there are electrons passing from my lips to yours 

when we kiss 

some infinite number of universes  

dissolve between us in the warm spit of passion 

and when I close my eyes and feel your tongue 

ask such sweet questions it's like  

it’s like 

the most enormous thing 

could not possibly mean less  

and I can feel it now  

it is the life that we live again as we ...

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there is a small grey puddle 

in a cave in a far-off country  

that may or may not exist  

and at night a plain black bird  

flies a thousand miles  

to land in this puddle  

and when its feet and legs  

raise the temperature of the puddle  

by just 0.001%  

it is enough to warm the water  

and because of this 

the most beautiful orchid  

is finally allowed to b...

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mother said there is a garden inside me  

and not father not no-one can kick me so hard  

that the grass will bruise and I will drink enough  

from fractured men that the fountain behind my   

midnight will keep flowing out keep everything wet  

warm sacred and if I ever let you cut me open  

the orchids will smell of a beautiful confusion 

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imagine if you had stayed there forever 

on the cross fit, arms flailing comically 

legs metronomic, pumping sad alone 

nothing in your stomach but powdery bile 

sweat pouring off you, drenching the floor 

pooling in dewy puddles on the pedals 

staining the blue carpet tiles, trickling  

in salty ravines, hitting the mirrors 

cascading down the steps, bursting forth 

fro...

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you are freefall among the pine needles 

motes of dust and sunset pepper your face 

we had found a box of matches  

burnt every one within five minutes 

gambled away our fingertips 

on who could last the longest 

if i could weigh this memory now 

it would be wolves and yearning 

a liquid mess seething through the forest 

some jawline ruining my welcoming throat 

a fai...

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the search for god becomes a suffocation 

stab the fat star spill yolk across the sky 

yellow a scream across the de-tuned darkness 

touch my lips, breakdown this sunset songbird 

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i found your fingernails in my cereal again this morning  

then you float in to the room like a virus or a daydream 

we take out our eyes and place them on the table 

such horrible things, like birthday jelly they wait patiently 

 for the atrocities to occur, a metronomic ebb and flow 

a cat is rescued from a fire/five dead in school shooting 

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i am idiot young and 

in the back of the car 

i close my eyes just so 

the light of the sun 

between the trees beats a tattoo 

behind my lids and lenses 

and that is all I want to be 

just then - isolation 

pink black pink black pink black 

a heartbeat from 8 minutes before 

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when i was younger i was terrified of death  

of light peeking through my tired skin 

but now I am positive that death is just like 

leaning back on a chair and it tips over but  

never hits the floor,  

and you fall and you fall 

soft warm hands 

touching the parts of you that are fracture

breathless and that brings me comfort so maybe 

i am going crazy or maybe all thi...

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oh monster/oh mother now here is confusion 

when i lay with you, lets sleep with nothing on 

the lamps on fire and oh would you put it 

where i am made of childhood fear 

plant seeds in my mouth and pull wolves from my tongue 

that trees could flow forth from smoothest confusion 

grow apples so red that the doctor is weeping 

while for you I am starving I am starving...

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one day my mother will die 

trembling yellow fracture 

birdsong on the radio 

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and yes, they said it was the end  

on the screaming siren news channels  

before the set was switched off by hands  

that had, just an hour ago, touched the purest part of you  

as the ball of fire cut ribbons of blinding despair  

through the evening sigh like a sunset  

but 50x the speed 

50x the oh my god isn't it beautiful 

because we don’t fear death in this hous...

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spring defies winter 

ibaraki's acid bruise 

piercing litmus noise 

detune freezing radio 

submission to fleeting hope 

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the world is finally ending and everyone is in the street fucking

and we cling to this awful rock while somewhere a wild dog rips a child

to pieces, its jaws locking together like lovers hands on a cold night as they

explore the cartography on their wrists, laughing at the idea they

will ever be old and spitting softly in aching, welcome mouths

the world is finally ending and everyo...

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in svalbard, i watch the northern lights

a neon bruise on the tiny patch of infinity that 

fizzes endless chaos atoms above my head

we’re the ghosts of those who touched us

but if you distil the maelstrom down to its purest form

all that’s left is your heart pumping blood, your brain crackling

and the saliva that passes between our lips when we kiss

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i found a single seashell alone in outer space

engraved with  ancient language

i climbed into the wash of its vacuum

rest my head against the smooth inner wall

closed my eyes, let it drift towards so much nothing

a billion years of starlight warmed my blood

and this is how i learned to love, upon the letting go

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winds from shikoku

wild jasmine falls like pale clouds

settles on white hair

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there is a room in minnesota that is so quiet

you can hear your blood trickle through your veins

no one can stand it, but I wish I was there

to hear my body shut down

     here is a liver

     here is a lung

     here is the panicked thrum of a heart that is dying

     here is the piss and fuzz of the brain

     realising it is alone

what does hope sound like?

is...

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the cutting of blood force the fawn from the rock to red below 

something of enormity amongst the will-o whispers of the forest

now comes frottage come rub against the vastness  feel alive

through waxen shame come write the past with blade and blow

watch the velvet shed through crimson feel the carnage drop rivulets

staining matted fur punch through afresh a green a blank a mass

...

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the first a face a tantric paste a bookend of lights one electric and waspish

stinging eyes not yet fully open the other an orgasm a tickertape parade

that ends with something incomprehensible      its duality you see

there are parties for the friends your mother begged to come round

there are parties where you piss yourself and everyone drinks and drinks

because you are dying and s...

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become red for me become the softness of my mother

before i was hoisted out by the shepherds crook into light

and exhaustion  become frail for me become something

perfect a fresh cut emerald each facet reflecting that patch

of skin on your wrist that makes you shudder when i wet it

with my spit       and when you fell it happened in still life

the arc of the wine glass throu...

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To me.

To me...

Barry?

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we were sat around the table discussing things that matter like global warming and politics when I suddenly became very aware that I was there which might sound funny but sometimes you can be somewhere but not really be in the moment just be inhabiting the space physically but this time I was really there my body my mind my spirit all in line all attuned to the conversation  to the feel of the lea...

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it was fireworks and it was scotch lifted from craig’s mums special cabinet and it was the knowledge that she knew she knew and he would not soon shift the bruising and it was sat on the kerb passing the bottle and it was telling your mother you had gone to meet a girl at the cinema and it was her smile and she knew but she was post-war helpless and it was holding hands in the puff of smoke cold a...

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for scott hutchison

I hope the water was the comfort you craved

as you waded out in to the firth of forth

with no alarm set for the new morning

and that when the pricks of pain hit your heart

as the slate swell embraced you in the way we could not

that you turned up to face the lights

and in that last panicked gasp

you saw the sky falling to meet you

we cant ta...

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Abraham told us to come again

next year when the sky would

pother with ash from the fires

because right now we could not

see the stars just the faceless

children playing basketball on

the streets and you know they

never miss a shot so we spent

the year in our tiny homes with

aggressive mould coating the

walls and the things we gave

names to like Table and Lamp

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after Newfound Planets

i have discovered a planet

a peach bruise cloud scoots sweet along the sky

now visualise the starshine spatter like pastels

and a drop that drips

then drops again

and ‘piffs’ in the kiln baked apricot dust

sending up a whisper of dirt.

we have discovered a planet

it is a sphere of awful seas and glaciers that move…

…at their own pace. perha...

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something soft fell to the earth that night

still warm from descent, chalk on slate

the sleep abandoned heard the faint hum

the damp leather crack as it hit the island

pulsing, the colour of ripe corn and battery yolks

the smell of june drop fruit and charcoal

from its bowels crawled a single, white fawn

all teeter and stumble, dripped with mucus

from the throat of a child,...

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once her daughter had called her beautiful so she wore it like silk

with a smile of clarified butter that smokes in the pan

the second before the heady pits of cumin, mustard

and cardamom hit the tarnished copper,

release their muddy fragrances in to the kitchen that now

is made up of the man who took her ocean away

every surface a split lip smile, windows flecked with spittle

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when tabitha died the whole street lit up like a neon wilderness

the birds fluttered crazy in the ghost trees and around the roofs

the small, simple man from the corner house opened his mouth

and from it poured radiance the likes of which we had never seen before

a creature moved in to tabitha’s place, something mossy and revolting

we called it the lawn because it had patches of gra...

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notice: the dirty light through the window is picking out

the melanotic filaments that runrampantinthecorneroftheeye(s)

fixed on an upturned shoe its sole smeared

with shit notice: every book i own tells a story

but not one book tells mine notice: can we blink

through that something that the sun bakes in to our eyes notice:

all the gifted people are asleep on the floor dreaming

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folds of lace

[like winter smoke]

[like quires of tear stained parchment]

sit heavy against the ruddy

[rust]

of the shabby white van

[there are some noises she cannot hear]

where the man with the limp

[like a pirate she thought at first]

[[still young]]

will drive her to the trees

to touch her again

through winter tears

through folds of lace [like smoke]

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never

(in my sixty years)

was there One

(in my

hissing

slate grey

eyes)

that felt

mOre

beaut

iOus

than yOu

(just dOn’t

tell

yOur

mOther)

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in the mornings, full of dread

i like to lay strands of my greasy hair

over my eyes, refocus, cornea stretching, scratching

allowing the silvery threads to become clearer

others to fade away, traces of breath on a freezing window

each hair picked out, some whispered, some blinding

like a motorway system designed by a madman

the veins of something not quite there

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teacher tells me to imagine the gunshots are just something silly

like a clown knocking over a priceless vase because he is clumsy

and there is one now, one vase down    haha

and then another maybe this one is a silly man

walking in to a glass door that crashes and smashes         haha

then I lie very still and don’t breathe

don’t breathe

because if we breathe they might knock...

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you were still when i found you so i picked up your body carefully,

as one would handle a crumbling manuscript from the thirteenth century,

with kids gloves – white vinyl gloves - and i placed you on my shoulders

and we walked and walked across great neon oceans

through cities with skyscrapers bearing over us like tidal waves of slate grey concrete

over searing hot sands that added ...

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and swooping down from the nest

we spied a vast swathe of humanity

a neon smear of life       just try telling

this bristling immensity

this rhythmic pulse

that somewhere god was dying               not dying as we will die

with weathered eyes and peeking bones

but dying in the hearts of each person who had                                faith

now crumpled   ...

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so powerful

to feel so afraid, alone

how lucky

how beautiful

to feel so connected by our inherent loneliness

a vast, waxy net of loss

everyone on their own track, intersecting never

forever, dead kids

forever, all the stars

forever, yet never –

shine shine shine

shine shine shine

shine do you see and shine

how dim my light is shine

yet shine my light so di...

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and now it is a doll, presented in court,

the kind of thing you laughed at with your friends

when they lampooned it on prime time television,

and now you are shaking there,

where, and this death is a thousand times,

like taking an apple core to the wet earth,

sliding it down to produce a simple cylinder of time,

the tears and laughter compressed in to tissue thin layers of reg...

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last night i dreamt that you served me

and my children, in a restaurant in the city.

that as you placed our steaming food on the table

you smiled a sweet malaise and caught my eye

for just an instant, but there were oceans in

that quick glance, the churning of a

thousand regrets. how you longed for

the children that sat beside me, for

stretched skin, teary eyes and tempers.

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i couldn’t tell you why the lights went out

leaving fruities and pips arcing

like doomed mobius strips above us

now the moths have nothing to fly to

so they turn on each other with pick and pistol

as the listless p-a-r-a-d-i-d-d-l-e that was my heartbeat

rose to a cacophony, the hollow-boned clouds fell to the ground

millions of tonnes of dense, unforgiving greyness ...

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At the corner of your mouth there is lightning

I am burning my fingers

Trying to remove the skin of a roasted red pepper

But someone, somewhere is dying

This songs climax is the lead singer screaming

‘ITS FADING’

But rather than the music dying down

It is getting louder and louder

So he must mean that the silence is fading

To successfully remove the skin of a red pe...

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Chabako temae

You tear in to the house

A hurricane of malcontent

And of course I am in

Waiting for you

My little wooden box

A nuclear blast

The stench of him rolls behind you

Down the stairs

A bridal train

Wretched now, I come, I come

Hakobi Temae

Atoms are split as

Mitochondria dance as

They spit from the soup and

Epochs clatter as

Yo...

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the kind of love that grabs you by the throat

i am trash and you are trash, an isthmus

have you ever just said fuck it

and felt the stars on your tongue

fuck it

hold the blood and the wine in your mouth

like sweet flesh made sin

kneel as a virgin

rise as a whore

turn to all the horrible, wonderful people

tell them it is too dark outside to turn the light within

for...

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his hands would raise the hairs

like marionette strings on the naked nape of your neck

a puppet, a plaything, and then and then

all teeth and bone and sinew

he fell on you, a wizard, a thief

a pirate, a spaceman, a monster

the heroes that swooned you to sleep

then him then hydrogen peroxide

pouring on a wound       breathless now,

your sweet oval mouth sang him arias,

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i don’t want this poem to be about anything

i want this poem to be the something

that other poems are about

because a bowl of fruit is

a bowl of fruit is

a bowl of fruit

but there is a tremulous enormity between

my fiery synapses

and the faded maps of my fingertips

it’s not

the sea

the sky

the life of

the death of

it’s

everything

waiting to get out

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my heart it beats an island - a rivulet of iron blood

that pulses below the sand with questions

like my place among the stars

like the pressure

how it builds-

on carbon

 then release! release! release!

like diamonds

like teeth

like father

like a place to cut the wildfire from our minds

while in the womb of the great, black dragon

you ask me w...

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you-      

under milky moonlight

you-

thrashing beneath my strong arms

here is the dirty man with the ruin between his legs

bleeding now, he is an ampersand, a victory

we pull his teeth from his mouth, screaming, crying

laughing, it’s raining                       

and because we cannot shed our skin

you can only climax

with a gun pressed to your

temple and i-

i...

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streetlights just bright enough to take away the stars

could be anything up there

schrodinger’s sky

the homeless are on the burn-pile out back

tidy them away with their festering sores.

there are eleven year olds addicted to skag now

dealing in the capillary-like alleyways that fall off the main street

legs soft like glow sticks under the sulphur beams of the fly-traps ou...

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1.

your cello warbles and purrs in the next room

and i know that you are wearing your glasses

they will be slightly tipped, sitting on that soft part of your nose

and you will be lonely, because the music that your fingers sing

hangs heavy in the dying air

2.

as time took hold of the tumour, your hand made its way up the neck

the notes became a plangent refle...

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