THOSE GHOSTS
THOSE GHOSTS
You can't seal up death
despite the rituals,
it abides in tobacco
pouches and old armchairs
and abandoned shoes
worn once to tread
the winding alleys
of this town.
In sleek black cars
and creaking wardrobes
with their mothball smells,
in distant excursions
recalled on paper scraps
that fall by chance
from picture frames.
...
Saturday 23rd November 2019 12:45 am
KAMCHATKA TRAILS
KAMCHATKA TRAILS
Sometimes I dream of Siberia
and reindeer herds invading wilderness
invisible on paper maps or Google.
From nowhere a tiny village:
a post office, gas station, two hotels
an outdoor pool for masochists;
mountains wear a cloak of ice
the Moscow cook's on strike again
as executioner climate change
advances drunk with forest songs
...
Tuesday 19th November 2019 10:36 am
THE SIN
THE SIN
Catalonia 2015
Poverty sent you far from home
and the sin accompanies us always.
Today we're down from hill forests,
shedding leaves on hotel carpets.
I sense the energy of coming rain.
In narrow streets the heavens open,
we dive inside a tiny seafood place
and later, tapping to a disco beat
chill out with studded girls in leather,
all party mode ...
Sunday 17th November 2019 6:09 am
STONE BAGUETTE
STONE BAGUETTE
Narbonne 1987
At eight in the morning, after coffee
we must leave the House of Friendship
to pass the freezing day the best we can.
The Mistral is relentless so wine is bought
from a supermarket. All of us adrift
in the pointless boat of this town's winter.
Watching the more fortunate as they pass,
we wrap up well and comment on life;
we ...
Monday 9th September 2019 12:50 am
ON A SICILIAN BEACH
ON A SICILIAN BEACH
A ladybird lands
on my foot in the sand
as I'm reading The Life of Pi.
A blue stretch of sea
carried me here
where an army of shiny black beetles
unbreakable as tanks
will persist in its trundling .
He was days on a boat
now I'm days in the sand
getting browner
eating pizza
reading this book
with no appetite to leave.
...
Saturday 15th June 2019 7:12 pm
INVOLVED IN SWITZERLAND
INVOLVED IN SWITZERLAND
He said he was a poet
but his modest recognition
would dissolve in a bottomless sea,
that he wrote in the dead of night
then washed up on distant shores
where his shoes were seen walking alone.
That he could catch the words
that welled in his mouth
like vagabonds shuffling darkly
towards unbearable daylight.
He said he failed ...
Saturday 8th June 2019 10:56 pm
BEACHED
BEACHED
She left him like a boat
when the tide has gone out,
sandbank hours, drowned hope.
Stole his dreams to distant sea
and lost them in the depths
but up there in obsidian sky
the universe was concealed
behind a curtain of blindness,
silver stars he couldn't see.
He just couldn't see.
Trouvaille Review, February 2021
Tuesday 4th June 2019 12:13 am
SURVIVAL
SURVIVAL
His grandmother made us drink
before work began.
Sour wine and cough mixture
by the taste of things:
a poisonous warmth expanding
like a pack of nails inside.
It was seven o'clock
and cold fields had not woken
from their early dew.
The cat's called Socrates, she said,
because he ate the hemlock
in the garden, over there
past our broken tractor,
do...
Monday 20th May 2019 3:50 pm
A DREAM OF MISFORTUNE
A DREAM OF MISFORTUNE
I remember your father as
a friendly man who ate his meals
in the living room
with the huge cream fridge
but what was he doing
in my dreams a lifetime later
in the back of your car?
Shall we drop him here,
he said, or just keep driving?
It seems banal to say -
you drove me into the night.
I woke and you were very close
...Tuesday 7th May 2019 1:14 am
BACARDI TAIL LIGHTS MACHINE GUN FAREWELL
BACARDI TAIL LIGHTS MACHINE GUN FAREWELL
He tried to drown his dog
under the canal bridge
but it came back.
Rang the planning department
and warned them there'd be blood
if one more estate was built.
His dad abandoned,
hobbling to the pigeon loft.
Daniel is leaving tonight on a plane.
Local junkies got hold
of the bottles and the furniture
then ended up scr...
Monday 1st April 2019 2:36 am
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
That flower right next to us,
its honey perfume coloured the sea
and all the air breathed after dark.
You told me how it grew back home
profusely in the villages, but that
you and your sisters would steal it
from a neighbour's garden just for fun
which made me smile at this illicit side
of tricks and secrets as a general rule.
Ye...
Saturday 2nd February 2019 3:25 pm
DOBRO
DOBRO
That shiny steel guitar
he got eventually
was what he'd always wanted;
just to play the blues.
I killed so many people, he said,
was called up twice, unfairly
because of skill in martial arts
and when we took a town
would often be the first to enter
but the bullet-proof vests,
they never came.
I should be dead by now
along with all t...
Saturday 26th January 2019 5:12 pm
AQUARIUM
AQUARIUM
I dreamt of an aquarium
fixed into my back,
a miniature box
with tetras and an angel fish,
its glass sunk deep
instead of memories;
I had to ask each day
if they were still alive,
framed there
in that wall of flesh.
It was necessary
to watch out for these
delicate creatures, cradle
this transparent cube of life
while treading carefully
...
Thursday 17th January 2019 1:41 am
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