Pinballed

An incessant ring – ricochets
off cold button slappings –
leaves me rolled by misses
off others’ flickering wrists –

in a too-fucking-quickness

Punched untouchable parts
sing in summoned recoils
of ringtones – ready taunts
as another highest score rolls

against my own low tally

These lights and chimes
of mechanical retorts
wear down my defences
as my bent-to body flips

in my mind – fantasy ways

We keep quid balls rolling
We paddy-whack in arcades
of resized penny slots –
now upgraded to pounds

into adult-paying games

Perfect Skin

This skin on my foot
is turning to cratered scales –

like that of F’s
re-homed grandpa –

with his octogenarian husk
flaking from
his bared feet and shins

as if he had been set adrift
on the sea and salt-burnt

That old combatant held court
in his Surrey nursing home

thirty five years ago
His layers of recalls and of dust –

his remnants in a rented room –
have long been hoovered up

Perfect –
perhaps there is hope for me yet

Selflessnesses

Do not be sofa bound
by reelings –
by spasms
off muscle contractions

under that uncommon label
of dystonia –
a low waiting room
for our stiff unknownings

Lift a half glass fully
to your lips
without occasional
spillings

Try to sleep for eight hours
without rum disturbances
and rise to daylight with ease
without drugs – without slowed fears

of standing upright and all
alone
again
each morning

Do not be afraid of night
or day
as your unseen naked pain
rides tight on your skin

Thought

Repeat after me that long-known word
Our first-person singular pronoun

Now hold off your birl of cogitations
about other lives spinning from you

Too fast!

They will only weave loose concerns
into your mind off slip stitched threads

We warm containers of

best before

do not sit too well if left too long on shelves

Sleep without disturbing your private view
Do not crowd others’ centre stage marks

Give in to rested dreams – only to those –
and you’ll not be sliced on such barbed wires

Uckfield Carnival

This floor is piss-sweated
as are those swilled bowls
at Cinque Ports in Uckfield –

more beer-strewn puddles
of splattered cock misses
across slipped wet tiles

Old men flatter too-tight birds
by sleight of words of fucking –
we old fuckers are cursed

Drinking In

I settled on love
before I fell – drunk

on your kissed-sips –
your wet heat
on my unfurled tongue –

as if a roll of embers
tipped from your glass –

were left to tumble –
to trail a curlicue
of your intoxications

from your open mouth –
burning to my core

Your infusion
has turned me into
a dance floor fool

Concupiscence

I study there in your sudor pool
which through this night is drip-fed

off your hips and thighs in twists
where your legs are no more your legs

but become – as shown in textbooks –
your annotated groin – with pointers

Here is your barrow – lightly grazed
Here is your sliced mound – raw

In my geography – in my history –
in my biology classes – I looked away

Now – older – I work at my lessons –
although I am coming to them late

on this foundation course – of sorts –
of how-to and not-to evening lectures

You kneel down – as my flesh lectern –
and with your open mouth

help me regain my lost confidence –
under instruction – you guide me in study