Curled up like a dog-tired toddler,
Beautiful as mammal newborn -
I want to wrap my arms around her,
Drink breath as mothers do their children.
And when she shivers in the night,
I’ll read heat with Nightingale hand,
Love away illness pains when pain bites,
Prescribe ten Aspirin, doctors be damned.
A boy with a broken blackbird,
I’ll keep her in a special box,
Nurse her with garden worms fresh from turf,
A watchman with moon and moths and clocks.
I’ll scrape her up like a road-kill fox.
nurse
the pigeons on the station roof
The pigeons on the station roof
know nothing but the outline of discarded food
and that it is best to fly from swung umbrellas
and best to breed and eat and sleep.
The pigeons do not know your feet,
you were once a ballerina but grew too big
and you hate to have them tickled it makes you sick,
that you snore, what you like to eat.
Those birds don’t know you’re out tonight,
if you don’t come home they’ll be asleep they won’t cry,
they won’t listen to your stories in the morning
sitting on the station awning.
Those pigeons living without words,
no reason to exist, brittle beaks never kiss,
and you haven’t come home so I will just say this,
God I wish I was a dumb bird.
the last poem
She was so fucking unbelievably beautiful
And God when I saw the freckles on her face
I knew that God was dead
Because nothing no matter how detached from this world
Could create her in His own image of clay
Or of whatever and even if the most pious pray
For her she will not be delivered
Not from Heaven nor Hell she is no angel
She is not Jesus she is not God she is no prayer
I do not love her
She is a flower and her petals destroy painting
And God when I saw the freckles on her face
I knew that God was dead
She is a flower and fragile flowers grow in the driest deserts
And God made this desert dry
But like St John The Divine I have seen The End
I have seen the face that forsakes
The Theory of Everything
As her eyes eclipsed meaning as she stared into nothing
The beautiful Revelation
Of the freckles on her face.
safe and sound
I heard voices,
have you stolen out into the night
to lead some secret sordid life,
or is it a television that you’ve left on
and it’s just my mind that’s on the run?
I heard crying,
do acid tears lie on your cheeks
to burn your face while others sleep,
or is it the spinning of the washing machine
and you are happy in a dream?
I heard a crash,
are burglars here to steal your clothes
are they in your bed, are those your moans,
or is it foxes at the bin
and I’m the only one who’s sinned?
I go downstairs,
the doors are locked, the windows shut,
a washing line has been put up;
my socks collect strands of your hair,
you don’t really need me here.
the girl who works at the opposite end of the office
Her round bottom in jeans
Is an earthly scream
To the Stalinised girls of men’s magazines
And I’ve heard the cat’s purr
Of her smoker’s cough,
Pure breath of imperfect life, flaw’s sweet allure.
Her face in powder chalk
Is fragile silence
To tinitus ears waxed in dull buzz of talk
But I’ve seen the stone break
For little-tried smiles,
Snowflakes on landscapes, hunted foxes escape.
*
She is a ghost. No one
Saw her come or go.
Except the mirror, for
One moment greater than Michelangelo.
*
Like an Acapulcan
Fisherman guided
By pelicans I wait beneath sky molten
For morning fishes. She
Swims through the office,
Mermaid untouched by my shoal of wished kisses.
Swim to me swim to me,
Cough and purr at me,
Sit on my lap and let the snow smile gently,
Bloodily bloodily,
Crack your smile for me,
Unleash the foxes on landscape of empty.
*
She is a midnight sky
Unseen by the bees
Who sleep so easily,
Spied by the unsleeper who dreams of her knees.
stalin to your memory
Cut off these hands,
If they cannot hold yours
They will hold nothing.
Amputate these legs,
If they cannot walk with yours
They will be crippled.
Gouge out these eyes,
If they cannot see your face
They will be blind.
Mutilate these ears,
If they cannot hear your voice
They will be deaf.
Remove these lungs,
If they cannot breathe your breath
They will collapse.
Intoxicate this brain,
Smash apart this head,
Be Stalin to your memory,
Make it dead.
wish for warm sleep
there’s nothing on the tv now,
let’s go to bed let’s go to bed.
there’s nothing on the tv now,
give me your hands give me your head,
breathe out your soul into my bed,
there’s nothing on the tv now.
there’s nothing on the tv now,
i want you here i want you here.
there’s nothing on the tv now,
give me your eye give me your tear,
veil my cold chest with your warm hair,
there’s nothing on the tv now.
lights off it is time for bed now,
the day is gone the day is gone,
lights off it is time for bed now,
you are the moon you are the sun,
by day a ghost and by night none,
lights off it is time for bed now.
missing
Look at this room, it is full
Of things.
Things filled with words, things
Filled with music, things
As full of clothes as
Trees are full of birds.
Look at your face love, it is
Missing.
Lost from this place where
Things nest and gather
In trees where bad luck
Swapped love for matter.
There is no consolation
In stars.
See constellations
In the evil eye
Sky, and feel how far
Absence carves her scar.
The whiteness spreads from your cheek to the moon
Who lowers his eyes to pray you return.
just friends
This life is strange
I love my friends,
some of them too much,
and love is pain
when love is vain,
hollow like a church.
It will not change
my body bends,
solo sidewinder,
she smiled again
and her smiles send
angels to light her.
From a long range
I watch my friend
give halos to mortals;
I say in vain
this pain and love is
fake like holy water.
insomnia in song
I pray to a god I don’t believe in
For claps of thunder,
Hands to rub away the breathing
Of this summer’s evening,
The white noise of the world.
Engines buzz and zip: mad flies,
Downstairs a baby cries,
Squeeling pig to suckle,
Water pipes gurgle and burp,
Throats of drunk men
In their drinking dens;
Silence now and then
The fridge hums its favourite tune,
Cooling tomorrow’s ham;
Beneath the mute moon
Ornaments huddle like goons
Conspiring through the night.
Useless moon: mock insomnia’s madness,
Wax without whisper;
But thunder: applaud with grand sadness,
Nature’s salvo, medicinal blitz;
Soothe to sleep.
