Selection of recent poems…
Soured
How long standing
in her kitchen tomato plants and basil
old newspapers fantailed
Suffolk’s expanse
belligerent at the windows.
I tear into the flesh
of her love
sucking overripe citrus
crunching pips to oil my tongue.
I have outgrown the colour orange.
Still she sends notebooks
cardigans, wallpaper samples – imagine!
Morning’s chewy body
taunts us with wine-stained lips
and her, resentful at the sink.
It was dad’s honeylove of booze
that got us here.
Don’t blame me – I’m the child
in this house.
Lost
Spines of fingered graffiti
flyposted bins
eyeing sweet rot
beanstalk legs worry
heavy-bottom clouds
don't move
ask
for some
other mummy
quilted cold
emptiness a gift home-cooked chips
bundled by pigeons
into a loving oak
yes!
To sleep soundly
But she took a lover
Discarded like an empty day
she places crumpled shirts
into the basket
places crumpled pride
into drawers
slides misplaced affection
into the cupboard under the stairs
folds herself back
into the pantry.
Facts about the moon
I don’t know about the moon.
So where to begin?
I met a man a brightness
He wore a signet ring
on his left hand
a mosaic of scars
across his neck and jaw.
In another lifetime
we are friends or whatever more.
In this
I know he fist-bumps.
Got promoted seeker
to chef.
And me I feel my age.
Should I spray magnesium
on my feet? a ritual
to late-stage capitalism.
I feel layers of myself
streaming off into the wind
catching on the blackthorns
that stand
embarrassed
by the motorway’s bleak edge.
Hoarding vagrant hours
of sleep like oyster shells.
In another life
I am sister to the moon
I dream a soft scalpel
round my forehead
slide into warm waters a cleansing
Let the hurt start to dissipate.
As for us we never could
hold onto our borders
We are all tides all meteors