Daydream V

I hope to run, to burn
this new skin on, wrap
it in wind, tan it in
the sun, and when it's
done, wash it off
like so much sweat.
While the afternoon
wears on, I hope to
lie, spread like a cat
across the flagstones,
to let my hunger
smile and stretch,
and cough up little
bones. I hope to slice
a stripe of lemon rind
from the sky, let it
sour my teeth, yellow
my pages, and hold
it up at night, citrus
moon. I hope to peel
and crackle, dead bugs
fried onto my skin,
and beneath lobster-
red, feel juices run.

Dry Rot

Maybe we twisted some tendon wrong
in a hole back there, tangled hair
in the thorns and ripped a wig-full.

Maybe we saw the news, said it was
terrible, or stared into the earth
of our allotments, and dug spades in,

careful not to puncture anything
too fragile. Maybe we saw an eye-full,
cut our lip on the lip of the cup, dripped

a little drop of red onto the wood.
Maybe our laughter tumbled, spat
over the brim into a jumble of leopard

spots, brambles, lamb's brains, card
games, stupid gambles, signs, stigmata.
Maybe the rules were not clear-cut.

Maybe our cars were found in ditches,
stripped for parts, or maybe we died
of bad consciences, or weak hearts.

Maybe we asked too much, shouted curses
at our benefactors, threw childish glances
and split, spent our money, then threw

a fit, spilling guts, brains, debris, loose
change, saliva, semen, plasma, bile,
all into an assorted sack of dross.

Or maybe we learnt who was boss,
choked on cough drops, tightened up
our ties, top-notch, and learnt never
to be surprised.
                                    Maybe, eventually,
we all crumbled, succumbed to dry rot.

Flags

We wear these colours as flags
that declare the sun, ragging
as the breeze plies our skin.
The heat rises, colours deepen
slowly with our odour. Our feet
flash across concrete. All around,
the sounds of sirens and jangling
guitars, smoke signals on the green.
The air is full of mutterings
from inside shady stores, shouts
out of windows, jokes barked
on street corners. They are
received and translated, spun
into the fabric of each bright shawl,
each white shirt. On the roofs
the pidgeons sweat and thirst.
They came, cut the new growth off
the trees outside my window. Last
night I found them as barren giants.
Today even they are naked.

Nereid

There is a crowd of bodies
over the sand. The sea whisks
itself into a bad conversation,
as I count the tiny grains
beneath my toes. I glance up,
wince at the glaring bikini
tops in blue and red, count
migraine pills from a bottle,
stung bright with the sun.
There are children basted,
wrapped up in cotton shorts,
roasting in the shallows. Splayed,
tangled in a web of foam,
they are prey for jellyfish
or tenderised for waiting
barracuda, not watched by
the white loaves of pot-bellied
weekenders on the dry shore.
I make steps, moulding what
could be glass into perfect
casts for sculptured shoes,
following my burnt knees
with damp white feet, leaving
a trail from the forest of bare
pasty flesh, along the edge
of the shallows, up to where
the real sculptures are.
Here the rocks have chosen
to drop their ice cream cones,
assumed poses more becoming
of demi-gods or the off-cuts
of lunatic architects. Far
behind my back, I still hear
the complaints of a desert-full
of bulging troglodytes, up-
rooted from their crab burrows
and exposed to light, guarded
only by their waist-band fat.
I look down into the pool,
where microbes and crustaceans
dance and stumble. Suddenly,
before my eyes, the spirit
of these sands appears, only
to toss her brown curled locks
into the rock pool, only to
smile the sand out of my eyes
and lay a hand upon my
coral figure, tame my collar
bone and cool me like a statue,
only to offer me a single
wet glance from her lips,
and place a pale pearl foot
in my hands for me to kiss.

Dust

The newspapers are full of faces
assuring me of their monumental
ease, glinting in the warmth, jaws
and shoulders laminated, strong.

For once I'd like to see them
stunned, speechless, strung along,
just one pang of romance, or lust,
or a thought they knew was wrong
and loved, that brought them back
the sin of Genesis, the dust,
and left them shaking, jaws slack
now, shoulders shrugging as they sob
for the innocence they put on,
for the love they lost.

In the -hood

There's some kind of crap
in your hair.
Young boy.
Pissing out the flame.
As he dances the music
plays, silhouetting him in the half
light of the spirit he has created, and
although he is just sitting there she
smiles
back at him
and for her this is it, this is where it
begins

a new experience

an initiation

of sorts.

A bronzed shield brushed with
burgundy,
A lamp pulsing twig limbs
all apart.
Brothers and
sisters, tugging the rope, drank
down the plug hole,
but in some kind of love.

Loft lifted out of written ropes,
rigged and fitted, doubt un-done,
beating to the heart of some
other one.

Eye-Whites

Beneath these branches, stones
slick and black as coal scratch
the spring out of the stream, cold
water between jagged edges.
Under tread, fists of thistle
and dewey bramble. I step
carefully and gulp my air
like soup. I turn and start
as a pheasant breaks the ditch,
cries dissolving in the fog,
leaving my eyes egg-white.
Above the ditch a bank, clawed
earth in the grasp of thick
kraken-green hawthorn roots.
Pores spit bark and loam into
a mulch-stew that slides down
the bank's scored sides. Beyond
the bank a pond full of roots,
boney trees bowed low into
the watering hole, to sift among
the last dregs of autumn. Black
leaves float in silt. Green buds
are born, fed on the funeral.
Above these branches the sky
is only so much milk. Below,
the opal pool reflects white
and lies open, a startled eye.

Divinination

Thou shalt not
wor-
ship fall sidles,
war-
doff dumm spirits
one two three
juju who'd you think
you'd be, me?
I'm too slick, sick
on my shoe, dick
on a soap box, handy
with premonishun,
got my pendulum
swingin, cling film
clingin entrails
stuck on my stick,
future suture kebab.
I been licked, flicked
quick off of mount
olympus, count
the fingers one
two three, squint
that six there triple,
get up, shake off,
move on.

Anima Domestica

Soapy hands can hold
a bubble, don't worry.
Fairy liquid seeping, slug-
ish to your glands, your
hair is greasy, knotted out
in strands, strung back
again. There's a tension
in the mention of your
name. Here, propulsion
and the architecture, the
strain of a sphere on lino
that bursts, sticks with
a prick to quick-lime,
detergent, soup, soap-
suds resurgent, froth
around sink mouth, gravy
slime, conjure you, kitchen
ghost. Your life grows
with time, between alkaline,
acid, marjoram and thyme,
the congeal of the last meal,
and the next, vexed in the
stink between the bubbles
of the saucepan and the sink.

Two Fragments

Gobble gobble in the bush,
push fern fronds away,
roll, call, wild jerkey
stew, sweating through brush,
tendrils toughening around, the
ground swelling, flaking dry.
Today our sport, twisting to
escape the tiger's eye.

Old father bends and cups
a handful of bitter earth,
I guess at ivory or maybe
marble in his teeth, he
says "Tuck your wings,
your tatters of leaf be-
hind your back, and turn
back to me."

Before your Eyes

You fold your wings
as coward leaves
behind the knots
of your shoulders.

I want to dice this
apple into your mouth,
undo creation, head
south. Be your morning

star, take the stalk
and toss it; dust
into the atmosphere,
no fear no more.

Your feathers turn
to hair, your wings to
white skin. Light
breaks upon your back,

your collar bones.
When day dies,
fades, flies into bats,
clouds tangle night,

your lips, my tongue,
all into one dirty drip
of pale light
and blurring violins.

I want to stare you
down on to the page,
just trip with me
into the stream,

spit feathers, fall
don't fly, kiss me,
intertwine, learn me
line by line, grow

into a tree if need be,
sing, speak, don't dream.
Tuck those leaf-wings
up behind your back,

shiver lead to mercury,
promise what you want
to promise me, shimmer
down the river in my arms.

Sauce

I'm jaws, lashed with
reggae   reggae   sauce,
chips dribbling from
my teeth, leer- ious de-
voweling frocks cocks
and gluey socks. De-
light, a fight with con-
d[e]ments, parents long
dead, dement -ed red ket-
chup f(r)iends slipping
up, dripping down debt
moun   -tain. Duped, re-
duced to lips, lids, fins,
bruised shins, clammy paws.
Sawce, in mono. Let's go
scut ska ket jah sket
too far.