She was a graceful thing
who did not mind my eye
on her skin – or hands – a
song for her – alone – see
her way among old men?

I could descry it all online
[as she slept with lovers]/
Her remains curl – I find a
red hair – twine – threads
waiting to sew torn verse

[ripping-offs – of bairds &
singers]/ Over airwaves a
renowned poet mutters –
whilst I find inspiration in
lost lemans/ Spin her hair

into an endless throw – a
covering under which we
can hide from each look –
her threads of silky word-
play turns others to acrid

My hand [it’s on a Jewish bride‘s
breast]/ No other connections to
that once-woman – she is lost to
her darkness – of no more being
[now] precise enough to find out
my face/

As others taste her soft
compress of rarely-burnt skin – it
smelt of swimming pool chlorine
[to me – only to me – it was mine]
& other mens’ breaths – of booze
& fags & her mouth of stale cock
spat out my last shreds of dignity

Dredge memories
from shallow pools
of sucking currents

Why so much anger
at other coital acts?
Re-open a wound –

count those bloody
cuts [a slice-tongue-
festival-of-falsifying]

There – dancing on
tables was allowed –
disperse our service

equally set out [seat
plans unwanted]/ It
no longer nourishes

I seized a meditation
[online] to expedite –
to heal my loth scars
[records bubbled by
her acidic deceit – all
that she still exhales]
& now faded by rubs
of a sweeter air – as I
inhale a lung-of-song
& sing out it worked!

Lonely days take their toll
on my bloody places – my
loose change of thoughts
line my pockets [as if one
needs such coinage] Just
a few steps down & under
running water to drown in
poetry’s instant outvoice –
I know it – I am not healed
[cicatrice marks upon me –
a gnawed stroke on it all]
& with one leap I am over
that boundary she scents
[in squatted out-pourings]
& this old disability sops/
There were times it was a
perfect thing – timetables
& tickets were followed to
[shared] clocks’ advances
& trains ran – not derailed –
or late or slow or shunted
by other men/ As long as I
said nothing/ I will need a
lover when your disease is
keeping you to a bed [with
rancours she reduced me]

There is no fixing of rock cracks or
splitting props/ A talent to renovate
was her hate-flail

until no thick skin was left – my sure
claim to her tenet [& altars of loving
acts] was denied/

Roosters repeated her prayers aloud –
by sunrise refuted three times/ Cock-
voices peal ‘cross

her home town on every hour/ Damp
rags won’t absorb late laments – one
tear of repentance

was not enough/ I cried like a child in
mediations & gave her an easy ride – I
gave up others too

because routes of affection will not –
not for me – find a split rock enough –
all faults broaden

with annual frosts & droughts/ Denial
came [in triplicate] in misspelt letters/
My trust is severed

I closed my raw eyes
to suck upon this –
but drew too much
to hold my breath –

the spin off his wrist
of an over-spun stone –
pitched at my forehead –
he took me down –

of the shrill sharp slice
of a buried wheat chaff –
which burnt to screams
making me blind

And then I exhaled
to kill each instance –
a brief mis-direction
of my complaint

There are ripe callouses
on one of my palms –
a furrow of skin
in my walking stick hand

My limbs are nettled –
a tease of scratches
which paint my shins
with blood-dried patches

The constant cut pain
scythes my stilly squalls –
‘Just a walk to Waitrose’
is a distance too cruel

I lie fixed by the duvet
that weighty cover
Here reduced by time –
my sadistic lover.

Take this pain
and try it on for size
wear my suit
walk with me alongside

feel the cut
the weight of dark craft
wear my suit
and take my part

I could never dance
so no loss there

as my left foot curls
over trod floorboards

Dammed tears are held
as the pain plays games

and each dog walk
is a walk of shame

The weight of the fall
is always abated
by the light landings –
noiseless it piles

if your eyes were shut
you would not know –
apart from flake kisses –
that the storm had come

How my pain drifts
in this invisible blizzard
which I carry inside

The beauty of your world
is briefly fixed under the
fall of snow

I would not wish
this hushed visitor
on any other
sleeping person,

my dark creature
which tightens the night
into these reeling
muscle spasms,

which medicine
and kindly doctors
chase through my racked body
with known drugs,

not knowing which one
will do their job:
none can help me
to sleep, no more, easy.

I am naked on our bed,
upright, pre-slept,
at the gracious request
of my funked body:

It asks, politely,
at first with a flicker
across my eyelids,
felt as light tremors,

then it rudely produces
enormous weights,
conjurer’s tricks,
strapped to my arms,

followed by an elephant –
it places that, too easily,
across my bared chest:
Now I am breathless,

on awkward pillows,
on those between knees;
I claim this space
for my night’s reprise.

I half-stand ring-centred,
in our squared kitchen,
just upright, aware of the
transmitted box of blows,
these roundings upon me,
and that scream-spat radio:
Yes, I feel beaten, as though
I should throw in my towel,
now surrender, step down,
no longer the heavyweight,
me, the former title holder,
in these endless rounds.

She made an Uber man cry
(only by being her true self);
he had to remove his glasses
to wipe, to drive his tears

because (he had assumed)
she was drunk, or drugged,
it was his mistake,
he needed to say sorry.

If those tears of a cab driver
were pooled, or swabbed,
could we, the ill, employ
such floods to end the pain?

Watch this video, please..

Too long adrift
on my life raft
of tapped thoughts,

short-winded,
burnt by the sun
and unseen salt:

A rudderless man,
with sickness induced
by this tidal ride

of the curved
and empty horizon,
then struck wave-blind.

The slap and shatter
of seawater
are lunacy’s call

to me, displaced
in the wreck of my body,
a drowning fool.

You, with gilt-framed diplomas,
please sit for my dull certificate:
I am to lecture you about pain,
since your grasp is so inadequate.

It is the norm, we are born to screams,
the cuts and tears in every childbirth,
in which all mothers are victims:
Dear physician, you are too averse.

Here I sit in your consulting room,
where you ‘tut’ at me about booze,
as I twist under angered muscles,
my nerve-ends twitch, hurt, adduced.

All the time within my skin,
are such thrusts throughout my frame,
spiked and sliced, in feet and hands –
my digits gloved in pangs again.

When taking notes in my lecture
feel the smooth scribe, no hard design,
unsuited for people like me,
struggling to pen ‘anodyne’.

Do not consider
continuing
unless you can,
hourly, bear
this state
that is provided,
until the minute
when you pass,
and do not expect
any fixed date
of release, because
your good life
is measured by
your good death:
Perseverance
and will applauds,
with a last-laugh pill
as yours.

It is the smallest things,

like the forefinger-thumb poke
on this screen,

which now is increasingly

afflicted by rigidity
and twitch. But,

I can still type and swipe:
F*ck Parkinson’s.

Even as it’s taking me.

It has struck hard,
that hour I long ignored,
until now, this week,
when my body clock
turned back

my lower strength put to,
by discomfort’s drag,
through my frame,
here, inside, unseen,
where bones meet flesh:

With no defence,
no pill
no armour,
no burgonet.

No more ‘normal’,
no more being immortal.
Only with a long sleep,
my free-to-rest whore,

under her peace
I temporarily transform.

I can still press-up,
but the inner weight is
greater
than that of my youngest,
sat today on my back,

and like his presence,
riding for a loud laugh,
my invisible weight
laughs last.