Victor.

He placed an apple on my head
then interlaced the fingers of my
right hand with that of his left
and caressed my digits, just
before he shot me, we were holding
hands, and there was still glory
in love, still blood that I could
spill, in wars, for him, oh love! I will!
I'll go to the hill with the jacket and the
gun and fight for you, our country and son
if nothing ever works out from now on
remember I loved you and more importantly
that you won.

Ask for it.

Creeping in, that same
familiar bruised feeling
spreads across my hips
as I eye up the ceiling
and look for a cloud
and hear a noise and
come back down and
you're still inside me
but you don't make
a sound and the pillows
drown out all you need
to know- the hope that I had
when I met you in the bar
isn't the same hope that I felt
driving back in someone elses
car and dreaming about
driving it into a wall when after
I fall I come back up to the ceiling
and see, you are still, you are still inside me
waiting for the moment to make me
prey, pray, pray, love, sleep, it all
ceases when that feeling seeps
back in to the skin of my hips;
the bruise that you gave me,
the love that we made in a bed
that's not mine is just another
way of passing the time
fruitlessly; give me the works of
Keats and I'll give you the Odyssey
when I'm on my back and I can't
feel my legs, oh what will you do
when I leave this bed? What will
you say to the other girls
the skinny, the singer, the one
with the pearls and the big, big
heart- I am
bruised;
don't ever
ever
do that
to me
again.

Thursday.

I drank with my hands cupped
around the wine- white, it swilled
around, whistling the air out,
spilling on me, clean and toxic,
it went down a treat,
neat and dry, it made
me cry, two bottles in
I had to sit down,
I was thinking of you
I had to call you,
I really had to.

21.

I stood at the edge of here and now
and looked in and didn't speak the
language, wasn't as bilingual as
I have been. I saw you there with
new hair and new shoes and you looked
good enough to eat but I wasn't hungry.

I saw myself as taller, a little bit stronger
than I was but not as strong as I will be
I saw that my hands were wrinkled but
apparently, no one can change time. I always
spent too long in the sun and never thought

the day would come when I'd be older and
wish it had been a permanent winter.
When I'd regret sleeping, eating and having
these visions of you in your loveliness- I sort
of wish I'd been an indoors person with a house
and a cat and without all these problems. You

know, none of us is getting any younger, and
I am always getting just a little bit too old
for this, and a little bit slow for what you are
thinking. When I think about what I had in
my youth I'll wish I hadn't spent it drinking
so I'd remember. It was late september
when I met you, but that was then and
this is now.

Red + Gold.

She was obscured by blonde
leaves, papery
thin, crackling against
skin, they piled up
high and made a crown
for her.

Later, tawny skin
meets white teeth
meets auburn meets
auburn meets
autumn.

Telling Tales.

Standing in the library I blow
dust off the hardbacks
I scratch the plastic
binding; it is lonely
in the house of books.

Upon the pages black
ink smears with tears
I stamped a date
out I stamped a date on
every page, because I hate
Tolkein, I hate Shakespeare.

Literature
is a dead end,
a library is
a maze a
book is a turned
corner a page
is a page is a
page.

Paper.

Origami queen,
the way you
fold paper
is exciting
to me.

Swift, fingers
you built
a swan, you
are pretty so
pretty so pretty
oh!

A paper
butterfly;
maybe it's not
the only thing
to fly away.

Delia.

Her hands were pale
pouring sugar into flour
and stirring, sternly
she gauged measurements
with her pale hands.

She tied the apron
around her waist
and teased out
the ribbon with
loving fingers, the
icing from the bag
fell forwards

quite pink.

She wiped frosting
from her lips and
shouted, I'm not
to lick the bowl
am I missy?
I'm not to even
be in the kitchen
whilst she's baking

hot, that tray
needs cooling.

She is sweet
enough, sweeter
than sweet is.

Grizzly.

He had a face full of hair
like a bear that could talk
he wrapped his big paws
around me and talked of honey.

Instead of trapping him
I kissed him, I missed him
when he went away.

Sew What?

He threads
golden thread
through my skin,
making me a
tapestry of
light. He makes
the sun shine, he's
the reason
needles hurt
when they are
pushed into skin
the reason why
there's a beauty
in hand woven things
Tell me my dear-

just how long is
a piece of string?

Claire.

My eye fitting just
between a slit
I see her crouching
on the wall, back
arched and legs
tall, licking the
length with
her own wanton
tongue, rough
stuff on the floor
chicken bones,
gold catches
the suns eye and touches
me at the very core
this woman, this feline
might feel
just as sore as I sound



might have been heralded
as a godess
in Egypt.



I consider my
canine nature
my unwarranted
devotion, my
wagging tail,
I play dead.

Come sunset
we feel
the insurgence
of life, barking,
scratching,
howling in the night
waiting for the
tug of collar
against neck,

the fight of
tooth and
nail.

For Midas' Mistress.

Late at night
I wait for the
boy to meet
me with the
paper bag
then scurry back;
clutching, laughing
at the moon's fat
reflection in the Thames.

I sniff
a row
of diamonds
and they twinkle away
in my head.

And one day I will be
some anti- Midas
who touches dirt
and finds gold
lurking in the corners
and under floorboards
I scurry through
the night as a bat
I own

heaven, I know that
the truth loves me.

M

Gold, gold, gold,
gold!

Acres of skin,
acres of hair,
gilted.

Mapped out
reigons on skin
sunburnt and
bursting with
vanilla, flower
me up.

I want it to be
beautiful, I want
to be liquid.

Boyfriend.

My cold hands to
your colder cheeks!
Damp like the towel
hung over the kitchen
sink, we cling to one
another in the eye of
a storm I'll try my
hardest to keep you
warm and keep you
loved, I think I'll
keep you! For
ever and ever
and

Nude.

From where she lay
on her chest the buttons
pressed against her
skin and made purplish
dents. I took a finger

tracing the lines
and feeling out
the horror
in the hollows.

Darling
your shirt is
practically
gaping.

These marks are
just a reminder
of who we are
when we're not naked.

Her waistband
again, cut into
the flesh by
pressure, were
the buttons real
I'd undo her
and slip inside

But I find
just tracing the lines
connecting the dots
is fine, is enough.

The white sheets
draped over her
like some grecian
gown; I smile.

I love you for
what you are.

Body.

Deconstructing my body bone by bone stone by stone by organ by organ I roam on the land before they drop pieces of me

into the sea, into the sea.

Razor.

Covering her legs
with soap, she winks
giggling, she takes
razor to skin
and in sweeping
motions tears
the hair from
the root
and unearths
gold.

Later my lips
to her golden calve
I think about
the razor and
I quiver, wanting
it traced down my spine,
dragged across my teeth.

Pearl.

I open my mouth
I put a pearl
on my tongue
feeling the lolling,
spilling white
rolling around
my mouth;
I spit it out,
she came from a shell.

I run my tongue
over the edge
I taste the sea
my tongue bleeds
it turns the
pearl pink
it makes me think
it makes me think of you.

Alison.

She walks and she
gives daffodils
reason to lament.

She makes
this forest
barren.

She took my
heart locket
and broke it

and now the
two pieces
don't fit,
aren't gold.

Junk.

I tear
out hair,
red handfuls.
Handfuls of red
crepe paper.

I make eyes
at myself
I make my eyes
out of green plastic
and then get jealous
when I look at you.

My spine
is just
a string of pearls
and where the
clasp rests,
so does my head.

Diamonds
are
forever.

But fabric
is not
here to stay.

I'm
recyclable, darling
so you can just

throw me

away.

Pencils, bows, bows, pencils.

Pencilling on the bow
of my own
coy mouth.

Tying up the bow
on my own
pencil skirt.

Bowing to pencils
that were held
by you

then pulling
back my bow
I shoot

... I score.

Continental.

For the dance we had
in France,
for the rain we had in Spain
for the dreams we marched for in Israel
and for London, 2012- I LOVE YOU.

I love you in every language possible
In every language possible
In every language possible.

Symptoms.

Like the first light of the morning
you hurt my eyes.

Love seeps through the
open plan, open, open windows
and love begins to settle
on top of my furniture
and I sneeze as though
a cat was here,
when I know it's only you

It's only you,
who tears me apart.

Gardening.

Between the sheets of our bodies;
flowers press,

caught in bloom
by your loving hand.

Where you found the root
and tugged at it
with your white teeth, your white fingernails.

It came away in your hands.

Bed (2)

Within the timid constraints
of timber
we face each other
and face the future.

We discuss the triviality
of sentience, the disruption
caused by depth
we agreed that these things
aren’t for discussion
in bed
but they creep in anyway
and like us they lie
and they stay.

When you’re asleep,
who do you think of?

Because it pains me to think
I’ve betrayed you,
in dreams.

Hurts to say that my psyche
could be so
captured by the other.

When you turn away
you turn to her
behind your eyes

And no one ever says
that when you buy a bed
you wont be able to sleep in it.

But sadly so, perhaps
you’re better off on the sofa,

better off just going.

My side, your side
the divide created by sharing
is impossible.

Time to turn out the lights.

Just know that when you say goodnight
you’re really saying goodbye.

A Minor.

You littered the piano with notes
Took all the sanctity out of my singing voice
It's a cold, cold day it's been a
bad, bad year
How nice it is to sit a mere
closed door away
and hear your music.

And watch your fingers stroking the keys
as though my body would burst into song
if you chose the right notes
if you commanded it so
if you filled the air with sentience

you could just as easily fill me with hope.

Rising up that scale, shrill
my nerves surrendered to the utter,
utter majesty of your music
Your muscles tightening when you touch
the blacks, whites, my hips, the strings, my waist
the waste it is for you to
make these tunes,
if you don't want to play me.

Stump.

In the white clinical
casing it stands solitary;
A leg.

Wrapped in plastic, obscene
in it's heinous phallic
protrusiveness, hollowed out
in its sorry forgery.

Only a hop, skip and
jump away, a manmade
stick to rival the aspects
of bone and flesh,
blood and muscle;
If only I could
support myself,
If only I could feel
the pain of walking.

When they come to me with a knife
I close my eyes
and dream of
tying my shoelaces.

Each done with a stubborn
double knot,
the foot on my left leg
withering away, in a place that time forgot.

I think of a stone in my shoe
under the arch, bringing a tear
to my eye
and I think of the sad efficiency
of prosthetic
and it brings a tear
to my eyes

...a pair
to rival the absurdity of

a singular leg.

The symmetry of my body shattered
like a hammer to a mirror like
a chisel to bone the erasing of
days spent running
home meets the dream of my left leg
turning to dust all alone
the pang of metal against flesh,
and the wound where my life support stood
taughtened and sewn.
Tipping over like a domino,
stationary, surgeons flaunting
disregard for my DNA
by changing it with chisels
and smiles
I lay, invisibly crossing off miles.

You must be pulling my -.

I can only hope
when it goes,
that you'll stand up for me.

Y 4 ...

Look at the way we stand
shaking like leaves under
an Oak tree;
the grey sky, the gnarled wood
the carved words show
more love than is present here
if only you had the desire
to cut, to make permanent
your apathy, your indifference.

Roots in the ground go further,
go further than we ever will be.

Clouds in the sky part
just as fast as we do.

Tears in my eyes, rain on the ground,
rot in the hollow of the tree
your eyes, turning me

however far away

you are, there is always the shrill
whistle of wind piercing through me.

There is always the greener grass
on the other side, you graze there;
don't go to her.

Don't just stand here, shaking your head
there's no more room for death.

When it's Spring.

Let's change the clocks,
take back the hours spent in disarray
and spend them in the shade

of an Oak tree.

No room for shoulders,
cold smiles, leaves
No room for insurgence.

Love, take out your knife
and scratch on our righteousness;
cut like your life
depends on it.

Kundera.

My calves ache with the pain
of a thousand days
walking;
through the desert,
my mouth and eyes
as dry as sin;
my heart baron
and you are all awash in a sea,
away from me,
and there's nothing left to say
for the girl who's not forgiven.

But it's only now that I'm walking away
that I realise the pain of each step;
if my feet weren't made of lead
I'd come back, I'd stand up for you.

Alas my love there are
too many miles between us now
No time for the weight of your body
on mine/your fingers on my skin.

Night falls in the desert
the land cracks with the impossibility of it, you
and me, alone, wandering, never
The sky shushes the earth and I
don't have the strength to wonder
what I'd say, what I could say now
to placate you.

For forgiveness I ask
my words will not transpose
so harshly again, I can't see you anymore
But I want to touch you.

I want to feel the unbearable lightness of being.

Silver. (For ...)

We sleep in a room made of silver.
Dazzling in light, blinding
we sleep in eachother
our dull grey tears, we sleep in them
and then awake
and the morning is always washed in ache
prior to sex;
How appropriate it is
to love, and be loved by you.

Engaged.

Tune out your ears let them hear not
the self satisfied ring of the telephone;
don't consider the dexterity of the
pressing fingers; her pressing tone
the sex in her voice, the moan
of distance creating distinction
between you
and her on the other end of the line,
the line stretching only as far as I,
Dividing you, cancelling out
numbers,

pressing reciever to ear, tongue to lips.

5000 miles away, she purrs
as though she were here
on you, lobster to body.
As though she was the coil of the wire;
tangled in your fist.

As though she was the mouth piece
crudely accepting your orders.
As though the numbers
gasped at her stroking fingers on them...

aha

my love it's a
wrong, wrong
number.

To Err (For Nicky)

She lies between compressed
blossom;
pink satin crushed to powder
spreading, across her like butter
like the words, she remembers
I remember but I stutter
when it comes to the stating them;
they fall off the branches, dance with the wind
and then I lose them, again, again
again.