Dark intoxication: Your bitterness is stimulus; The steam rises; Your breath from darkly depths. Bold commands: You burn the morning fur; Thimble potion; Unbind the mind.
Damn, my book was in there! I’ve burst open the packet: Fear has leaked all over everything. Should’ve known better than to pack it. It’s impossible to get it out: It clings and I can’t shake it off It’s cold enough to sting the hands, Such stupid sticky, trickly stuff. I grab a towel and [...]
My childhood seems to have been made of patches, If my memory is anything to go by. Mere snatches Of scents and tastes and ideas I had collated That bordered whatever everyday life orchestrated. I wish I could document it, from go to now, But it seems impossible. Somehow, I have concatenated a hodge-podge memory [...]
Although the knife was blunt; (What else could it be after years of dinners?) It had what the News called lethal force. In distraction, the dinner burnt: (Lucky nobody was hungry now.) The law’s people came and began the needful course. The knife was slipped into a bag, (“Blunt as butter, boss.”) And hurried away [...]
When times are hard and nights are long, And clichés stalk the land, I remind myself things could be worse, And take my mind in hand. I remind myself that things aren’t so bad, That the fear that grips my soul, Is merely the side-effect of some greasy meal, Or over-spicy bowl. And if I [...]
In the Dining Room hung a clock; A strident, clapping ticker whose sound marked time too strongly. While we could hear it, we had to march orderly to the grave. So it hung in the Dining Room, We only ate there at Christmas, when we were too noisy to hear it. When I was thirteen: [...]
Full, flamboyant, forward flower; Peels from velvet and unrolls – Spills the sheath’s sides And lazily casts the petals wide. Naked branches, trimmed and bare; Fake-coy fingertips pinch the air. Flush; From bridal ivory to scarlet satin, Silky soft sheets knotted at the pinkest core; Where the action is. Cold still for roses, upright tulips, [...]
The party had passed the tipping point: We had ticked the boxes of laughter fight tears throw up off the balcony crash in the garden; And now waited for sleep or sobriety To take us to comfort. We sat on the floor, where there were crushed chips and spilled fizzy drink; a sticky pink bloodstain [...]
Spiced zing and twisted tart, Flushed of cheek and tongue, Warmed and quickened at the heart, An addiction started young. To heat the platter and the bowl, And Fiercely fire away the ill, A charge electric to a tasting’s soul, A gesture fine of nature’s thrill. And then to fizz and glow, And finally soothe [...]
I would love to shed my skin: Unzip my mottled scales and emerge, pink and damp, Allowing the worn-out, used, unwanted sheath To crumble, drily, to the floor. I step out, I am newly-hatched Yet fully-formed. My old skin turns to dust and is whisked away Memories of it eclipsed by novelty. Instead: to change [...]
