Passing lights

She says
‘we all have to start somewhere’
keeping her eyes on the road.

milestones flash by through the night like cigarette embers,
and promises of other lives
wink wink wink
through the windows of houses we pass.

in the dark it’s hard to see.
bugs splatter against the windshield
as tens of life metaphors a mile
correct the wrongs we think.

her rubber smokes road
inch by inch.

the engine sings

She says
‘we all have to start somewhere’
keeping her eyes on the road.

diners go by like missed opportunities
every other hour
while we follow the words of the GPS
instead of a compass
because voices in the sky never lie

She shivers against the night
hands at ten and two,
clutching the wheel
just hard enough to turn her knuckles white
and I change tracks on the CD again

Sometimes Tuesdays make sense

She comes from nowhere
just appears;
a stranger of cups
suddenly dealt upside down
from a deck
you know is marked by the divine

and so

when you shake hands
another wind god wakes
and starts licking the dice

and so

you order wine
because what more is there to do
when she’s on every chip
you’re playing for
with trembling hands
and earmarked credit cards

Untitled

Be patient ladybug
as I am now
while new year’s first born darkness
drags its lovers lips
along the footsteps
we are yet to take

Let’s jump
through every doorway that we find
like our every step
was the last one
that we would ever hear,
and every day the last one
we could sing

Pretend we leave no fingerprints
and breathe no sullied air,
and only need the light
to fill our lungs

Pretend we dance like children
jumping on a bed
oblivious of springs and rules and running time
and maybe
we will burn again
answering only to our heat, our selves
and to our G-d

Untitled

It was a Tuesday,
when we tried
to dive back into dreams
we’d left behind
like burnt out matches

That day we ran out
of the fire we needed
to burn all our notes -
a frail attempt, a step,
to start again;

you see –

the fire wouldn’t take!
our words
were made of steel
and in the north wind hour
when we woke
(to whispers of the dawn)
there was no burning,
only frozen laughter

Fog

fog
comes down over towers
like children’s hands
that reached towards your mouth
in hope of catching
all your sleeping breath
while bored commuters
warmed the world
by shivering in harmony
on mornings
when I watched you sleep
as I was leaving

Still summer

It was still summer.
The wind blew in construction dust
in a stream of profanity
that fingered my windowsill
in a Japanese subway game of
grope-the-girl.

Upstairs, men with thick fingers
used power machinery
cutting the day into ribbons.

in the holy space between houses,
a squirrel hissed at a cat

the neighbours watched news
instead of Dr Strangelove
on tv sets that filled my room
with mute light
from across the street

Somewhere out of mind
bombs were probably falling,
and one tyrant or other
was on his way
to getting dragged through the streets

there was shit to do
and people to have
but I couldn’t bear it;
the cheap port tasted like sugar
but I poured another three fingers
and closed my eyes

just for a moment

Camilla was a poetess

Camilla had faith
and she felt the embrace of her lord
In the smile of a baby,
her daughter’s voice,
the smell of grass,
the silky sensation of bath foam against her skin -
all of that stuff, you know?

She was a glass half full
kind of girl.
I imagine she never
danced on the table
fucked on the first date,
lied, cursed
Or traded her body for favours.

She wore her hair short,
her metaphors close to her chest,
and the mountains that surrounded her
were a fortress
instead of a prison

Streetlight

I want to carry you like guilt
into a room
smelling of dust and books.

Like all the yesterdays we drowned in,
the mattress on the floor is a truth
waiting to be obscured
by the veils
that protect our songs from the streetlight

then you’ll remind me
that at night
the words that you say
become the oaths that i live by
until I die again

and I will reach for your lips
watching your eyes for danger

November

It’s still too easy
to aim west but go east,
waking up in Stepney Green
like a man in a river raft
going for the narrows

When you cross the bridge to the other platform
your internal compass lies
and your stomach lies
but you know
that the heat has gone on
in two small rooms in Earls Court,
and you count the stations go by
like prayer beads
in a mantra of movement and chance,
while strangers avoid your eyes
clutching the freesheets

At the V&A

Some times the echo
between stones worn smooth by memories
brings widowed syllables,
like crumbs from the table
of people
who still enjoy a joke
while Kali dances still
safe her containment chamber

Shoes

I know she’s arrived when the buzzer
warns me
to wait
as she comes
up the stairs

I tell her I’ve just
ran the vacuum
so she takes off her shoes
and her toenails
are painted
deep red

I point to the sofa
a dirty old thing
used to skin and sweat but
I’ve turned the pillows and
we sit like royals
side by side

She tells me to get her some wine
but I haven’t any, not even bad one
so I make
her tea and
we sit
in silence
until the sound of my neighbor coming
stops flitting
through the floorboards

city drug

We fly in through clear skies
London opens spills unlocks
endless light strings and
I can’t stop watching
white and yellow lights spread wide like
some giant’s child that
willful and violent, laughs
having spilled the chains of gold
and pearl necklaces
belonging to his rich mother;
from jewelry box to chaos, in one breath or a thousand

One hour later, when I emerge from the underground
a full moon silently burns the three lanes of Warwick Rd
like a searchlight
while cars make their escape in sequence

Suddenly, she comes out
three doorways ahead of me
short skirt raven hair black leather jacket
body so thin
it makes you human again
and her high heels flash
bright red and play a staccato as she walks,
face obscured by darkness

She gets in a car and drives off.

This is the sickness, the City drug, the hunger
that makes you stick around – and I raise a salute
to the moon and the madness
while the corner shop owner frowns
at the young men hanging
outside his door

02 July 2010

You sit and stare into your coffee
and the smell
reminds you
that
bills are stacked on the kitchen table
the sink is full of tea stained coffee mugs
you haven’t fed the cat
in two days

Then the phone rings

It’s mother
and you’re a child again

When the fires came

When the fires came
I heard on the news that
angels wore flak jackets
while men rushed men with sticks.
Stones were thrown.
cans were thrown
Planks were thrown.

Dogs attacked men
dogs were lost.
Boots crushed store fronts
goods were lost.
Fire!
cars were lost
homes were lost
lives were lost;
but not much else I guess

I sat in my sofa (a man of the people)
like a million prophets
with visions of tear gas, and batons
splitting heads
with the wrath of the righteous

My street was quiet
and lacking in boot and in blood.
When I fell asleep
I dreamt of cordite without smell,
kissing goodbye
to rubber bullets

Mostly stolen

Keep walking,
there’s no place to be
(don’t try to see through human beings);
move with intent, the way fear makes you.
Today, like every other day,
you’ve woken up and
didn’t open
any doors

Take down the old oboe and
let love be what we do
when we know
hundreds of ways
to kneel
instead of kissing