He’d fashioned two love tokens

and placed them by the bed before he left.

I saw the gleam reflected in those fireballs

as I turned to the morning light, four

tiny globes on the table. I stretched out

to stroke the mercurial forms suspended

on silver lace bobbins, lifting the finials

to my tongue, rotating them gently

in my mouth, lips encasing, caressing

their compressed Jurassic warmth.

Then held the crook, letting them swing,

their slight comforting, reassuring.

The combined weight was a gentle pull

on my lobes, the swing reassuring.

I noticed the inky refractions

whenever I lay them in my palms.

In summer the globes swung untrammelled

on their finialled shafts. In cold weather

and muffled against the numbing cold

of a rural parish church concert,

I left with shoulders hunched, shuffling

through the congregation to the welcome

night crunch and smell of gravel and privet.

Unmuffling later I searched in vain

for the slight my one lobe missed.

Years later I roll the one remaining jet

in my hand and let my lips close again

over dark warmth and cool silver before

once more replacing it in the typesetter’s

shelves alongside other singles.

Moralistic tendencies that can’t be truly measured,
twisted, darker side of life that leads you to be pleasured.
What is goodness? What is badness?
What is love but utter madness?
Feelings are but mere illusions,
man-made, fake and pure delusions.
Yet sometimes I still trick myself,
I put my feelings over health,
I let my heart off its lead,
I open myself up, a book to read,
I allow myself to be vulnerable,
yet always end up miserable.
So I use my solidarity as a defence,
loneliness starts making sense.
But in the end I realise,
I just get sick of all the lies,
of what to do and how to be,
that we aren’t ever truly free,
from this backwards, self-harming society.
If just being yourself is no longer allowed,
I no longer wish to be part of the crowd.

I held you in my hand one time

And wouldn’t let you leave

I locked you in my room

So you’d miss the train

I made you not care

I fed you twice

And more.

You said you’d never seen a girl as wild as me before.

I said I’d never had a boy so easy to tame.

Soft lights and chatter

spill through

the open door,

they draw me in.

I look beyond

familiar faces and glimpse

two young boys on a sofa.

their limbs intertwined –

a tangle of lurex thighs

and spangled lycra vests.

I can almost

imagine the eroticism

of Matisse’s odalisques

and patterned wall hangings.

Here though, flower stickers

placed to enliven bare walls

parody that reverie of

Moorish exoticism. Opulence.

The scene flickers between

actual and imaginary.

I think of Whitman’s phrase

We two boys clinging together,

of  Hockney’s later

eponymous paintings of

Californian boys in white socks.

The two boys on the sofa untangle.

One, a neighbour, moves towards me

to place the requisite kiss

which I return in like manner.

Picture: Blue Nude by Matisse www.artfund.org

Gouging out face-book posts,

the bodies line the sub-text –

streets.                    Unseen.

Deadheading graveside tokens,

the blood is sifted through eye-

lid epitaph filter to patriotic

blue.             Blown into ash.

A man stands, shadowy, death

wannabe; Hitman Cosplay; fancy

-‘dress to kill’ attitude. Tips his

hat and either side of you

parts of you crumble.

You weep,                       maybe.

I am blessed with tunnel vision to

nullify this melting, my eyes are

sheened with apathetic venom.

Death, I do not fear you.

That class A indulgence.

That whisper on the ear.

That lifestruck babe.

That lovestuck grave.

This superfluous tear.

This frozen moment.

This dreadful climb.

This uplift dread.

Their stupid kneeling.

Their blinding light.

Their needless notes.

Their endless plight.

My oldest foe.

My fearsome trickster.

My toxic marshmallow.

My radioactive high.

Hope, I fear you.

Picture: villageofhopeuganda.com

Sleeping alone, with a song.
Where have all the flowers gone.

Stalks of green straw, rough,
and petals decayed and floated away,
with pretty scents.
Leaving their harsh hay,
and the acidic perfume taste,
of old age.

They were always there, not here.
In a stall, or the sun.
The weak weak yellow push
of the beams of the sun.

Where have all the flowers gone?
Sleeping alone, with a song.

Nine acres of sharp, dry grass and a place; shuttered, closed,

green-mossed windows shield the still foam clouds

and flies on cluttered sills.

This life, your store of cold meat does not appeal to me,

and cherries hold sour memories;

A secret told in the root cellar

Was meant to clear the air

but sent me wild to city walls,

deaf with Verdi, sick with fear.

I sit in lakes, pick leeches from my hair,

wring water from my skin,

weighted by things I almost had.

Bad decisions made.