Sunday 30 January 2011

cats-on-wye


man, i'd forgotten how much i like reading books

Saturday 22 January 2011

so i'll write a poem instead

the fifth tuesday

minutes before the movie ends, the candle burns
out like clockwork. i think of numbers, firsts
and lasts. we’re a mess of legs and interlocking
fingers as you shift to kiss my neck. it’s dark.

in the house you found me, the hollow beneath
your shoulder is a quarry. i can feel all the bones
below your clothes but still i grab your jumper
to bring you closer. waiting to wake up with you.

you’re asleep. i’m on the doorstep, freezing.
‘fresh air’ is a fumbled excuse for making poetry
from these moments. in-jokes. weeks ago you
were unknown, but time moves faster here.

most things are a mystery, like a stranger laughing in
a silent house. i could explain this in sentences. verbs.
words mapping us with coffee dates and late nights,
but i won’t. i’ve got cigarettes to waste with you.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

why, happy twenty eleven

digging up flowers

I.
he bought me tulips, their yellow beaks
barely open. the days are still dark. with
idle hearts and busy hands we get by, typing
through the nine-to-five and meeting later
to moan about the day. we pick indian
confectionary, sickly sweet your sticky
fingers brush my cheek. under sheets
we invent music, kingdoms, speaking
in a new language of whispered confidences.


II.
something is lost in the lights of the sign.
reflected, the casino’s spaghetti letters
ripple beyond recognition when i ask you
‘what do people do when they go out?’
your hands mime along the canalside,
shrugging. pieces of us are missing.
later, buzzing from each empty dial tone,
my fingers scrape the screen like a spade
digging silently into the cold ground (as if
to dig up flowers). the silt-water vase
goes unnoticed.

III.
the ground sighs and opens, giving in
to new shoots. bent is the shape we make,
cupping coffee mugs and leaning over tables,
a tempo beat by frustrated fingers never still,
i've not seen him since tuesday, and you say:
'every bargain bucket bouquet eventually wilts'.
you were wise then.