Tuesday 27 December 2011

caught

Hold my heart in your teeth.
I wake up shaking.
The heat of your name.
The weight of it the same.
The world has laid down sticks,
and leaves, to make me fall again.
again, again.
The wind up as I catch my breath,
and call you back.
Attack, defend, attack.
The breadth of it has cordoned me.
A hiding hold.
To bury me.
Another vampire.
Deep down.
At the bottom of the sea.
Sustained by magic.
Contained and tragic.
Sailing by attrition.
No more drawn breath.
No turning back.
I held my hands.
My knuckles cracked.
I cried for all the love I lack.

Thursday 22 December 2011

necks



separate,
a severance,

the severity,
has elegance,

I dare not look,
at the thing that hangs,

with its neck,
it bled below,

and above,
are row after row,

so on the cycle goes,
the hanging of the guinea fowl
the limp and lifeless doe.


never

trying to list my memories in order of preference,
knowing sad heaps of them are lost,
I have written your name on the backs of countless receipts,
waded through the misdirection of your words,
sat alone behind a screen, remembering, remembering,
you weigh so heavy, more and more lately,
given credence by the distances of time,
holding up my elements, aside from myself,
a half read novel, the contents of my pockets,
fuse failed rockets to the moon.

Thursday 15 December 2011

mess

i bit my tongue before it could reel in sympathy,
proclaiming grand tragedy, lame lamb sighs,
crying into your cable knit sweater,
lying spread eagle on your floor,
propping it shut, head jamming the door,
we are subjective recluses,
on our exclusive grand tour,
I'll block out the others,
I'll tell you much more,
more than the sadness I told you before,
I'll bleed out your sympathy from my bed on the floor.

Monday 12 December 2011

http://inc-zine.blogspot.com/

I recently read at the launch for issue 4 of inc. magazine. A wonderful Poetry and Illustration zine I was lucky enough to be published in. Below is a poem of mine that was featured I advise you buy a copy so you can see all of the other poems and illustrations, for only £4 with p&p its really a lovely thing.

Towed here in the milk light of grey morning,
something between us ebbing out,
trying to clutch up the wet sand as it sweeps to nothing,
becoming some uncertain solution,
life it seems, is a dilution,
a drafted letter to a love thought lost,
a bottle of unassigned ink,
cast blindly,
the hand set to poisoning the wild sea,
as old ideas are cast free.

I see the great divide,
between our past and your future,
and my pen bleeding out,
into an abyss of burnt out conversations,
the hold I had,
no longer there,
though I hold your hand,
it is like wet sand.

Sunday 11 December 2011

winter worn

winter worn, deep in your head behind the tears in your eyes,
a holding gate, casting shadows on the dead,
 the sheets, the walls, our eyelids, are lined like paper,
guiding hands, landing strips, leading questions,
the sorrow of bland sanity has struck me to my bed,
remedy oh remedy, send sweet pilgrims to my soul,
please I need the charms of love to realign my head,
the time at least to understand the things you've said,
the last words, the first, all the lists of good and bad,
live wires now dead.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

there

there is a perfect person pawing at your heart,
there is a starting pistol shooting you into a padded cell,
there is heat, and soft wet darkness, ready to wrap up the night in foil,
there is a bitter inflection, abating my whole hearted flinging of my whole hot heart,
there is a fleck of blood on your lower lip,
there are three whole sentences from our conversation I can not recollect,
there is a point at which we are no longer reconcilable,
there is a person I remember whom I love with three quarters of my heart,
there is a house somewhere in my home town where I live happily with that person,
there are countless mediocre dimensions,
there is one where I am there for you,
there is one where everything I say shakes you,
there is one where everthing I do hurts you,
there is one where I am pawing at your heart, trying to wake you,
there is one where I am breaking you out of a padded cell,
there, there are people cheering our names.

Monday 5 December 2011

...


I can’t remember the gold glint that caught us here, 
I hollowed myself, to be here,
leapt at the chance to carry on,
heaped on spoon after spoon,
the night of the night, darker,
richer depth, colder heart,
sewn together forever,
irrevocable, intangibly,
ever begetting

tide

Well good riddance, good night,
good luck, lucky one, held on to my pockets,
as the wood creaked, we were too much burden,
so uncertain, brains divided like curtains,
drawing rings with pebbles,
perfect circles scattered at random,
cutting up our reflection,
choking up in front of the mirror,
floating further, down a river,
charms tied with thin string,
you are a moon,
I am a boat,
you say the word,
you tell me where to float.