There was a moment today where the sun hit
the leaves of the tree by the upper field
and it shone dazzling copper
I stood in quiet awe
like I had found hidden treasure
or witnessed an unexpected birth
and the leaves glowed and smouldered
for a few seconds
as if small god had thrown handfuls of pennies
into the sky
Against the gilt backdrop
he walked all that way
and I could see the shape of him
cut against the gold and shimmer
the pace of his walk
as he came to find me
and to talk
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
Someone hung her, years ago,
on a wall –
stole her,
ripped her right out of a book.
Isn’t she magnificent?
Take a closer look.
You could almost touch her hair –
very fine and
so red,
releasing a perfume into the sky.
Is she looking at you?
Try not to catch her eye.
You could almost feel her skin –
pastel and damp
with cold;
her neck is bruised and plum.
I wonder, does she care?
Perhaps she’s numb.
You might fall in love with her
all at once
like this;
you may think you hear her cry
but she will not answer –
so don’t ask her why.
let’s chill here for a thousand years
lounge like Hollywood vampires who yearn
light a candle to be dead romantic
and not watch a second of its slow burn
let’s not talk or try to learn anything
about anything, but be still as a stare
go nowhere, see how long we can lay like this
matted and tangled together like hair
let’s stretch out our limbs ’til we touch the wall
finger the paintings until they all fall
and imprint on our skin, then move the colours
or we could stay still, and not move at all
but if one day we do want to go, get up slow
drift together until the sun explodes, then
float like poplar seeds, the summer snow –
that might actually be nice, you know
at first, it is faint
like some underlying
sourness of milk
a lacking fullness
the creeping sense
of error before
the realisation of one
without a burst
there is a drip
a leak in the dark
it saturates you
turning your sheets
cold and leaden
and you wake up
flooded
I just might lead you outside
and make you look at how the sky
is like a Nina Simone song
and if you see how the moon
has smoked the clouds away
and left only music
you might want to listen
with me, for the rest of the night,
to the great and unholy
She had wanted to listen to that new Phoebe Bridgers album on the drive home from school. Just shy of 41 minutes, she knew she would be home before the penultimate track, but was prepared to sit in the car until its finish, if the album proved worth it.
She waited until she had driven out of the area entirely, before connecting Bluetooth and pressing the play button on her phone. The car stereo came slowly to life. She allowed it all to fade into obscurity, rounding the corner onto Fairfield: the gates of the school, the bus stop, the manicured hedgerow, and the smattering of parked Audi parents in gilets and floaty dresses, waiting for their kids.
NME had promised a sonic palette – something close to ethereal – and she would give the album her full attention.
But it was not to be. Looming in the distance, four yellow roadworks signs, and a subsequent diversion, had already interrupted some of the finer dissonances in Track 4, and the experience had, all at once, been marred. She pressed the power button on the car stereo and stared through the windscreen, listening only to the beginnings of flat patter on the glass, and waiting for the lights to go green. She would have to take Hedley, and avoid the A road altogether.
Continue reading “Middle 8”
I took a photograph of you
as you were turning round;
catching half your body solidly,
the other, blurred like sound.
Your ghostly arms were ashen grey,
their shape lost to the light;
a faded fey obscurity,
all mixed up with the night.
the door clicks shut
like a cocked gun
a threat
a black tonne
dropped lead
an ugly word
the colour red
a hang rope
one heavy tread
a death bed
deepest pitch
a stabbing clack
a real bitch
a cry, a smack
and I long for you
to come back
May we still think of them
all of the time
and tell them cool things
like what good films
just came out on Prime
or that there’s 26 bridges
over the Tyne –
same number of albums
in Bowie’s lifetime
May we remember them
whilst we’re apart
and tell them daft things
like how you can’t hear
real music in the charts
that there’s nowt bitterer
than the human heart
or that shiver is the
collective noun for sharks
May we fear them
at the end of it all
and tell them sad things
like the 52 Blue whale
and it’s lonesome call
that your brother begged
Santa to make him tall
and how sunlight passes
across your bedroom wall
ataraxicat 