Cold

as the cold breathes through the cracks

coffee bubbles

I remember our London flat

frost across grass

we couldn’t access

small puffy bed like a bier in the theatre of a room

that same couch, no

one that gave us the idea

smoothcool stone flag floors

in the stepped down bathroom

a box inbetween

sections of a life

oh and how they betrayed me

and I cheated myself

so that

foxshit smell on a cold morning

twines with

the nausea of anxiety

fear-bound days

and the drinking dawning

on me that it had to go

no it couldn’t be

because now it stopped

why do those feelings return

oh the gnawing

sick

pain, you can’t just will it away

I grit my teeth

like Anne Boleyn

I’ve played, and played and spun

the magic, turned the wheel

and run

glamoured my way

please let me lay it down

without losing my head

to the executioner

I am my own

dark enemy

 

Photo by erin mckenna on Unsplash

 

Watermusic

feel my way into new music

like stepping barefoot through a creek

rocks and sticks to navigate

rolling surfaces

sharpsoft, edgy and water-smooth

downbeats, chords and uplift

soles alive, dangerous texture

seek the familiar

thrill different, indifferent nature

crescendo scents: mown grass and salt air

the sky is blue tissue paper

translucent, crisp

Oh take me somewhere fresh

I am so sick of

old patterns

churning on repeat

a tired reprieve

now with added anxieties!

layered like cake, like baklava

sticky and dense and nauseate

Please!

wash it all away

let me taste a thought

running like cool liquid

through one perfect new song

 

Photo by Tevin Trinh on Unsplash

mundane files

Used to feel so easy

write it all out

like spilt ink washing

across a page

or

ants in milk

oh whatever

now there’s cats

in my periphery

snakes

along the side-walls

and that psychic wound

of being here-there

heartbreak of the expat

Returned

like misdirected mail

never quite healed

no one feels

or maybe it’s just

a private burnout thing

yet I’m far

from sanctuary

or even

sanatorium

and the fire

or is it cars swishing by

on a hot evening

far from

a busy road

a capital

a mental load

a buzz

Is that why, cuz

I don’t have ideas anymore

they’re twisted and

unoriginal

the worst

worse than snakes or cats or cars

no imagination

please-

save me

no one published

this shit

anyway

thought my stories were

just OK

and the funny thing is

the poems are

here

while stories suffer

the yearning

the keening

buffer, buffer, buffer

it never ends

-please

Save As

I’m sinking in sunlight

creeping into

the mundane

and driving on the wrong side

in my head

all over again

 

Photo by Dilara Yilmaz on Unsplash

Inkblot

I need to get into

the space beyond

that place where

thoughts splinter and smooth

float me there

past afternoons

speak to me

on fumes of gin

spin

the line

or cut me one

with your credit card

how come when

women do heroin

it’s sordid

like sweaty tattoos

knotted hair

and bitten nails

but for men

it’s tortured genius

dangerous and

dirty, sure but

no drop of ink

is spilled in vain

while

you read this here

and think

you know me

again and again

 

Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash

melancholy restless

I want to go back

to a beer garden in Glebe

on a sunny afternoon

where I could sit in half-sun

shadow my true self in

a cloak of booze

you knew all the pretty boys

in sleeveless tops

and the old farts

playing pool, getting sloppy

I’ll pop to the ladies

the moment’s pause

calm darkness indoors

then get more

cool green railway tiles

old wood and stained glass

that chalky pink scent

bath-bombs and lust

threads through

tunes on the decks

starting up

swells of crowd noise

we’re all getting lush

throw myself off

that sledgehammer cliff

of drinking til dusk

sometimes fly

sometimes crash

the worst when

it just goes flat

the betrayal of drink

if it doesn’t click

think I lost something there

or never found it

you know what I miss?

the obliterating wave

to shift

my set point

I want to hide

in the chaos and slide

caught up, unobserved

for I am so afraid

petrified and stuck

that the only way through

a punishing ride

 

Photo by Liam McKay on Unsplash

aurora australis

in the night

in the night I pray

no

i hold my hands in prayer position

think about the good

things, the small

things, the ordinary

things like

my kids are safe

my body is sound

i have a job

as my eyes can’t stay open

in the night

in the night he

talks

my north star

like a sea

constant, lulling, sound

at anchor

washing over me

holding true

in the night

in the night I wonder

what else?

should I do

things like – oh

the racing

relentless

uneasy

part of me that can’t rest

i’m stuck

ragged

pinned to corkboard

at best

 

Photo: not the aurora australis but it may flicker on the horizon here later tonight! 

periphery

I will live bravely

the life I want

will not be found

between the walls

or compartments

of a salary

it is shining out there

where

the horizon meets the ocean

at the edge

of my headland

and in the corners

of imagination

I will not be defined

by what bulls, bears

and bossy men say

when they think they

know better

than me

I do not believe

the lies

of politics

office or otherwise

I will let them laugh at me

moving

into the periphery

they cannot understand

the depths of how

I think beyond, around

and through

a needle

piercing

their mundanity

Billy?

her claim to fame was a well-known name

she’d fucked him as a courtesan

back in the time of Eminem

who don’t apologise

never explain

there’s no pain with

emotions ambered

in opiates

platinum cornsilk hair in plaits

china-blue eyes, red lips and latex

the perfect doll, with a past

the celluloid unease of her

tried and truly … too touché

while here, in reality

we hedge, we cheat

work our beat

never wanting to compete

sigh softly at our silly feats

and the men

invariably

fell

their tongues aslant

on heat

oh boys

why must you be

so utterly cheap

Photo by Harrison Kugler on Unsplash

Quiet

I don’t dream anymore

I sit and hold my shoulder

wait for the noise to end

when it does, my ears ring and

I gaslight myself, still it throbs

again, again

do I like the quiet

the sound of distant cars and ocean

invades my soul more sweet

than the motor noise of the

selfish pricks next door/ I don’t dream anymore

that reverb has eroded

my light, my joy

a sick trickle

of stale Jack Daniels

sour and tacky it

sniffs

in the back of my throat

an old injury

waiting to flare up

it could hurt me so good

it could, it could

but I don’t dream anymore so

maybe I’m safe

oh, the pain when it goes silent

and those whispers

of how to fight it

 

 

Photo: Claire Doble

origami

unfold my heart like origami paper

smooth out the creases

where tiny red pebbles catch

in cracks

pitched up by a running track

near my flat

in Zurich

I’m broken open

low-key grief the loss

of runs in the dark

we shared so much

I took it all in didn’t I

does anyone else feel

nostalgia for metal grates

in paths that no one else noticed?

It was mine, mine, mine…  my love

don’t know I could ever

go back

you can’t step in that

same snow twice

oh for a drink

drunk-comfort

an old friend

to avoid

all those things

the fear, afraid, scared and cold

like

I fucked up