my paper autumn

is it fitful

the way that pleat

of peace

that corrugated hope

form canyons in your mind?

and all that growing

growing inside growing

spring inside of winter

vowels inside of nouns

your sinuous

shape

even words

undulate

they wail

silhouette and outline

what it is

and it is

it is

somehow

in this accordion fold

in this leaf

a radial spectrum

my

paper

autumn

walking into sound

Rain Dance by Tera Zajack

toward polaroid doorways

the gasping mouths

of windows

washboard walls

and yes

the rain

it's

leaning

I don't need stairs

I take the slow

slope

over cobbles that are really

stepping stones gathering to roost

I am inside the instrument

walking into sound

that mouthpiece arch

the closed

lips of memory

 

 

Offered as part of a poetics prompt challenge over at Dverse Poets inspired by the art of Tera Zajack with thanks to Brian Miller

not a poem just a shift

If I could just
get through this shift
I’d write
a poem
about something more than this station
or what people sound like
as they rush through this instrument

PA

“The Victoria line is currently part suspended between Walthamstow Central and Victoria with Minor delays on the rest of the line due to a person ill on a train at Kings Cross. Tickets will be accepted on local bus services”

I try to say it in one breath, I get as far as “person” before sucking a lungful of air in and attempting to continue

I sound
like a concertina

Take two

PA

“The Victoria line is currently part suspended (small breath) between Walthamstow Central and Victoria (small breath) with Minor delays on the rest of the line due to a person ill on a train earlier at Kings Cross (big breath try not to cough) Tickets will be accepted on local bus services”

Beep beep

Service update from service control the Victoria Line now has Severe delays I repeat the Victoria Line now has severe delays service control out

Ok..

PA

“There are currently severe delays on the Victoria Lone due to a person (due to a person what?.. )

Breathe

PA

“There are currently severe delays on the Victoria Line due to a person.. ill.. on a train earlier at Kings Cross”

A Stock
S Stock
412 hold at Aldgate please, hold at Aldgate
This is information only, please use the ticket machines
Would you like a hand?
Touch your oyster card on the yellow circle
Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push
There is no need to speak to me like that madam
Stop swearing

PA

Please keep your belongings with you at all times and report any unattended item to a member of staff or a police officer

Beep beep

Service update from service control the Victoria line now has minor delays, minor delays, service control out.

Okay..

PA

“The Victoria line currently has minor delays due to a person ill on a train earlier at Kings Cross”

All the fours at Farringdon can you hold there please
Did you say how much is a monthly one to five?
£180.50 Sir
Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push
Where?
Take the Metropolitan line to Finchley road, then change for the Jubilee line southbound to Westminster take the river exit you’ll see the London Eye across the water and Big Ben behind you
For St Paul’s cathedral you want St Paul’s it’s on the Central line
Last train from Baker Street departs at eleven minutes passed midnight
Your welcome

Service update from service control there is now a good service operating on the Victoria line, I repeat, a good service now operating on the Victoria line service control out

PA

“ There is a good service oeprating on all London Underground lines”

Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push

and up

her eyelashes || driftwood splinters
in and out
with the tide withthetides 
when her
mascara runs ||  it runs like a river 
her box canyon mouth
lures wild words
just || long enough 
to tame them
with each sharp || intake of breath
she swallows || enslaves
ghostsclingtoherthroat
until the pyre || of her poem
smokes them out || and up
and up

and up

4am veins no ego

4am veins their 
extra
pulses
pith pith
push the pith 
our anodyne
mementos 
mimic the season
with less 
imagination than the trees
who's dividends 
are shared
with tarmac and tyre treads
no sell sell sell
a circle
a swell where
sacred
is transient
an eddy 
an altar
how the leaves join 
in
no ego

Neruda knew the Just Is

Neruda knew the Just Is

how it hangs

between clavicles and vowels

and illuminates the half cut city skyline

how it howls

and caws

how it sits

on a dead poets hill

and looks out

like a sentry

or an angel made of bricks

canals like slit

veins bleed

through the buildings

the tallest i

I've ever seen

blooming buds the shape of

satellite dishes

wishes

of a new age where the page

is a punch card and a key fob

Richard rolls his rizla

Richard rolls

his rizla

carefully around the cut price duty free 50 gram

pouch

of Golden Virginia

£4.20 from his man he says

I ask about his Mrs

a sigh as he sinks

into the old

brickwork beneath the dying

hanging baskets

bone

cancer chemo blood

in her urine

"Marconi Rapier missiles"

falls from his

lips

in a rhythmic haze

a glimpse

of what he was

before

they haven't considered taxidermy

currents and

crosscurrents

in the maelstrom of this vivid morning

in it's restlessness stillness beating

on the door to come in

smuggled in the tips of pencils in

the spheres of ball

point pens

verbs

and nouns congregate

a quiet coalition of corridors

arrange themselves around you

some kind of

embrace takes place

some kind of grace

offers it's hand it's window it's desk

and rests

diodes composed in rows

of uniform current

electrons speak

terminal to terminal

language seeps from cables

from chairs and tables secret

conversations machinations

they

plot

amongst the rot

of our festering values to impart their

frustrations their

observations I wish they could

speak the teak

table top and it's compadres

their

eyewitness accounts

of our

tendency to dodge profundity

in favour of ease the trees fuck

they could talk

of the way we walk...by

they haven't considered taxidermy

death by needle clean and legal

sell the heads

of the dead

to oligarchs to basking sharks

eager

to hang their status on a wall

blind

to the blood spilling drip drip drop

onto mahogany furniture

the maid wipes it clean every morning before thawing

her heart

on a radiator her needs greater

numb must drum

her pulse from time to time

an anticrime

as some might say

I don't have words, do you?

commute

harbour lights anchoring transience
to train rails
shuttle swarm swell
swerve
the dying skyline viewed
from a perspex pew
an urban
congregation
compartmentalises

alphabet to alphabet

kinetic incantations
tattooed into the wind
embroidered with the fresh
zest of meeting arm
in arm, alphabet
to alphabet, cathodic ink
infusing circuitry with language
grease dripping from
well oiled vowels
forming like still
flames, like waves inlaid
with accidental hieroglyphs
raw myth
mixing
with electrons

articulate pavements

trying to trace the blood trail back

just ends in Jackson Pollock

suburbs no longer indelible

huddle together, shoulder

to shoulder

our transient resident status

rubber stamped, as articulate pavements

speak with more brilliance than any politician

of the carcasses of buildings

and the weight of feet

of burning bins

24hr courts use law

as a communal comfort blanket

poet laureates call us

to our knees

all the boroughs I’ve glimpsed

through the perspex of a double-decker bus

all the high streets

that have blurred into terraced matrixes

now leaning through my TV

a beginners guide

to citizenry

bookmark still

in the index

fine lines

in twists of paint
fat
on the canvas
in the carnage of crooked ideology
in the comfortless
gulf
of addiction
fine lines
Kings cry
in church pews
famine
perpetually
homogenized
fine lines
our cultural cortex imbued
by the mathematics
of constant
media
literate
and educated
spree killer bloodshed
torpedo speed of a shutter lens
pull focus! pull focus!
fine lines
CEO's send aides
to the dry cleaners
Cynthia
on her shoulder
Benefits
Supervisor
Sleeping
fine lines

18 across

walking through a four car train on an eight car run in an oblong full

of the suited and booted, the margins of their manners

slimmed and tenuous, I stitch my way through the carriages like a clumsy ballerina

like coarse twine trying to thread its way through silk

I dink the corner of a boutique paper bag

its owner clasps it to her shins

surreptitiously smoothing

its freshly formed creases 

I shuffle my feet around laptop bags and briefcases, I notice zip pocket pen holders

empty of pens, I press my work boots down

onto the toes of a woman staring studiously at her crossword

she turns her head

her grey flecked fringe sways

pen still pressing on the black and white squares

I touch her shoulder and say sorry, a muted sentence falls to the floor and flinching

she retreats 

back to 18 across

at the end of the fourth car, into the rear cab, I join a resting driver

he unfolds a seat from the wall, tapping it with a hand full of sovereign rings

I sit, looking out

of the widescreen window

watching track

roll away from me

as if I'm 

rewinding myself somehow

we talk about death at 90mph

about signals and fag breaks

the hegemony behind us

disappearing

cathedral

a cathedral builds itself
inside my body
stained glass windows break
into the bloodlight of my gut
my ribs a vaulted ceiling for whatever
I am
now
peace
 in this coagulating mutation
peace
in the simplicity of time
moving on
 

tessellating time

Photograph by Neil Alexander

 

 

tessellating time
dissipating movement
twisting through the hues
of breathing in
and breathing out
eyes parked perched
in their sultry 

sentry sockets
in the stillness 

of  liquid
in the hush 

of the flow

offered as part of the penultimate One Shot Sunday over at One Stop Poetry   

 

discreetly

she does this discreetly

it goes to the core of coping

your inside yourself

your stone blue spinal column

not able to look out

to challenge the status quo of

being

to change from theories into a formula for breathing 

Artwork by Bonnie of Original Art Studio

lights hung high like
nervous bystanders
shape of the room
confused
the whitewashed
plaster board
finds it's hinges
and swings
in
where people
stand hands sunk
into pockets
staring at the
vortex
on the wall
clandestine hypnotists
hiding
in the pigments

Offered as part of Friday Poetically hosted by Brian Miller over at One Stop Poetry

you drip away baby (parts one,two and free)

you drip away baby

through the blues///new shoes

you slip away

along my shifting seams

the landscape re-arranging re-enraging

same old themes

you drip away baby

through the blues///new shoes

you slip away

along my shifting seams

the landscape re-arranging re-enraging

same old themes

was it

was it <> we-spent

was -it-<<>>-well-spent

was it mine at all?

shifting seams baby

same old themes

I'll fight not to give you that

tender hurts

I'll have to fight not to give you that

you drip away baby

cold blood on warm skin

just slip away baby

from underneath and in between

same old seams baby

shifting themes

tender hurts baby

you drip away

as you remember me

as I remind you

you rolled in it

your role in it

its role in me

complexity

for the heart unbroken anymore

for my hearts not broken anymore

still you haunt me almost flaunt me

stroking the back of my mind, now my mind is revolving

you drip away

through the blues///new shoes

you slip away

along my shifting seams

you slip away

a long day daze smoothed

out

into one big line of excitement

I'm all built

to explore further virtues

almost like the shadows stepped back

leaving one big white patch

and I froze

fingers allbent sharp not sure what to do stay

still

I'm thinking about staying still

got a little gap of serenity

my ears are gliding

on the thermals you create

my shields colliding

with the aliveness you awake

lots of thoughts i guess

its still tomorrow

i'm just re-watching re-peating the pattern

and singing in the background

your sweet voice surrounding

even if these thoughts run into others

its O.K

they can clash in the corridor

like two arch-enemies and still

find a way to continue walking

in the opposite direction

but maybe only for today

amongst all this generosity

that leaves me crooked, crick in my back

I'm surrounded by things to make and do

and the tools I need are all here too

so what am i waiting for

waiting for nothing

but its an endless comfortable place

not exactly a space

strange night

I dont remember the daylight

just the weight and the pressure

and the grace of the measure

deadline

straight line

she twists like I was me

walks past pouncing.

time

and your still there

still in my hair

long enough to catch you

strong enough to match you

look how

its wrong

these little tiny pieces

i wished

i'd payed attention

cared to mention

how sly the cut

how deep the wound

took a while to find to drip away baby

I wished

i'd saved the tension

through the blues///new shoes

you slip away

time falls sideways

slowly

she never really came back

first time she opened the door

she knew what it was for

and she kept walking

because she never had before

there were circles

kept on bringing you back round

but she never really came back

first time

she landed running

fast and straight

time falls sideways

slowly

through the blues///new shoes

you slip away

Mono no aware

Photograph taken by Adam Romanowicz

she is a promise in a transient grave
bursting into life from the cocoon
of her language,
hung in tufts of chalk dust alphabets
voiced 

through the letting go of time
and the cleaving of the wind
I wait to drag her death into my mouth
and for the bridge 

of her rolling tongue
to meet me in this burial ground
somei yoshino
somei yoshino watches
as Newtons two thumbs pull
her poetry towards me
Mono no aware

I wait
for her lexicon to take
its first and only breath

offered as part of One Stop Poetry’s Sunday Picture Prompt Challenge. 

Do you want to know a secret?

Even the foothills are poised to be

perfectly formed small wonders

(deep retreats) as if

mountains had been reborn

into lively districts

twisted fists, ancient rivets

Yew Tree, Dartington Gardens

Like fat matted
dreadlocks of time tumbling
down the shoulders
of history sat, slunk
into the wet earth
bulbous, serene
twisted fists, ancient rivets
covered
by my warm palms
forearms pulling
the weight
of me
up
boots scuffed, slipping
on the lichen
fingers hooked between
knots of old memories
a
sprawled
pause
as I centre my balance
wind persuading the leaves to pray
singing ambient arias
and I
in abstract awe
as the ballast of my body clings
to a thousand years of nature
sat, slunk
into the wet earth
bulbous, serene



offered as part of One Stop Poetry's One Shot Wednesday

James Rosenquist

 

 

she fell into the frame
her story clotting on the canvas
the passing
thoughts of strangers
clawed across her gauge
itching her id
raiding
her pantry abstract
archivists
re-arrange

offered as part of One Stop Poetry's Friday Poetically

driftwood ribs

When there is no confluence

When the dry

Riverbed of my mind

Cannot

Connect

I walk my thoughts

Into the ocean

I give my context

To the tide

I give

My driftwood ribs

Back to Adam

Until I am nothing

And everything

Connected

Inspired by Rob Hanson's photograph "Endless Pier Summer

Offered as part of One Shot Poetry's One Shoot Sunday

there, across the water

there

across the water

all the right angles

gathered

in a manufactured

miasma

numbers stacked

like buttresses

each window

a portrait

each

towerblock

a gallery

the way he drags his pen

across the paper

that zen like place

he floats to

in the copy room

listening

to the whir and churn

like a small engine

the warmth

of each

thick stack he carries

to the comb

binder

the boat

and the bridge

there to tease

to tussle

he pulls

on the anchor of his day

as if to say

lets go

lets

just

leave

across the water

offered as part of One Shot Sunday care of One Stop Poetry, photograph by Scott Wyden

tongue tied dawn

tongue tied dawn

pared embers

unstoked

calm....across the skyline

inked silhouette of trees

frayed metaphors

convalescing

some mornings

like this morning

the sun

hard edged

and bright

colours the invisible ink

in my right arm

I see the curve of the 'b'

half an arch of 'm'

I remember

the painless joy of it

what joy was to me

then

10 years ago I cut "I am bad" into my right arm amidst a mental breakdown.

via the wonderous Shân Ellis:

"It’s mental health awareness week this week. Did you know that one in three people suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives? I’m proud to hold my hand up and be counted, post natal depression almost destroyed me three years ago. Thank you to all the professionals who helped at this time. Let’s talk about it, not hide it up."

Please read her pertinent words here

offshoot

sometimes that prettiness

I can't touch it

the one you hear in love songs (and feel in feathers)

serated edges

sharp teeth

blood drawn

skin pulled

tight

where's the realness

my realness

the shape

the weight

my gravity

my own

unique

alchemy

I smell the dust

and ash

of other people thoughts

and I steal them

I eat them

I wonder

I think

too much

in too many directions

wash me in the river

clean

with my own thoughts

alone

restless

in the embers

restless

breathing ink

into silent water

noise

an ephiphany

dance

on the fine line

the sharp shifting

simmering line

of your borderless

mind

grasp the edges

with your fingertips

shake

your

mould

this

is

commodified

deified

testified

and petrified

fear

so dark

and black

and thick

an oil spill

in your heart

density

no evil

not even a wall

a substance

you must walk through

walk through and feel

and feel

and feel

so the contours of your body

are ingested like a map

compass

a pulse

repeating

a pulse

repeating

shadow hands and feet

an old sunday all mixed up

the ghost in my throat coughs out

an old sunday

all mixed up

walking

the subway

between museums

wading

through Brick Lane

on market day an urban river

cascading trinkets sandalwood incense

headless statues, my head to their shins,

shins that come alive

at night

shaking all the stillness out

moroccan spices blend with expensive perfume

and the boho chic

of the moneyed

antique typewriters chandeliers

beer in plastic cups

the sound of it

splashing

on the cobblestone

as the dreadlocked man

draws a beautiful woman

into his arms

reeled in by a fishing line of light

I walk the longhall filled with stained glass

colours dancing

on the polished floor

old men with beards stuck in windows

people nod sagely

at histories

I dont understand

the room, filled with squares

squares on squares

and in them paint

faces, some I'm drawn to

I wish I knew them

tapestries

looming

in a cool room

dark, and just me

them

and me

a battle fought across the walls

an arrow to the chest

how many hands?

how many needles?

the smallest scarecrow

the puffed

straw stuffed chests

of the older bogles

strained

through their sackcloth clothes

the smallest scarecrow

banished

to the barren lands

face bevelled

by desert winds

his one leg

frayed

into many

his outstretcehd

arms

bent in

the smallest scarecrow

the talk

of arable lands

"have you heard?"

"he walks!"

"no crows?"

"no crops?"

photo by Rosa Frei

offered as part of One Stop Poetry's One Shot Sunday

four pieces

skin of an old god

glimmers

green glow

I take a run

into the

sharp

unknowing

razor blade

bars

clean cut me

into four

fine pieces

the first

a feast

of photosynthesis

beading

each pigment

to the next

the second

sent to parry

with the breeze

to syncopate

to diverge

to

keep

it

wild

the third

dancing

with the shadows

hands

around the hips

of

silhouettes

romancing

the dark

the fourth

with the cool

damp of stone

in its arms

dissipates

into the

hot

hum

of air

offerd as part of One Stop Poetry's One Shoot Sunday

a good man's voice

half moon kiss

ribbons of pale fire

looped and bound

skin of stars

stretched thin across thick darkness

cosmic sediment

the escalator

gliding at an angle

metallic teeth turning

I move without moving

words pirouette

scraping the edge

of my attention

his briefcase

nicks my ankle

her belongings

scrape my thigh

the handrail

moves

a beat slower

than the steps

my resting wrist

slowly

pulled behind me

a mutated arabesque

I dance

without trying

offered as part of One Stop Poetry's One Shot Wednesday

George

in my fathers study

holding a flannel to his thin

skin

black mountain vowels

in the oohs and aahs

of his comfort

nine

mile

point colliery

a 14yr old boy

in white

moleskin trousers

first name Alfred

eight hours on the tarmac

at Frankfurt Main

two in the air

four to get home

to be there

to be here

on Christmas day

a mona lisa magnet

gripping you to my fridge

I hold my sisters

shoulders

you talk to us

about Chrysanthemum's

I think

white star line

s

s

doric

to canada

painting the first class cabins

20 years of

saskatchewan, edmonton

calgary, british columbia

vancouver island

winnipeg flying club (1934)

tiger moths (1939)

picking gooseberrys

me

wheeling sarah

around your garden

in the old hulk

of a wheel barrow

and

the violin

you made

from a wardrobe

in the apse of her sleep

in the apse of her sleep

mosaicked allegories

histories dreams

the minutiae

dissolved in waking

rests here

each tessera

in telling

one story

tells

another

may you be

propelled

by a smooth

teeth baring

velocity

may your courage

be ferocious

your body strong

mind slick

as an eel

if you hit a wall

lick the blood

from your face

leave a mark on it

break it down

let the varnish

sparkle

let the undertones

nourish

sink each tiny square

into the cove of your mind

love freely

with a rock in your hand

parry the doubt

strike a spark

love in any direction

be fierce

growl at it

whorl

around the stem

of your story

lick your lips

be filled

the panorama

from where I stand

astounding

as part of One Stop Wednesday One Stop Poetry

and the gift was in the giving (but the joy still hurt)

my alluvial purpose

now apparent

I feel the fierce

(unbound)

vigor

of the water

(beautiful)

rushing out

rushing over

I am the riverbed

not the river

I am the tributary

not the confluence

I am delta

(I am)

distilled

threaded through a liquid wish

absorbed condensed expelled

I shape a mouth with my sediment

form words with sand and mud

a voice

avulsed into life

the pith of this

(in the parentheses)

I love your children

a diet coke, a green straw

your nervous hand

tickling half melted ice cubes

two pints

of real ale

your first

almost

date

I was there.

A rushed

velocity of emotion

tumbled through my shoulders

when you walked down the aisle

I cried

a raw

humbled howl of happiness

and when Bethy

retraced her steps

earnestly picking up

each petal she had scattered

we laughed.

I remember your children too

the idea of them

in conversation

and hope.

unspent love

spent

courage

thinned

through absence

I grieve for you

for you both

I grieve the loss

of not meeting them

in my arms.

I love your children

chasing the sunrise from a train window

the mosque

surveying the street

it has painted for me

the sky

it has coloured

the mosque rests

brush handle up

still dipped

in the paint pot

how to tell a story

stroke the crevices

of a crumpled piece of paper

smell the dirty walls stained with living

thank the timber structures threading light

illuminating narrative, a monologue

a pause

see the story before

and the one before that

imagine a season

the smell in the air

((It's painted right there))

imagine the texture of a song

each note swinging from the eaves

rip a piece off

an entrail

place it in your pocket

pull the greasy chain of the backdrop pulley

put your full weight into it

climb the scaffolding

sand down the walls until your hands go numb

lick the dust from your wrists and sit

exhausted

centre stage

((be brave))

and speak

Part of One Stop Poetry's Picture Prompt Challenge. Photograph taken by Jacob Lucas http://live.jflphotography.com.

we share skies

we share skies

the cool blue bruise

of my evening

a flushed

cheek

in yours

we share skies

curling lip

of young

dawn

an

older

gaping

mouth

we share skies

long shadow

of noon sun

wavering

defeated

we share skies

frayed swathes

of light

narrow

into

pin pricks

all the days flavours

gathered

collected

remnants of conversations

peel off the subway

walls

train numbers twist

into time tabled

digits

fish plates clank

under thick heavy boots

workers

ooze

onto

the track

stress fractures

soothed

current isolated

brash bark

of ballast

the only sharp

sound I hear

part of http://onestoppoetry.com/ one shot wednesday

this tight

knot of words

loosened

by the tug of her finger

she did not know

I would unravel

into a tangle

into her tongue

I climb

the wall

a precipice

a plateau

from here

the landscape fresh

before my eyes

stretched far

beyond the curve

of her back

her body

a gradient

I slide down on

bare feet

touch ground

strange and new

each texture

dangerous

until trusted

the pressure in my palm

your hand

I hadn't noticed

resting there

she carves the night

she carves the night

into

a

gutter

a throat

chimera's swivel

their hips

and

invert

mortar

no longer

safe

air around

now protected

fat oblongs

of history

two parked

next to eachother

compelled

by the

bourdon bell

we spill

into the

square

into

the Seine

I smell

of

river

of burnt

wood

this is

disparate

this is

radiating

lines

a

vascular

vaulted

cathedral

ceiling

I think about

Caliban

I think about

Ariel

like a cumin seed

caught

between my teeth

I always

hated

Prospero