gillespie
sings along with our noise,
joins in at crescendo,
and murmurs our sighs.

In the summer
melting ice on my throat
echo fingers upon me
probing and wet.

Let’s mix our heat
and burn this place down!
What else can we do
when the devil’s in town?

I’ve watched a banquet of sunsets
In my too many
Too few
Years

I wonder who’s been so careless
Smeared their lipstick
Greasy stains upon the walls
-Grey sand from the football grits my eyes-

The night pulls grey over grey over grey
Like winter jumpers
And woollen mornings
-Pull melancholy over sombre over sunken-

A heaven-smoked cigarette
Just beads through
Its own cloud of tobacco fog
-“Mummy was here. She left her ciggie behind her.”-

The evening is fresh pine wood
I can count the knots
And stretch apart the grain in the sky
-Walk hard and fast and watch the shadow gape-

Indigo floats in heavy curtains
Settles deep
Rock pools and cinema seats
-“You’re steaming up the glass. Pig.”-

It hangs like a dishcloth all thick
And dusty yellow
On some great washing line
-My fingers fumble over the latches-

A lime scarf seeps in like gas
Chlorine poison
All gruesome and gorgeous
-Cut me open with your kisses-

All fades out to aqua glass
Clearer than water
Oceans deep into the atmosphere
-“I’m already missing the now. We’ll never be this young again.”-

White and cut sharp like paper reams
Yet tangible
Like the pith of an orange
-I choke on my teeth, my throat, my words-

Pink props a ladder against the clouds
Parts them wide
And spills out wine
-Like seconds from our sand-timer-

And
Still I cannot
Understand why
We’re convinced that the sky is only ever blue

There is nothing but the chimes to remind me, a clock face full of good times of sad sometimes not times, but the chimes hold no memory, they all ring inside me like a dishcloth wrung dry and only the damping of tears reminds me again of the how and the why and the crying out of fears, so many things in one boat.

Nothing but the dull throb hung on my chest like a watch fob and the chime, the chimes, cutting into and out of the day, no time and time's no friend until the echo of time starts to end and the chimes fade away.

And then we wind up the spring and step into beginning again, we are the hands on the clock face keeping pace with the clock and time is the lock that we open then lock and the chimes are the stock in trade.

the new cat
is a collector
he steals
ointment tops

and stashes them
inside my workshoes

he like to walk around
with lego people dangling
from his toothy mouth

he steals my boys jocks
and ***** socks and makes
nests of smelly goodness
behind the reading chair

he is brazen, within his world
dragging a washcloth out
of my hand as I removed
make-up leaving me
panda- eyed and surprised
as I watched his awkward
tripping get away

we believe he has kidnapped
Beanie Z the zebra
but cannot at present find his lair
negoitations are ongoing...

must go....just saw him slink past
with the dishcloth......

There is no tiresome poem
Where your eyes rest on something
And the mind finds it appealing to its health
The heart however yearns for more
And discipline must make a play for you
Stopping your slow descent
As you digest the skeleton in your rib cage
I have met and desired many
Although little have reciprocated
I am a study in reaction
This makes me wonder
If it angers me
Or challenges my expression
Be I truthful?
Be I a mask?
Be I strong-willed?
Or be myself?
I am made to measure in the gradually sized spoons of domestication
And however much I dream about a sliding door instead of a shower curtain
There are days where I find that not being affordable is a ruse unto my dreams
My desires are not of the world
The journey this child seeks is not a price of a plane ticket
But a long life that seeks to be with life
A tray of warm things
A table of flowers
To wilt and change
A dishcloth
Waiting out in the sun
A rolled up garden hose
A comfortable dream
That aches when it ends

i need to write that you wiped your washed hands first on the dishcloth, so as not to ***** the

towel.

I do it too, and think of you.



sbm.