the growling tiger,
hot, white noise,
the creak and click of the middle cupboard;
dawn is a haze under blankets.
i shield my eyes from infernal light
and watch you with my ears.
doctor's orders
take one tablespoon of music
the kind that speaks right to your soul,
live, if you can find any.
half a gramme of the highest grade of time,
a tot of wine if you so please.
open a book halfway,
read a line or six,
crack the spine,
fold corners if you want.
take no advice from another tongue,
be it forked or of the purest gold,
seek out the love of a good human (or several),
then tell them all.
step back from the newsfeed,
for hollow smiles bring nothing but shame;
do not be a glutton of nothing.
seek out the sun.
avoid all forms of toxicity.
get plenty of rest.
if symptoms persist, double the dose.
white rabbits
white rabbits
white rabbits
white rabbits
my thoughts are a stream of white rabbits
fluffy things, not really there,
but now they've multiplied.
shepherd's warning
black peaks on a sky ablaze
a warning light on London
yet watch how unbeknownst,
grey clouds on a conveyor
slide by like mass-produced rain.
a million tiny truths
the truth is shattered
fragmented like a broken mirror
reflecting all those eyes peering down
wondering what we’d dropped.
portrait (blackout)
you paint a portrait,
finding,
reacting,
focusing.
decline the exit,
find out what's next:
private stories,
challenges,
growth.
work by asking questions.
october (2013)
heat beats a slow retreat
clambering on all fours over mountain ranges
jagged and proud in the crisp morning
and skirts are banished to bedroom drawers,
neatly folded but gone all the same.
when I wake, the world is still indigo
and headlights break the sleepy dawn
sparrows slumber in the balding trees
their lust for life dampened
as clouds weep the first drops of autumn.
I wrote this five(!) years ago as part of my 50 Days, 50 Poems challenge I set for myself. October seemed an appropriate time to revisit this particular one.
save the whale
they took down the dead dino
and raised in its place
a whale from the ashes
to sing its silent song:
"save me" it says,
"save me."
haiku i
i looked out and saw
plastic jellyfish, waving
like they'd never die.
push/pull
push snooze
push snooze again
push eyes open
push back sheets
push toothbrush
push arms into sleeves
push feet into shoes
push food down throat
push out the door
push Oyster card on reader, watching out for card clash
push through platform crowds
push down inside the carriages
push headphones into ears
push back at space invaders
push out and gasp air
push card to swipe in
push button on lift
push start button to bring life to screen
push delete on emails
push cup under nozzle and push "espresso"
push "espresso" again for good measure
push the hours forward
push problems around, solve none
push away the thoughts of mind-numbing boredom
push away your dreams till 5:30
push "espresso"
push back at increased workload
push notifications
push the system forwards
push button on umbrella
push Oyster card on reader, watching out for card clash
push headphones into ears
push past dithering shoppers
push key into lock
push food down throat.
pull back a chair
pull cork from bottle
pull on comfy pullover
pull open the window
pull back your dreams
pull ink across page
pull reality from the mind
pull open Pandora's Box
pull out all the stops
pull drooping eyes open, again
pull yourself up to look at the stars
pull pullover tighter round
pull further thoughts from where you thought none remained
pull no longer
pull back sheets
let eyes fall closed.
a bear from Peru
they’ve closed the Bakerloo at Paddington;
and three hundred people have no place to go.
they’ve lost a bear, the announcements say,
but he’s here on the platform with us,
and look, we’ve cleared a space for him.
we look after this bear,
this bear with nowhere to go,
he’s one of us.
this bear from Peru,
we’ll look after him,
cause he’s furry,
cause he’s cuddly,
cause he munches squashed sandwiches from under his hat –
and a bear on the tube,
that’s cool right?
like when a dog gets on your carriage
and everyone’s suddenly fawning,
and human again,
and we look at them,
and we look after them.
so why won’t we look after three hundred people
who’ve crossed seas in rickety boats,
and jumped trains to survive,
like kids here do for fun.
why then do we close down stations,
and put up walls,
and keep them in boxes,
and give them nowhere to go?
because they’re not bears,
but if you chain them up
and make them dance,
they’ll act like bears soon enough
and soon enough the fingers point
and say: ‘see?
we were right to lock them up’
but they too step aside for bears,
they too fawn over puppies on trains,
they too are humans,
like all of us:
we’re the humans who take care of bears
on the closed platforms of Paddington station.
farewells
it's fitting now that rain falls
in puddles and buckets
and torrents and floods;
flowing and overflowing,
soaking me until I feel cold
and sad and sick of spirit.
cause by now,
I've got so used to people leaving,
that I can't shed tears
or feel anything
bar a flood of nothing:
another number,
a statistic,
that I'm happy for -
or supposed to be happy for,
cause each time they leave
they take a little part of me:
a section of soul that for a second was theirs,
a portion carved of drunken nights
and long stories under bridges
and laughter on silent streets
that made things better,
that made big city life tolerable,
and when they leave,
those nights leave with them
puffed up in a whiff of smoke
leaving only a memory
and a smile of their passing
while their train rattles on
through the night.
twickenham
By railroad tracks
I smell blood red rust
and overgrown plants
with swooping purple buds,
which I know
but cannot name,
like townships passed by
behind scratched windows
as my train rattles citywards.
breakdown
when it all works below the surface
you see none of the workings:
the veins, the synapses,
all doing their thing in perfect darkness.
but when it grinds to a halt
light exposes the joints,
the bones, the handiwork,
the scars of years of use and love.
I catch my England
in summer tarmac
and in the smell that erupts
when you take off the crinkly plastic
that covers a box of tea,
in the colour of Skittles,
and hot grass,
and all the things
I caught in passing
on long august days.
clouds (2013)
Something is pleasantly vacant and simple
about life above the clouds.
The soft polar landscape stretches in all directions,
as far as the mortal eye can see.
And the two-tone existence of blue and white
is the only truth.
in transit
faces raised to screens
eyes glazed at a hundred ways to leave,
and everywhere voices
with no bodies
and no souls.
and delays and layovers
that just go to show
that the waiting game has no rules
and not even really any players -
just waiters,
the bored, sick of their job ones,
who'll spit in your food
just to pass the time.
heatwave
the heat seeps in
through my open window
and fills my room with needles.
later it shall cool
I hope
and moonlight shall replace the blades
and soothe and dress my wounds
with its balm
then tuck me in to bed
for the night.
no thing
there's no such thing as no thing
nothing at all
and here I'd found it
quite by chance
an overwhelming nothing:
a nothing so vast
it held me an age
basking in nostalgia.
nothing came close to this nothing -
it lay undisturbed
vast like the sky
and thick like the air that forms it.
there was nothing.
no thing.
nothing.
grenfell tower
the sky fell in today,
through the skeleton
of a castle of sand.
was it maybe
lit by a spark of anger
that dwelled in the hearts
of the browbeaten
the downtrodden
the long forgotten
undercast of our city?
cause if apathy were water
you could tap it from the ground
and douse the flames
many, many times over.
but flames draw cameras
and £50 notes
that fuel the blaze
and the whole thing goes on
ticking
ticking
ticking.