Bastille Day

writing in two columns not

the tiny words of the Brontës not the slanting

desk of Austen not

the dance of ink that

Plath seemed to do

not the lists and

hand drawn maps of

Orwell not a dead

brothers notebook

where is my voice when

I stare at these

margins in dark

light which river

should I cross these

words with who’s

shore do I heap them on

the cobblestone

is pregnant outside

her home like some

kind of apparition

a living house a dead

house we looked for ghosts

for her

ghost and found a

wild garden no

not even that

someone else's home

that we were staring at

motion

time

discovering words already

dead when I read them

what is this landscape

pits rivers

railways rocks

the wildness of urbanity

these streets

don’t feel like mine

they are everybody

else’s I shall adore

every footstep

each is holy

even I

am holy 

this ten tonne

tongue hot slag

a harmonica that

beats the vivid pulse

the howl of a train

whistle

this swarm of text

gathered 

conned into

being between these

library walls

history or something

similarly magnetic

what is history anyway

all these twisting

contexts licked clean

with academic prowess

using words in a way

I can’t quite reach

just my fingertips

not my fat hands

that want to

squeeze and pry

and pinch

green and brown

time and moss Blake’s grave

I place my penny

except its 2p

disturbing the

symmetry of strangers

a thankfulness that

the rain understands

but not the screaming

german child climbing

in the tree beside me or

the squirrel in the bin

rooting through our lazy

detritus

the more facets I inspect

and magnify explore

the more

I see everyone not

just my chosen heroes

but those who’ve hurt me 
used me tore me

broke me so many versions

of myself

sketches

written right to left

counterbalance

like the thick cement bricks on the crane

standing like an awkward

insect in a building site

all floors no walls

grey and slow

revealing

a building born

naked

our interiors

filling filling filling

time a small girl

these streets are every

metaphor 

night a simile

when none is needed

we are transient as

stone suddenly still

I am a burial

ground

pennies in a line blue plaque

suicide scream

I am none of your words

and none of mine

I twisted and

glistened at your

pages kissing the

glass between the walls

the doors

these matrixes are mouths

dripping down an escalator into the

moving margins of

trains

this city starts to come

alive in my mind

it’s callouses and curves

let’s count the mortgages

the yoga mats the

bikram yoga bitches

and their almost

debt free lives polarity

is a plum in my mouth

its not that their

different but that

were almost the

same these degrees

of difference only

degrees

hidden gardens

we smelled (you smelled)

that honeysuckle 

on my tiptoes to see

the yellow breath of

it’s shape

we are constant

in motion

thought

always weaving

weaving weaving

a door

that shouldn’t be in

front of me Sylvia

yours

death is mainstream

it’s a big river

one you nor I can

navigate

sky captain

earth captain

anchors tattooed in

our skin

I find my flaws 

close enough to reach them

pass a paper finger over

their berth

lost a little in this

world of dead poets

other realness in the fields

waiting like hay bales

heavy and collected