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21 December 2011

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


17 December 2011

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

13 December 2011

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

04 December 2011

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

03 December 2011

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

18 October 2011

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

10 October 2011

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

22 September 2011

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

10 September 2011

26 August 2011

commute

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

21 August 2011

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

14 August 2011

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




24 July 2011

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

15 July 2011

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

14 July 2011

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
 

10 July 2011

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   

 

09 July 2011

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 

08 July 2011

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

06 July 2011

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

26 June 2011

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

25 June 2011

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

21 June 2011

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


17 June 2011

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

05 June 2011

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

29 May 2011

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

19 May 2011

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

18 May 2011

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

17 May 2011

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

02 May 2011

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?

01 May 2011

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

17 April 2011

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

11 April 2011

half moon kiss
ribbons of pale fire
looped and bound
skin of stars
stretched thin across thick darkness
cosmic sediment

05 April 2011

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

24 March 2011

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

16 March 2011

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

10 March 2011

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)

09 March 2011

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

08 March 2011

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

06 March 2011

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.

02 March 2011

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

01 March 2011

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