Mumble Mire

But outside the lifestyle was a memory,
Haunting like a black eye on your mother.

It lasted longer than the tree line,
Which fell as the air got thicker.
Tumbling into soft thief knots
Once the giants drew their curtains
And the guardians awoke.

Footfalls, sidesteps, crept iron gates,
A forgetful onion’s only escape.
From a frigid dawn behind the ash,
Grey twigs shade better than a looking glass.

Where the bramble hatch drips
And the stairwells swelter,
Unwrap what you cherish from those
Ear-raped-a-ringed thrushes.

For they were no one,
And no one made it
It was just there,
Un-escaped.
Like a sawn off tree trunk
Sprouting the maggots of the enemy.

Irony Sunlight

The irony of sunlight is its apparent hope
But it can shed light on things too clear
It penetrates, and stops you from living
Because everything that has eyes can see you
If they please, which they rarely do, but our mind
Can’t show us that

There is an optimum amount of light, too much
Paralyses, like a thousand icy knives pointed at
Every soft mound of skin, no one moves,
They creep around the edges, shift past the spotlights
Not the green-lime spotlights of the stage, no, those
Hide their menace with sweet piñatas
These are the spotlights of concentration camps
They blind their victims, they would be more
Welcomed dimmed, filtered with soft whispers
Of encouragement

Oh! That radiator warmth of the sun, the persistent glare
Like cooling choral voices in cloister walls,
Might be a cure
Dim them down, please, my hands are shaking
Please dim them down

The Flaccid Beast

The flaccid beast’s a warlock, who crunches brittle lungs
Papyrus sheath, marshmallow head and a consequential tongue

Rustling in a narrow boat, a cement-mixed tube of dirt
Lobster-licked with spit cells, a half-pencil’s worth of hurt

It may become a twosome, or a sniffed soliloquy
Or perhaps unfinished business, left crooked by a tree

The scent of no tomorrow, the fear of things to come
Blunt razorblade, a blockage, twixt forefinger and thumb

Not food, nor drink nor sustenance, no vitamins, no lust
To fill the time, to compromise, till comfort turns to dust


I first arranged to meet with Ron, in the pines behind the house
Stolen, violent, tittering, soft ash for the fat woodlouse

From there my friends continued, while I fell another route
But I knew that Ron would chase me, forever resolute

So now and then we meet again, him ruffled in his maker’s palm
I ask to chat, as he spits ‘yes’ back, we kiss sickly into calm

But when it’s over, smouldering, I feel a thud of doubt
My carelessness, frivolity, me mirroring a lout!

It’s not the damage, or the image, that renders me a fool
Just the sense, that it adds nothing, a raindrop in a pool


The swinging arms of a rushing clock swim past me in my sleep
Hot suns soar through the ocean sky; electrons on a science sheet

Drum beats quicken ghastly out of time, sweat pesters my temple dents
When it’s not productive, slice it, crush it and scald it from the battlements

There’s a pile in my mind of the things that I’ve done, wrangled, cowering
Each whisper, angle, witch-wanded master, wooed and empowering

I think of my progeny’s padding foot, scraping the screens of my grave
My petrified fingers frozen loose, a last sketch at the mouth of the cave

My meetings with Ron, the flaccid beast, won’t de-tile my final proof
But each encounter, steals a much needed hour, of my fiddling up on the roof

The Futility of Progress

'But he didn't just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together.' Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot