Baskerville's Stanley

He lived a life by the letter,
lying through lipless teeth,
blue underneath.

Sinking through corridors,
like smoke between teeth,
buried down packed snow to sleep.

Cotton bud came out bloody,
and he sighed himself to sleep,
with poems from the good book
that held his hand,
that touched his cheek.

I heard him talk in vases,
echoed spirals right around my mind,
in years that grew like climbers,
a kaleidoscopic narrow mind,
switching up the chambers
 until he forgot how to tell the time.

sanctuary

How cruel of you to tell me,
years beyond the fact - Months -
beyond the turning point -
long since I held track -
shivers down my backbone -
and I'm craning to look back -
my brain is starved of oxygen -
starved of all the things I lack.

How cruel of you to whisper,
like its just another fact.

Staring daggers through your eyelids,
shooting pigeons flying back.

The love of sheltered wisdom -
the clairvoyant in the back -
the rooster in the hen house -
screaming wisdom into black -
the big mouth striking blindly -
leading the attack --

You are none of these exactors -
glancing daggers off my neck  -
you are just a poor rememberer -
you aren't granting me due slack -
you are a headlight flood lit sanctuary
from which there is no turning back -
the banks clear burst the estuary
and the sea starts swirling black -

pollen

two grains locked in cupboards,

perfect for ever,

a full collection of pollen on a leg,

shrugged off all of a sudden,

to be left sullen,

two ventricles without blood in,

two sucked in cheeks,

pinched red,

to create whole hearts, from fractions,

two grains locked in cupboards,

perfect for ever, 

two brains smashed together,

safely talking of the weather,

and breathing slower ever slower,

together always together,

perfect for ever,

a full collection, 

of pollen on a leg,

hanging on through sheer vertigo.

utter

i
 hope
 my
brain was better
 fodder
 for your heart to collapse around
like a cannon blooming

i
 hope
 my
eye was a signaller
      revving up singular
             sightless propulsion to push you through water
                                         and up through the surface
i hope you resurface
  again
    and again

i
    hope
 my power
 gave your wings powder
 to flutter majestic
to shimmer
 to utter
       collecting in air,
all around and up under
 enough to mutter,
 to glimmer, projecting
the health of the letter,
 the warm eyes and better

baby

fighting the helpful feeding, 

as you batter against the window, 

I can't hear a thing you're saying,

I cannot feel the weight of your hand,

you are a cut away before a big reveal,

you are a throw back to a complete circle,

so uncomplicated, lapping at your own shore,

rings of incandescence, like an endless sleep, 

I can't hear a thing you're saying,

I cannot feel my feet sink in sand,

and, as though I'm being cradled lower and lower,

and, or, as if you could be an anchoring influence,

you are the keeper, holding me by the ankle,

you are dipping me into the river,

which returns to its own source, 

lapping at its own shores, 

welling up a little,

 trickling from its open mouth,

stuck up in a high chair,

fighting the helpful feeding. 

best laid

I had it all lined up like dominoes,
rows upon rows, all ready to go,
spring boards for propulsion,
fingertip destruction,
 I felt like Hillary Clinton.

I was to move from one point to the next
to the next to the next to the next

I fell asleep with a map of plans,
playing out perfect,
clicking onto each other,
knocking their next best down,
I woke up with a mouth full of vomit,
that is how it goes.

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