You offered me
his cut-up Amex card –
that found one
with your full name
embossed on it

Your palmed sacrifice
does not remove any debt
or explain missed payments
in these counted days
of credit scores

It was shown by you
as proof
that your imbalances
had been addressed

I saw him emasculated –
his balls in your hand
and that card’s white-edge
as your blade against flesh

to slice a caught fish
But the smell will remain
in your palm long after
that card is binned

---

E080619

Six collies stitched
an unseen thread
among the table legs
of the public bar

more dogs than drinkers

but the pub was good

and the beer sat well
as we touched again

Then on the forecourt
we pressed mouths
in a guilty kiss
tasting of bitter and gin

Your ripped scent
lingered

and returned
off my fingers

a metallic remnant

to rust here

I removed your top

folding it over the chair
and knelt below you
to your call to prayers

I kissed your hips
and praised your skin

you fed on my breast
as I thickened again

That under duvet crush which –
especially mid-morning – is a sin –
along with being stripped –
but lighted first by a kiss –
and she was then locked
to him by thigh and hip –
jointed to him – dovetailed –
her skin was still summered
even on that storm day
in an outwardly foul December

 

E051118

We three men
unwise
but starred
put together
our lists of ifs

but now
limpened
half-hard
old age dreams

so
we steal glimpses
of girls
in frayed jeans

It is another place,
but one you knew
in your previous life,
in the last century;

a shared knowledge
allows you back to it
after you took advice:
a lease signed with a kiss

Rolled under the duvet
in breath-heated twists,
where is my ending
in this beginning?
In the sweat-oiled turns
of semen’s last grease,
we are those creatures
which creep in the heat.

Here her brushed skin rises
over her freckled shoulders,
and then slopes away to meet
her curved spine’s cobbled path:

Here I am led, by my cock’s enquiry,
to her hips, the pale dune profiles,
where I slow-climb, but am dragged 
down, again, by my stiffening hands: 

Here I part and knead her to yielding,
where, by the slightest of timed turns,
I set her tide’s clock, with twist of fingers,
forcing on her – a small death by drowning.

A duvet afternoon
of malice aforethought,

of sheet-knotted limbs,
lined-faces contorted:

Here, across the bed,
of rolled propositions,

they kissed, they fingered,
blowing out wishes.

You were still on my fingers,
even then, a slow hour later,
as my whiskey rolled inside
that glass, two fingers deep,
that leftover mix of still-sweet,
of earth’s dark-barrelled cut,
of strong flavours above taste:
and my mouth rested, it did,
on the rim, as on your lips,
as we held that kiss over time:
you were my one-woman orgy.

Yes, I anticipated
that shared moment,

as it was conjured
by your light arrival,

equal in my mind,
before the release

of your quick tongue,
put past my lips,

almost unexpected,
as was your skin,

midriff exposed,
by your stretched lift.

Then my response,
almost too much

to be contained:
I pinned that kiss.

---

 

The mean clock is doing it,
the balancing trick, ten-ten,
as ever the secondhand there
timed it, re-ticked on cue,

aligned with the brief minute’s
late-late reach to the far right,
just as I looked, synchronised,
to check another missed hour,

and I should retire at this point,
not too late, never, ever too late,
but for a man (of so many years)
it is so correct to consider such,

as others’ worlds spin in beer rounds,
long wet snogs, and streamed films:
I shall find comfort in a double bed,
propped-up pillows and hope,

whilst fitter men, soaked in bitter,
fuck-and-dance, dance-and-fuck,
in beer-washed sticky nightclubs,
swiped by Tinder, as I sleep soundly

through their infectious ribaldry,
and not have to hear the repeat
of chat-up lines I re-rehearsed
back in 1982, but never copyrighted,

then there was no intellectual theft,
instead we stole left-over half pints
and lengthening kisses with strangers,
to return to single beds in shared houses,

waking to cold kebabs at ten past ten.

---

Stationary, white
towel-wrapped,
having exited
the shower to stand
there for me,
before our drive,
a shared journey;
she dripped beads
off her bared calves,
marking the carpet
with spotted stains,
falling, raining,
as she rubbed, flicked,
her crop of dark hair,
then her right thigh
was glimpsed, exposed;
I sat, entranced.
A later time
I leant over her,
as she soaked,
the return trip;
I bit her nipples,
wetting my chin
in the clear water,
I bobbed for her then.
But she was always
the fruit, to be left.

---

---

I can bury my face in your centre,
if you let me fall in there:
I can feed upon your splendour
I will taste you, now laid bare:
I can push apart your shaming,
if you let me finger your depths:
I will never expect to remain
in your bed if you need it left.

---

 

---

He’s thinking too late,
slightly pissed before bed,
stiff and undressed
into cooled nakedness:

He will make you stand,
your eyes turned east,
you will face from him,
as he drops to his knees:

There your reduction,
him a flesh-bare thug,
as you stand blinded,
and his heart binds hard:

Your white legs splayed,
by his too-sure grip
pushing you open,
to find a fit in your hips.

---

For SG

You would meet me after work,
for a drink, sat closer in Fitzrovia,
my years ahead start,
I hoped wasn’t my only appeal:

You know as men age our vanity grows,
and attention from younger people
is our tonic: a look, a smile, a touch,
such regards are our effortless sex,

because the real stuff hurts,
maintenance just court-ordered,
not even an act of concentration
can help us to keep up, perhaps drugs:

I could see what we were doing to you,
with such sugar daddy assurances,
we men, we perspicuous things,
we look upon your world,

as one-eyed kings.