Sleep

Cycles up hill
Coasts down
Glutton for dips.
Ink; like water,
Flows best
With gravity.
I cry
When I wake

Because I wake
Failed again.
Failed.

All Around

Walking
Round this town
Seeing those people

Poems waiting
These buildings
Places old
New
Poems
Waiting
This shop
Full of poems
Waiting for ink
Its dusty edged window
A stanza at least
And cobbled streets
Paved paths
Flagstone square
Tarmac road
Poems all
And staring up
Up at those clouds
Clouds of poetry
As I turn
And walk home
Not a word will be written

Cash Only

They dance
Dance for money
Under pale orange glow
Old dancers and young
Bopping and jiving for cash
Those slim and those stout
Dancers performing an ageless ballet
Furtive steps here
Frantic twirls there
Dancers
Dancing for money
Dancing
That timeless dance

Opposites

So cold your heart
You make me burn
And switch attack half
Way through
Off on a different tangent
A verbal attention deficit
No discussion complete
No solutions in these storms of ours
As you stare past me
And tweak your hair
And claim you did it all for me
I’ll melt you think
As I have
Before
Before
Before
Oh yes, I forgot
Untimely death
I’m still warm
Still full of life’s heat
Living fire, burning me up
But I see you there
Cooling
Chilling
Filled with icy death

Sorry

Bigot

How I loath you
Mindless masses
I despair of you
Self centred thoughtless existence
Thinking of others only for self
Never willing to alter
Never wanting to evolve
Mud men clogging life’s paths
Staining the fibres of moral folk
Dragging it all down to your level
Mechanical outrages for hollow causes
Salt of the earth – we know what salt does
When sprinkled on fields – it poisons.
Subculture sub-cultural, uncouth.
Mindless masses
How I loath you.

...

I’m running a bath,
Or is that bath running me…
Just who is in control?

Loss

Leaden feet on wet sand
Drag me on
I know not why
Without you
There is no life
Worth living
Yet ‘cross wet sand
Leaden feet drag me on

Commitment

I remember so well
That morning
When you found me
After that night I’d spent
Ripping out my teeth
And how you calmed me

wiped blood and tears away
Then found each and every one
Washed and set them lovingly back
Such kindness and love
I remember so well
And how
That afternoon
You signed those papers
For I’ve never had teeth to pull…

Food I

I saw it there
On the edge
The cusp
And knew
Just knew
If I didn’t
Then
No-one else would
So
I went for it
Steeled my cast iron gut
And fried up
That
Recently out of date
Bacon…

Food II

Laid out
Side by side
That final two
Cold cold metal
Beneath
Warm yet harsh
Spotlights above
Long moments pass
And then
Motion
Rising
Floating
Dropping swoop
Towards a lighted room
Onto chromed steel rack
Door slams
Flames leap
From concealed burner
Temperature
Rising, rising, rising

Skin crisping

Internal fluids bubbling

Leaking...

Stale strawberry donuts, oven warmed
With custard…

Raise - Lower

Cold cold steel
Warming fast

As release
And rapture
Mingle

Cold cold steel
Digging deep
Searching
Seeking

Not here
Not there

Try again
Again

Cool steel
Bites again

Rapture
Rupture
Release and flow
Flow

Body warm steel
Cooling
Cooling
Cold

It's

Made of clay

Under spinners guidance

Great way to start a day

Service

White mug
White mug - chipped rim
Sallow stained pot revealed
Beneath missing shard of glaze
White mug with
Scuffed rough ring below
From an age of sliding and scraping
White mug reveals
A crazy map of cracked roads within
Black lined chaos directing into
Burnt sienna tarnish of ancient brews
Old white mug…

Again

Lying back
Eyes firmly closed
Scent came first
Wood-smoke and coal
Followed by
A pop and hiss
Of boiling sap
Roaring fire in an old hearth
Filling this room with
Light and warmth
That soft sheepskin rug
Pitted with ember burns
And those two soft deep armchairs
Big enough to curl up in and sink a foot or so…

That other chair swamping a girl
Coy blonde
With ready smile
Soft skin
Ultramarine eyes
Intelligent dry wit
She sits and watches
Flickering flames
Glancing occasionally across…

Eyes flicker open
To see
Damp walls
Cracked windows
Piss and vomit stained mattress
Pitted by
Hot rocks from an opium pipe…

Perform

Dark dancing shadows
Deep in indigo waters
Rise up – Rise Up!
And dance for us!

Cat-paw kid

Cat-paw kid
Stealthily steps
Along musty halls
Tentatively trails
Through that room and this
Mouth slightly agape
In silent feral hiss
Stalking along
Stalking around
Cat-paw kid
Makes little sound
Upon an hour late
To kitchen he prowls
About to be
Roast chickens fate
To find it taken
By dog-eared brother
Whose noisy consumption
Has been caught by
Rat-tailed bed-bear mother…

Felled

Silvery flash in dawning sky
As humble pigeon flutters by
.
Nothing sustains
.
Barbed wire bandages
Wrapped around my eyes
.
Every start – drained
Leeched by ennui
.
I have fists
But no voice
.
Soaked in apathy
Driven by lethargy
.
In this forest
Each time I fall
Will a sound be heard
Now I am merely
One hand clapping
.
I’m old bubble-gum
Under your invisible friends shoe
.
I just want to sleep
Never to wake
.
My lumberjack
Walks away with
Ne’er a backward glance

Inability

Still
Trying to write
To expel
Those words
For
That letter
That note
Still