Grave

I am the scythe that cuts through old and young

In cornfields where the idle crows watch on

As scarecrows flap their arms in summer sun

And wonder where the greedy birds have gone

The weeds grow now where once the sharp blade fell

Stealing from us all that we once held dear

There are no devils in this weeping hell

Only children transformed through pain and fear

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Bag Of Bones

Please let me introduce myself -

my name is Billy Jones.

You might know me better

as that useless bag of bones

that gets under your feet

when you’re staring at your phones,

planning all your creature comforts

on extortionate pay day loans.

Well I was once like you my friend,

I haven’t always been alone

huddled up in corners

where the autumn lea...

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Rich Pictures

catching wasps in cobwebs

brutal lines and angles

graffiti strewn puddles

homeless persons

hopeless gaze

shimmer on a wheelchair

in an old abandoned hospital

where cries ring out at night

In the empty cells

demons in the trees

caught in click

spiral monsters

under piers

foaming lap

of northern tides

fractured bulbs

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We Are The Dead

we are the dead

the unrequited love

the words we never said

the dreams we never realised

we are the dead

we are the dead

sat in front of the TV

spending too long in bed

wasting our lives away

we are the dead

we are the dead

arguing among ourselves

never leading being led

to places we don’t want to go

we are the dead

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Wide Is The Gate And Broad Is The Road

A sky bleached like old bones
dug from damp earth on an autumn morning.

The pale sun spits on car roofs in a Northern town
where colours hide behind a sheen of grey.

Tram tracks, like silver trails of slugs,
pacing the slowly walking midnight man.

Something ancient and horrid has left a double-mustard
trail of crumbs for him to follow, but nev...

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Dexteram Patris

Uncomfortable
seeing him that way,
and she,
ever supportive,
gently touching
his arm
for reassurance

but there is a failing,
something not the same,
although in looks
we are so similar.

The Prodigal returns
and sees his father,
straight of back
and stern of countenance,
falling to pieces.

The once proud frame -
busted

and she,
as beautiful as always,
...

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Gatekeeper

All seeing eyes
Guardian of the gate,
Sat atop
the stairway of skins.
Sewn together
with satyr hair.
Counting the days,
ticking them off
in a parchment book
with a pen on a string
twined with spider thread.

Sits in the sunlight
and watches the workers
to-ing and fro-ing
like ants on a hill
with their own little tasks,
while he has no legs,
just sits in a chair
wei...

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The remains of a day                                                              

lie extinguished, discarded,

disregarded by the passers-by.

Silver-tipped echo of a mouth

unremarked upon

and common

in its everyday normality.

Evocatively comforting

in stained familiarity;

an endless capability

for rainbow possibilities

of shining eyes and laughter l...

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Eviction

They were young
and cowering in an alley,
fearful for the future,
as sirens screeched
around them.

The sky a molten white
of churning clouds.

Everyone running,
colliding, jostling,
trying to be anywhere
but here.

She turned to him
with moist eyes
and lips the colour
of arterial blood.

When he tilted
her chin upwards
her gaze never left
the yellowing smoke
unt...

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Arroyo

The rain has fallen down for twenty hours
from a dead sky of slate and granite hews,
dampening the walls of urban towers.

Cobbled streets the colour of an old bruise,
tyres rattle over pothole dark drains,
counterpoint to some distant splashing shoes.

The day cast in monochromatic stains
as water forms itself into a lake
that eddies into inner city lanes.

A passing car cre...

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Tin to mouth

Tin to feet

One jig to reel

enough to eat

Is he broken, broke, breaking

on the pavement by the station?

Is he played, paid, playing

to his own tune or to yours?

Tin to mouth

Tin to feet

Two jigs to reel

enough to eat

Do you jingle jangle shillings

in your pocket as you’re walking

past the tinsmith making

all the magi...

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A Tree In The Elephant’s Graveyard

It began with a pen
and paper,
beneath a tree.
Carried here
upon a rat
to rest awhile.

The paper was white
and stared at me
insolently.
The pen hovered,
dripping ink
like tears.

A serpent
coiled itself
around My neck.
I thought of stars
and dreamt
of gouache landscapes.

Still the paper
would not
fuck the pen.
My thoughts
were clear,
...

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stealing pieces of experience

to place them just outside of your own

j                                

            i

              g

            s

            a

            w

         y     our

semiotic symptom

of a need to reproduce;

connote two-tone heartbreak

tragedy ripped

from a 2D playground

second-hand realities

suck on r...

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Afraid Of The Dark

what you can’t see
cannot hurt you
ghouls and ghosts
things of the dark
things you don’t understand.
close your eyes go to sleep
think of happy things and places
let your mind move on
be at peace child

the thing that scratches at the window
you know it’s just a branch
the creak of a floorboard
late at night
a cold chill that drifts
through a warm house
the un...

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Weird Sisters

when did we four last meet
with doctor martins on our feet
hubble, bubble trick or treat
kiss and tell arms to greet
looks that kill in a heartbeat
concrete steps as a seat
stir the cauldron feel the heat
cool as fuck neat neat neat
no surrender no retreat
angel faces so petite
whiplash smiles sugar sweet
weird sisters of the street

Inspired By: photograph by Ri...

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funeral days

funeral days
should always be like this

early mourning dew
in the eyes of those gathered
under a slate grey sky
(not blasphemous blue)
whose heavy tears
will splash
the golden Judas kiss
of leaves crackling
beneath disrobed trees
betraying the sadness
with their joyful colour

the heavy damp sods of earth
clinging close to the coffin
like the grief
that surrounds...

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I stand and admire the lines,

not always so straight.

The concrete veins through the places of old

we once walked,

through to the quagmire paths

where you first found my arm after stumbling.

The burrows, dark and secret, where lips pressed

against the soft feel of ripe naked fruit.

Canals, rivers, brooks, streams we have strolled along,

flowing the only way the valleys a...

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kraken

leviathan
rusty bones
supporting hide
of rotting wood
the pungent smell
of seaweed

digesting
long dead things
its aged frame
crawls ashore
clicking like
fighting crabs

groaning
exertions
sand sloughing
from its skin

primordial
grey skies
clinging mist
clothing it
in gloom

a thousand
scrabbling legs
gripping claws
taking root
heaving carcass
to the shore

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In this corridor of song,

invocations colour space

now devoid of human voice,

as spirits whisper here

of hysterical imprisonment;

of torture painted pink and blue

and baa baa black sheep have you any

                                                              Hail Mary full of grace

Supplications resonate

in hidden mouths

as mournings cry to sing of l...

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Snipers

was it out there
that I became a ghost?

I may be an unreliable witness
the constant stress does that to you
the days spent outside, unprotected
with a local population
that won’t look you in the eye
or when they do
they have the look of hate
that you are even there at all

if only the locals were less hostile
to my cause
if only I could count on my military team
to back ...

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crouched

quiet in the crackling grasses

hidden

listening to clouds swell heavy

ready

waiting for the judgement hour

of cutting

scythed where the ears can’t hear you

running

trusting steel to complete this

sowing

now that the earth lies sanguine

sodden

drip drop rinse and release your

sin...

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The Crooked Beast At The End Of A Crooked Path

I saw him rise like a dark spectre
in the clouds
at the end of a crooked path
his horned head cocked
spreading his cloven claws
astride the graves that nestled
safe beneath the trees
his wings unfurling
across the sky
and gathering in
the long dead souls
beneath the ground
and I thought
I heard the demon say
“I told you I would not fo...

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Dead Men’s Boots

tough as old leather
their souls worn down
eyes vacant of lace
collected by the door
the day they swapped
their pit-boots
for the Kings shilling
and donned their shiny
new military issue

there they stayed
gathering dust
and old potatoes
in their safe grasp
neatly lined
waiting for the return
of father and two sons
to the safety
of their hearth

day after da...

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An Angel Bathes In Tears

Diniel rested for a second
and turned his eyes away
from those that he was caring for
and in that moment all was lost.
Now he bathes in the cascades
of acidic human tears
that flood the world with grief.
Erosive and corrosive
at the passing of infant souls
in a war that has no meaning
in a world that has no morals.
Now his dainty angel features
disappear unt...

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Blood Moon

“Sweet Katarina, dance for me”,
said the man with the black balloon,
whose face looked rather like a wolf
if glanced in the back of a spoon -
and for each dance she did for him
he would pass her another string
with a midnight helium ball
tied on to its end with a ring.

She danced until her little hands
were full of the magical twine
and the villagers all agreed
they’d ne...

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Craiglockhart (Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous)

When I kicked over the wheelchair
I couldn’t do the simplest task,
except the epileptic flailing
of my military antimasque.
Turning on the hissing gas-lamp
had me reaching for the mask.
You opened up my mind
and you didn’t even ask.

Sh-sh-sh shut the fuck up,
I think I’m going insane,
I’ve got all these bombs
going off in my brain.
I’m lik...

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Mr Martlew

would you mind

if I sit awhile here

in the shade on my own,

you hushed in your hole,

in the valley of the shadow?

Shall I re-draw life

in the black lines etched above your bones?

Did it hurt?

Were you scared?

Do the stones weigh heavy?

Do they creak beneath the roses

and the green glass gravel?

Did it hurt?

Were you scared?

Were you read...

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Ferris ocularity,

observing holy motion,

facilitates the weaving

of an elemental web.

Cirrus drips precipitate

a waving,

all devoted to rotation,

sewing oceanic lace

and braiding rain

to brine the breeze.

Pleasure seeks a penny slot

as bed and breakfast tongues

lick the candy cane locale.                                                            ...

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I wanted you right from the start.

As soon as I saw you, all shiny and showing,

inquisitive shimmerings leapt in my neurons,

grew fast and furious, battering synapses,

crashing through cortices,

carrying fire.

Bewitched! A thousand fantasies sparked and swirled in frontal lobes.

You shifted shape from mind to page,

drew me in, singing from a sheet I thought we sha...

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