The moment  

I knew  

my mother was leaving—  

no word, no signal,  

just a slight shift  

in the staff's routine,  

moving through  

the dim quiet  

of the critical room;  

tending machines,  

securing trays,  

smoothing blankets,  

quietly closing the blinds  

on a life,  

while the world  

ghosted below  

in darkness.

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I wake  
earlier than usual,  
padding gingerly across  
the dusty, sunlit 
pine floor
toward the kettle  
and the promise  
of the morning fixer.

I wait,  
gazing through the steam  
at the hazy dawn.  
Some are already awake,  
their shiny black caps dipping
in and out  
of the glimmering waves.  
  
One already stepping 
onto the shore—  
the evolution of the species;  
it ...

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Up all night,

shuffling complaints,

I finally sleep

consoled by

the first soft strains

of morning.

No sign now

of the moth

I confided with

most of the night,

as he flittered

at my bed light.

Gone in his

dusty overcoat,

another

refugee,

slipping out with

a suitcase

of worries

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Funny to think of you gone

On a bright morning like this,

Crossing the Euston Road

With rolled sleeves,

Nothing to do;

10:12, on a Tuesday in spring.

Sky blue and dotted with clouds,

Cranes swinging

In construction dust

And breeze-blown blossoms.

Workers whistling in shiny yellow hats,

The city in full swing,

As I walk away from myself

In bright cars and mirr...

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Listen close between the

horns and percussion

of the churning traffic

you'll hear the sunlight 

creaking 

across the floorboards

of an attic room

the one where a fly 

keeps buzzing In and out

as if looking for something

he left behind.

Someone is waking now

and reaching out

in an otherwise empty bed

while in the balcony below

the wid...

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We're late and 
I am losing the battle.
his will is stronger 
than mine,
now he is holding 
the toothbrush
except he is not brushing his teeth
instead his smearing
toothpaste across
the smiling mouth
of his fabric crocodile,
while all I can manage
is to watch
weighted by what's 
still required to do,
feeling my oversized tiredness
weigh upon the thin springs
of his undersized matt...

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We have no time

for the impending heat death of the universe,

there is too much to distract

ourselves with down here.

You're quietly explaining

your heart has shifted from where it once was,

as if knocked from its orbit

by some mysterious force.

The universe tends toward disorder, 

your eyes seem to say

just as the ice melting in the glass

and the coffee ...

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Finishing this Cortado

On a wet morning in October,

I wonder how much coffee

I've drunk in my life.

I do a quick calculation

based upon twenty years of coffee drinking

where, roughly, three cups a day,

if a typical cup 

is two hundred and twenty five millimetres of liquid,

comes to four million nine hundred 

and twenty seven thousand 

and five hundred millili...

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There is not much to separate us,

the little fly and I,

him upon the window sill

and I upon the sofa,

Two small specks

in the footnote of history,

passing time

in the thin spring light

of this pale room.

While the poplars trees

sway their shadows 

on the ceiling above

the fly stands still

as if contemplation 

or respect 

to the mysteries ...

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I should be drinking

boiled water

with lemon juice

but settle 

for black coffee 

and half a glazed donut

in the courtyard

watching the morning

traffic of bees

while the sparrows

cheep alarm

above the head

of the cat

stretched out 

in the dust and sun

and so it goes,

the sky blue

as a fresh coat

of paint

dabbed with white clouds

and b...

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The universe hates you

I'm sorry to tell you

God is getting together 

with Mother Nature

to decide who they 

should kill first.

Take you and I,

short sighted as we are,

in another time

we would have

blindly fallen to our deaths

off a narrow mountain path

or been devoured

by a cougar we mistook 

for a benign looking

beige rock.

God does...

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This morning the inner critic
is playing all the hits;
how I should have jumped 
out of bed at dawn
to do star jumps, 
sumo squats,
push ups

followed by
a cold shower
and ten minutes
of deep breathing,
then an immunity boosting
breakfast of
boiled water with lemon,
rolled oats blended with
flaxseed, broccoli
and coconut water.

Twenty minutes
of morning pages,
sun salutations
...

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I had a dream 

I was serving

in a government 

of the dead, 

I was the bulldog

the firefighter,

the master of

the excel spreadsheet

a puller of 

gold teeth 

I built the pivot table

I built the filter curve

that measured every wave

that thinned out

the herd.

I dreamt I 

was a lorry driver,

hauling through the night,

a forty tonne

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They have found 

my replacement

he is sat there with a

finger up his nose 

watching a cartoon 

about a talking cupcake.

He can recite the alphabet 

print his own name 

and his an expert in the 

sauropods of the mesozoic era.

Just this morning he 

recalled the names

of the planets, 

listing each one by size

and distance from the sun

Rememb...

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Do you know the

one about

the drunk Chinese poet

whose heart was so filled

with wine and longing

he fell to his death 

while trying to seize the reflection

of the moon in the water 

beneath his small

wooden boat?

Somewhere he is still falling,

tumbling head first

in darkness

through the centuries,

tethered to that

mathematical paradox

where a falling...

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It is cold and dark

in the universe 

when you cat is dead

and your wife not talking to you

and the planets

are moving

apart as if they have

nothing left to say

and your father lied to you

and your sister

is in a psychiatric ward

on New Years Eve

and you bury your

thoughts under red wine

and propanaol 

and out of date prozac

from your dead mother’s

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I drink my coffee 
and try being present
but my mind
keeps pushing
me somewhere 
I don't want to be,
backward and
forward in time,
an exquisite self torture
more addictive 
than this caffeine
I pour religiously 
into my body 
each morning.

So I focus on
the warmth 
permeating through 
my fingers
from the white 
porcelain cup,
studying the 
rising steam 
in the golden light ...

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I dream of coffee

waking early

strolling through the heart

of the city

the birds singing,

the sun warm enough to

roll my sleeves

the smell of the bakery

with it's open door

powdered sugar

on angel wings

a black espresso 

at a pavement cafe

the sun crossing

the street

to embrace our held hands,

as good as anything

in the en...

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Your heart is pouring out

like black coffee.

You're a dog in a shuttle 

with it’s engines

burned out

in the vacuum of space.

You're a ghost

In the window

behind which lies a

a mountain of snow

thick with fir trees.

You’re the sole passenger 

on a train headed north,

your luggage is rattling

over your head

your destination

unreadab...

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Watching

bodies trampled

at the gates to another life,

all the screaming,

sobbing 

and scared eyes

of children clinging 

to their parents legs,

while I lay here in

the quiet of a weekend afternoon,

the coffee cup 

cooling on my chest,

my child nearby

watching the television,

something about

super hero dogs,

my heart aches

as if running low

of w...

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The route to happiness

Is to expect less of things,

so they say,

to leave alone the sorrow, 

the slaughter and

put your feet up awhile

and marvel at whatever 

small mercies materialise 

before you;

the universe of dust

in afternoon light,

the steam spiralling 

from the coffee cup

resting upon your chest,

the sparrows 

leaping in...

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Adrift in the middle 

of our lives,

I watch you 

enshrined by the steam 

of your coffee,

eyes turned downwards

as you captively

butter your English muffin.

The morning light

revealing treasures

we thought

all unearthed.

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I often think of my desk 
amongst the other desks,
scattered post it notes 
archaic to-do lists,
stacked coffee cups
filled with chewed pens,
the potted cactus
and little hula girl 
swaying side to side
In the light of the window,
sky greying towards autumn,
and the occasional passing
pigeon wondering
where we all are.

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The Champagne
has left our heads swimming,
feeling idiotic and in love
as two young lovers
skinny-dipping at midnight,
readying to leap into the darkness
of another year 
with only the compass
of our foolish passion 
to guide us.

-

I have drunk so much the dead are 
coming back to me,
the ones we crossed arms
and promised not to forget,
ferrying back across
the dark waters of m...

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Many nights like this

I sat beside a darkened window

cradling thoughts of what

delivered you here.

Nights when snow fell

and Coltrane's mute tenor

signalled in the gloom,

A Golden Record, 

spiraling the consolations

of a beleaguered earth

into the silent cosmos.

I would wonder what

beacon you followed,

in your small white suit, 

buttoned to the chin,

lu...

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I am listening

very closely to you,

just as the Buddhists would

recommend,

keeping attention

on your voice, 

how it sounds,

and the content of your words,

trying my best to

ignore my thoughts

that keep rudely interrupting,

how your hair

pinned like that

resembles Katharine Hepburn

in The African Queen

which is based upon 

a 1935 book by

C.S. Fores...

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You believe in love don't you?
You know love,
the one with the
plastered knuckles 
and fractured nose
and lifetime
prescription for
painkillers?
That old war horse
drowning his sorrows
over there,
who can still turn it on
now and then,
in that arena where
every move is scripted
but the blood is still real.

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Nobody knows what it is to be alive

or at least there is no description 

to satisfy all parties, as to when

the lights are on and why we’re 

any more conscious

than this rubber plant, say,

or for that matter this table

or bent wood chair.

They call this the hard problem,

the one the best academics

can’t plough their heads through,

that leaves us with only best...

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The cat settles 

down by the radiator

as I pull on cold trousers 

from the cold floor

then watches as I

search for hat, coat, gloves.

Later I see him

in the upstairs window

while I scrape the frost 

from the windshield

and again

as I sit rubbing my hands 

as the engine warms

until he gets up

and with a stretch turns away, 

his whole day 

ahead of him...

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Like the voices at a family dinner

like a film with reels 

in the wrong order

like the pages of a script

thrown by an angry lover

from a moving train

like a meadow of butterflies

where I am the one with a big white net

and an open book within

which to pin them in.

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Coffee and peaches

on the table,

the sun shining 

through the backdoor,

your son watching a bee 

inspect the heart

of a sunflower.

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I fall asleep 

dreaming of another version of this film,

one rescued from the cutting room floor,

as they say,

except comprised of only 

the beginnings and endings of every scene,

a thousand black and white windows 

swept up after dark 

by a cinephilic janitor 

who spliced them into an unending reel 

of stolen frames from Nightmare Alley, 

Harbour Lights,  No Way O...

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The Golden Age Chinese poets
were always drinking too much
always going to sleep in their soup
or falling out of boats 
trying to serenade the moon.

They wrote poems with names
like Waking from a Drunken Sleep
Or In Praise of a Little Wine Jug.
Poems that chronicled the simple pleasures 
of waking up drunk on a mountaintop
or putting your plans aside
to watch a rain storm.

No doubt...

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The old man in the window seat

is setting quietly to his routine,

folding up the sleeves

of his Oxford shirt inch by inch

until the sun falls across his bare arms

then with just a smile

he signals to the waitress and waits

watching the hushed street

after the morning rush:

a mother with a pram,

a homeless man conferring with his dog,

a few pigeons plucking

...

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Despite what they say

the mind is more

reckless than the heart,

ready to climb aboard

any passing distraction,

waving over it’s shoulder at you

as it stands you up at this table

staring vacantly at the waitress

with the red headband

but it could have just as easily been

the old man in the corner

eating chocolate ice cream alone

or for that matter

the dog ...

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It wouldn’t surprise me
if some of this number
making their way
past our resting elbows
are beginning to lose faith,
what with summer wind 
gusting so wildly 
through the long grass,
sounding like a sea 
preparing to part itself.
What's to stop one or two
falling behind the rest?
Forsaking the promise 
of what may come
to idle away this earthly afternoon
sheltering in the shade 
of...

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How beautiful

to become aware of yourself existing

to wake to the tiny pleasure

of a warm brioche

and cup of coffee, interrupted only

from the paper’s bad news

by the brief commotion of

a woman in yellow

losing her scarf to the breeze,

startling the realisation from you

that such a moment maybe everything;

a quiet cup of coffee

on a breezy morning in spring

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When my line manager

asks me about my development plan

and where I see myself

in one, three or five years time

I begin to think how in a year

I would like to be painting watercolours

beside a mountain stream

somewhere in the Bavarian Alps

in three years eating cantaloupe

and drinking black coffee

on an early morning

in a European city I don't yet kn...

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Watching your turned back disappear

this morning, head stooped

beneath the black omen of your umbrella

ferrying you towards your day,

we parted as though in different streams

of the same dark river,

I began to think about those physicists

who would have us believe

there are infinite versions of ourselves,

going this way and that,

carried like scattered blossom

...

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There are places colder and darker than this,

right now in Oslo, Reykjavik,

they’re waking too,

presing cold feet to the floor,

pulling on icy underwear,

peering into dim mirrors

to begin the search for their outside selves.

No doubt a few will be sat just as I am

peering light headedly into the gloom

to unpick the world’s

smallest knot from their shoes.

...

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The future is dark,
our days are numbered,
there will be a last time for everything
given all things are finite
and the news the universe 
is expanding eleven percent faster than expected
as if wishing to hasten it's own demise.
Look at everyone on this dark afternoon,
hunched over these little round tables
like mourners at a funeral 
for our collective future,
the barmaid staring on th...

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Past 3 O’Clock
Still, the moon like 
frost across the bedroom 
floor.
-
Tonight
we find the language
we spoke as 
children
when our minds
were open
and our hearts 
young.
-
We hold hope within us,
like a little house
swelling with light
in the darkness
of a late 
December evening.
-
Awake,
listening to the gentle sounds
of those I love
sleeping 
nearby.
-
The candle 
in...

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Everything goes 

and we bury this thought 

within us 

walking down the unremarkable pavement

covered in leaves

like a year's worth of paperwork,

to-do lists and

unfinished poems

breathing to heaven as we go

while the buildings peek from clouds

and the winter sun 

polishes the world

reminding us beauty can be found at any time 

If you can stay clear headed

...

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Do not go mad

do not panic

do not chase after fact and reason

as if such things exist.

There isn't enough time

to be offended by this world.

We only have this moment

slipping from us,

the sun on your bare arms

and newspaper

leaving the table

and coffee

to cross the street

towards the trees

now emptying

of birds.

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She looks like a milkmaid
in a 17th century Dutch painting
or a tourism poster
from the 20s
Summer in the Alps, perhaps,
tilting the milk jug
with her hair tied back
in a blue shawl
as she serves the
queue of businessmen
eager
for any deviation to the script,
the most casual smile
lighting hope
in that dark place
wherever it is
that men keep it.
 

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If someone told you
this was the midpoint of your life
and at a precise moment while you

were lifting your second cup of coffee

to your lips a lever had been thrown
causing the axis of your life to tilt downwards
and an unseen ball to drop and begin

a rattling descent towards the inevitable
what would you do?
Would you embrace this new awareness as freedom?
Perhaps ask the knockout...

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Hello there little visitor
how brave of you
to cross this desk to come see me
when I think of your life
even more
fragile than mine
but perhaps this fragility
has allowed you a certain
devil may care spirit
as right now you're
heading up my arm
as easy as someone
going out to buy
the morning paper.

Well when you pause there,
an old man shivering
amongst the poplars,
is it to not...

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In here is the history of the world,

a wretched depiction of life’s poorest victims.

The deluded moth venturing all night

at the dim window trying to reach the moon.

The spider plucking his web

as the fly drowns in the toilet bowl.

Here is the threshing floor

we teeter across clutching our suitcases,

the butcher shop with

it’s the blood stained alter,

th...

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Death is a little like this,

the way it knocks out the lights

and sends you room to room

blindly searching wardrobes

and turning out draws for

a battery, a torch

or some utility

with which to respond

to this impossible new reality.

While the unthinking part of you

keeps expecting

to flick a switch

and return this house

to some scene, years ago

when it ...

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You let go of mystery,

now without thinking about it

you know ghosts don't exist

and whatever else,

you suppose,

that might bring someone 

back from the dead.

Your most enlightened philosophies

turn out the lights

on a dark afternoon 

in an empty kitchen

where the shadow of trees

flail like the outstretched

arms of a martyr or saint,

while you sit in a cha...

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