Too true Or too good to be real thought the manic phase was a joie de vivre Thought it was God, or me turned out to be the chocolate Jittering through insomniac hours tick tick twitching two Me and my overactive ego My overactive ego and I Ever enlarging sockets liquid-filled and swimming around in their own salty solution Sore-throat stitched and prickly Slowly unpicked with pocket knives Post-operatively this sharp tongue unraveling Roll out the red carpet For all desires to dance naked on Peacock paraded in these Alert, alonely hours Please give me something stronger Something to knock me out It won’t be hard to find a vein They’re positively bulging in the infa-red Fairy lights and drooping sprays of jasmine Sweet-smelling decay Wrapped around the bed head An impromptu trellis To wind strings of word around Hang them up for morning Should dreams eventually come Drip-drying by… Read the rest

Highheeled En-thrusted Jet forward propulsion Toppling over tractors and mowing through the crowds leaving only stubble in her wake no-mercy sister miserable mistress wrapped in cellophane tapa-swaddled baby love tightly clamped shut Time-trapped patterns of promiscuity Sucked in Just like I used to be Before the fall shook me up and took me aside to view this see-through stupidity Spare me the detail There’s nothing at all to prove.… Read the rest

It’s a metallic melancholy that tastes like blood a familiar flavour Cold and shiny Can’t see over its sharp edges Keep out of reach over the ledge to make us stop ….stagnate Concrete dammed up so high on its curved sides down at the bottom, where I stand clammy chip packet-wrappers and apple cores discarded used to be an ‘out of bounds’ skateboarder’s secret spot police tried to move kids along but they were elusive in their dexterity In the dry summer bright With no water in the shade Skinny child Look back through winter’s closed window From the other side Of 35… Read the rest

The sailor staggered out to drown his sorrows earlai in the morning One by one by one Licking and screaming as he held their heads under only semi-submerged they put up quite a fight Now the sea is his again Free to enjoy its vast majesty Neatly numbered and regimented days on deck Fitted neatly into place Keeping each other afloat and moving forward cutting sharply through to each new navigation point No need to dredge up past mistakes to remind him what a fool he’d been They just thrash about and churn up the white Keeping the waters from their rest Make him feel lost stranded and swimming about in overwhelming waves of memory and regretfulness.… Read the rest

Sunday night motorway speaker hiss Running-out on its responsibilities From kissing strange boys the night before Driving yourself out of town to a nowhere-in-particular all-aloneness Used to be the day for visiting a Grandmother or, two if you were lucky over on the shore Gathering up speed for the next week Cigar smoke still in your hair Smell of benzoin resin’s cough syrup flashback to other child-spent stormy Sundays Now, the weather’s just a projection of the cocktail in your head One part guilt, one part headache two parts dehydration all stirred up with tiredness and more than a heavy handed dash of regret for the Sabbath not yet blackened just a light Holy-grey “Doesn’t suit all figures, Madam” only those with restraint No time for sleep-ins, catnaps, confession or gift hamper goodies Dutiful passivity Dosed up on scripts worse for wear remedies to dress you up and get you through Sunday’s overcast best grey to blues… Read the rest