Dead: One

Harvest all that isn’t pickled, tarred and marred

From living

Have me

Over a bench

One last time

Limp and pale

I want to go

Over Pennard cliffs

A hurtling, plummeting rot

Ejected from a wheelbarrow

Just before we run out of grass

If you love me enough

To fly-tip deadweight

Get to work on those upper arms

I’ll buy the van

Here at ‘Reflection’: The corner of Portrait and Bio

They go often, seldom meet

take souvenirs of worth

reflective, potent

with potential for growth, though

must suffer Hollywood

amnesic clouts of happenstance,

the bum’s rush victim

Self inflicted and operated

a back scratch turned collar snatched

Synergy of leap and hurl

Blow life's currency

swinging blindly inward to

the beat and strum

of self loathing and other

wankery trifes

Wield drills and spades and toothpicks

hack by blade or handle’s bludgeon

subject roped

supine on Excalibur’s sheath,

score with searing fountain nibs

The cracked blunt spines

of wizened tomes, bruise

but unearth no unknown.

Paw their scrapbook’s lemon juice script

stare blind

blind in deep, deep empty chests.

So assemble each other in sunlight and dust

embrace a foreigner filling a lover’s skin

stretched and ill-fitting

tailored by failure to find.

Your Friend

Your dear friend, and so clearly your friend,

spoke light, swift converse like

swallows' flight

soft and pointed, lay the words

"You love her."

I did well.

Backfoot pressed, I did not reel,

stayed vague, lied to neither of us

and did not resist.

Never resist. My friends to resist

is to cartwheel through no man's

and they will cut you down

with eyes and silence.

I did well.

Fell back, made light.

Ghosts of words who mill

as flocks or mobs,

trouble as your fear

of birds and people,

froze, preserved

to spare my evening...

and will thaw,

pour in and throughout

fall with the weight of the oceans' fingers

who rise and spread and rise and spread

then crack, dig and claw foundations

flush out roots to swallow your falling mass

or crash your outposts, any head or face

of rock you jutt against her swell

is weathered by parts over aeons

to the building grits

of glass and castles.

I did well, still,

damn your friend.

Spontaneity

He considers spontaneity.

Thinks about leaving.

When he does

He will take off his socks

Roll them in to balls and

Place them in his running shoes.

The contents of his tattered leather wallet

He will arrange on the bedside table

Unnecessary receipts

Old train tickets

Credit, debit and membership cards

A condom.

He will put the wallet in his left pocket.

On his phone

He will record a greeting to inform that he

“Can no longer be reached at this number”

Turn the phone off and place it on charge.

The shoes

He will place together

Heels to the step at the front door.

He will lock the door and post his key through the letter-box

Feel the world rise through his naked feet

Spread his toes

And go.

He thinks about leaving.

He considers spontaneity.

We Met At The Breakfast Club

(for Mr Burton)

Toaster hands

can't bathe

or hold a knife

and will certainly not

be giving me a second

hand-job

but she has
a warm touch

and an easy-out
crumb tray

The Break In

Teabags

pile up in the bin

we huddle round

drawing hard

one armed hugs and

rubbing backs

waiting for the pigs

to come

and all they did

was scold the

girls

suggest insurance

Late Night Shopping

Studied eyes are weighing up the poultry

This endless wait can cause a man such grief

Twenty minutes choosing chickens, and then

He turns to me and says he fancies beef

Needling bastard must do it on purpose

Blood near boiled, I clenched my fist and spat

Could’ve raised a cow and killed it by now

Just pick a meat and lets go home you twat!

Then We Talked About It All Week

On a hill,

on a tunnel,

on a Sunday.

We were host to the end of the world.

We were young,

we were stoned,

we were hungry,

and the three of us watched it in awe.

And the air,

and the traffic,

and the dead,

hung and stared as the sun shrank to nought.

Hung and prayed,

hung and wailed,

hung and waited,

on a hill on a tunnel on a Sunday.