In Bed

Nightly struggle to calm
racing heart muscle, throat choked
with desperate words. It’s pathetic
how much I want you to touch me.
Our tepid wrangle for affection: I despise
my clumsy reactions, like a dog
dripping long drool on lounge carpet.
Yet you dismiss me so easily,
waving away attention
with a yawning swat of your book.

A mourner

Empty pews yawn grey light.

The dead walk on before us,
they are waiting in God’s house in comfort.

Dark oak surrounds his solitary mourner,
prim in tweed and brown shoes,
she listens to echoed words fade.

And at last threads begin to loosen: slowly at first,
then faster, frayed fabric unravels years of slurred apologies.
Still she bows her head, shoulders set rigid by loss,
her lungs ache for unspoiled air.

The Larks

Obsequious,
and gorged on words,
he straightens faded dust jackets:
Barthes, de Beauvoir, Brautigan.

Thin skeins of nicotine dissipate
over ancient oak, whispers echo
amongst carved shelves.

Thoughts weave their tangled web
through the melancholic mess
of his marching mind.
And nobody knows.
Nobody sees.

Blinking back daylight,
Spring rain re-awakens his senses.
Wedding parties board trains unnoticed,
differently dressed girls in lemons and ochres
chat incessantly.

Old Mr Bleaney meanders,
counting his failures,
blind to the eyes that whisk him deeply into memory,
guarding him jealously
behind stone doors.

Bechet’s notes haunt twilight’s seeping darkness.
Smirking under round spectacles,
knowing he’ll never understand women
or any of their natureless ecstasies,
or really,
what he supposes them to be;

somewhere a nib scratches black ink on torn parchment:
a crescendo to end all ends,
“what will survive us all, is love”.

Last Rites

Last Rites

sounds of children playing
reach window high
interrupt a mind engulfed
by morphine dreams

her frail bones lie
loosely hidden
under a flowered gown
(dancing at dawn beneath the Sacre Coeur)
green laundry tag protruding
against final layers of bloodless skin

dull eyes lift heavy lids
wander past hanging drip plastic
catch a moment of cloudless skies
(drinking wine on the Left Bank)

ragged breath halts
and comes again
fading now
(walking hand in hand
along the Seine)

long, long
exhale

Dark Corners

from fading soliloquies
in silent theatres
he arrives on whispered words
breathing daggers into men’s smiles

nightmares bring forth black dogs
hunting hopeless strangers
under starless skies

hidden behind every twisted turn
he builds a paradise
of my despair

as faith lies strangled
in filthy shadow
backward glances leave me forlorn
his hollow footsteps
fade to black
within the darkness
of my sullen halls

The Body Politic

Those days we sat in windowless rooms
surrounded by women!
He was Scouse
and supported Tranmere Rovers.
She’d never lectured men before
(at least not in seminars) .
Neither knew what to expect.

I didn’t expect to learn about James Dean,
apparently, ” the perfect lesbian hermaphrodite”.
I knew he had issues,
but still…

Del Lagrace Volcano brought
a climax to the course.
Like Demi Moore, but shorter,
with a bum fluff moustache.
I asked her a question
but I forget what it was.

I do remember my essay defending lads mags
(certainly not porn)
something about 007 and Frank Butcher.
Sonia gave it an ‘A’.
I’ve still got it somewhere.

Eventually we all agreed to disagree,
but not on all things.
Life is about perspectives
that,
and living.

Afternoon Bonfires

raked leaves exhale
their final autumnal breath
gazing up at skeletal trees
with pangs of jealousy
for the early Spring reprise
they will never witness

like illusions on warm mornings
their luscious green brothers
will dance on May breezes
unaware of what will soon befall them

Disgust

Gather and abuse us
as we all hail pixilated gods,
their toad faces filling plasma screens
1984’s bullshit
only three decades worse.
Beware the farms of animals.
Beware the pigs.

Our beautifully bleak neuroses
artfully penned in windowless rooms,
headline after headline
conceived by sordid minds:
hypocrites sent to trick us
lead us screaming into damnation
or at least to fuck us hard
somewhere in back water woods.

Bloated alchemists deep throat threats of fame,
thrust them down society’s psychotic underbelly
where we sell five year olds g-strings
or sprinkle powered breast milk
onto biblical famines
or where infants suckle on crack pipes
groomed in dark corners
and wail for one more hit
before they can even utter words.

Sanity becomes insanity
as we count all our failures with
sleeps hoary murderer Insomnia,
his wretched fingers scratching
as we beg for freedom.
All our tourniquets twisted tighter
paranoia mainlines through arteries
to poison blackened hearts
broken by this miserable game of chance,
that killed us all on the same day.

Liars

you steal Bukowski’s words
pass ’em off like ideas
that fell from your head

you swig from his scotch
in long gulps
fuck his women
again and again

I’d puke up my guts
but what good would that do me

you’re small
hard stones

scraped on glass

Signs of Four

i.
Mapped flesh charts life’s journeys:
smiling eyes sparkle
as memories bubble surface high,
from Parisian summers in the sixties
to traceable lines down the nape of her neck;
wondrous bafflement each and every day.

ii.
Translucent skin’s final layers,
bloodless, barely concealing anguish
or aching bones.
Thin sheens of sweat shimmer in strip light,
widening eyes’ silent screams
drowned out by Morphine’s faceless treachery.

iii.
A pale caricature of the living,
breathless lungs lie still,
wordless lips echo loss.
Bleary eyed watchers
mumble at their own distress
as youthful attendants carry away
something finally at an end.

iiii.
Patient eyes observe indistinct changes,
like peaceful acquiescence
with all souls who have passed this way before;
an unwritten acceptance
not in men’s words, but in their faces
that we shall begin again.