deep water

it is deep water   it is shallow

 

language is a puddle

a clean white cloud condensed

dirty water reflecting sky

 

a swimming pool   the light all chopped up

the echoes   public fun   chlorine and piss

the shared privacy   the shower taken

 

the sea too   all that surface    the light dancing

the fetch   the crests   the troughs   and below

the continental shelf   rip tides and undercurrents    

the imagined sharks   the all too real shipwrecks   then

 

the melting icecaps   the far-off shores             distance          

 

the polar bear tiring   the muscle of life giving out   sinking slowly drifting down

into the mind’s dark telescope   silently as if the sound were turned off

yet leaving some residue of suffering in the empathetic ear   not quite heard

not quite a scream    not quite a prayer      not quite the word   

Lifeboat

  

Lifeboat

 

It’s letting in water

So he bails    a glass at a time

Not enough to slake his thirst

 

If only there were more time …

 

Lives flash before him

It’s so much of the same

And it takes so much time

 

He hoovers in the meantime, humming

Whistling whilst he mops the floor, rubs at the stains

Elbow grease and Radiohead

 

If only he were a stronger swimmer …

 

He’s killing time  

Betrays his wife and child

Calls the office and his mother

 

If only they’d pick up …

 

He’s up to his neck in the water

On his knees   He tries to pray   to sing

But he doesn’t know what boat he’s in  

panto

 

panto

 

taking centre stage

you hold the knife

to your own throat

take yourself hostage

demand a loss of life

if we don’t pay out

it’s just a laugh  

oh, no it’s not

it’s a party trick  

oh, yes it is

saw the lady in half

can’t see anything

the tears in my eyes

the audience upstaged

cries   sings

she’s behind you

 

I grip the blade

we all bleed

Dark Matter

 

Dark Matter

 

I have tried to separate your pieces

and to fix them into a puzzle

that is the puzzle of you

as if you are a puzzle to be fixed

by finding discrete pieces

discreetly

that form a whole   only to find

there are holes where pieces do not

fit

or do so inexactly   more parts than sum

you or someone dropped the mirror

and when you peer in

it’s pure Picasso   the pain

 

There are spaces not bridged gaps fissures

there are cracks plates shifting

lack of seismic control tectonic

irregularity tremors and yet

you are immovable and unstoppable

 

All this is invisible

my antimatter

my Sagittarius A*

sucking in all the light

 

But this is just science

and since it does not cannot explain

nor can it paint a picture of a weeping woman

 

I hold a shard up against the light

to see its shape wonder if this might be

a piece of myself   sharp enough to make you bleed

warped by the force of your gravity

tell them about love

tell them about love

I should say from the outset

that unfortunately the poet isn’t here today

he has some personal business elsewhere

and has left me to hold the fort

I’ve his scribbled notes hastily written

his handwriting leaves something to be desired

and as I recall he mentioned as he ran out the door

something about love about love he called

over his shoulder tell them about love

about how it runs out the door

about how it leaves you in the lurch

leaves you to hold the fort

with some scribbled declarations

apologies a code for accusations

an ellipsis the Morse for absence

ophidian and sibilant

and how       finally

irrevocably

it runs

into silence …

Event Horizon

An event horizon (an extract)

 

Sylvia puts the kids to bed

tucking them in with that last goodnight

kiss   the story told leaving a little light

to struggle in the darkness

the hoot and swoop of the owl

the licking of a salty lip

the closing of the hatch the click of the latch

each action nondescript and final unnameable

as such then she spends time stuffing towels

under the doors taping round the frames

pushes her head far into the mouth of the oven

wanting to be swallowed whole 

...

Monday

 

Monday

 

Sisyphus is looking forward to the weekend  

a moment where the rock jolts and jumps

bounces gets the rooks in flight bends

the air running to a stop looks back

and then he smiles and takes his

time as he walks back down

the indifferent sunlight

dying slanting golden

on the trees clouds

flame burnishing

the air pungent

smoke of the

neighbour’s

barbecue

drifting

towards

Monday