A rediscovery..but I'm still not here.

Thought I'd lost this forever.





in absentia

Still not here.

A young boy chasing gulls and other birds

A distant woman winces at every step, a test
of the muscles she made unknowing

which grow and develop a memory
of stairs right before her eyes. These

are treacherous times and the oystercatchers
know it, fleeing his golden curls

with pupeep-pupeeps; and the gulls know it,
in and out of flight as easy as the concrete

steps will be for him in years to come.


in absentia

Things I'm missing: IV

in absentia

Things I'm missing: III

in absentia

Things I'm missing: II

in absentia

Things I'm missing: I

in absentia

Yes, yes I am.

I am absent

There is blank space, an empty bed.
No toast toasted in the mornings. My heart

does not beat here, but is mellow
wherever you find it. My toothbrush
has been removed, my lights are off,

my washing awaits its watery spin alone.
I have left mostly everything, including you.


in absentia

I am packing now.

…and so away

is a state I am unused to, find myself
preparing for the worst and forgetting
that it could be best; forgetting everything
essential to the task. Packing is lists

and compliance in place of sense;
putting off fixing until a return of sorts
becomes imminent. There are things to miss
but they are few, and memories that fit

into pockets. I stuff some bathroom into bags
and hope for the car's room on motorways
though we are not going far. I listen
to music that could help; or it could hinder.

Gearing up for holidays.

My shadow looms beside him every time we pass a streetlight

It is not the habit that makes it attractive
but losing himself on the street he is aiming for.
It is not the whisky, wrapped up

in a plastic bag from Morrisons, but the way
black silk clings to his shoulders and hides his ears,
even as his head tilts back to nearly catch me

staring. It is not the perfume, necessarily, that smells
so good, but the opportunity to ask; which I turn down
thinking better of it. It is not the accent he has

but the use of it directed past me
to some other strangers on the street.

Portrait

Musical feet.

Just a little apparently.

In my image

This is face down in a nightclub, knees to the floor; this
is mascara that needs to come off; this is
the time it takes to acknowledge an obsession; this is me
coming to terms with your choice of shirt; this is
mirrors and windows and reflective doors; this
is skirts that come below the knee, above the ankle;
this is an itch I can't reach; this
is a tattoo that will never be designed; this is
underwear chosen to be shared; this is holes
in my shoes I patch with gaffa tape; this is
a lack of money, or priorities wrong; this
is photography for the sake of something;
this is words everyone can understand; this
is behind; this is
an itchy nose that won't go away; this is me
missing something that resembles you.

roadworks

Coming of age

It's the hole in the road that does it,
makes him test the ground at rest.
It seems firm but no longer can he know

the impact of his weight or the weight
of the sky. He clings to the fence that holds
him back from falling in; anything,

he thinks, to make this day something
more. A revelation like this, though,
takes time to settle. It will be years

before he remembers the fury of his own
ignorance; how he cast it off with the tethers
which no longer held sway tied to anything

upon the movable earth.

They did, it's true.

My parents taught me the word procrastination pretty early on

It is late and the cold is creeping
past my pyjamas and the shipping forecast
is on its way through Sailing By and
I am trying to think of excuses.

It is late and I am told again what I am listening to
while I listen to the one-note whine
of my old laptop and
tick off to-dos.

It is later than I think and my eyes
are telling me what my immune system
already knows: too many
late nights.

It isn't stopping, this clock, and still
I have things to do and time
to waste thinking
of reasons not to.

a lesson in composure

Self expression

It was not her hair but still
something about the choice
conveyed a sadness
that was more than a wig.

Her coat was buttoned up
to her chin, and fell
to her knees, past a skirt
or something unseen.

The shoes she walked in
were built for strides,
not steps, but all
she managed were baby ones.

Mascara did not run
down her cheeks though
it was raining quite hard
and she wore it openly.

She looked straight
into my face, and told me
something with an expression
hidden by each of these things.

Some Salsa editing.

A woman counts alone in flat 33.

We have exhausted all the usual explanations.
Too fast for days, hours, minutes, it is not time
she measures except in her own ageing face, bleating
numbers back at her in the dark mirrored window.

There is no click-click of an abacus, but what abacus
could fence this in? How does her mind remain on track?
Maybe she's the world's swearbox, earning millions while
we speak carelessly on. It has become a lambswool comfort,

slowly humming numbers. We can all detect the change
in tone when she reaches a significance. It could be
a quest for infinity, or that we have all been allocated
a number in her scheme. We do remember

a time when she wasn't counting. We do not like to think of her
in a version of hell, that she's ticking, unable to stop.
We sleep now but notes of panic are rising. Sometimes in my dreams
I see her counting the end rather than the beginning,

forging her own kind of immortality by denying us ours. Is this all
Death would do? I have my suspicions. I think she is obsessed
but not possessed; that she adds one onto the last onto that
and cannot stop. Even her dreams, I'm sure, count for her

when she can sleep. I bet she wakes with a new
beginning, carries on through toast: One onto the last onto that.

The Imperative, 2.

Cry in the Street.

Turn away from any friends you might have
or run towards them. Overemphasise the dramatic

version, but do not wail. If you wear glasses,
remove them. Refuse all help;

demand a taxi home. State your intention.
Do not let them get away with it. Or

let the tears fall and walk home
briskly, head held high. Either way.

The Imperative.

Plait her hair.

Each hair you touch will tug her scalp
and cause a chain reaction reaching
to her toes. It will be longer than you think,
and softer. The smell will stay on your fingers;
accents of Essences, hibiscus and peach.

She wants to look like a sister
from Pride & Prejudice – make it happen
but only by the third arrangement. Fasten
and unfasten until then. Three styles for love,
three for care. Three for the touch of another.

Salsatastic...

Portrait in a series of moments

She eats a plum: it is easy because
they are in season. The string of the flesh
gets stuck in her front teeth, but that always
happens. She waits until she gets
to a mirror before picking it out.

When she mixes paint, she only uses
one brush and aims for shades that don't
necessarily work with orange. They usually
come out brown, but she doesn't worry
because she likes brown anyway.

Applying mascara, she uses even, curving
strokes to accentuate her lashes.
She doesn't mind if it isn't black, or that the tears
will wash it away later. She doesn't count
the hairs, but clumps them.

In the shop she chooses a yellow umbrella
because of the grey day it will be used for.
It cheers her face. She opens all of them inside
the shop first; affirms her lack of superstition
by fretting other peoples' into leaving.

She slams a door, gets it out. Only once,
and with no preamble. It feels good
but seems lacking after Albert Square's.
She does not look a fool by going back
for seconds. She answers no questions.

For Tracey, 3

The Return

Sashaying home it is the sugar
from the homebrew that has filled you
up with glee, you think. It is glee

that will last you another twelve hours
but you don't know that yet, and test
each street for its home-feel, settling

on two before the numbers don't add up.
Your sashay has turned to sway before
you realise you are home, finally, and we

are waiting, so pleased to see you
smiling in a way that says it'll last.

Sunshine? Eh?

Aftermath of adverse weather conditions, III

We are all dressed for it, now, see downpour
in every cloud that lopes across the sky.

Today is weather enough to leave your umbrella
and forget you ever had it with you, no matter

how appreciative of its colour you are. Still,
we sceptically eat outside, with heaters angled at us

under a tent without sides and cross our fingers,
sweating over tapas in our wintering clothes.

I return from an evening of poetry to break your heart.

Just me and thee.

It takes me to add and everyone else,
except it is all about what we don't have
and have lost.

The radio is staple because they talk
of abstract things that remain
unimportant and we all pretend

we are listening to music and radio plays
instead of thinking
about an unknowable end.

It is cold, but I do not remember that
until later. It is only the wet of things
that is normal for a while:

your jumper; her coat; my pillow;
endless tissues. My eyelashes,
gathered and dark.

Nigella Bites.

Italian Syllabub

Your wrist was whisk-loose
from the whole tub of double cream and
there was far too much glee when it came
down to it, with regards to the Amaretto.
I would've preferred the crunchy biscuits
but the soft ones will do. I heard you
making up another fact about the syllabub
just so you could say it again: syllabub;
with an ending like an kiss.

mmhmm.

Aftermath of adverse weather conditions, II

The only water that hasn't made it to here
is the stuff we have caught in tubs
in the bathroom. All of the sky has fallen
only to be muddied and gushing, carrying
itself with itself in a roar of acceleration.
It is this water that killed you, then,
and this water that saved you in the end.
The sound of it fills me to powerlessness;
despite towels and sandbags and plastic bowls
we are unable to hold onto ourselves.

Perhaps a sequence brewing. We shall see.

Aftermath of adverse weather conditions, I

The conkers have been rained off
their branches. They remain
unclaimed. I pick one up; its spikes
are soft. I place it beneath my foot
and bear down. The muddy shell
splits to reveal two conkers, naked
and uncooked, still attached
to their umbilical cords. I collected them
years ago, treasured the conker brown.
I never could let them go; even when
they shrivelled and left only memory of
my own face in them; leather-brown
and beaming. I toss the raw conkers down
with the others I hadn't noticed
until now: a graveyard of the milk-white
unborn. A feeding ground.

Our lights have been rained off.

cooking by candlelight

Living in a tower block.

A woman counts alone in flat 33.

We have exhausted all the usual explanations:
it goes too fast for days, hours, minutes; too slow
to be seconds. It is not time she measures, except
for the lines on her face. We assume that, as none of us
have seen her outside of what we dream at night.

Perhaps she is counting her lucky stars; or her chickens;
she must have many, all hatched. There is no click-click
of an abacus, but what abacus could hold these numbers?
How does her mind remain on track? Maybe she's
the world's swearbox, slowly earning millions while we
speak carelessly on. It has become a comfort now,

slowly humming numbers. We can all detect the change
in tone when she reaches a landmark. It could be
a quest for infinity, or that we have all been allocated
a number in her scheme. We do remember a time
when she wasn't counting. We do not like to think of her
in a version of hell, that she's ticking, unable to stop. We sleep

now but notes of panic are rising. Sometimes in my dreams
I see her counting the end rather than the beginning, forging
her own kind of immortality by denying us ours. Is this all
Death would do? I have my suspicions. I think she is obsessed
but not possessed; that she adds one onto one onto one
and cannot stop. Even her dreams, I'm sure, count for her
when she can sleep. I bet she wakes with a new
beginning, carries on. One onto one onto one.

Uh-oh

A sudden inability to navigate in my everyday life.

Blame my empty wheel-expectant hands.
No-one responds to threats
out here and I cannot force you off
the path. I do not know how it is
we are supposed to overtake except
to force retreat. At least I cannot be
shrunk out of contention and actual
oblivion does not lurk beyond the curb.

The blame lies with no-one, or someone.

Accountability

You insist it was your fault – a mistaken docility
meant laying your own face open
to the kind of teeth that shred on impact.

I know a man who has recast his life
so that everything is reversed: whole
swathes of time and imagination gone.

I am not so sure about you. I consider pictures
of your steri-strip trust as it dawns on me
that blame is not a mantle you can claim like that.

He did not bludgeon you, or me, but
by association this is true. He cannot save himself
this way; the blame remains immovable.

It is fierce in its steadiness around the decision
as it was made. The man-in-reverse does not deserve
your pity. All this blood takes it out of your hands.

How do you give empathy for someone to use
who has never had the practice?

Books get everywhere.

Paperback

The stationary taxi-driver mouths the words
through his open window. He is not looking at me

but at his book, which yellows so that I can almost
smell it from here. He is not for distracting

even when a man, perhaps a customer, approaches
and shakes his whole body in emphatic conversation.

Perhaps the taxi-driver is obscured to me
but I get a sense of his impatience, so much so

that his position has not changed when I can see him
again. The novel is perhaps a King, perhaps

a Conan Doyle. It is not, I think, a Herriot
with a typeface like that; in a city, so far away, like this.

Vegetable box deliveries are perilous.

Moth dreams

I have been in the fridge for days now.
My blood has slowed in the folds of lettuce,
which have contained so much in the way of
water, of time. It has all slowed. I have lost
all hope of taking back my normal life, exiled
as I am from the cropped fields, the gentle
rolling earth. There is not a scratch on me.
As soon as I have the legs for it—yes, six,
all there—I will choose a cubby-hole
nearby and head for upside-down, mothblood
will gather in my mothbrain. I wonder what it is
I've missed. I have been dreaming cold
in the depths of full fat moons and irresistible
light. My dreams have not been of terror
but of chasing, my thrilled mothheart beating
hard against the window; my wings through air.