The I, me, pajama striped shirted,

Ignorant, stand alone, shout-out nutcase,

nonsensical words blurted,

staggered with burp and belch

under caustic breath;

ale breath, shot breath.

He gives a show of

none stick comedy,

and imperfectly performed

puerile knobbery.

“Huh! Huh!”

Pint, betting slip, kebab

“What’s that? Yea,

I'll be home soon, Bab”

Tells her t...

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She walks a marathon distance each day,

passing people she has known for years

now unrecognizable, vague, like shadows.

She no longer engages with them,

struggling to distinguish between the faded faces.

She retraces each step, regardless of the weather -

always dressed for it. Back and forth.

The same handful of routes trodden in sequence.

The same street corner where she...

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CUTS

When I think of her I think of scars.

She told me when she touches them they remind her of the cuts;

of how the cuts made her feel,

“it’s a purge”, she said, “a sense of being real".

She spoke to me with honesty of the incremental cost

of destroying the things she held so dear

now irretrievably lost.

Of how, through her inner turmoil,

she could meet the gi...

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Give me a broken mirror.

Hide the blemishes and blotches

That impairs and disfigures.

Give me renewed youth.

Re-circuit my memory

Rewrite the truth.

Give me made up days.

Turn action to fiction

Blow my mind away.

Give me turning tides.

Give me caves and crevices

In which I can hide.

Give me light, give me dark

Give me dressings to hide

...

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I watched a Ted Talk the other night. The speaker was the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the columbine killers. It struck me that it must have taken a lot of courage to do this thing and gave me an insight into how it also affects the parents of killers such as this. I wrote this...

MOTHER OF A COLUMBINE MURDERER

With quaking voice the woman stood
in front of a thousand strong crowd
and s...

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Back in those days

you could smoke in the pubs,

we’d suck on those sticks to our finger tips

then casually, carelessly drop the stubs

and twist them into the floor with our feet,

openly, brazenly, never discreet.

The stench of burning carpet, the smell of spilt ale

would meet in a plume of noxious gas,

fetid, fusty and stale;

like a fart in a working man’s café.

A flo...

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The mainstay of guests,
Their backs against chairs
That are backed against walls,
Readily seated and settled
Into tight knit sub communities
And discussion cells…
Thrashing out social failings
And political ineptitudes
Gleaned from broadsheets
And RT News updates,
Mumbling agreements
Or gentle dissents, 
Some too stoned to participate
(should have “passed the kouchie
‘pon the left ha...

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I was challenged by a member of the writers group I was part of to write a poem from a woman's perspective. I had recently watched a documentary on genital mutilation which inspired me to write this, Type 3 being the harshest of the practice -

Colonial history will still dictate how the men around here

Practice love through hate

For aesthetic purposes; an ethnic marker

Gender controlle...

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Positioned provocatively,

picture perfect Pamela

poses for porno photos

in a seedy studio south of the river.

Purring and pouting and protruding

her pumping breasts,

bending for a plump posterior moon shot,

parting her legs for a pussy close up,

panting and puffing, providing

point of view pics procured by

self proclaimed perverts on the internet

pulling on their p...

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