Serpentine

Your graces fall on deaf ears,
The heat rises, glowing amber from hollow sockets.
The body, the skin, still human at least,
Serves an anchor to the great unleashed.

This also is one of the dark places of the earth,
Serpentine.

Your fire, your blackness, your tendrils upon my throat,
Caress a soul I no longer recognise, smother a girl I do not know.
Crushing wouldn't mind no man's might
With scroll for an empty chalice, simply fill me.

Awakened, a hesitant Chimera now crackles
A ribald mind unravels, ripe fruit,

Ready but for the taking if you would my
Serpentine.

I Remember Me

There are not enough faces. Your own gapes back
at you on someone else, but paler, then the moment
when you see the next one and forget yourself.

It must be the dreams that make us different, must be
private cells inside a common skull.
One has the others look and has another memory.

Despair stares out from tube trains at itself
running on the platform for the closing door. Everyone
you meet is telling wordless barefaced truths.

Sometimes the crowd yields one you put a name to,
snapping fiction into fact. Mostly your lover passes
in the rain and does not know you when you speak.

~Carol Ann Duffy

Hallow

My mind was misty,
clogged.
So I started with the sink,
mismatched bowls and plates in a heap.

But it wasn't really quite enough
and my hands were itching
so I set to work heaving and
piling the furniture
ready for attack
but it didn't suck so I had to
hit it repeatedly and flush the
dead skin and the hair and the
indescribables into the night air.

Then of course the nose starts itching,
it always starts itching and the sneezing soon after
but that can be combated with a slow strip
to the hum of the hoover and another shot of icy vodka.

It will all need mopping and dusting and shining:
the floors, the windows, the doors
nothing will get away, I'll make sure of it
I even polish the cracks in the sill
and the wall, it's grubbiness offends me
but as I squeeze the sponge out
and the water whitens it is more than the grime that is letting go.

And so we must, the entire wall, to make the
change in tone less apparent
but in the dark they shouldn't notice
I contemplate taking the lightbulb out
but think better of it - I can't reach.

I have inhaled enough polish and
drunk enough bleach and it is complete:
cold, clean, unforgiving,
spotless and quite beautiful

Slowing to a murmur
from a whirring escapade
hanging limp,
disheveled and stained

a shimmer

of pain

mirage, you are

in your hot, hot heat

like quake, quiver, ripple

rise up

an apple

and choke, chafe, writhe

as I

breathe deep

and hold on

tempest

and in that infernal sob
something echoed against mine
quite possibly it was kindred
but i could be mistaken

gusty and precious and stormy it was

fair, fairer, fairest

I am terrified of this place:
the mirror stark and unforgiving,
dust balling in great swathes on the laminate.
Standing stock-still, eyes diverted
to middle distance and no further.
Lets not look upon it
'case a choking tear alert
and beacon unending disgrace.

Yet when the urge swells in me
momentarily I forget, it matters not
that cold, ugly shells encase.
But the sugar wings are shards now
delinquent in their grace
The shame, the shame of
vulgarity never ceases to amaze.

The Rubaiyat

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word.

Isn't it a fucker when karma is spent?

See the person you prayed on high would rot in squalor and shame
So early win the prize
And you're okay, you guess, not bad thanks for asking,
But haven't bagged the rosette, haven't a trophy to raise triumphant.

To say in passing, arms aloft and apathetic eye:
"Look. See. it was you all along,
Bad apple, not me.
I've won my reparations fair and square."

Why aren't you in a bedsit, like I pictured:
Making tea with soured milk,
Eating your cellophane cuisine alone
Touching yourself under soiled sheets as you dream of me?

Fuck your precious "love"
Your unending "commitment"
All of your abortive words
You of all people do not deserve them

You know what?
I want nothing of you
not love, certainly not love!
Getting even would be enough,
but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

holey shit

dreaming, waking,
it doesn't seem to have disappeared
my little sandman
now fuck off
I want you gone by the time I count to ten
now closing my eyes

and open wide, good girl
but against better wishes
it still is.
unforgiving,
I'd hope you'd leave
now if i just batten down once more...

I am surprisingly indifferent
but feel every modicum urging panic
There's a hole in your fucking leg!
Maybe a nickname would lighten?
The Littlest Hole-bo?
Oh shut-up it's not even remotely funny.

I dab an antidote
touch cavity by mistake
it sucks to my fingertip
dry skin to open wound
an unenthusiastic wet smacking
my stomach turns

just tell me to shut up

here in an un-made bed
empty cans and bottles littering
crushed twenties of silk-cut purple
droning through floorboards gravely base of late-night hosts

here incarcerated sit
60watts of barren bulb dim to fit
the disrobed fragility of the unkempt
as the windows grow bars and the door clicks close

It's a little grinding, the commute
against the rails, with the cheap seats
but mostly on my nerves.

probably

I feel eroded. I think there's something there. But all they wanted was a fuck in the afternoon. So I rebel. I play their game as best I can. I use, and in using make space for improvement. I'm sure it should have happened by now. This was only meant to be a temporary measure. And doesn't everyone just say that its going to happen. When? Soon, soon. I begin to think I am unmatchable.

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

An exhaling quivering
condensed
into pure rapture

A waking bracing
delectation
stirred inside

The impassioned gospel
beguiling
to an overture

Now fracturing deep
enchantment
as it will never be

irresistable, still
you are compulsion
to me

thirst

i can feel you yielding, conceding.
that engulfing suppleness of mind,
ripe for the taking

i carve my initials into you, heels down,
your skin surrendering soft, swollen scars
to my burgeoning caress

if anything were meant to be, it is this,
a toast to a consummate thirst,
and to our reckless lust.

duress

It is in this moment that you realise
that life stumbled out into the crowd
to be torn to pieces
and sowed and reaped
by those who did it proud.

And all you have become and ever will
in a backward glance when time stood still
and slowly dawned the resignation
that all that you've left are rattling diffusions
and a slowly numbing thrill

For all the times it hurt, I'll hold you
and break away you might well try
the silk it binds your soul, dear girl
for we are one, same skin, same mind

bound by sweet duress

and the pain begins to rise

100% concentrate of boredom

Fragile
Framboise

Just
Jalapeno

Pesilent
Peach

Lagoubrious
Lychee

Expectant
Egg

Chivalrous
Carrot

There needs to be

Something to fill the interim,
But I couldn't tell you what it was.

It's probably the time to say
That I've broken the sacred pact,
That I gave up with the jigsaw
(On trying to find a match)
And flung myself at the mercy
Of another vile catch.

Back to old habits, I say!
Sitting here
Sipping on
My pint of pinot rose.

The wine may be the reason for this awful shitty poem
ner ner n-ner, ner ner n-ner, ner ner n-ner ner owe 'em.

prick

stop pinning your hopes on me

when I purl you round

and cast you off

don't act surprised

you knew

O sweet bean!

Large, two milks, no sugar,
Dearest, you are sweet enough for me!
Its a waiting game,
But I have no patience.

Scald my pink tongue,
And redden my snatching fingers.

O sweet bean!
Swaddled with mother's love,
Cocooned in Colombian groves,
(or so I like to think).

You were probably freeze-dried in Dudley.

escitalopram dreams

My mind is already traipsing
Deep

Deeper

Into
The lush undergrowth

The burning shore and azure water there ahead
I step lightly, swiftly, wanting

To feel hot dew balls of sweat on my scarlet skin
To feel free and alive inside
As I sweep through the baking heat.

Quickly, Go!
This place is killing me.

My heart slows
Down, Down, Down
If I don’t run I’ll turn to stone

I fear I’ll never leave this place
A monolith to failure
A statue in an empty room

Vines will wrap their clawing tendrils
Once, Twice
'Round.

Like Medusa’s serpents, imprison me:
Like a forgotten ruin, coddle me,
And suffocate this dream of mine.