Tag: uk writer

Daily Bread

We learn names fast 
on this street 
by watching footwork 
hearing them chant 
for whoever holds court 
a victory at their feet 
that can’t be bought 

Scuffed school shoes 
toeing the ball  
this way, that
lost again in seconds flat 
again, again, again 
cawing verbs, begging 
for a battered balloon
a sphere so tattered 
one could assume 
it nears death 

Again, for it they call 
a squalling clutch of baby birds 
leak, lank 
breathing cold air  
like ship steam 
bolting up the flank –
the hot chimneys  
of their unblemished lungs 
pumping fuel 
a scrabble, a dance 
none too cool for 
rough knees and shins 

Their backwards prance 
gains pace, with speed 
stab and volley 
thrilled, each shriek in kind 
as the ball flies upwards 
they gaze, running blind 
their ragged god  
lost in the winter sun 

I’m thinking about ripping my heart out

today I started missing you
so here’s how I’ll deal with that
I’ll stick my hand
in my mouth
down my throat
and tug my heart out
in ten seconds flat

plop it in the sink
and no more pain
won’t feel the throb again
drop it like jelly
and watch it drain
like a red teabag
only not quite the same

there’ll be no ache
just a hollow space
but better that than a break
or a wrenching, tearing,
sinking black hole –
better out than in
for my health’s sake

and my heart will just sit
in the sink for a bit
while I go to Tesco’s,
finish work, eat toast,
watch films, get fit
and feel nothing but nothing
not good but not shit

I’ll leave all that missing
with the washing up
under a dripping tap
and not give a fuck
as I pass by the kitchen
never again fussed
by the thought of us kissing

Brining


Seaweed slides through my knees
Stringed beads of brown
I comb its greased locks 
And I daren’t look down

But I feel the traffic of murk
The mystery of this deep
The swell of its breaths
A monolith heartbeat

The shore is a distant seam
Hemmed in against the sunlight
My cheeks dry like clay bowls
Polished and tight

Later, I shall leave slack prints
Across the naked asphalt
Bite the skin near my nails
And taste salt

Effigy

I start with a wooden barrel
for a chest, 
smoothing the planks down
with grit paper until
at long last
I put my cheek to it, to check
it feels right.

It does, so I then move on
to your arms – I strap on
thick ropes,
wrap them round,
and tie myself in
a knot that won’t break,
that holds tight.

For legs, I pile stones,
two towers,
unkickable as the sky –
straight and tall,
they hold
and do not sway or bend,
in their might.

A lamp for a head –
the light
of a mind that shines,
leaving no shadow
it throws
a yellow glow across me,
and burns bright.

Alas, for a heart, a blank.
Only space,
an emptiness,
as I have nothing
to take the place of
the thing that loved,
just for spite.

Now, when you burn,
you will burn right.

Stage Fright

Gunther did not remember much about his death. In fact, the moment had passed somewhat uneventfully and, had it not been for the audience’s few gasps of surprise and an ill-timed giggle, he might have thought he’d dreamt it up altogether. 

Emily had been sat in the second row, slightly left of centre stage – not that he’d been able to see his wife during much of the performance itself. The stage lamps had masked the audience from the players with a brilliantly intense void of white light. He had felt the glow draw conspicuous beads of sweat to his forehead almost the instant he had taken his first steps on stage, like the rapid onset of fever. It had felt like being in the presence of a dying star. 

Continue reading “Stage Fright”

Brother

When it gets late, we watch Cops on TV,
once all the rest have made their way to bed.
Then you make cheese on toast, and I make tea –
we feel inclined to sit up late, instead –
and though our conversation is quite plain,
you’ll show me something funny on your phone,
and when we laugh our ribs vibrate with pain,
as though at something we should have outgrown.
At three or four o’clock we start to shrink;
my tired mind begins to wonder whether
you’ll think about us sitting here, in sync,
when you and I no longer live together.
For me, it’s that I’ll miss, though it seems trite –
when we watch Cops together late at night.

Love Letter

You write about the moon
its opalescence
a bowl of shadow and pearls

the way it paints over 
everything it sees
the world in pallid gloss

You write about art
its multitudes
the lawlessness of expression

the ghost that shapes
everything we do
the bent arm behind us

You write about love
its essence
and of the helplessness

the violent shooting heart 
without restraint
the thunder after the strike

You write 
You write
You write

and it makes me sick

Ghost


It was you that taught me
to put newspaper between
the bottles so they don’t clink
when you put the bins out,
and how to read a map;
you’re handy like that –
a born navigator

I still get lost.

There’s a rolling boil deep
in my chest these days,
rumbling in my tight throat;
I let it out in slow sighs,
like bleeding a radiator,
and pick plaster off the walls
you built in the house

I still get lost.

Listen to the soft fricatives
of the leaves outside;
I think it’s autumn now, and
I still see you in the bath water,
and smell you in the sea –
I want to hear it over and over.
I wish you’d tell me

so I don’t get lost.

At Work

photo-1570283626328-53f8bfd59a0b

He knows what’s there
before it is

A seer

Not brushes but hands
and fingers

Each colour speaks –
a language he can read aloud

He moves shape together
and shifts something
as intangible as cloud

It is mercurial –
abstruse, like time,
both deliberate and imprecise
at once

When he is finished, he
stands back – peels himself
away from the canvas

Beer spills
from the neck of
his clutched bottle and
beads down his fingers,
warm by the time it
reaches his wrist

The tongue races to catch it,
tasting only its colour

On the fridge door,
a rogue fingerprint

of yellow.