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.

Is it anyone you know's?

This bike

It has been chained to the lamppost
for two weeks now. Manhandled from standing,
from lying, to standing, it still has its slip-on gel seat-cover
and shine in its silver despite the weather

we've been having. I have considered slipping it off,
the seat-cover, and more: its handles are a shape
I prefer to my own; the reflectors in the wheels
are much more glowing. Clearly someone has parked it

and forgotten which lamppost gleams its frame
from night to night. I feel sorry for it,
though it hasn't begun to rust. I can see it
from my bedroom window. It is a new constant in my life

but I could be mistaken. Its owner, perhaps, leaves
and arrives before I do; unlocks and locks the chain.
Keeps the saddle clean, like a neighbourhood cat
whose feeders ignore the number that isn't theirs on its collar.

I almost took the brake levers today
and have had to take myself in hand. The lock
is sturdy and besides, I have no cable-clippers to my name.

I want to be fierce like the saleswoman when I'm older. I am starting today.

A woman bribes me with a free SJP umbrella to buy Paul Smith perfume and sample Stella McCartney

Names do not worry me – you're laughing – but
packaging is everything. And how to reconcile
a love for umbrellas with the fate of the planet.

I smell now like a tart's handbag and am considering
bathing in the luxury of petals it would take me
years to grow. I can hear my mother. I can't tell

whether she's delighted or not but either way
I am powerless in the hands of a saleswoman
who smiles just like her and expects, just like her, a yes.

Mmmhmm.

Hiccups

I have left traces of mascara
on my arm and have been curled up
waiting for something that could match

the stories I've been told today that are not mine
to tell. And there is song after song
of Radiohead, and it is weather for staying out

of duvets, and I am nearly away with the cool breeze
that drifts in with the moths and knocks
my lightshade. I have hiccups, but they will fade.

Hehehe....

Caught in the moment of saving the toast

There are four things worth saving
in this situation, all of which are worthy.
The choice you make says everything

I need to know about your priorities.
In the long-run it turns out you are not
after money, possessions or comfort,

but temporary satiation and this is where I'm at:
ethereal and everchanging; satisfying;
never wholly yours but wholly consumed.

Been a while coming. True story.

I meet a fashion mentor on a bus-ride to town

I have sewn pennies into the hem to weigh it down. It has pockets
that often catch on handles, it is torn and fixed at two seams.
It is brightest orange and this is the detail that catches your eye;
makes you stare until I sit next to you and smile.

Thank goodness. Now I can tell you that I wasn't really staring:
that it's just your skirt, it's beautiful and matches the green you're wearing.

I am taken aback by that and your name, which I don't find out
until you're up and leaving, your own bold skirts swaying in the aisle.

Rushed introductions hover and mingle with the journey's facts:
that you're tickled pink for your tutee's standing ovation,
that she was dark-haired and starved by her parents,
and her dresses—oh her dresses—are divine.

One word for writing doom. Mariokart.

You won't know who you are before long because I myself have lost track

When I moved in here the smell of paint had
moved in before me and taken root.

Bathed in egg-splashed light from my bedroom window,
I woke up to the confession that you'd given your parrot

to the gas-man. The only impact left
to me is other people's reaction to the news. I keep

moments of us still, hoard the stuff you gave freely
from over the road once, countless minutes ago.

The city is alive I said once alive with everything at 5am except
chicken fried rice and that's the only thing we want.

I haven't seen you since but always consider you
when your birthday comes round. You must be dreaming

of elsewhere in America/Manchester/Edinburgh
/Brighton by now. Never anywhere I can trust.

Drafting.

Stars Compilation

We are heading for the black that makes us less
likely to take risks. It is not until he knows
precisely where to go that we stop. The car
cracks and fizzes in the cold beach-quiet.

Lying down, looking up, there is no eye contact,
even after sighting our only shooting star.
Filament bright and bigger than we could have known,
it flashes through the gap in blanketing clouds. We hang on

for a while, but it's pea soup and hopeless past eleven.
There is only the unseen sea with its whooshing whooshing.
In the car journey home he keeps on Stars Compilation
but sets our hearts on different dreams in the dark.

Ascent, descent.

Look down; Don't look down.

Stranded here we are halfway
to the end and there is a decision
that needs to be made. Always
the decision-maker you are frozen
with no fear of falling just a beating
in your chest and time
silent and still until you know
you are allowed to go down.

I am trapped by indecision but phobia-free,
and study, in this moment, each bolt
for each step that suspends us
over the likely outcome. I find them
strong and immovable. I find
no need to cease my own breathing.
The decision, I realise, was taken
out of my hands before I realised
it existed: I had stared through the gaps
on every step up. I was only surprised
by your reaction to the smaller world.

Decisions made, you retreat to where
your weight is held only by your own legs
on the earth, and I keep climbing
to my own struggles of perspective.
No postcards to reminisce, no photographs.
My descent is unremarkable, but fast.
The earth reappears through the gaps
in the metal. You are getting bigger,
concern in your eyes, but your breathing
is back to normal and your knuckles
are pink with fearlessness again.

Salsatastic.

I am not Madeleine Smythe

but I have taken control of her emotions
and they weigh me down now, dripping

water through my cotton-thin skirt.
The interflora van drives off, gives me

no reason to believe I can ever get caught.
Still, I snip and separate the stems into three

vases: one for tragedy, one for love, one for guilt.
I am not Madeleine Smythe, but maybe, in pretense,

I have saved her from this: Dear Maddy,
I am sorry for your loss.

I got a new book today. It's ace.

CCTV makes you cooler than me

We hear it whizz in our direction as I flash
all sorts of images through my head for it to see.
I skip ahead to the final conclusion

of whoever is watching: harmless. I think
of all the things we could've done to persuade them
otherwise. All I can muster is a furtive glance,

straining to make myself look shifty. You stop;
turn slowly; look it straight in the lens for
an age. By the time you look back to me

I am walking again and you are smiling.
The camera remains and I don't know why
but I wish I had thought of it first.

The problem with listening to medical programmes on radio 4.

Dr Woodbridge, Assistant Deputy Coroner for the District of Cherwell

You won't remember the weight of it held
in your soft gloved hand. I am going to ask anyway.
I suppose this is an inevitability, dealing
with death as you do. I don't necessarily want

an answer, or if I do, I want a lie. I don't want
it to have been as heavy as mine, nor its beating
to have stopped because of a misplaced sense
of defiance. Perhaps it beat on, bloodless and baggy,

but I want you to say only that it weighs as much as
you'd expect; no more, no less. That a heart is nothing
more than chambers, holds nothing more than
blood. Beats for nothing but itself until it stops.

A tweak in time, a tweak in fact, a tweak (or three) in language equals:

Unlove

I don't love you like the heartbeat
I can see in the tear in my eye
in the concave spyhole drilled through
a solid wood door which is the only thing
holding my weight pressed against it
that leads to the world where you
sit in the car ringing her
or your brother I can't decide which.

I don't love you like the hug
I approached you for when we stood
awkward pavement-bound while your car
engine hummed and indicators blinked
in the moment you unlocked it as a hint
that it better be quick though you sat
in the driver's seat for an age
after I shut the door on your back in your face.

I don't love you like the muscle-memory
that made me want to play footsie with you
even though I knew rightly you
wouldn't play back having trained your own
memory to ignore me in favour of her
who talks more meaning problems
like this are sorted out so much quicker
than we ever sorted out ours.

These things spring too often from nowhere.

A lesson in stuffed toys

Polyester, cotton, nylon—they all stuff the wardrobe
at my dad's house now, piled in boxes avoiding dust or
played with rarely by a youngster I won't relinquish ownership to.

In a box in a wardrobe in a house it is all contained
and rarely frisked: except when one comes out they all do,
and there's no escaping the old-smelling dust.

If you pack them right, they disappear to almost nothing
but when they're opened, they're allofasudden back.
They take up much more space than you remember.

Coffee shop coffee shop, I love you....

Today I avoid another's eye

A man who is balding and wearing braces
talks to me of directions we were over here
and now we're over there and we were always
over somewhere and I realise I think he's crazy
now but actually I was too engrossed in today's
news (as good as it is bad) to even know
the beginning of his sentence, never mind recite
to you the colour of his hair. Later he is talked at
about police and motorbikes and warrants
for arrest but it is hard to glean useful information
from two one-way monologues conducted
in the style of a conversation. I ponder the skill
of this as I consider doing the crossword
of a communal paper. I am not strong enough
to hold onto the sense he's lacking and do not catch
his eye when he roams the room for an escape.

Marks.

The way they catch the light is almost beautiful

I'd like to say that the silvering is a way in
to loving what is already mine, but it is not.
All it means is a lack of blood supply,

cut off at the root—no way back. It is too easy
to trace their expression as a map,
or the sadness of learning; the distance

you have to come. Really they only lead
from themselves to themselves.
They do not make routes, or define me

except I know where they do not appear:
my fingers, my ankles, the front of my legs.
My lower arms. My face.

cowboy and consequences

A Cowboy





What happens when you use waterbased ink.

Excuses excuses.

Because

my hair's the wrong colour; I don't want to risk
a disappointing friendship; I prefer to point you out

to people knowing fine well you'll catch them staring;
speculation is a sensation I enjoy; no-one

deserves these complexes; I'd miss ignoring your friends;
you wouldn't suit hats; someone you know once

hurt someone I used to know; of the risk; I miss
someone else; it shouldn't always be

me; I'm not hung-up enough; my life is risk-free;
I am accustomed to time alone; your name

is something I would never have come up with; I prefer
not to believe; you're too good for me;

there are dreams, of course, and there are excuses.

(kind of) true story!

summer compilation

Hoping along to stars compilation our dreams
for clear skies are decreasing in magnitude.
We are heading for the black that makes us less likely
to take risks. It is not until he knows precisely
where to go that we stop. The car
cracks and fizzes in the cold beach-quiet.

Lying down, looking up, there is no eye contact,
even in the excitement of a shooting star,
filament bright and bigger than we could have known,
flashing through the gap in blanketing clouds. We hang on
for a while, but it's pea soup and hopeless past eleven.
There is only the unseen sea with its whooshing whooshing.

In the car journey now he takes out stars compilation;
sets our hearts on different dreams in the dark.

Not based on actual events. Really.

Lecture on a book I've never read.

The astrophysicist speaks encouragingly
of many things. I have no control
over my muscles which twitch wildly.
It takes this man—no English lecturer

at soft-hearted 18; no poet-philosopher
at hardening 20—all upper-class education
and lack of meaningful eye contact; all
power-point slideshow and brogues,

to make me see the attraction.
Perhaps, I wonder, it is the Eagle Head Nebula
he has on in the background, its cock-eyed
angle in American Frontier golds and greens.

It is weightless and directionless, but altogether
non-existent now, he tells us, despite its shape.
He points to a shockwave in the picture
that struck, sure as eggs, 7,000 years ago.

How does he find space, I think, to care?

Rediscovery. What I should be doing.

Reckless Sleeping
after Magritte

Instead of dreams she finds a bowler hat
all felt and black as hollows
in the ground, matt and matted. She tries
it on, tucks it all the way down
round her ears and instead of dreams
she hears the muffled world as if
in sleep. She wonders where
the black crows sleep, imagines
uneaten crumbs abandoned
in the light of dusk, wonders if
they take some home in beaks
and sleep on their food for softness
in the dark; wonders whether they have dreams
to miss. She looks in a mirror,
but instead of dreams she finds the black
shouted back and sees herself whispering
at the crows she knows are sleeping
in the sky. She lights a candle, wax tumbling
the curve of a figure carved in heat and light
and it leaves shadows on her face that chase
her thoughts that could be dreams if caught
in daylight. She crosses her legs, feels
a loosening of self and pushes
her finger through the hole in her pyjamas,
admires the creeping darkness of a felt
black rim above her eyes. She closes her eyes,
and instead of dreams she tucks her hair up
in the hat, reminds herself of songs sung
Au Clair de la Lune and hears them rolling from
her tongue like crow breath. Instead of dreams she lies
on quilting with the hat cocked over her eyes
and thinks of cowboys until morning.

Self portrait: toes.

Hundredth poem.

Hitch-hiker

I have been trying to write of your thumb
but I am failing; I keep slipping into the status
of my own which has been crushed and sucked,
jointed and double-jointed, sliced with glass
and loved in equal measure. I am forgetting yours,
and how far the top joint arched back. I only have one
picture, the one with berets. I am envious of a time
when one photograph could sum up a life on the road
like that. My thumb arches back a little, too,
but not enough. I am holding it up: if someone
passed by at speed and only had my thumb
to go on, how could they possibly know? How long
did you find yourself stranded on wide roads in the sun,
even with the exaggerated curve you bragged about?

Another letter.

Dear the disappeared,

I am still here, in my old office chair.
The desk is the same. My hands
are the same. You never had my number
but that is the same. My email address,
that ethereal creature we always relied on
too much, yes, it remains. I am writing

you this because I can't believe
you're not there. I know I said I wouldn’t,
but there's only so much silence I can take.
I don't know what you think I might say.
I don’t know if you know me, but here I am
again, and my words are like summer
downpours, drying off quickly.

I'm sure you're still eating olives,
their grease keeps them fresh.
You must have less of a beard
by now; those jeans you wore
still fit, I'm sure. I remember the details
you never did mention. They squatted
between us, silent. Still do. I remember
the camera you were too scared to use.

I've heard you're still out there, working
and playing, always just round the corner
from here. I've heard you don't talk
about anything now, that you're the same
and disappeared, writing bad poetry.
I don't know who to believe, or how to beat
this just-out-of-reach.

Did you ever want me? You don't know
what it means, but I won't wait any more
for our worlds to collide.

I'm not yours, but sincerely, —

In the dark.

Long-awaited expulsion of ego in real-time

Waking in the dark I am obsessed
with seeing. I hunt for a corner
on where I stand; where I left
my shoes when I undressed. I stand
for long minutes, trying to open my open
eyes; trying shut eyes, blinking ones;
trying rubbing eyes, slowly so as not
to rub myself out. I am on the line
of existence/non-existence.

I am still obsessed. I raise my hands
to where I'm sure I should see them,
seek cracks in curtains that have been
there every other night and day,
letting the influence in. I still cannot see,
am now obsessed with how I have lost sight
of my own eyelids that blink and blink
against the dark. I cannot be blind.

And all of a sudden it happens: I wonder
could I fall asleep with my eyes open here?
What has happened to my window to
everyone else to the sun to the universe
I have never looked upon enough?

The news is a crazy world all its own.

Some dogs are cloned in South Korea and shipped to their new owner in California, USA.

It was a picture to match a thousand others but a face
that could only be one. She'd lost her hand but waved
its reconstruction proudly clutching five carbon copies
of the dog that saved her life, once, from savagery.

Five times rescued, she was also five times caught:
Once with a chastity belt; once for bondage games
she never knew she played. Once as a nun
in the Appalachian mountains – where else? – and once
bare-breasted in a glamour magazine. She tops it off, now,

with this: soaking up chips all over as yesterday's news.
The cloners, they're today's and have bigger fish to fry.
Their sights are on camels in the Middle East.
It is where, they hear, the money is.

Junk Mail.

Be not afraid to vary and change the life, after all all becomes to the best.

Don’t doubt, miracles happen. Maybe
it's classy minutiae that will change
your life. Stop being a loser.

You are living in the worst
city; grow a horse's tail and become
the unicorn of your neighbourhood.

Find out what really matters.
Your happiness is much closer
now. Don't get ripped off

by fakes any more. Seduce her
like this. Deflagrate. Be the neon
light at the red light district.

Storm approaches

I think Billy Big Steps is coming, but I need a bit longer for it to brew.

Feelings made louder by circumstance

And there is no other time when the kitchen floor
seems so necessary as when it should be the bathroom

you're heading for. Every bathroom has a memory
like this: of falling asleeps and the colour of vodka

or coke; of hours passed bruising the breastbone
and panting sorrys into amplifying porcelain.

And there is no other time when the thought of bed
is something too comforting to bear, and the harsh

adjustment of your body to tiles is a welcome distraction
from the way you look tonight, from the way you must

have sounded, from the look he gave you, from the thought
of sustenance and breakfast which will seem so necessary

but not for twelve long hours, three of which you'll lose
except for their impact on your pyjamas in the morning.

We had a barbecue today.

Murmurs

Last night, after work, listening
to Joni Mitchell, all that roleplaying.
I moved the furniture round, inadvertently,

but the parasol is a little bit redundant.
That's why, that's why she asked you
where you were. I'm sorry, what? Who are you?

Do you know the ones that are like gloves?
I can't remember what it was called, but
as you're having a nice time, excuse me.

She told us the story. She had some
the other day but it was gone, well gone.
Yeah, apart from that; it was good

because it was really out the way
there. Isn't that the same as a trailer?
It's in the barbecue. That's the best place.

portrait of a foreign ladybird on saucer

Thanks Sarah.

The House of the Next Best Thing

I spend time thinking about this, dream up
boxes as television stands and
recordings of you playing instruments and
stairs instead of a low-key hoverboard and
Kevin Costner instead of Bruce Willis and
yoghurt instead of cheese and
flour and water instead of PVA glue and
a caffeine instead of an alcohol high and
linen instead of cotton and
chairs instead of tables and
tables instead of a mezzanine floor and
blankets instead of duvets and
radio 3 instead of BBC 2 and
lights that never turn off and
all you tell me
is I asked for a glass and got a paper cup.

Again, needs more work. Not finished worriting with it.

Proof

Have you packed the right equipment? You will need
the gear, this time. The guts. They say the first step
is the hardest but graft doesn't guarantee success.
I'm hoping whatever you've packed it is conservatively.
It won't do to carry everything with you, or expect

to share the load half way. There will be company,
but they are not there just for you; they will not be used.
They will not carry anything you should've left behind.
Dropping things, though, that's inevitable. Whether you pick
things up, well, that depends. Can you bear to carry

whatever it is until the end? Do you intend to drop them, too?
How do you know when you've arrived, you ask? You don't.
Perhaps the climate will improve; perhaps you will just be
able to deal with it better. Perhaps new friends will be forthcoming;
perhaps they will be by the wayside. If you do need to let go,

please do it gently. Bear in mind the impact on your surroundings.
Set it down gently near the path for someone else to find and realise
they have arrived. Perhaps it will be proof of an alternative, all they need
to settle down. If you find yourself having gone too far,
there is no way back. Just keep travelling until you lose regret.

Early night for me.

...so it definitely needs more work but I'm away to bed.


Gaps

Such small concerns for such a big sky
to contain, and even the stars notice
this aspect of her posture and offer her
constellations as freckles on her feet.

The aloneness fills her like a song
everyone else is listening to with closed eyes or
discomfort. She is filling up with it like tears,
and tears do fall. They reach the floor

noticed only by the sky; still she beckons
the notes of alone. Lying to a woman
more in need than herself, she realises
it makes sense that the universe is expanding.

She walks over her own emotions backwards
in magnetised moon boots. Every feeling she
finds she looses to the universe, a little bit
of this and that to help fill any gaps.

Edited version, sent somewhere.

Dear bird,

I am home now, black bird, the rain
is falling through trees. I am calling your name
again, though I can't remember what it is
we called you. You must never have known; or else
you're out on the wing with the wind in your ears.

I presume you are happier flying. I have heard
your kind since—song birds only by association
—taking hold of their names in their own harsh throats.
Trapped by holly thorns then and your own beating heart,
you were a question in my hands, shock-quiet.

Were you trapped, though, bird?
Would you know if you were?

You were wild and fierce out of the box.
You were meaning for long summer days.

Crete, or Cyprus. Either way.

Crete. Or Cyprus.

My memory tells me slapping and deflation,
an octopus battling with air and sand
gathering in its dampness. These are sharp

reflections blinding from the sea. My memory
is afraid and hiding, with rocks in my knees;
being seen by the boy who shouts through

a language barrier with welts on his glistening arms.
You tell me things I don't remember yet, about
washing lines and drying squid. I remember

my first taste of the rubbery flesh and eight arms
flapping. It's all become a blur, I'm sure
he wasn't there when I went back to show you

just how close I'd come to the sliding octopus fury.
I'm sure you've coloured my own understanding
but the sun was definitely shining, then, drying us out.

A couple more Crapseys

For the love of you

Watching
your feet flip flop
along the beach I find
the sand that flicks up your calves dis-
tracting.


---


I choose the neatest looking bunch I can find in the florist

Tulips,
though beautiful
here, always look better
with unruly heads in all di-
rections.

A couple of Crapseys

Paddling at Christmas we must look wild from a distance

Cold feet
made colder by
a winter sea, toes in
snowy sand we dance through waves to
keep warm.


---


Grandma is slowly going blind despite her love of knitting

Wool soft,
she's listening
to the click of needles
as her daughter follows patterns
unseen.

For Tracey, 2.

A search for something brings me here

You are trying too hard, I say,
listening to her internal dialogue
as it appears to me out here. Try not
to force it. Finally she succumbs
to the rhythmic three three three
of sudoku logic and that's enough
to know she's forgotten I'm listening.
Next she hums a song I can't hear
for easy listening jazz playing
over the coffeeshop speakers.

Some notes on journeying.

Thanks.

I have been travelling for hours
please leave me be even though

most of that travelling has involved
sitting still. I have been travelling

since eight in queues and herded
like a sheep that is singular and

collective at once. Please leave
me alone I do not need to know

about your poorly knees or how you
recognise me or which your favourite

seat is or that you know the word wow.
The sky is shrinking and the only thing

I have left is the expectation of arrival
after arrival on a journey with

too many middles and a view
between seats without faces.

Travelling is fun.

Uprising

The anger of this man seethes through the wall I lean on
and the smack of his flesh on the vending machine
is powerlessness. He is contained only by the firm grip
around his wrists and, at his back, precisely chilled chocolate.

The soft glow of the machine is calming through mockery;
people gather, necks craned. Check him outs turn the hum
into accusation but he contains another uprising with the muscles
in his jaw. The security guard, bemused, repeats himself.

Unsure as to whether the lull is real, he does not let go.
The vending machine is tilted backwards with the weight
of two. The man, quiet now, still does not know what he wants.
I just got caught up, easy, easy. I'm all right. It's all right.

101, and superstitious tendencies.

The Black Cat Imparts Some Luck

It was just a cat. Being, as it was, bereft
of ownership in immediate proximity
it did not have a name, beautiful though
it was. The cat was all black without a whisper
of another colour in any of its fur. This was,
of course, a rarity noted by its owners
who had spent hours grooming, hunting
for some all-feared glimmer of white or pink.

I was not to know this, as the just-a-cat
ambled over the quiet road, shrugging
its shining shoulders with every step, the weight
of it rolling this way and that way, its black-skinned feet
padding firmly on the ground. I couldn't help but watch,
enthralled by the beauty of its everydayness
and the wonder of the universe—which
it looked like, funnily enough, black as it was.

The black cat saw me watching with
its great green eyes and, without any sort of fear
crossed in front of me, leaving, with each pad of its feet,
the tiniest piece of luck. I walked on my way, gathering
the pieces nonchalantly by crossing its path. I didn't trip
once, then, until the last of it wore off precisely
one week later when I fell with some force onto my elbow.
I don't hold that against anyone:

Nothing lasts forever, I just wish
I'd used the luck better, while I had it.

100 down! A milestone of sorts.

Pigeon prints on an outward journey.

Last absent posting.

Back for real tomorrow.


The way things move not what they're made of

Like the water puppeteer
who used silk for fish scales
and dressed wooden mermaids
in the finest until it rotted,
strand from limb, and cost
a fortune to replace; so the plastic
on the trees just goes to prove a point.

Another that hasn't had an airing yet.

Yep, still at Latitude. I'm waving. Hello. Hopefully it's stopped raining by now.


I didn't realise circular breathing worked for saxophone players

We both stood swaying to jazz rhythms except
you were thinking about the music and how your
pianist fingers could work like this and I
was thinking of the purple coat I didn't buy;
how well it would go with my fingerless gloves.

We talked a lot of triangles that night. The confessions
I'd fielded, the folk, the apologies; a whining sitar,
my infatuation, the saxophone jazz. It's all enough except
I can't take my eyes off the saxophone player and his puffy-in
puffy-out cheeks: the control he has.

Notes from a long time ago..

.. and now I am hopefully at Latitude, but do enjoy in my absence.



Feet and Hands

They seem too big for you sometimes but not
as you work. I could have been a pianist you
like to say. You're too busy taking photographs
of hands, hard and brittle, ones with painted
nails to match my tights. I like instead the feet
of people, and make you test your light
on mine. I wear stilettos and teal
fishnets; that flat arch of mine teased
open with a well placed toe.

Def Leppard A-Go-Go

...this is a bit of a falsification. I am in fact in Nottingham preparing to ROCK. \m/


Luftballon.

From nowhere.

Emeralds aren't right, nor is a simple leafy green

And he kept trying to find a better way to explain
the colour of her eyes. He pointed at the top I wore,
it is, he said, similar; but it lacks a quality of light.

I found myself offended, though I understood exactly
what he meant. They are, in the end, mossy ponds
with the sun shining through them, endless.

It has taken him this long to find a place this might be true,
but here he is now at a stagnant pond and pointing.
I am waiting for a revelation of glistening frog-skin

to snap him out of the obvious: can hear instead
only the false shutter-clicks of a digital camera
in the throes of duty and whirring.

flying dragons 'n' that.

Trapeze Artist

You are not gaudy but power movement
with your heavy blue thighs. There is daintiness
only in your toes, wrapped tight as a bud in black
trainers. There is not much room for training now.

Your grip is chalked and dusts on contact.
Your most important movement is a silent nod
of your upside-down head. This happens
often and always when the others are ready.

There must be pain behind your knees
where you hold the weight of twice gravity.
You dismount steadily down a wire ladder.

When it comes to your turn to bow
you cannot bend but allow the others another
moment; all eyes but mine on the sequins.

Fantastical.

Embrace

The man I am hugging is decidedly taller
than I'm used to and wearing a trenchcoat
in a fetching shade of beige. It almost reaches

the floor. We are skewiff, my head towards his shoulder
out of line. We are not alone, but I feel our own hearts
beating. I am encapsulated, in possession of his shoulders.

My arms tighten, my grip is stronger. I test myself
against his ribs; he responds by breathing. Our breaths
stretch us out, give us purchase for the deepening

hold. It is not just his heart I feel, it is the veins
themselves; tissue fluid whooshing between cells
all calling for combination. There is no way out

but through. It feels for the longest time like
stalemate. My arms are shaking. I am lighter than blood
through his head through his knees through shoulders

I am lost in a singular us. I hear his silence as now
and break out. We turn to each other. His coat is open
where a button is missing; on my chest its imprint fades.

Detail of a crane viewed from a window.

Back to Salsa after a break.

My keys drop to the floor and are accidentally kicked under the sofa at home

Caught unawares in the moment of losing,
my pockets are imperceptibly lighter.
All of a sudden I do not belong here and
without a way in I am unknowingly
unfastened. I shrug off the weight of home.

My feet begin to lift; I could go anywhere.
I have packed light with no belongings
to choose from; so light I do not need
a plane. My big toes are the last to leave

the ground. I am glad I wore leggings
as envious glances skyward see me billowing,

untethered, heading high above the rain.

Perhaps this gives too much away...

I would like to set myself up as some sort of opposite

I am listening to the Rocky soundtrack and it is hard
to separate from love. My life in montage before me;
I am no screen icon, I have no speech problem. I have no desire

to box; or for the chap himself. Here is the day-to-day
we never learn of him: I like coffee and muffins, get athlete's foot
whether I run or not, and prefer being bendy to strong.

But when I run a race in the name of charity, I know
which tune will be trickling through my brain; that at the finish
it will take all my strength to restrain my arms.

High-powered lunch break moments.

There is a meeting going on

Only I hear the gasps
of despair when one guy leaves
for the toilet. Figures bounce,

two hundred, twelve hundred.
There are divisions down the line,
in equal measure. He is being

straight-up, up-front; the brand
is what's important. Cool as fuck.
A need for dumbing down.

In receipt of the pitch, the other man
stops to take a phone call; confesses
to a parental divorce costing his mother

one million pounds. There are intricacies
and positioning; there are beginnings
of many things.

A digression.

There is never enough to go on

The rain was falling but you weren't to know.
I was cold, even there on my bed, but you

couldn't know that either, wrapped up,
as you were, in yourself. Perhaps

conversation came back shortly after that.
Perhaps we were drinking wine again

the next day. I am not sure. Water fell
and the air was sharp.

Yet another letter. Thanks James.

Dear you

We have never met. Because of this
I feel no need to apologise for this letter
but by means of explanation: hello.

I have been told you are nice, except
that is only because I have come to expect
that this is what people say.

You must be flattered to be chosen
like this. It was your name – It means
wisdom – and your 13th place.

The number has no significance to me
but here are some confessions
to get us acquainted:

I wish more people would notice
my colour coordination. I once weed
in my bedroom. It was cold and night.

Most things are more important to me
than I let on. This letter is not
one of those things.

When you reply, do not think of it as dialogue
except in the larger sense. I attach
no return address: look someone up.

You will never know if I am the first
or twenty-seventh (this number also
means nothing). This is not a chain letter.

I have no control, through ideas or CCTV,
over your life and this letter
should not influence your decision to write.

I feel I know you well enough now to share
the only piece of advice that has been real
to me: It gets no worse than this.

Another letter, this time from an exercise of sorts.

Dear bird,

I am home now, black bird, the rain
is falling through trees. I have called your name
over again, though I can't remember what
we called you then. You must not have known,
out there on the wing, and now you are most likely dead.

I have heard your kind since, with the wind
in your ears, taking hold of your voice.
I have heard you are happier flying. Trapped
by holly thorns then and your own beating heart
you were our rescue and startling for it.

Were you trapped, though, bird?
Would you know if you were?

You were wild and fierce out of the box.
You were meaning for long summer days.

After an exhibition.

My life for a moment is observation.

I am digesting papers. Taxi drivers
in a static queue talk through open windows

and gesture through closed ones. Three flags—
Scottish, British, EU—wave similarly but out of sight.

A women with large hair struggles past. Her heels
are taller than my thumb is long. There is a ladder

I have never noticed before. A man who has had
a full Sunday yawns past trying to fit it into his mouth.

The world in a digital viewfinder skims past
in the hand of an enthusiast. Newcastle is at an angle.

There are seats outside but no-one's in them.
I catch someone's eye in the window I had forgotten was there.

There are lots of flowers, gaudy and brilliant.
And now a yellow car and no-one to punch; I am reading

about tennis and missing the best match.
I have no plans tonight.

And again. It's a weekend thing.

Letter to —

I am thankful to be the first but cannot reply
in kind due to a lack of technology; gun-metal
heavy and courier grey. Take instead my hand.
My mistakes will be visible. There are things
you won't learn from me this way but they are far-between.

I appreciate the time you have taken not spent
over steaming conversation and coffee cups. I am flattered
you would think me worthy of four and a half pages
of meticulous tippex correction and mistakes left
for my own imagination. Please do not count mine.

I must admit I read your words in an unconventional position:
my hips now hurt and this translates into a wonky r.
I am indeed smiling—how would you know
but to make me do so with flattery? My hair, as an aside,
is growing as normal and is due to be cut tomorrow.

Well done on the job. I think it is not luck but courage:
I will bring my own when next I'm south. I'll try not to infringe
but bear in mind the pub you promised. Please can we carry
the typewriter with us and clickclack letter-lessons in the sun?
I will happily exchange for an education in verse-types.

Yours, —

A man sleeps sweating in the sunshine.

Observations.

On litter-picking

It comforts me to know I have been your discarded
as well as handled it. In this way, the relief

of the unchanging is inevitable. You are weather-
proof and predictable, you berate my parking

but pay for it. You have not seen me until now
when there is nothing but what is left

and who will rid you of it. Here I am, handling
your history, dazzling you out of sight, visible

to invisibility, touched by you and other strangers
through hypocrisy and uncrushed pizza boxes.

Things I cannot do, 3.

How to record sound

To start, pick one you don't mind hearing
constantly. This might mean for days

or hours, depending on the size and location
of your album. The sound will become static

so don't rely on progression, only tone.
Do not try to capture it secondhand:

it is not like wind. It is not interesting
to hear the emotional response: see

dancing like trees swaying or vibrations like clouds.
We are not talking soundscape or radio.

Try first with the metal spank of flagpoles, or
wind whistling through late-night trolley lock-ups.

Think of it as a picture of moving air. Waves
and particles. Try now with a beat of your heart.

portrait of berwick upon tweed

I was just passing through - twice - and it struck me how many of these birds nest on the rooves there.

Things I cannot do, 2.

How to speak to your mother

Do not approach her in dreams; she may speak
but it is an inaccuracy, and you are likely to falsify.
Do not address the sky; she was scattered in the sea,
but nor will the waves talk back in their immensity.

Starman is not a true account of where she went,
but nor is any place she stood once. Living around
from the house she called home is no guarantee;
walking her streets could take you miles for nothing.

Write, instead, and lay out all her words
as if they are a conversation you control.
List some things she would definitely have said:
other people's memories are no use any more.

Start with a family saying, move on from there.
She may appear from just a comment on the colour of her hair.

A Glasgow poem, sort of, for coming home.

Going back

There is sun now I'm leaving with an aching neck
but it has been there all along amidst the falling rain.
I saw a man pissing in it. While starlings

pecked at fresh vomit in the light, the perpetrator was nowhere
but always the marvellous green on the necks of the birds
was wonderful. Thrown off the bus, we walked the grid-map streets

in this sometimes-rain paying no attention to the direction of the wind.
There was sleeping in silence and club-footed pigeons I have named
Byron, all three. There were plenty things to admire

and extra security. There was sun all along but hard to see
for the misting rain and music. There was music we will never move
on from. There is sun now I am train-bound in the giant fading sky.

A view of Glasgow

A little late... sorry!

Muse on a lover I've never met

A man's lover stays at home today
because she is ill and strokes the cat.
It is long-haired and white but these people
don't have carpets for the hair to gather.
She collects dust bunnies twice a day.
She wears the cardigan her mother gave her
to keep the warm in. She has dirty blonde
hair with split ends, but has saved it
from brittle with plenty of mousse.
She does not like coffee or men
who tuck their shirts into their patent belts
but puts up with his because of the way he treats her.

She imagines him pacing offices carpeted
in the greys and blues of the arts. She smells
the newness of funding. Tonight he will bring
home a theft of paperclips for her office space.

An older one but still needs some work.

Somewhere along the years the abattoir film's gone missing.

I think of it as the contrast between bright
paint-red and the need for black and white;
the change from shaving your everyday face
to watching the shavers finish the pigs'
bollocks in two neat bare-blade swipes.

You speak of this lost film in the abstract
with all the routine that brings, but I notice
the noise in the raising of your voice;
the jittering bloodied heads above
in your clatter-stirred milkless coffee.

And so the story travels over Radio Two
from setting out your awe for
huge carcass rollers to dead pig-weight
to the drip drip drip of blood-red blood
and how easy it was to slip.

My grandpa speaks of his death too
as if he had been with you in the making,
just another interview to complement
the colourless bloodied aprons—a hammer
to the head, a spike straight through, his own role

as brace to stop them bolting—but your stolen film
holds all the mystery for me: as art and archived footage
treads a fine bloodied line; as the contrast
between the bright paint-red of loss and the tang
of theft that's on your tongue amidst the music.

Things I cannot do.

How to change your name

Start with your old one – you cannot get anywhere
without it – and suspend it in your mouth
until it is no longer a word. Surround
yourself with it. We will get you unacclimatised

but we need your help first. Say your name now
as if it is the first time you've been called it.
Bring a photo you have labelled of yourself
as yourself. Your old name is old news now.

Take a deep breath from your toes to the crown
of your head. Do not speak. The fee is minimal.
Don't speak until your new name
is all you are. This is your only chance.

Keep breathing, there is no pressure of time.
In. Out. That's right. We are not experts,
we do not know where they come from.
I see; good choice. We don't get many of those

but it seems to suit.

I am still ill. Rubbish.

Whistle practise

I practise the notes around mi with too much
time for the lack of mastery. My lungs today
have kept me going and still they work,

a miracle all their own. I craft them into bellows
for notes in air, notes that don't exist except
as half-holes sliding. I am distracted by the thinking

wheel of an email programme until it becomes
my own factory setting for thought. The notes
keep my lungs in order and though I am without

relaxed hips it is enough to stop me for a while
and suddenly I am having to travel back in the dark
from the furthest music to my own heartbeat to here.

I am ill. And tired.

And so this is more notes than poem, and I am away to bed.


Somewhere sort of familiar but essentially a different place

Round here it's never clear whether you're safe or not.
Industrial roots, great honking trees. A sheer drop
the other side of the iron railings. Dallas Carpets
bold on the red roof below. Not the best street lights.

Viewed from the other side, we are in mist;
a long slow sea fret that stops us seeing the only thing
worth being here for: the view. It is worth supping
warm cider to wait for it to clear. It is worth the smell.

I got distracted by toes.

Self portrait.

I like storms.

After the strike

the cat remains. The phone will not hang up
but keeps an inviting tone. She doesn't dial,
but checks on the dog who has given up

under the table. The house is unscathed.
It steams. She is hesitant around objects
which could connect back to the sky's

temper but eventually dials her home from
home: there is nothing but layers of notes
in one long insistent tone. The cat remains.

Earlier than usual.

Musician

His fingers were a trick of the light and altogether
everything his parents could want. The banjo
would twang to him its four-stringed passion, cracking
and splintering for love of him and competition.
It would have done anything he asked, or so we're told:
he chose his own switch when it didn't happen like that.

He switched banjo for bouzouki when choices became
movable and real. It feeds his yearning for the natural.
We hear half-truths of regret in the notes. He bears no
obvious scars, but wears his hair long and black
all down his back. It catches the light and hides his face;
at once performance and everything that's not.

Old notebooks are ace.

Batspeak

We have lost our vespertilian ears. Those silhouetted
flitterers, eating midges before they get around
to eating us, making soundscapes that, like our own
conversations, will echo around endless space
getting fainter by halves: they are lost to us now.

It is not just vampire preference: bats are lucky in Poland
but they still cannot hear them there. And it is not only there,
despite the reputations, that people angle boxes
to lower the sound from clicks to whistles. Everywhere
there is loss and nostalgia for half-heard sounds.

Under 300 days to go!

Development

Preoccupied by a flutter in her diaphragm
and a tendency towards sneezes she finds it hard

to hold a valid point when really all there is to say
is yes. She is not convinced she is immune

to an elaborate hoax of rhyme. There are connections
she is not aware of; the lack of context

is telling. She has cheated it so far but
there is no way to stay like this forever.

She hasn't been herself yet here: she is her own
guinea pig, wholly unformed and firmly whole

alone. She is in their hands.

This evening's events will no doubt appear over the next few days as poems...eep..

but for now...

Flight Risk

He was a flight risk, liable to disappear
at any moment; but it was you who raised
your hand precisely as a pigeon took to the air
from the ground beneath your feet; or
did it come from your sleeve, a physical expression
of what you wanted to say? In my face, the wingbeat
air; in my chest the panic of collision.
In your face the glee and disappointment
of the world going to lengths to prove a point.

For P.M.B.

In an orchestra of limbs

You cannot help but skip on every other beat.
Your steps are a measure of notes, your hands
accents and crescendos; violas of movement
in an orchestra of limbs. Precise moments see you
wholly in air, prepared only for descent and timing.
There is no despair in your movement
and freedom is as envied as it is necessary.
You are a rare anatomy of music and
you never fail to make my night with that.

Searching each other's movements
for the meaning all we ever find is each other
and the urgency of drums. It is starting to fragment:
my arm is your keyboard, please be content.
The air is my trombone; the air is your guitar.

Just notes for now...

If I have learnt anything today, I have learnt this.

There is no easy way up to anything,
only easy ways down, and hands are under
pressure from all angles despite the cotton grass.

The day's efforts are echoed back in rumbles
of approval from the forest. As the wind cools,
routes that have been chalk-marked

are scored in skin which we leave drying in the sun.
Few leave with a full set of fingerprints; all
with their rubbish and a sense of satisfaction.

Salsatastic.

On the shoulders of boats

Her map is as well-travelled as she is
but wears the thumb-worn texture easier.
Each time she returns the sea wrinkles differently
and is glorious—each route she has travelled never the same.
The drift this time makes each mile two
but that just means more time with the blinking stars
and their sea-bent reflections; a particle history of space.

There are miles that pass quickly under momentum-hum wheels,
a flash of twittering and I-spy; the click click of cats eye drift.
These miles she takes at half-speed on the shoulders of boats
cradled by the rise and fall; a journey in three dimensions.
These miles she floats over with a precision that defies the assumption
of water. She is looking for pieces of things she has lost
that must be in the waves, or have at least passed through.
She is gathering strength.

Just before I rush out...!

To photograph a first born

The absence of me is distinct here
in its purposefulness. It makes
for an unusual shot. From this point
no-one need know. I, who have been
named three times for love;
I would not recognise my mother
who cradles me here before
she has seen my face.

From then it would be thirty years
before she knew it again, before
I would introduce myself
with my only chosen name;
née the replacement; née hers.

Teehee

A girl plays with a pencil unnoticed in Starbucks

Soon we will disappear
under bouncing blonde curls
and two-year-old speech patterns;
under attention lavished by everyone
except who can tell her off.

Soon we will disappear
through cute-as-a-button coughs
and tinkling pink cardigan tassles
or because chocolate is spread
all over our faces too.

Soon we will disappear
because her mum will be
telling her off in three languages
and trying to snatch the pencil
from the tiniest hand here.

Soon we will disappear
as the careful outlines of spots
on signs become frantic black
swirls and we are all
scribbled out in a passionate rebuff.

Thanks Dave.

Two years in we find a cellar

Buried under the moving earth, all that's visible
is the keystone of an arch and the sound
of a hollow filled with dirt. It awaits
its purpose; is poised empty of ideas.

Like a beaming photograph that lasts beyond
its context, its hollows and conversations
are long gone. We need plants, now, to fill it.
We need history but we are all running out.

There have been deaths here; there have been
deaths everywhere if you are looking. Deaths
in clothes, in streets, in shoes and rooms.
This cellar had them but they are lost.

Bring your deaths and music. We will tap our feet
along to whatever you play, planting rhythms
and roots for the cellar to cling to. There is nothing
more fearful than a house without ghosts.

There's a cellar, too. Tomorrow's post perhaps.

Invitation to a thought shower (plus guest)

Three months in and settled, we have found a hidden room.
Please come and help us fill it: we have no more stuff

and want no more. All we need is thoughts and you can even leave
them at the door. Here are some examples to get you going:

the last time you smelt your Grandmother; when your mortality
was realised; a bicycle ride. Please allow for detours

though the room is square. Maybe all you have is time
you do not have: we will welcome things you'd like to do.

There is plenty of space for considered tango lessons, yoga,
learning shorthand. Anything will do, it's just the walls and floors

are empty and we are out of personality and paint.
Please, no physical gifts; we are unable to accept.

Grim.

The Inherited

Generations have died before they've had a chance
to tell me how I'll go. One sudden death after another
they keep giving up the ghost but not leaving one behind
to let me know. How do I prepare? Perhaps they do not know,
I hear you say, perhaps you'll go like they did: in the morning
unable to sit up for fear of fading consciousness, pooling blood;
in hospital, a pink swab mopping saliva from the sunken parts
of face where dentures go; eight weeks from diagnosis.
I could carry round whole heaps of hows to stop it, but slings
and plasters will never be enough. Every pain I have could be
my mum's ghost pointing at where things will loosen first,
every limp and yawn a last hurrah, a sign of things to come.
My oblivious heart is tapping out the truth on my love-torn ribs:
b-bum, b-bum, b-bum—I think hear correctly: all is well yet, all is well.

First draft of one from a workshop with Michael Symmons Roberts

The moon is green

he says he has proof. Can't you see
where they've doctored the image? I say it is closer
to me than anything else that big will ever be.

Naming other vague conspiracies under my breath
to keep perspective on him, it is hard to grasp
in daylight the wonder of what it is itself.

I plan tonight to take him out and we will count
on our own unsteady eyes to pace the moon across our sky.
Perhaps tonight is when the flight of our own earth will taint

it yellow or harvest red; perhaps tonight it will be new
and disappeared. Either way it is as normal as
a question, or cheese and onion hula-hoops.

In this distant room under arguments of greenery
it is abstracted. Not until later will we see the pock-marked
face of a regular stranger; one side turned, always unseen.

Has anyone noticed.....? I think I got away with it...

Walk to work

Start with make-up in your eyes
and an increasing paranoia
about your skirt and the wind.

It is downhill at first but prepare
your new-woken hips
for the approaching incline.

Rid your face of indifference
when the man with a dog says morning
and yanks too hard on the lead.

Acknowledge the boy on a scooter,
the usual bickering birds and the bench
and sign that were painted pink one day.

The person behind will get a shot
of your arse (again) and the traffic lights
will take forever to let you cross.

Walk a little faster to check out that guy's walk,
then feel a little older, perhaps wiser,
than most of the students on the bridge.

Your shoulder-bag is heavy with lunch
you'll appreciate later; your music
is irrelevant here because of the traffic noise.

The Frenchman will be smoking
and there are people queueing
to get into pubs at 9.20am.

There are still back streets here to take,
however small. Stop for a coffee—you'll be
a little late, but it's worth the risk.

You're nearly there. Slow down
a little but run up the stairs. Avoid the steps
to nowhere on your left; head down, to work.

Smut and thrips. There is still work to be done on this one.

Looking after leeks

We are searching for him, a man who can't be seen
through the moulding glass of any greenhouse.

We imagine him happiest shooing smut and thrips away.
Truth be told, he is a man who gets easier as the weather cools.

He must take sandwiches, always, but that is all; his body
best lean with tender fingers for the delicate leeks.

The growth is slow and useful. We wait for his perfect skies
after small travesty—an early frost, an unpredicted cold snap, showers

to keep the ground close—and yet have never caught a sight.
Most nights he watches sun-shy leeks grow by the dimming glow

of his car battery. Collared and watered in, he is sitting somewhere
until the dawn chorus lullaby drowns out the rustling growth.

It is the same sky, the same chorus, and the leeks we eat are blanched
like his, and yet; and yet. We have not seen him and do not know his name.

I have had a small slow patch but there are some poems growing again.

Down the front at Flogging Molly

I heard it called the bear pit once,
this place where everyone smells of Lynx
and heaving and sweat that isn't yours
runs down your back and thighs.

The mohawks are falling and soon
blue dye will be trickling down faces
of people whose ears might as well be leaking
from the unbridled passion of banjos.

A jumper over an alleyway in Manchester

An old one that's never had an airing.

the things we forget

I. bacon

We were stuffing our faces with palindromes,
and with those huge chewy over-wrapped palindromes
we E-numbered through the night. Miles and miles
of time we gained between us, though the sky came up eventually,
when my head was resting hard against the window.

II. insect repellent

Once we had arrived it was clear ideas spread like ant-nests there.
Watching for grasshoppers like they were shooting stars,
I spread my eyes across the grass to catch them.
I couldn't hide the quiet smile as I captured one's music
with the supermacro setting on my camera.

III. something to wee in

Admiring the false privacy of tents we caught a man,
kneeling and pissing onto his own undersheet. We made
poems of him and Jaffa Cakes, as if no-one could hear.
It's strange to say but I savoured the experience of
long-drops and other people's retching, peeing, retching.

IV. a different pair of shoes

It was easy to capture other people's Google-searches for wellies
and oh how people frame their momentary obsessions
in the neat digital age: fields of people all with arms raised and Jarvis
in their sights. One man took picture after picture of a sleeping girl;
every image the same but for the songs changing behind her.

More thoughts on magic tricks.

Stooge contemplates their existence

Lying is a physical inescapability as me, but I tell no-one
that. Every night I dress as if it's my last—or my birthday—
and I do remember times when that could have been true.

I move in sections of the stalls for the necessity of discovery.
It amazes me how he can place me every time, but it's only small
things like that now that do. He does have one trick I don't know

so I have something to watch for every night. Every night everyone
assumes my dream come true, and in a way they're right.
I can't get enough of his beautiful face, his sleighting fingers.

I got into this game when sawing was all the rage, and have lost
my legs often enough. They always come back in the end.
Always. He can still surprise me with it sometimes.

The greasepaint, the dressing rooms, my name in lights:
all reasons I started and everything I am forced to ignore.
My face is an ever-changing carousel of normal smiles and blushes.

See if you can spot me, one day. My name is discrete.
I do not fiddle with padlocks and leotards. I am stooge and silent.
I often do not recognise myself.

Self portrait with spotty skirt