Standing at the brink

in off-brand corduroy, dyed wool

picking apart the sunbeams

with your one hand slowly

closing.

The funicular sings silent

the third curve of dust-white

aggregate is steeper still

and behind you lies

the vast bowl of swallowed

time, the shattered stopwatch

shards hanging loosely

quivering swords

over ripped Polaroid.

You drop the ...

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I woke up and wished

but couldn't remember what

the night had done for me,

emerging crawling from a vat

submarine black and

shedding white spiders.

The vault stretches back,

circle beyond square beyond circle,

photographs framed

on every wall,

some have been put up

by enemies.

In the shattered remnants

of this cliff-face monument,

I keep walking betwe...

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Late again

footsteps, always, footsteps

lurch for the light

November is all old breath

wasting in cracks outside.

I can tell that this takes

you time.

Pulling the chain on

a disintegrating world, where

everything is a pretty

picture, celebration and street

parties are mandatory and

summer has been rebranded

as a megatrend.

Three wide faces, pastel colour

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Steaming hot, black takes

Instant coffee journalists:

'In for the long haul'

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Afterwards you came to me

and asked

'Why did you slow down

before the end?'

I had not realised

I had

The blue glass sky

bled us sweat-dry

and lurking

in the corner

always the eyes

the eyes

Inside all was madness

and crushed teal ice

for all of us

my mind's stalled

back in time

for what?

I could not shed

the cloak of air

I'd...

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A shimmering of microbes

I see that we're beyond

the plughole tearing down

into pits of dead heroes.

Newspapers eight-thick

secure the walls. Dot one

is made, dot two a frantic

beaming of rectangle

rotoscoped in wax sealed.

I've hidden hard nails

in your sock drawer

then I'll clamber out

of the underground, planting

my boot on a manifesto;

but first you mu...

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When it rains can we be the blackout again

the one-hundred-and-forty-four gun salute

while stepping through waves of molten glue

and gauze skies siphon ink in this pen

Turquoise and amber lights, and lightning

I run inside Clive's carmine scrapbook

bent like a cigarette, a screamed kaleidoscope

oh merrie band were they; the fighting

1.6 million, at the turn of the...

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You laughed at my

pointless remark

and showed me the setting

on the new, new dot machine,

like a 'ghost filter', black,

grey, chrome and you're

hardly there;

the leaves of

some exotic plant

filling the solid plates

of silver face, torso.

I said such things are

pointless art.

You said that the only thing

that's certain

is that nothing

is certain,

t...

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I - Trains

I pass the Sunday gardens,

keeping vigil by narrow factory aisle,

summoning auburn sky and smoke-salt;

then trace the river to its end

to wait, empty-handed on pebbled beach.

The blue sky rips, wallpaper,

with trumpets and cymbals, and bodies

bullet-sped 'cross countless arches.

There I am with you,

the outside world a postbox slit, as

we brace the walls

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I  commenced battle

and ended it swiftly

complicit in love's long game.

Rows of cups and saucers

and chipped face of cheese-board

dropped-heavy; the sink a salad bowl

of porcelain bones crunched

crazed; fuzz-hard green wires

absorbing like a forest roof.

I've hollowed out this morning

with a pen knife, stuck a wad

of shut-eye and shame

inside with the smell...

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Sixteen years ago this week the Boscastle flood occurred. The two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over eight hours on the afternoon of Monday 16 August 2004.The flood in Boscastle was filmed and extensively reported but the floods in Crackington Haven and Rocky Valley were not men...

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Sorry

that you didn't get

to see me,

hidden in my outzise

paper-board ink

tree

and dripping entrails

on your dress

Maybe the melody

we sought to wove

was always supposed

to end in knots

and I'd go crawling over

the checkerboards

lifting and putting down

the bricks you threw

each engraved

with its own symbol,

'FAO', for the suit outside

...

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Hate is for the jilted,

no-go refunds

and markets saturated with remembrance.

I'd like to pick tulips

and prise up weekends for play,

we'll scream

down corridors and

is that not enough?

Dreading penance I don't want

rain days, just candles

and cars, the road

and space

to dream and walk.

When I fall too far

you call me back

and I'll open the le...

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Signorina Gherardini's

prophetic visitations

of a drunk's

medical conference

before film-reels

of attentive eyes.

Franco dubbed

this, one of the world's many crises;

xanthelasma,

as Dylan dreamt of 'Highway Blues'.

There is nothing here

for the common muse

to hammer

a nail upon.

I'd prefer the eyes

on a plate, on the ledge;

newsprint in the cavi...

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I woke from another nice nightmare,

the same one as last night:

calling in a midnight green garden,

sickening spilling envy over

the flower beds

and screaming through locked doors;

the keyhole beyond where

battleships flutter,

lopsided

in some old silent film.

Let me bring the colour to this

disease. Because 

I've brought it in fruitbowls,

and bouquets, and I...

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The bucket of water distorts
the image of the sky when kicked
a mirror stretching into infinite ovals.

In this I am a golden leaf
and the light stretches through me
a ragged parchment in candle-light.

Where the green shadows
intersect with the love we live
I can see a buried garden-

a lazy, hothouse dream
of terracotta and porcelain
and thieves in the night

that went to sleep u...

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I remember the sun;

the sun was important,

although all the art was inside

and in perfect pride of place,

skirting the walls

and planted in rows.

My feet young, but the air old,

and moss overgrown on

the war memorial outside.

True, you need light for shade,

a chiaroscuro, and

a half-full glass raised.

The place is almost silent

with must, damp, old coins...

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I worked all through the Winter,

on my Swan, then it got dashed in water,

a cruel joke from some playmate or other,

sadly it didn't float, but neither even would 

my flimsy boat (one would imagine).

Trouble was the books were too old,

too fusty, specialised;

I grabbed them from the library eager

only to arrive back home and within five minutes

had lost patience...

con...

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This officious darling, too old
for me, with steel-eyed glances;
offers me a hand and
a Fabergé egg.

The cold lights of the Malverns
in winter are anthills.
In my heart, I decline, and go
to prowl before the world's river.

Scooping up vanity in my arms
I deposit the screaming bundle
on steaming bank, smooth leaf
and unpick iron links.

Soon his money's out
of the question and I r...

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The arch-light at the end of the view

from my door is

weather-bitten, with mossed steps,

beneath the thumbprint of moon

(the stone, in the fruit

of the afternoon).

Sideways I glance,

over the hedge;

there, spring has hit,

and apple-tree, honeysuckle

and lacquered gate,

preen idly.

I remembered the last time,

your hands closing both of mine,

as we stre...

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Beside the water,

torch-lit in wide places,

the muddy track fades

and ash and oak are ragged

paper props,

before, beside, behind.

The thaw bleeds out

over marsh and moor,

swept away back east

with lines of fields

pockmarked

and played out.

My own earth is in the box

where

the heart smokes

and is painted on the floor,

where dogs rush to me a...

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A running tap in a cluttered room,

the water through dust-light.

Someone stares from a close distance,

unmoving. The sound fills the space.

A body lies outside, on the paving,

curled sideways, fully clothed.

One fist open, the other

hidden. Dawn breaks slow above.

Two bright young things, in hats,

scarves and gloves, rush breathless

to the window of a jewell...

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Getting famous

with wilderness;

judgement's feather-light

body-blows, cascade

through vertigo.

Too old to start

afresh, AGAIN;

swimming in the scorched

starlight, of youth, eyes

unblemished, bright.

This is all fair,

where would it be

otherwise? How could

the cymbals clang warped

for us, weak heroes?

Or soften, as fruit

rich, nourishin...

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Full moon wreathed in cloud

like black pepper smudged on white

ghostly negative.

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1981, the year a blue stencil,

verso, gloss off-white,

unstuck blu-tacked, loose framed,

sun-curled image

your grin and your cow-lick,

and causal wear,

your ghost in my machine.

A bawling, squall, curtains

of hail and rain hang outside,

ladder, paint, spots and tans

and frayed carpet,

the dark, shaggy corner swamp,

where I found you, sideways-stacked,

cracked...

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And now, for the human interest story,

a quarter past breeze and apple-size dust

of blossom, latticed fragments

tendrils, sheathed in birch sleeve

closed door economy,

my new bonfire of vanity,

a cement wall sloping cliff-face

and edge-hedge shed three-facing

attacking west-side with phlegm of

dragonfly and sword of spider

the mirror of an engine and a rotor

and a ...

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Upon being handed

the gun I

choose to recline on wet, springy turf

and then lay down on the

wrinkled blue tarpaulin,

to pepper the air,

Phasianus Colchicus

blurting out the why and the where

and clasping my sweat

at 26 metres.

The older corners are the best

the low-hanging branches,

the leafy hollows, amalgamated bark, bush

and clumps of stone,

discar...

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My grandmother sits on the back step

I beside, and

my dear friend up there, at table.

There are birds in the sky

and the potted plants are nursing stitches.

I think I heard a cat jump

slink, fall,

escaping this domain of rust,

and smoke...

and the steam and the fire,

the roast, the white cloth and red

full hearts, having drunk their fill;

these wanderers flood a...

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The clouds were so strange that day

spilt powder over duck-egg veneer

a clandestine pincer and loose, flaking bough.

the hour the clocks stopped,

and the sea, through fence and fig-grove

breathed one last heavy overture,

(and there was much waving, and there

was solemn prayer, and repeat)

the shadows moved as warning signs

over verdant emerald mesh.

There I looked in ...

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Print off this haiku

wrap it around a large brick

hurl through a window.

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A line of windows and walls

the icons of old endings

and new beginnings.

Scary art.

Fragments of the divine,

mosaic memories

basking in polyester

doused with sparkling water,

a new wives' tale,

in a city of some square million.

The dust caked on a door's head-pane,

there the ray hits

the nail, the set-jaw of the afternoon

as I buried that light in claret,

...

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Called you at midnight

you answered with no little reluctance

through the rusted ribcage of totalled phonebox,

saw the rusted renown of my smashed reason.

After one minute the receiver fades to fuzz,

my fists hammer walls that are not there,

I zip, buckle, put collar up, out

in space now walking and with each step,

the ground sinks a little further...

sinks a little...

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It's late.

Swirling lights, tattoos and ruddy skin,

laughs and pictures

leaning crazily.

They could really do

with a room, roped off

on which to pontificate

gesticulate and share a million

and three secrets and stories

bled from the bowl that starts...

...and ends with your city face,

your birch frame and sweet breath,

patterned with detritus of dried

merlot,...

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III

Clump. Clump. Clump.

Careful with that carpet.

The sitting stool is taken.

Move the lights around.

In this drawer - here's a key.

Tobacco and moth flutter

and ivory, pass the violin

case. Put up with this sound.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

"Your wife, was she a proud woman?"

Adjust hat-stand

Circle smoking stall.

Rain patters on

and on and on and on and on...

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Up there in the swingers' district

where only the houses close their eyes

the mile of grass is an aired plain

every three lights one disappears

an interchange and a parting

a fox-fur collar fumbling at a door

open, shut, silence.

Late afternoon the cars glide

back from colour film and carpet ride.

Whistling twilight, the summer

is a newspaper frown.

You open the wi...

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Mauve fence

the snow on the other side

the breath of winter on your cheek

it happened today.

That screen

the table extended, creaking

beyond are lights and chatter

the salt shaken.

Your summer

is a bench and hamper

the camera does not lie

a blue beyond blue.

Slates falling

rain slips the roof

at night the warmth

the weather permitting.

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No, the moon does not keep me awake

at night, the torchlight, cracking your window

it may well be, can't say I'm otherwise aimless or free,

but such consolation are my lights on the road

that slopes away from us in gradual declines.

Give me your secrets tonight, pass me fire,

light to see your tumbling words by,

before the inner furnishings of your Fiesta

swallow and keep a...

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The morning is a castle mist,

a grey paint, ghost shroud.

Last night I dreamt we were lovers,

I took pen, paper, sealed green bottle,

wise and smiling, sucking the nib;

now suddenly I'm hunting down cracks,

placing my fingers inside and pulling-

(you said these fissures were only

a minor concern...slants

in the skirting, warm with the fading

central heating).

...

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Beneath primrose and violet sunscreens

vibrant passions bloom and wilt in some

patterned, noxious routine.

The fraternity lies athwart the boundary line,

lounging in heavy boulder sun-scape,

all in white except one, in green and black,

takes stick and slander with good heart,

gives as good as handed out.

I rise and stretch from the hearty crowd,

and slip up slanted turf,...

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Thought you'd want to meet me here,

a scion of Clint, Randolph and the boys,

a dirt speck on 1950s celluloid,

thought you'd want to meet me here,

a grin and laugh mired in static,

a rusty nail and worn-through rope,

a tired actor and a removal van,

outside, teetering on the kerb,

wash-and-go-and-go-spit-at-a-cat,

yeah thought you'd want to meet me here,

a long way fro...

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The water is terribly brown,

the water is terribly brown.

Beside the pool lie spread-eagled

academics, wearing terrible frowns,

cavorting in hideous gowns.

This is a lesson in three crowns,

the king, the knave, the clown,

poetic lineage watered down,

by a muddy lake on edge of town.

I'd like to see them falter,

trip up

and then drown.

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Swimming in cycles, I pattern an air;

dash, cross, the mimes of meeting,

they are a crime and I am a road-side

mottled hard, cracked paving,

the worse for wear, but a red light

lights my eye and guides my thought,

a spark in a second, a buzzing phone.

I throw out dust and paper, reels of film

sun-baked, reeling, cracked,

replace with seconds from the fountain,

hiding ...

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Hand in hand we walk

in a darkness carved from light,

the plastic trees surround

bottle-green, shadowed props.

Granting me light to see words by,

you count my vapour in the air,

the lingering space of hollow thought,

my burning questions left to float.

Later I will raise a hand and place it,

solid on a high glass wall;

from the floodlit boundary line,

there I ...

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With just enough light in the sky to take out

the newspapers of yesterday

and arrange them, padding in

the galvanised bin;

smoke twists

in a neighbour's garden -

I cup hand and call,

remark upon the vagaries of the weather

and the recent tree

felled on Cobb Hill.

In response I get a half-turn

and shoulder shrug, grunt

of some approximate affirmative,

and...

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Lunar light touches your cheek

soft curls paint a border-line,

seized in pastel, black, grey, white

the mirror creaks, leaves rustle

and beneath in store for us they keep

in a locked chest, waxed, sealed,

the list of names, none too grand.

War-torn, a leaf falling

red imprints on fog-mired turf,

the spiral here is waning,

stroking October oil's mist,

the tracks' ...

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A picture I saw on a patch of wall

Dust and dirt hid the edges, the frame faded

The shades of black, setting the tone.

Reminded now of this grim sight

When walking home in the early hours

Lights blazing from bungalows, the never-sleeping

The cul-de-sac stretched and warped

Through shadows on the green.

To stay and keep vigil by the postbox

A solemn red flecked with peeki...

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Foot-torn, the path of leaves.

Dead, borders are green, still.

I am white.  I turn.

I am now looking with paled eyes,

across a broken pit of river

up, above some untidy shack;

the train on the hill climbs,

smoke billows, a raincloud summoned

from beyond.

I turn back and see rows,

of autumn-blushed houses

fall silent on this minute.

You are only a passing mist.

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Recall through the face at the door

that saturday morning one solid blank

grey window, scrubbed slab

beyond, several feet and more

laid the catapult, a pointed edge

from a distant acre fed, wind-side.

The concentric pattern in velvet

curtain brushed my hand as I reached

to turn and swing, oiled lock routine

the knives of cold the comfort

between the welcome and rain

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Returning to my hotel room

the way arrayed with artless dust

settling at my wood-chewed seat

crafting a plan to hatch this eve

feeding the scar of cream curtain.

The depth of outside shatters within

voices ring out in stuck symmetry

the gramophone and a fiend's cackle

this draught declines my fervent plea

a brush so worn as to paint me cold.
 

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Errant in the dark, the telltale signs

we saw catapult us fifteen miles

through gulley and field

uproot and cascade, we now deem

a captured eye, a wind-blown scene,

so fresh, so free for all, and yet...

hot-bladed too, a line of fire

in this frenzied, war-torn age

a searing divide, a map, a point

as plain and unbroken as

you, my rock, my hallowed place

here be...

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