on waking

Eve slaps the three skulls on her chest

chastising the violence of stars

punched light stuttering through incomprehensible velocity

dead already

as I watch with my two good anchors

ballast of the balls of my feet

bedrock in harmony with solitude

it's a quiet night

I'm smoking my last cigarette

pulling my collar around the base of my skull

feeling

it's fleeced lining

combing over the shaved edges of my hair

the more I look

the more I crease the fold of my body

each cervical vertebrae 

is of consequence

I concertina

to breathe in Vega and Etamin

becoming rooted in balance

legs in a perfect V

hips 

aligned to the night

I am open to star dust

sound of cold wind through bare branches 

sharp somehow 

in this leaning 

embraced

by the briefness of nothing

unpolluted for the slimmest 

second

in the season of this thought

obedient

Eve slaps the three skulls on her chest

her nephews jumper

as she says goodnight

we let the candles burn

into the tin diameter of their presence

in the morning

split pupils

irises of pleated wax

watching

the profound act of waking

when daybreak came

I was the first to wake up

battered unhinged

with the great cloud of Metropolitan New York 

rising before us

in and washed

we jumped

through the Lincoln tunnel

oh damn

it was only the beginning

pitched

among the pots and pans

sprawled on the floor

four thousand miles withdrew

to a dark corner


This is an erasure poem using words found on page 117 of On The Road by Jack Kerouac

skyline

Beyond September

 

beyond September beyond testing testing

beyond

September

into the military slap of snare

into the neck of naked trees

where robed parliaments make mitres

out of mole hills

where I wait 20 years to taste the

spirit level 

finally testing testing

finally

meet the equilibrium of my faith

zero cant..camber

climbing into echo chambers echo

chambers

testing testing

cheap turquoise curtains
our barricade
listening to the sound

the sound
of old throated soldiers
long dead
long dead 

landscape turns to landscape

what were we

before we were car parks?

beyond our second

September 

feeding the crows on our arms

gingerbread muffins pulled apart

by fingers that have loved

and loved and loved

drinking Lebanese coffee

thick and sweet

laughing at Marx

wondering what

is the object

talking about keystones

spreading

the load

perspective meets 

perspective

pedagogic cogs

text books made of Corvids

and single malt

testing testing beyond

September

watching skies fill 

from the 19th floor

remembering 

her heartbeat

before burning

metamorphosis metamorphosis metamorphosis metamorphosis

anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic

amorphous amorphous amorphous amorphous amorphous

morpheus morpheus morpheus morpheus morpheus

polymorph polymorph polymorph polymorph polymorph

morpheme morpheme morpheme morpheme morpheme

morphology morphology morphology morphology morphology

she bares 

her midriff 

as if it were 

her words

hegemony drips 

like sweat between

her breasts

mirrors

crack

fragments 

of subjugation

ambushed by brilliance

all her pieces

un

done

object of no one's eye

rejecting anatomy

flux

like autumn leaves

dead

as we

adore them still the tree

naked and spent

 

metamorphosis metamorphosis metamorphosis metamorphosis

anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic anthropomorphic

amorphous amorphous amorphous amorphous amorphous

morpheus morpheus morpheus morpheus morpheus

polymorph polymorph polymorph polymorph polymorph

morpheme morpheme morpheme morpheme morpheme

morphology morphology morphology morphology morphology

 

I wish I was you (then)

in burlesque  twists

sly to the monochrome

ribboning entrails

smoke

lifting in tandem with

filtered coffee rainbows 

in black

and white

noir

where the disparate seek harmony

with the looming dusk

of never ever after

or a cowboys boot

spurs like catherine wheels

spinning as he twists

his heel into the butt

off the cuff prose

in familiar light

when I crush my cigarette

first second third 

attempt

and i'm all colour

no contrast

stealing four minutes from my shift

to suck on nicotine

no trilby

no blue 

air

every shadow cast

is timid in the tarmac

tie clipped

cuffs a stale grey

I lack

the lacking of the lick

the grasp of night

of broken pain

and pain

I know

with no auteur

without the crispness of the edit

I bleed into the reels

a bore a bore

narrow sky

cold wind
rushing bold between buildings
teaching the city how how

hard edged

accumulating shadows

on the floor

leaves like forgotten cornflakes

like tissues
stuffed in her pinafore

that 

one 

green 

leaf

this season 

confesses to the kerb

to the demi god grotesque
ness
of shopping centre chivalry 

on the altar
an eyebrow bar cappuccino 

double skinny latte buy one 

get one free Disney 

Princess
prays on her knees
for more
more

more

gathered in intricate dusk

light complex
compelled

into winters momentum

cars collide meta

phorically
impatient cocoons
moon a mountain

in the narrow sky of I

I

I 

I was meant to tell you

me

me

me

just a slither

severed

into sentences

blind sky

she hangs monocles
carefully on the dawn's
thin skin
three hundred
and three
at the pit head winding drums
turn
endless rotations
hoists
freshly greased
with pig fat
pull fish hook
rock
out of w i d e
mountain mouths
vast loads
of sharp
stone
endless bullets
soon to be hung
from crinoline cathedrals
shards of jet
laid in white sand
almost
blind
the sky
demands
a world
it can understand
demands
her fingers
her
femur
augmented into connecting rods
bones
her bones
cranking the shaft
hanging
from a pivot
part
of the machine
osseous tissue
turning axles as
sheave wheels cackle
into dark mists

no pyres

for how long

for how much longer

Tuesday quietly
on her knees
breeze softening
the edge the edges
of of
softening the edges
of of 

gone is the old bark
gone is our skin
thin and meaningless

my carcass
kissing your carcass
dead mouths 

feeding new roots
up and out and in and through

the layers
layers
dissonant filigrees 

casting off light
using the dark 

paper of our skin
to wrap these words
in layers
layers 

lost geographies converge
along ley lines and hard words
our fence post choices
this wild
wild garden

eating apples with Žižek

into the casthouse 

eating apples with Žižek

cleansing substance 

licking the bone

clean

pouring ourselves into actuality

melting a hundred thalers

to Kant's dismay

swallowing pig ore as we are made

in the up flow

our slow

declining difference

in Machynlleth

water bailiffs beg the riverbed

to bleed

just colour

when there are no words

pink ribbon

wrapped around the school gate

view point A and view point B

ricocheting endlessly 

across the ache 

of a missing child

parallax

my finger 

falls down the map

tracing A roads 

through the Brecon Beacons 

down

to the stingray shape of home

twice removed 

where Burnyeat & Brown 

sank the pit 

along with part of her heart

and part of his




a little context if you want it, just click on the line you are interested in :


stingray shape of home
missing child/Machynlleth
Žižek(my current read)
a hundred thalers 
casthouse

time irreverent

different depths of the lung
how it climbs
out
dear god brother
in the twisted knots of our years
lets wear our hair
dreadlocked and loud
we are all of our ingredients
your children will be all of theirs
let's clean the halls of our youth
with similarly greasy hands
I can't undo
time and what it took
or the arms length gasp of breath
as I released myself into
the sharpest edges of the truth
I remember fig trees
the smell of them
and the chunk of skin
missing between your toes
I was 7
years old
just as I am
now

tip of it

sold
to the gut of my myth
roundabouts make strange compasses
steering the ship of my mind
around a concrete sea without
noticing
the illusion
in the desert of this city
left hand lane
indicator throbbing like a thin
alphabet a slow
pulse
two thirds full
the glass
on an empty table
if its inside out it's
outside in
Hebraic alterations
unstitching the language
we used we
used
concentrating on the magma
airborne ash and shattered rock
broken fire
I levitate
around the Greek root
as it pollinates through time into
the word that's on my tongue
the tip of it

sometimes

sometimes

the boy you wrote a poem for

dies anyway

sometimes

the homeless man

sleeping in a car park

the one you rang about

the one that was placed

in a shelter near Shepherds Bush

ends up two weeks later

sleeping in an alleyway the other side

of the building

sometimes

you wait with someone as they die

and they go

in the middle of the night

when you are not there

and you say

you say to a friend

"these rivers 

must lead somewhere"
sometimes

the fairy tale ending

is a fairy tale

sometimes
your on the 09:39 from Waterloo
non stop between Clapham and Farnborough
and your late

because the train hit the boy or the boy hit the train

and you try to make sense

of all the things that ended

and began again

sometimes 

you smile when nothing is comfortable

violating symmetry

and you hope

into the empty dark you made

until the sky

laughs at you 

with fistfuls of rain