when you had that
big work do thing
the one where
you couldn’t bring
anyone because it
would be weird
I sent you a photo
when I was
a bit drunk
just for you
just of me on the
sofa with the cat
and later on
that night as
we finished the rum
you had half inched
from the bar
I asked you why
you didn’t respond
to my messages
and you stroked my
legs propped up
on your legs and you
finished the rest
of your drink off
don’t be weird
you said
last autumn you told
me that Radiohead
were overrated
and then you
showed me some
new bands I should
really listen to but
only in this order
and did I know the
original line up for
that five piece no
one has ever heard
of and then you
smoked another
of my cigarettes
without asking and
blew the smoke
towards the window
before you put your
clothes back on and
I would have punched
you in your mouth
when you said it
if I could have
but you were
holding my right
hand at the time
so I couldn’t do it
but I wish I had now
because you never
hold my hands
anymore
There’s no need to measure out –
paint-stripper, heel-tripper,
drink like there’s a drought.
Knocked back neat, forget that cheat:
tonight we’re going out.
Down the dregs and out the door –
liquor sweet, aching feet,
dance until they’re raw.
Then blow a gram, and phone your mam:
ninth tequila: floor.
Lights go up and stagger home –
kebab gnaw, slack jaw,
smell of old cologne.
Think you’re fine, but miss the swine:
fall asleep alone.
Here’s what you don’t know:
I already knew you’d come
because I imagined us here
I conjured your arrival
crafted it, like a scheme
like a slight of hand
so you never saw it happen.
I put a lot of thought into it
before I even needed to
formed and divined you
but – and here’s the thing –
I made it look like I didn’t
so when you showed up
what you don’t know is
I already knew you would
I just didn’t know you’d be this good
Hey listen, here’s one for you: what do women and hurricanes have in common? They both start off a breeze, but then they destroy everything you have! Always liked that one, but can never remember where I heard it… Jim, maybe, or Andrew in Marine Forecasting? Or perhaps just a stranger on the bus, which is equally plausible because – and I’ve always liked this – weather has a place in everyone’s daily lives, not just ours down at the Met Office. You hear it come up in all sorts of conversation. In fact, just the other week, an architect friend of mine met the Queen at the opening of some war memorial, and you’ll never guess what she said to him. One’s hair is being drizzled on. That tickled me pink.
Of course, in my line of work we’re not so focused on your everyday downpour. In Paleotempestology – that’s the hurricane business – you’ve all sorts of meteorological implications to consider, not least of all the official naming of storms. I bet you never thought about how they do that, did you? Well, someone’s got to. I often think back on my career and wonder what prompted me to classify them as I did. How I managed to choose names to summarise each cyclonic thrill. Of course, I realise now that the inspiration was clear all along.
My first was Lisa. Gale force two, if memory serves. Winds of about nine kilometres per hour, fingernails bitten down, and sparkly polish on the nibs, short wavelets with no breaks. Some airborne spray. To be honest, tame, and pretty unremarkable, but there’s a first for everything, isn’t there. It was middle school, after all. Followed swiftly by Monica. Gale force three – a definite let down, with very few scattered whitecaps. Freckled, too. Some experts in the field had said she’d go anywhere, do anything, but no more than a slight draught and flutter down by the football fields and it was over.
Continue reading “The Hurricane Diary”
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”
I was seven when
the neighbour’s cat caught a pigeon
and dragged its twittering, tattered trunk
through our kitchen.
The cat and her mouth,
now clean and empty, seemed innocent,
but the errant trail of crumpled feathers
gave it up.
We hid it from mam,
stayed up in shifts, fostered and fed it sugar
water from a spoon, playing each other’s
game of nurse.
I remember the thrill
waiting for the magical renewal we were
led to expect: a resurgence promised that
would never come.
It fell still then,
its beak soaked, sticky with sugar, as its
drowned and silent body lay between us,
ruined and scrap.
Sometimes I wake from
shadowed dreams to see the smothered thing
in its throes, and I do not sleep. We were not
what you think.
I don’t feel bad about how
the world might be ending –
and I don’t feel guilty,
if that’s what you’re getting at.
I’m more concerned about how
I can feel myself bending –
a little like this, at first
and also, somehow, like that.
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.
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
ataraxicat 