We told the priest of God
And he loved us for it,
We told the priest of Hell
And he cried for us.
Our bodies fractured
And our minds worn out
We knew so much of life
And so little of love

Catchlit pupils, heavy with ambiguity
They are the glare behind gypsy skirts
We want and need, faultless and beautiful
Like pointless waves on a pointless beach

Act confident to become confident
And she struts and fucks and laughs
With her hands trembling on her hips
and leaves
the memory that's hard to call

but silver has preserved her white teeth
and solid shadow-blacked pupils,
has quelled her open dimensionality and
Behind it all lingers the tracings of terror

Foldered, there is a map of silent focus;
No intervals, and no acting.

The buzzing of bees, and silence of honey
A child waits at a zebra crossing
Dry, wet and again dry, tortoise-shell shelter
A last goodbye, vibrations in a wire
A puddle by a river and beyond, the sea
The interactions of galaxies, an insect moves flowers
Seven tears shed, embraced as laughter
Coins in an upturned hat, elsewhere, starch on shirt collars

Glowing amber streetlights, birdsong, the clock strikes three

( )

He cried
“waste, waste”
when the sun set

as his watch
extended like time
into the small hours

he shouted
in groups, whispered
alone

barked curt
names to silence
canine voices.

it all became
a blind and half-drunk
hypocrisy

with his sermons
delivered naked
at dinner parties

to faces that swim
like salmon, upstream
distorted

he wakes bedded,
naked, his lined face
wallowing

in last night’s
red wine that’s
ruined his pillows

his dinner jacket too,
has battle scars
befitting a regimental do

Track back along my wake
I do not tow it though it follows
That it is of my own creation.
You will find bare sea
Only the salty bow give clues
To my origins
And if you happen upon a fish carcass
Left to sink
Do not pick its bones
Today it swims inside me
Tomorrow in my flesh
Look to the horizon
It is the destiny of us all

Behold I am a voyeur
Though I smile a jagged smile
See me peer through my own face
As my train passes yellow squares
Filled with silent lives against the dark
The City is my sanctum and I swear
There's nothing more, but I live as a child
With his burning ear against the wall
And Mouth agape and legs folded
While my past recedes
Falling away like dripped syrup
Into the dreams of eight and eleven
That Still hold nocturnal nostalgia

despite the blurring when calm dusk cools

Your plump hips lay solid
sunken into sodden sheets.
A hairclip on our table.
The clock counts each minute
right through into the morning.

This timeless morning
Rises up out of the night
Like the sun out of the sea.
Arisen, it is toasted lazily
And the day grows bright

This timeless mourning

canal time is a life line
to those that live in boats.
The puttering motor erodes
sodden brickwork; a man
stripped and hatted; poles past
cutting out across the wash.
A paint, like wine, matures;
what once was a proud crimson
is now bled and faded
to a hundred grubby pinks.
Damp, rising from the streets
has made a jigsaw puzzle
above the boat house door,
removing random pieces
to fall and silt the shallow bottom
while all Venice floats past

With ever wandering feet he paces
and takes himself to different places
He's seen so many human faces
and marvelled at the many races

Sometimes I feel like the sun
begining
ashamed, and clad in dust.

...

So I’ll acquiesce and acquiesce
Until finally there’s nothing left
Of me, and all I was before.

...

You’ll shout and I’ll leave
And you’ll cry just like Eve
In the beginning
when god called her name.

...

So go on, ask then
The questions
You once asked yourself
‘do i look fat, ugly am I boring?’
Go on,
Teach me, please,
To lie to you.

Cackle-mouthed and lying open
snaggle-toothed and fighting sharp
shut right off from all sensation
watch me lie here in the dark

enjoy the silence held together
by long drawn pauses held up tight
and now I really don't know whether
God is dead or I've lost sight

Unborn hypothesis
A shell, broken
from the inside,
begins.

The lonely crack
amongst the others
the nascent sunset
and dawning.

Pregnant sickness;
Burst battle-clad into
disbelief and hypocricy
Wither after death.

Of a thousand cuts,
one is the deepest.