King of Shadows

He spoke to me down where the wild thyme grows:

‘Good fellow, do my bidding in the night.

Return before the randy rooster crows

at the dismal dullness of midsummer’s light’.

So down I danced and heard a silly song

sung by an actor who seemed asinine

(perhaps I have remembered this all wrong

but he looked to me just like old Kevin Kline).

Then as I crept down past the eglantine

I spied a sight that stilled my rowdy heart:

a fairy on a bank of celandine

with something puckish troubling her heart.

I know that our two hearts should never rhyme

though we both know they syncopate in time.

Elephant

I choose the wine -

a glass of sweat between us

like Diana’s Mirror,

her sunken wrecks

the shoes kicked off by giants

in stupid violent history.

You wear the tablecloth -

‘Friends Romans Countrymen’

and my SS officer, heels tutting,

salutes the pepper pot.

My smile is carried at the speed of light.

You giggle at the speed of sound.

After the salad and tsunami,

Siamese twins joined at their junk

totter across a car park,

pirouetting around kisses,

punching puddles,

hunting tigers with an elephant gun.

In the barnyard of the night,

beneath a gibbous moon,

we become drunk piglets

between each other’s legs.

A conch mouth roughness glows

smooth with a single breath.

See how that fingertip reddens -

all blood where it belongs.

Inhaling distaff wisdom

at the true edge of the world,

two thieves nail themselves to the same cross,

broken backed and screaming.

In a pinprick of silence,

you place your exquisite hand

into the willing glove of my throat,

cradle the raw egg of my heart -

that spoonful of not very much

and squeeze.

The Omega Man

The empty streets run round me like a curse

I pinch my nose and hopscotch through the dead

to find a wall graffitied with some verse,

a still-wet message scratched in cherry red

which fades to brown as it begins to dry.

“I love you but I hate love and that’s why

I hate you and I hope you fucking die”.

Above the words a scribbled evil eye

stares down at me as I begin to smile

the broadest grin this empty world has known.

Despite the flood of vitriol and bile

the message tells me I am not alone.

I dance off down the hollow, blood-soaked street,

day-dreaming of the poet I could meet.

The Hare

She settles into her depression

achieves her perfect form 

in flat still camouflage

The dim farmer cannot know

how she surveys his labours

behind beaded spider webs

The fox and the hawk care not

that she has taken the earth

as her lover. She pushes against

his silence, his intransigence,

feels cold strength spreading 

to the tips of her scarred ears

The sun is lost in a barley pod

but spring will come again

with its frenzy and its terror

In the grip of her loins’ madness

she will take her place in the wind

to box and bite their necks

The farmer barks something

in his tongue and she feels right

to run, springs out across the field,

quicksilver in the jelly of his eye

sinews packed with surviving fire.

She has unanswerable questions

One night she dreamed she was an owl.

Another night, she swam in warm seas.

Another still, she grew old and died.

She lives by phases of the moon.

She holds what she has close.

Everything else cannot ever matter.

Country Sonata

The mushroom steeple bell

balls its fist

rages twice

throws larks in flight

sings brother brother

to the distant sea

Men with orange necks

suck grass

beat the earth

in time with

the inchworm

lambing

the Seaford train

Light and air -

this mountain of may flowers

come friend

take nature’s pulse

dance a bee-wing waltz

drop glad to caper

at the copse

trudge dark to spring with me

two wasps against

the lazy sun

Down among the men

they love a barefoot girl

a piglet flower

holding the moon sideways

her dance is swift magic

her rhythm 

the pendulum of daffodils

of hot pricks

Ask the ploughman for his song

he’ll sing of her

in his grave he will hear

a tambourine.

Shovelfuls of cemetery

shake off a blade

the ancient gate

rises on a rusted hinge

thanks the lost dog

the historian

the odd picnicker

The gravestones low at night

wind songs settle

on a reef of bones

a soul held voiceless

in a tree root

her pickle heart beating still

listens closer than

the living

Spring clover

borage floated in my wine

the chalk pit passes

a station approaches

with its own sad songs.

The Road Out

You ran away to get away

from all the silly things I say

and while this may not be the end,

it’s hard to write that and pretend

tomorrow’s just another day.

You must have noticed my wordplay

was camouflaging dull cliche

for when you read what I had penned

you ran away.

I’m clumsy so my mad display

of fondness sounded like foreplay

and now I dimly comprehend

how I have lost a precious friend

and endlessly replay the day

you ran away.

M23, Southbound

ahead the

traffic celebrates

with a christmas tree

of break-lights

oh fuck says

the wife fuck

heads down

the kids don’t hear

its Hotel Transylvania 2

on seat-back DVD

youngest asleep so woo

we settle refresh

deal a hand of biscuits

watch ten minutes

of lights and sirens

on the hard shoulder

on the steering wheel my

hands feel meaty

a farmers hands

sailing his tractor

up the Somme

ahead

something unbuckles

christmas is over

hand break off

tractor speed on

diamonds announce the crash

two cars have come

together and apart

a vomiting woman

paramedics kneeling

dressing a man

in medical rags

and orange peel

another man

still face down

peering through the asphalt

to a hidden world below

his untucked shirt

mouths wind words

his back is 

hairier than mine

in our unshattered

goldfish bowl

we float

across the battlefield

jesus don’t look says

the wife don’t look

go ahead kids

I say

look up

take a little taste

then try to forget

Intermezzo

Maybe in the dull heat after sweetness

your body steams, your flank cools and so much

passes between us with every touch

that we need not speak. On the floor your dress

plays murder victim, your forlorn knickers

are the white flag announcing armistice;

my shirt is Fred Astaire. You plant a kiss

in the palm of my hand. Something flickers

and the moon appears outside the bedroom

door, filling the house, exerting its vast,

crazed gravity on both of us. Above

us now, the air is filling with perfume.

I feel the present, future and the past

evaporate, condensing into love.

Lost and Found

We lose ourselves in silly dreams

and hatch far-fetched romantic schemes.

We love to love what we can’t get -

ask Romeo, ask Juliet,

those tragically misguided teens

who met by night beneath moonbeams,

explorers out at love’s extremes -

He Montague, she Capulet,

both starcrossed, both in love, and yet

they taught us all what true love means:

we lose ourselves.

As poets, we both love these themes

but love is never what it seems

for, as we sing our mad duet,

we lose ourselves.

Dawn

outside the sky is waking up

re-bandaging her clouds

listening down into my heart

to discover a unicyclist there

stars are packing their shirt sleeves flat

stepping moondrunk off the carousel

seabirds are shouting your name

what name do they shout for you?

outside the air soaks itself in light

monochrome bleeds to cornflower

passing cars pull the canvas tight

what shall we paint today?

in my belief

the stars and mad old moon

go spiralling into your throat

so you can taste my breath in yours

as you clatter

towards a shared sunrise.

The Beast With Two Backs

In the beginning, we had four legs,

four arms, four eyes, two hearts, two heads.

We men were children of the Sun.

We’d fight and shout and hunt and run.

You women were children of the Earth,

baking bread and giving birth,

presumably.

On Mount Olympus, Zeus got jealous

and some might argue over-zealous

for over time he had grown sour

contemplating human power.

Would we, could we fight the Gods?

Zeus didn’t much like the odds,

presumably

because he called, “Fee fi fo fum!

Ready or not, dudes, here I come!”

and before we had the chance to laugh,

he split all humans neatly in half!

Now we’re half as big, with half the strength

and roughly half the width and length,

presumably.

So now we all feel incomplete

with just one heart, two hands, two feet,

and spend our lives scouring the Earth

for our long-lost other half

and though our partners may be great

they’re not our actual soulmate,

presumably.

In fact, we could change our partner nightly

and it would still be statistically unlikely

that we’d locate our special friend

so we all settle in the end

for whoever’s lips we’re kissing

but we all sense there’s something missing,

presumably?

I was content to settle too

until, sweet lady, I found you;

my mirrored self, the rest of me,

the whole root system of my tree,

the ghostly double of my soul.

Come lie with me and we’ll feel whole!

Presumably.

Wet January

‘We have invented happiness’ and blinks.

The last man watches nature from his couch,

forgets that he’s in fact the missing link.

He rises up, does the Bethlehem Slouch,

grazes the butt-ends of his days and ways

hunting for what’s left of self-control.

All evolution stopped with this malaise;

when hominids discovered alcohol.

If he could, would he live his life again,

promise all the same dull resolutions?

That question’s always dragging on his brain.

No answers, no acceptance, no solutions.

Abysses do not gaze or answer back

and God’s a hopeless dipsomaniac.

Love Story

Hold sadly under the palm of my hand

a moment longer -

let’s each cast another

seventy feet of spell

to stay in love. Thank me

for our unlipped kiss,

for letting my shadow

fall across you;

this snapped daffodil

I fetched from your garden

you can place in your own mouth.

Keep your sleeping flesh in hunger -

your dugong’s dream of perspiration. 

I might unbutton that dream today,

anoint you, pour gasoline

into your dry throat,

seed wild flowers between your lips

and loosened breath.

Hold nothing else with your dominant hand.

Let a reptile climb across your belly.

I could peel this planet Earth for you,

push my thumb between its segments,

rebuild you out of my ribs

and the cloying, fattened air.

All I ask is everything you have left,

to lie in unwatered darkness

waiting for my wasted breath -

to shake your dull body each time

to the cry of my name.

In between events,

I have fastened a silver chain

around your two thumbs.

Love me and I’ll lead you back

to where you started.

The Shadow

Everywhere

in the vast night

men are strangling wives

and daughters bleed out

in the boot

of a Ford Aspire

Everywhere

men with boiling eyes

their stale bodies bristling

their tongues blood-soaked

grab through

half-rolled car windows

at the women who loved them

and howl

Everywhere

in the shuttered interiors

of factory towns

stunted lads with Xboxes

Google creampie anal

jerk off to pixels

and inherit the Earth

In her little sedan

on Parking Level 4

Kathleen knows she needs to be firm.

Ryan’s toxic,

lost his job six weeks ago.

He frightens her.

As she fetches her keys from her bag,

she hears footsteps.

The Story of the Human Race So Far

One night a little pip fell on the ground

and, luckily, there were no birds around.

A breath of wind picked up a maple leaf

and dropped it with the little pip beneath.

That night the pip dreamed she was giving birth

and woke to find she’d sunk into the Earth

and from the clamshell of her little coat

there had appeared a fragile snow-white root.

She sat and wondered what the root could be

not guessing she might one day be a tree,

not knowing she had found the perfect place

as her planet tumbled soundlessly through space.

The Tide is Out

A ship that’s accidentally run aground

might day-dream of the previous high tide.

A fish that’s beached itself and slowly drowned

lies lifeless at the sun-baked waterside.

These poems are the dreadful rasping sound

I’m making as I slowly get tongue-tied.

A tank abandoned on the battleground

will rust if it remains unoccupied.

I try to be your faithful palace hound

but all the fight in me has slowly died.

My poetry has never been profound.

I know my protestations are cock-eyed

but I’m nothing much when you are not around

and you are otherwise preoccupied.

Bobby Part One

Bobby from Walthamstow

playing in the Hollow Ponds

Baby boomer Robin Hood

shrinking the forests 

of Epping and Sherwood -

getting lost on the Debris

Whose copper father cheated

and moved the family to start again

but who even after

saw that Scottish father

laughing in a passing car

with his mistress

and had to hold that in

like a lungful of poison smoke

waiting for a new bomb to land

Who hid in black and white

as the horror started to hatch

cheered as Cagney self-immolated

and Bogart said

‘the stuff that dreams are made of’

Who lost himself in the flicker

and in the mirror found

a copycat Belmondo

lip-curled and pomaded.

Whose mother dropped dead

in the middle of a family fight

aged fifty four -

No angels came, just a dozen uncles

on their police motorcycles.

Dad, when did you put on your armour?

A waistcoat and a cine-camera

North London Clyde Barrow

sneering at the Beatles

and the stiffs who towed

the nine to five

Dad, you found your own dad dead

when you were twenty one

What pills were those by his bed?

What had he taken?

What did you say to him?

What carnivorous corkscrew

chewed down

to make its nest?

Who met a girl who bought

the thoughtful bad boy bit

and so began

the fifty two year conundrum

of the rebel without a cause

but with a wife and kids

Who rode a time of change

with Baudelaire and Bergman

listening to the String Band

smoking black and dropping acid

Who found in Brighton 1970

a city-sized family…

I’ll leave you there, Dad,

as I cannot hold you in a single poem.

I’ll come back, I promise,

and write you something better.

I haven’t even been born yet.

The River

The river carves its path across the land.

It rushes by the ghosts who haunt its banks;

two lovesick souls who dimly comprehend 

that if they touch the water they will sink

and so each day these tragic phantoms stand

to watch each other on the farther shore;

a fascination that shall never end

for all the things they cannot ever share.

Instead they sing in voices soft and sweet

such love songs as the river never heard.

In melodies these lovers truly meet;

they hide a kiss in every rhyming word.

Perhaps one day our river meets the sea

but until then, my darling, sing to me.

Three Women

In the sunlit lobby, two boys

behind a couch

watch a Wild Girl

In an upstairs room

heavy shoes are placed

beneath a bed

Down the hall

a call girl

arches an aching back

Two hundred bucks

He comes as

her telephone trims

Out front a drunk guy

climbs a ladder

hoses hanging baskets

His daughter died

nine years back

Killed by her lover

In the lobby, a briefcase

holds two hundred decks

of trick playing cards

Wild Girl high-kicks

shakes a wet canvas

“Let’s get noticed!”

The boys dream

of catching the whole city

in their fishing net

Indeed, they will grow down

to the water table

drink all they need

The call girl

washes her moneymaker

in the bathroom sink

watches the window

Pigeons are re-enacting

World War Two

The lover was Bengt

a Swedish singer

It was a closed casket.

The World Enough

All life exists between two open doors

An elevator stuck between two floors

A mere handclap of lightning caught between

two nothings we can feel but never see.

The sun must rise and fall, the heavens turn

We work and play, we watch our candle burn

The winter thaws, the summer turns to rust

just as we know that soon we will be dust.

Yet what we think and feel while we’re alive

can overshoot our deaths. It can survive

long after we are rotting in the ground

and all we have to do is write it down.

Our love exists between two open doors.

I’ve written mine. I beg you to write yours.

The Fire

The fire churns but I don’t put it out.

I do not even step back from the flame.

At some point this will hurt, I have no doubt,

but when it does, I’ll have myself to blame.

You tut and tell me you don’t feel the same

wildness, the hopeless wildness that grips me

and yet you stick around to play our game.

Meanwhile the flames grow exponentially.

Composing your exquisite poetry,

not noticing your skirt has caught on fire,

you casually enjoy our repartee

despite the tongues that lick up ever higher.

Come closer, lover, hold my hand and burn.

Perhaps we’ve both still got a lot to learn.

Poetry

So much depends on poetry.

It’s how we learn to love, you see,

it’s where we first interrogate

our feelings, how we navigate

an often harsh reality -

On formal forms, on verse that’s free,

on dactyl, iamb and spondee,

on how we choose to punctuate

so much depends.

In this world of uncertainty

where people mostly disagree

except about the things they hate,

where Heaney’s lost and Bieber’s great,

on how we value poetry

so much depends…

Under the Christmas Tree

The Morning’s come, let’s have some fun

We’ll play our game once again 

I’ll take your mind off wintertime

Under the Christmas tree

Oh babe, make me smile

Today’s the day you’ll finally come

Oh honey, it’ll take a while

Tomorrow we’ll be free

We never made a simple plan

I became your bogeyman

so follow me now, take all you can

under the Christmas tree

Oh babe, make me smile

Today’s the day you’ll finally come

Oh honey, it’ll take a while

Tomorrow we’ll be free.

The greatest story ever told

Growing up is growing old

I gave you gold but you grew cold

Under the Christmas tree

Oh babe, make me smile

Today’s the day you’ll finally come

Oh honey, it’ll take a while

Tomorrow we’ll be free

I guess you knew I didn’t know

the secrets of the rodeo

but now I do, I’d love to go

under the Christmas tree.

Oh babe, make me smile

Today’s the day you’ll finally come

Oh honey, it’ll take a while

Tomorrow we’ll be free.

Oh babe, make me smile

Today’s the day you’ll finally come

Oh honey, it’ll take a while

Tomorrow we’ll be free.

Where I Find You

In the full stops of a stolen library book

In the ballet of a bloody boxing match

In the fish that wriggled off my careless hook

In the pistol with a broken safety catch.

In the tombstone names of endless nameless dead

In the small hours when I’m feeling all alone

In my heart and in my balls and in my head

In the Unknown Caller on my ringing phone

In each flower whose real name I do not know

In the joggers who run past before I wake

In the owl, the buzzard, dove and goose and crow

In the signpost on the path I do not take.

In the deep sea where the haunted dead reside

In the eyes of lost boys sleeping in the snow

In the silence left behind when love has died

In the places where I know I’ll never go.

You’re hiding just behind each leafless tree

You’re shadowed at the back of every cave

You’re the hidden hand that writes my poetry,

the moon which galvanises every wave.

You’re the pulsing, primal singularity

that’s revealed a whole new universe to me.

I’m not asking you to love me or to care.

I just wanted you to know you’re everywhere.

Water Dream

On the black beach you and I

leave doodled footprints

to be lifted by the sea.

Our bodies understand

the hurricane of whispered witchcraft

the cadence of attraction

the dark salt taste

at the heart of a candied day.

We do not hold each other

but we can each hold

two cupped hands of water

to sip and say I love you -

We can clasp our coin of the tornado

in immaculate burning calm

and dream of the ocean

like sightless fish

swimming weightless

in formaldehyde.

Counter Factual

The drowsy day is at its height.

The river flows beyond our feet.

With bellies to the sulky sun,

our hot hands meet and intertwine.

We have loved inside the grass,

ate zebra at a Grand Hotel -

we challenged God to strike us down

and heard the randy bugger laugh.

The river flows out of your eyes.

We fold the drowsy day away,

reclothe ourselves in silly words

and stroll back sadly to the car

while on that bank of celandine

two fresh-pressed angels slowly fade

and with them goes what’s good in us -

the dream we had, the love we made.

I feel your planted seed in me

warmed and nourished by the sun.

Ignition fills the car with rock -

we drive and watch the river run.

A Frivolous Song

Milwaukee girls in 81.

My father died. I felt so glum.

Every thought under the sun

and all the boring shit I’ve done.

My poetry is never fun

but now my race is almost run

I seek the trophy never won.

I’m desperate to tell someone

I’m serious!

(And I should be taken seriously)

I’m serious! 

(You must respect my poetry)

I’m serious and I don’t think

my armour has a single chink

and my huge muse is in the pink

while all you other poets stink!

Methinks I’ll pour myself a drink

and wonder why you don’t all think

I’m serious!

(You just act so frivolously)

I’m serious!

(Why can’t the gang be nice to me?)

I’m serious so I don’t rhyme

(Frivolity’s a major crime)

I pour another glass of wine

and weep as I write ev’ry line.

My thoughts are so damn crystalline

while your remarks are asinine.

That’s why I stamp my feet and whine

I’m serious!

(Enough of your frivolity!)

I’m serious!

(My poems are top quality!)

I’m serious. It’s getting late.

I’ve no time to reciprocate

but, even so, please say I’m great

and haters, if you’re gonna hate,

you’re just a juvenile ingrate

and once again I’d like to state

I’m serious!

(I’m a bit like Walt Whitman)

I’m serious!

(I’ll throw my toys out of my pram)

I’m serious, an alpha male

way past his best. I’m going stale.

Robinda’s gone and hit the nail

right on its head. That’s why I flail

and fight but know I’m doomed to fail.

I’m Ahab. He’s my Great White Whale.

I’m serious! Be nice to me!

Enough with your frivolity

I’m serious! Why can’t you see

I’m serious?

I’m serious!

I’m serious!

I’m serious!

(Repeat till fade, screaming)

Ejaculation

My fountain pen is flowing once again

and all that’s good in me is spilling out.

My hand moves and that works to calm my brain

but will it be a whisper or a shout?

And out there in the darkness do you wait

to taste each dainty drop of what I write?

Do you write yourself until you must abate?

Do you dream about a hot nib every night?

Will what I write tonight be seminal?

Will this sonnet penetrate you to your core?

Will it trigger something neurochemical

and leave you lying gasping on the floor?

Or will you be more sensible perhaps

and volta long before my dull climax?