Grayscale

I see him, walking in the rain.
Each step sending glitter soaring
Onto the paper pavement.

Alone. Arching trees gathering shine
And dropping it. Sudden. Wet.
Sweeping away yesterday.

Alone, he strides in a sleek suit,
Hair slicked with balsam gel.
Silent shoes in soft percussion.

Alone, water runs down fabric,
Clings to his flesh like a lover.
A discomfort-blanket on a grayscale day.

Now another, running alongside,
Newspaper falling into rain.
A greeting, a quick closeness

Brought on by comfort.
Black company canopy,
Under which we nestle.

We smile, walk, talk of our lives.
Our journey. Now together.
Soon to part.

Silent bonds of a rainy day.
A company canopy, shielding
Us from the world.

Walking along that grayscale road,
On that grayscale day,
And into that grayscale distance,

We glowed beyond grayscale,
Beyond black. A golden umbrella
On a perfect, azure day.

Whistle

Drowning in your sound.
No escape. No music.
Ears beating, condensing
With effervescent glory.

Touching. Sweet sounds
Springing into the sea
Of my soul. Pure whisper,
Soaring.

Fizzle and fade, clatter
Into silence. Whirr, whizz.
A bird pin perched,
Ready for its next song.

.

Listen. Can you hear me speaking?
Speaking these words softly, into your ear?
I want you close your eyes and listen.
To hear my words. Feel them. Make them real.

A street bench. Wooden, worn, occupied
By two men, walking sticks propped on legs and hands.
They gabble. Pidgeons cluck at their feet.
A man plays the saxophone on the street corner.

You become warm, hear muttering and shouts,
Hoots, groans, grunts. Fast twittering of market traders
Calling their spices. Bells speak. Warbles whisper
Secrets of faith and futures.

Plainsong, heard from far through an open window.
Chanting voices, latin.
The smells of rosemary and roses.
The click of clippers and shuffle of falling flowers.

Now, you hear the sounds of silence.
I think you understand.
I have nothing more to say.

That Little Child

I ask you, who are you?
You answer me with your name.
I repeat. You repeat. In pure simplicity.
Nothing seems difficult. Or complicated.
The red bucket and the yellow spade.
Barbie with Ken. Forever.

Now, cracks show on skin. Limbs askew.
Contorted. No longer a beautiful game.
No longer perfect. You see the audacity
As he walks away. Childhood is dated
By your thoughts. Yet the golden shade
Of childhood days linger. Simple. Perfect.

Forever.

Dreamer

You float.
Glide. Hover.
Your feet are pointed with their own weight.
Ballet-hardened toes from your dancing.
A camera clings to my palm. I film your dreaming.
Tiny storms wash around you.
Internal nebular tempests of poppies,
Rubies, roses;
Shining red apples lying in shining red piles
On vibrant, lurid grass.

You are craving.
Escape. Freedom.
To move your feet in the air and soar forwards.
Towards the prayer in your eyes.
I hear your rhythm. I record your dancing.
Capture it in my heart. Eternally.

Nevertheless,
The horizons contine,
the moving canvas
Of the heavens;
Pageant of clouds and stars
And the shifts
Of mystical blue,
Azure and cerulean. Ultramarine.

Your feet keep dancing. Swathed in colours,
Absorbed by life. Yet I hear the counting
Of ‘one’, then ‘two’, then ‘three’
And I think of your multitude dreams,
Balancing on your two tiny feet.

There are too many dreams.
Why we sometimes fall. Sometimes fail.
Yet we balance and watch our clocks tick
Away our chances. We smile.

And pray.

Eyes

You hold a tiny child in your arms and see
How it grasps onto your hand,
Seeking comfort in your firm form.
It turns and gazes into yours, learning you
In a mere glimpse.

Bright eyes. Wide eyes. Not yet tainted by life.
Seeking to absorb every colour in an instant,
Gazing with pools of light, without fear.
Your eyes are smaller, shutting out the darkness
With an tear-drawn squint.

You walk away, one step at a time,
Into the darkness, wider and wider.
You try to walk faster, catch the departing train
By a second in an effort to extend your life.
As though a commuter watch is the key to life.

I ask you to stop. To slow and read these words.
You cannot read faster. You cannot think wider.
You will drop this paper to the wind and forget
As time continues, seeking a new second to destroy.

I ask you to stop and remember.
To widen your eyes to every colour.
To cry one more tear than courtesy allows.
To dance down a street without thinking or caring.
To wear fluorescent green and not care about the last train.
To watch the glimmering stars turn and for one moment,
Simply, sweetly, just be alive.

Morning

I wake to cracked sunlight,
Pouring across my floor
In crystalline waves, bright
As starlight. Under the door
Creeps the smell of coffee.
A sunny morning’s ritual
That I have missed. Stroppy
Sibling searching for victuals
To devour. Summer birds twitter
In the trees. Clouds float, undisturbed.
Steaming cup. The taste, bitter.
Bread rolls arranged, served,
By shaking fingers, gripping
The plate. Cat, purring softly.
Father listening to the radio, sipping
And muttering over the news, crossly.

Now, all is different.
Sky seems darker underneath blue.
Deep darkness under door. Ignorant
Silence audible. Impossible. Soft mew
From edge of bed. Down the stairs,
Into the kitchen. I click on the kettle.
Teacup, teabag, milk, mug. Cat cares,
Chasing my legs. I give up. Settles
To licking a bit of butter. A whack
To the CD player and Africa pours out.
I smile. Tea. Toast. Whirr. A new track.
I settle with a purr. Yet I feel the lack
Of life. An old man lies asleep upstairs.
Walking stick in the hall. I hear a shout
And come running. Music of another world dares
To follow my feet. At the end, I will I start to walk.

Doubting. Yet smiling.

To be flawed is to be human.

We are all human. Simple. Flawed.
Cracks that glint in solitude, shine in isolation.
I am a small figure, covered in porcelain grey glaze,
Kiln cracked. Painted with millimeter perfect
Brushstrokes across my fractured surface.
Peach skin glowing in lamplight. Trousers, a shirt.
Eyes, eyebrows, hair; painted on with thin delicacy.
Not perfect. But acceptable.
Then the final layer of lipstick,
Applied with my porcelain hand.

We are all human. You. Me. Every child. Every adult.
The politicians with painted faces, smiling.
Teachers, mothers, doctors who always know best.
All cracked beneath the surface. Some barely. Some broken.
I paint on my smile, my self-assurance, my contentment.
In truth, one touch and I shatter. But I hide this
Beneath a smile. Beneath perfection.
I think you know this. I think you understand it.
Because I can see your cracks, as clearly as my own.
You are not alone in your sadness. I just learnt to smile.

In Memory

A distorting mirror rests dusty on a whitewash wall,
Stolen from a funfair, hidden from grassy travel
By God’s strange plan. As you stare, it begins to unravel
Who you are. You remember your childlike bawl
At the seaside or the shopping centre. Your first
Best friend. Your first kiss. Your first good grade,
Or perhaps your first bad one. The first time you cursed
God for making you real. The first time you were paid
For the paper-run or working the bland office phone.
The first time you cried so hard you couldn’t speak.
Distorted in your mind, you see how you have grown
Into who you now are. Now defined by time. The weeks
Days, months, years of your life, arranged in a line.
Your heart aches for what has gone. All that lost time.
-- Keep dreaming, child, for what you have lost,
For now you are dead and have seen the mirror’s cost.

For the World

I see your colours. Your every emotion bared
To my eyes. Ruby-red poppy oceans, Indian silks,
Saffron powders in deep brown baskets.
A dark hand touching the soft green willow skins,
Fluttering towards the fields of white rice.

I see the women dipping into the dark water,
Plucking your seeds. The men whistling death
Across blue skies. Picnics under olive trees,
Dropping fruit on cracked warm breads,
Fresh from the market oven.

I hear a final bird cry, a final dance
Of an evening masquerade. Women in their high plumes,
Striding out doors with dainty feet. Men dragging their smiles
Under a dozen drinks, created on the Irish fields
By the old men stirring their old potato stocks.

I see the dance in my heart, the rhythms of the samba,
The rumba, the cha-cha, the slide,
Ringing through the streets like the bull’s heels
On northern Spanish nights. The mountains echoing
The drums with their deep inflection.

You cannot see all this world in one glimpse.
Would you wish to? Yet I reach out and you grasp my hand
And together, we begin to walk. Over mountains,
Over seas. Over the rice fields, the markets, the city halls,
The sweet-stepped dances,
And deep into your heart.

Future

To take a chance.
Reaching out,
With one atom,
To grasp a moment
And take another step.
Forward.
Or backward.
Do you know?

The wall is ticking.
Floors creaking
Under her feet.
Under his feet.
Under its feet.
This is your life.
Happy?
Or not?

The wall is ticking.
Stairs creaking.
Step. Step. Step.
You feel an atom.
Hitting your skin.
You smile.
Turn.
Touch.

To take a moment,
And stop the wall
From ticking.
Happy?
Perhaps
You take a step.
Just to stand,
And smile.

For a Moment

White paint runs down walls
Like your tears.
Covering your lurid dreams
With a new start.

You are starting again.
Chucked out the old bed,
The vase, the dried flowers
From your grandmother’s place.

‘Stand still’, a voice whispers.
A voice in the floor. In the air.
The paint falls to the floor. Now,
It hides your wooden memories.

Last time, you promised yourself
That this would be it.
The better time. The perfection.
The ideal. Guess what.

Turn, walk, click, pour.
Teabag steaming gently.
You lean. Sigh. Sip.
A smile.

Tonight, you will stare
At the white ceiling, painted
Stark yellow with halogen paint.
And remember.

This is meant to be it.
Everything better.
Not. Never.
But fine.

Soon, another note on the door.
‘Buy paint’, it reads.
‘Next year blue’, you think.
Another tear on the wall.

For a Thought

I am thinking. Perhaps of you.
Perhaps not. I watch time go by.
My skin turns cold, watching.
Morning falls. Night sun rises.
I see you walk past. Alone.
Always looking down, perhaps
For a penny coin.
I place one in your path.
You don’t stop.

An old man, walking stick,
Battered. Leaning heavily
On the floor. Your eyes droop
As though your skin were crying.
I smile. Your gaze falls.
Limp onwards,
Tarmac on feet.
One step at a time.
No more.

A young woman, red hair tied
Roughly. She was a little girl once,
With a red ribbon. Now she wears a
Sari. Bindi glints in the light.
Out of place. Beautiful.
No grace. She clops
In wooden shoes.
Small room. Rented.
Alone.

I am thinking of you.
Reading this. Our one connection.
You are thinking. Perhaps smiling.
Perhaps deeper. My thoughts
Are of this world.
Are part of you.
I am a part of you.
I know your name.
You.

The Fight

Metal glinting. Red hot
On an open fire.
Steaming, falling into flame.
Shaped. Cooled. Formed.

A hand holds its smooth hilt.
It swings in an arc,
Slicing the air.
Bend. Twist. Swivel.

You hold an invisible sword,
Stabbing gently with your words.
You pray that you are heard.
Loudly. Strongly. Clearly.

You hold your fears behind you.
This is no time to be afraid.
Stepping forward, towards the line.
Breathe. Think. Run.

Chasing ever forward. You wish
You could remember what to do.
What to say. Swift silence falls.
You step. Step. Step.

I see your weakness, under your steel.
Your fear. Your cowardess.
You dream of sharp words.
They are blunt. Flat. Soft.

You pretend to be proud.
Perfectly formed. Steely clear.
Pounding ground. Beating blood.
Now you.

The Kiss

Two people, standing in a puddle
Of concrete. Transfixed to each other
In eternal gaze. They lean and brush the air,
Never able to reach out and touch
Arms, eyes, hands, lips.

They move like dancers, feet solid,
Eyes turning their feet and raising them
Above the earth. They lean and touch
Arms, eyes, hands, lips,
In eternal grasp.

You crave eternity, just as all humans do.
Crave a touch, crave atoms clinging to atoms
With ethereal power. A boundless ocean
Of sky greeting each touch with a starlit moment.
One for each star in the sky.

Invisible...

Surrounded by brick. Fake stone.
I feel fake myself, sitting inside,
Hidden from sunshine.

I wish to demolish these walls,
Knock away solid barriers.
Invisible barriers remain.

I wish to be outside, yet protected.
I cannot be open, for then I can be hurt.
Vulnerable. Alone.

I want to feel the breeze in my hair
On the hills, by wave-torn shores.
Freedom in safety.

I sit here and dream,
Watching junk TV from my old sofa.
Dream of a future.

For The World...

For The World

I see your colours. Your every emotion bared
To my eyes. Ruby-red poppy oceans, Indian silks,
Saffron powders in deep brown baskets.
A dark hand touching the soft green willow skins,
Fluttering towards the fields of white rice.

I see the women dipping into the dark water,
Plucking your seeds. The men whistling death
Across blue skies. Picnics under olive trees,
Dropping fruit on cracked warm breads,
Fresh from the market oven.

I hear a final bird cry, a final dance
Of an evening masquerade. Women in their high plumes,
Striding out doors with dainty feet. Men dragging their smiles
Under a dozen drinks, created on the Irish fields
By the old men stirring their old potato stocks.

I see the dance in my heart, the rhythms of the samba,
The rumba, the cha-cha, the slide,
Ringing through the streets like the bull’s heels
On northern Spanish nights. The mountains echoing
The drums with their deep inflection.

You cannot see all this world in one glimpse.
Would you wish to? Yet I reach out and you grasp my hand
And together, we begin to walk. Over mountains,
Over seas. Over the rice fields, the markets, the city halls,
The sweet-stepped dances,
And deep into your heart.

For Love...

For Love

The love of a sister. The love of a friend.
Pure love. Cruel love. Chaste love.
A love you crave and wither behind,
Weeping solitary to the whimpering wind.
Cold, icy love, cutting to the bone of being,
Cornering behind shelters that you built
Around your feeble heart. Reaching
Through every barrier, around every shield.

It burns away the fairy-gauze thinness of mind
Until it hits soul, which it swiftly engulfs.
There is no escape. No relief.
Sheer passion, like the dancer for the dance.
The painter for a white canvas,
The child for Christmas Day.
Demonic love. All destroying, grasping love.
Never destroyed. Never grasped. Always loved.

For Your Wandering Eyes...

For Your Wandering Eyes

You hold a tiny child in your arms and see
How it grasps onto your hand,
Seeking comfort in your firm form.
It turns and gazes into yours, learning you
In a mere glimpse.

Bright eyes. Wide eyes. Not yet tainted by life.
Seeking to absorb every colour in an instant,
Gazing with pools of light, without fear.
Your eyes are smaller, shutting out the darkness
With an tear-drawn squint.

You walk away, one step at a time,
Into the darkness, wider and wider.
You try to walk faster, catch the departing train
By a second in an effort to extend your life.
As though a commuter watch is the key to life.

I ask you to stop. To slow and read these words.
You cannot read faster. You cannot think wider.
You will drop this paper to the wind and forget
As time continues, seeking a new second to destroy.

I ask you to stop and remember.
To widen your eyes to every colour.
To cry one more tear than courtesy allows.
To dance down a street without thinking or caring.
To wear fluorescent green and not care about the last train.
To watch the glimmering stars turn and for one moment,
Simply, sweetly, just be alive.

To A Dreamer...

To A Dreamer

You float.
Glide. Hover.
Your feet are pointed with their own weight.
Ballet-hardened toes from your dancing.
A camera clings to my palm. I film your dreaming.
Tiny storms wash around you.
Internal nebular tempests of poppies,
Rubies, roses;
Shining red apples lying in shining red piles
On vibrant, lurid grass.

You are craving.
Escape. Freedom.
To move your feet in the air and soar forwards.
Towards the prayer in your eyes.
I hear your rhythm. I record your dancing.
Capture it in my heart. Eternally.

Nevertheless,
The horizons contine,
the moving canvas
Of the heavens;
Pageant of clouds and stars
And the shifts
Of mystical blue,
Azure and cerulean. Ultramarine.

Your feet keep dancing. Swathed in colours,
Absorbed by life. Yet I hear the counting
Of ‘one’, then ‘two’, then ‘three’
And I think of your multitude dreams,
Balancing on your two tiny feet.

There are too many dreams.
Why we sometimes fall. Sometimes fail.
Yet we balance and watch our clocks tick
Away our chances and we smile.

And pray.

To A Child...

To A Child

I ask you, who are you?
You answer me with your name.
I repeat. You repeat. In pure simplicity.
Nothing seems difficult. Or complicated.
The red bucket and the yellow spade.
Barbie with Ken. Forever.

Now, cracks show on skin. Limbs askew.
Contorted. No longer a beautiful game.
No longer perfect. You see the audacity
As he walks away. Childhood is dated
By your thoughts. Yet the golden shade
Of childhood days linger. Simple. Perfect.

Forever.

Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

You stand, strange in London’s harsh glare.
Small flowers drift over your soft shape.
Somehow perfect.

Wearing a bindi, for heaven’s sakes. An alien
To a pinstriped commuter world.
Floating.

Not Indian. You relate to an English pub.
And yet here you smile. Radiant in otherness.
Striking.

You seem awkward. Not quite here. Not quite there.
Bright eyes glimmer. Cotton dances around you
You seem to hide from my gaze,

Now you are one.
Individual. Yourself.
Alone.

Regular Journeys

My compass seems tied like lead weight around my feet,
Telling me to walk further. Climb still higher. Yet the weight
Seems weightless. Endless freedom tied to my back
Like the cheap gauze angel wings of a little girl.

My feet ache, tired, a weary walk attempting to escape
The real world. The real places of my life. The school,
The kitchen, the Starbucks. Escaping from regularity.
From obligation. The real world hiding its face from mine in its shame.

Trees cower in the heat. A golden shimmer
Seems almost transcendant. There is no escape here either,
Besides the war outposts and ancient concrete gunposts.
I fear finding a dead man.
All metres away from Mary Magdalene.

Religion and war hiding together. Alone.

Suddenly, a moment where even this strange world
Decides to hide its tired face. Yet, this is not a real world.

A place where religion hides from the sun and yet is in its centre.
Flame heat mutates into frozen arches, strange monsters
Beaming down with glaring faces. There are no houses. No reality.
You walk here. You may only walk away.

Dry grass laps against stone walls. A door turns to the face of a
Dying God. Slowly He falls. I watch. The gargoyles stare deeper.
I smile. Somehow, death is warmer, magical. I light a candle.
Try to resurrect the dead Gods. It doesn’t work.

Yet I see higher. The dome, beautiful. Alone.
Stunning in its solitude. The arches defy anything.
Weak. Yet strong. A place of opposites. Of hiding.
Of fear. Of disguise. Of life.
A place of dreams.

Language

I’m writing, aren’t I? Writing in the language of my endless youth
That continues into my strange everyday. I think with my tongue,
How to move and give grace of speech. My language.
Like I own it. Yeah right.

Try to teach it. A whole new language that seems to have no point.
No reason besides to confuse, to complicate.
Just learn to speak it, damn you!
Apparently I just built a dam.

It all looks so easy from the video. The smiles and happy faces
As they all understand. Strange sounds mutate into words
They suddenly know. I’m meant to evolve them. Evolve myself.

An old language they say. “You can speak, can’t you” they say.
All these people, coming to open a ‘British’ world.
I teach to escape. To close it.
How ironic.

One, Two, Three, Wink.

Stand and be gazed at. You see eyes,
Everywhere. They attempt to absorb you,
Gather you into their arms and strike you
Dumb. Absorb all you know. In a moment.

I’m meant to talk my years into their mind,
Speak away their fears into blind belief.
You must be kidding. And yet, they gaze
Putting their dreams into their glares.

I remember this. I try to think, try to know
Of my years and yet they vanish.

Vanish into nothing.

I’m meant to know something.
I’m meant to understand myself.
And yet, i’m yet young.

They grumble and poke papers into the correct order.
I tell them to smile and they do, only to let it fade
After a moment. I tell them it’s safe.
They reply with panicking eyes.

How can I turn darkness into light?
How can I turn the world around?
Brown eyes blue?
One,
Two,
Three,
Wink.

Peace.

Oh Lord above, please grant us peace,
So we may find our way to your Kingdom.

A God of multinationals, corporate sponsors,
Granting us a moment or a penny coin.

We have to draw up roadmaps to peace,
And proposals for our future lives.

Why not have peace for a moment and not worry
About money in the bank. Or money in the Kingdom.

I'm just waiting for a moment of peace.
Peace from your persistent evangelism.
Just for a moment, some peace.

Breathe Me

I want to be surrounded. Held in ethereal hands.
Hugged by arms that don't exist. Not in a
Conventional sense of course. I'm not human. That's
Insulting actually. I'm not chained to the earth, like you.

I want to be moved. I'm a lazy old girl really.
Don't like to bother to move myself. Let the other
Elementals do it for me. Though sometimes they need
A kick in the backside. Get a tiny tempest going, just for fun.

I want to be loved. That's why I like the tiny people dancing.
They love me moving around them. It's a thrill.
But people quickly forget I danced the foxtrot with them
At practice, when they're holding a physical hand.

I want to be breathed. "It doesn't matter what you want. You
Just exist," said a little girl. I want to be worshipped and warmed
By their moist heat. I want to be thought about. Counted
Slowly, as if saying a numerical prayer to my quantity.

The Angel of the Mosaic Seen From Many Places

I see an angel. Doves fly from her armpits
In ordered droves, each carrying a dented rose
By its stem. On her head balances a spaghetti
Colander of sorts, holes resting in the strange
Mosaic shadows of each wing.

Shame her dress isn't dropped over her head.
She's upside-down you see, or her wings
Would be around her feet. Where the lions are.
They seem a bit too tame actually, fragmented
Heads resting on their borrowed shields.

She looks tired. Probably went out last night.
Drinking wine. Eating manna.
She stands straight though. For the camera.
A man's strange memorial to his wife. A Russian angel,
In Germany, viewed with an English girl's eyes.


Based on the 'Mosaic im Hochzeitsturm' by Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens.

Perhaps Tomorrow

Quoth he. Another time, when i'm less busy,
Not running around with this or that.
Perhaps when I don't have this job, or this mother,
Or this estranged brother on my doorstep.
Perhaps when the dog's dead, cat got run over
And all my friends have fled.
When i'm in 'Lavenders', the old people's place
Down the road, incontinent and paranoid,
Living in my own little world.
Then i'll have a spare minute, a moment
For your worries and cares.
As it is, i'm off to a meeting, to forget
This moment, you, and, of course, your name.

Sylvia Plath Syndrome

I think the world's infected. People are tired,
Stressed. Fed up with seeking something
Beyond reality. There are too many people.
Too much to see and do for humanity.
Whatever that is. So we look for a way out.
A way of talking to someone because no-one
Wants to listen to another complaint. Find
Something who will hear and comfort.
If I'm lucky, even give me a hug.

I think poetry is dying. People comfort
Themselves in iambic pentameter.
Because even the counsellor
Doesn't really care. She's paid.
The self-help shelf in the bookshops
All contain books on how to write poems,
With the odd one on how to scream.
We're all made of cracked plaster,
Slowly crumbling off the walls.

There was something sinestre in the old house
She saw on the far hillside. Spooked sheep
And shingle grave walls. She spoke in her words
To help herself and people heard her, yelling
From the ramparts. We're yelling from the
Downstairs window, trying to reach heights of
Madness, in an attempt to become sane.
We all need to be heard sometimes.
Syndrome's made me lose my voice.

The World's A Wanker

I think the world's a bloody wanker.
Think about it. All the old men, all the
Young boys. That's what, a third already.
Then there's the fundamentalist arseholes.
The bullies, the bosses with poles
Rammed up their backsides.
The bigoted hypocrites. The blundering creeps.
That makes it near enough half.

Then there's the bitches, slags, sluts,
Pimps and procrastinators.
Pikeys, chavs and hooligans. The
Curse of youth. The old complainers, aching
Grumps past their prime. The permed grannies
With their knitting needles clacking gossip
Under hair lacquer. That leaves one percent,
Crushed in the stampede of degradation.

I'm just on another planet all together.
Planet of my mind. Rotating around nothing
In particular. Part of very little. A quantum me.
Then again, that's what everyone says.
"I'm me!" They indignantly retort. "I'm not human!"
"I'm different. God's personal child!" And I tell them
To sod off. We're all talking utter piffle.
We just can't see it ourselves.

Brouhaha

All you can do is laugh. Watching
People crowd like pidgeons
Before a man throwing
Promises like sunflower seeds.

He stands on a platform
Covered in curled streamers
Like he's going to the hanging.
Of his opponent.

People wave and clap as he
Walks away. It's some achievement
To walk straight, whilst
Hugging babies.

Another man stands on the tarmac
Seeing the bloody hanging rope.
Broom in hand, he sweeps the paper
Trails away.

From now, all is quiet. Bruush. Brussh.
He never got near to the office door.
Too much laughter to hear what he said.
They didn't believe a word.

Lipstick Stains

Smears across the back of my hand,
Down one of my fingers in grill lines,
Like i've put my hand on thin metal gauze heated
Out of shape from one too many bunsen burners
In GCSE Chemistry classes. Melted lipstick gauze.

It's a new product from 'Loreal'. "Test it on your hand"
The sales-lady blabbers, "It would really suit you Ma'am!"
She smiles convincingly. As if she believes the
Colour of faith is 'Perfect Peach'. So I smear it across my
Skin in narrow, painful stripes.

I can't get it off. It was semi-permanent lipstick,
Painted on delicately with a sharp knife-edge
Or bent paperclip spike. "I'm a cutter with lipstick," I say,
To which the sales-lady replies, "Perhaps you'll be after
'Blood Rose' then?" Soft words with a sarcastic smile.

Anorexia Loves Being Me

She has hollows everywhere. Spaces, blanks,
Fill the boxes with blubber and fat. She looks like
The BT Tower. The Bulemic Tramp. You are shocked.
Awed by her face on the telly, thin, haggard.
Moldable like putty. She talks funny, with a soft lisp
As if her lips are too thin to produce a sound.
She clasps her stomach in front of a camera and
Sees who she is. What has ingrained itself in her
So much that she cannot live beyond its definition.
A pinch of skin between her ghost white fingers.
Tiny. Significant. The gram sending her to torture
Or ecstasy. Yet now she is real, not made of stripes
In red, green and blue, but standing next to me
Propped on brittle classroom chalk bones.
That's where it started. The agony. She is my friend.
I care. I can't change her, I love her tortured ways.

She is stronger than I am.
Worships a higher power.
The cruel criminal calorie.

Bad Posture

Hunched over, buckled in two
Like a car in a scrap-yard crusher.
It's run a bit too long, breathing short.
Perhaps fear. Been faking engine trouble
For years.

A girl tries to sing and squeaks each note.
Forces a tune into her heart and her body,
Killing her sound into someone raking leaves
On a shoddy autumn day. She can't sing now.
Too late for music.

He's old, in one of those nice comfortable
Sort of places. Telly and tea. Toast for breakfast.
Too many bricks to lift, too many heavy boxes.
He now takes tablets to pretend he's feeling better.
Looking at the carpet.

Shell Scavenger

He's an old man, limping along the beach.
Long ago hurt by life and war, leg torn
In vicious, metal scissor cuts into paper flesh.
He stares at the ground, watching as shell-like
Fleeting moments pass by. The surf collides with
His worn leather sandals, grit grating at his calloused
Grimy feet. Hawk-like birds fly overhead, about to
Feast on their injured prey in his sandals.

He stops. The sand grinds his bones as he bends,
Reaching towards a shell, one of so many crushed
Under his endless footsteps. Fractured, cracked. A curled,
Ridged tendril of bone, defeated in a war of stones
As he had been in a war of guns and bombs.
He raises it to the sky to see it against his old hands
With his weak eyes, see its beauty. A breath of wind
And it is gone, a tear of blood lingering in his palm.

Angus Die

I love this bit. The bit when I can go
All morbid on my readers.
The man's a bit of a twat really. Spends
All his time at his desk, with that bloody
Inkwell. Not that the ink's blood, 'course.

He keeps making blotches everywhere,
On all his papers. To most, they're meaningless.
Can't read his obese scrawl. And yet,
This all is meant to mean something.
Mabye it's new age dowsing with ink.

Well, technically i've just got things wrong. Fault of
Tapping technology. I don't hate Angus really.
I don't know an Angus. Death just got banned from
My poetry. No, Angus is a human angel, divinity reached
Through musical notes, spelling Agnus Dei.

Lonelily

I imagine a hillside, covered in low gorse ground
That crunches underfoot like shells on a beach.
A piece of driftwood lies on that beach, pointing
Like an old, arthritic finger into the melodramatic sky.
The sky drifts, darkens, disguises itself under a cloak
In a thousand shades of black under which a man
Shines a bulbous, yellow plastic battery torch.
Light speckled like an egg through the weave.

The torch reflects off the ground. God's looking for
His keys. Couldn't open the gates yesterday, he's
Got a queue going. He bends a bony digit towards
The beach of shining shell pieces that don't exist.
He sees a flower. Trampled and crushed under
Stampeding steps, yet still glowing in the torchlight
On the cloak-covered, tide-covered low gorse ground.