The unreliable narrator turned up late.

“You know what I’m like,” he said, by way of excuse.

We nodded our heads unconfidently. Of course, no one actually did know what he was like.

The cat is gone. One day already.
The night is grim, the forest dark.
I lean against a spruce’s bark,
Afar I see the lights unsteady.

The cat is gone. It’s all my fault.
I thought that it would do him good
To check out a new neighbourhood
Now nature keeps the cat enthralled.

The cat is gone. But I have hope
That he will soon come back to me.
His not returning home would be
Disastrous. No, I couldn’t cope.

The cat is back. I am delighted.
He didn’t tell, where he has been,
I didn’t want to make a scene.
My state is happy, but benighted.

never judge a book by its cover
but do judge a lover
by their books

When you’re drilling your mind for a little more gold,
Ideas spilling from tangled-web old
Memories catch the tails of today.
The endless to-do’s, and making hay
In case the sun shines on,
Well hold on
Just a little longer.

Sad clown twitches sharp jokes that ached,
Fragile nights, the ideas were half-baked
Of a self-deprecating manner,
That concealed all things and all manner
Of sins.
He dug within,
So they could laugh a while.
Clocked up mile upon mile
Of the ties that are cut with righteousness of youth.
It’s a long, twisted journey, the pursuit of truth.

And freedom is only a state of mind,
Stick with me here, don’t think me unkind
When I say we spend a lifetime settling into a skin
Get to know yourself, it’s all buried within.

Myself and the sad clown tonight walk along
A dark twisted road, the night is long.
And we laugh to the aching and to the breaking,
And sing to the spirit yet in the making.

I have a large knife in my hand
and I’m not afraid
to skin this mother
to sliver away at the
stiff upper lip of a
toughened epidermis
banish wrinkles, dents and prickly bits
and behold it
cleansed, stripped, unveiled…
If you ask me again
I will plainly chop
the thing in two
while I wonder what I could be

This repast, the fourth of the day
mentally diarised between
broken blinds and fresh air
changing light bulbs and toilet bleach
interrupted by
pencil shavings
polka dancing
a stubbed toe for you and an ice pack for me
will be ready when it’s ready…
If you ask me again
I might lose my thread
While I wonder what I am

The uses of a cucumber?
Well, it’s staggering
With a whole one
brought to room temperature
there’s no guilty sniff of an affair
grate it for tzatziki
slice it into Pimms
twist a piece to garnish
baton lengths to dip
pickle in a jar or two
refresh tired eyes
pack on shine
pack on an allergic reaction
like mine

This repast, the fourth of the day
mentally diarised between
identity cravings and learning to share
bathroom scum lines and out of reach
interrupted by
dead batteries
sing-along-songs
a melody for you, a harmony for me
will be ready, when its ready…
I have a large knife in my hand
and I’m not afraid
to dice this mother
expose jellied innards
vital organs
while I wonder what I was

And when you’re ready
I’ll see waves of laundry
finally dry up
breakfast and supper
mute on Sunday
the last marmite stain
wiped from the wall
that secret bogie stash cemented
to your bedroom shelf
I’ll post off to your house
cucumber cool
with a note that says, touché

A Rachmaninoff whirl
the wind and the waves
and black puffins and a black beach
and nothing between us and
the south pole
but this swirling soup.

Let’s stay here
and live in a cave
and at night light a big fire
and remind the rocks
of where they came from.

We can fish with the birds
and roam with the horse
and sing to the sea
and wash in waterfalls.

Feel the warmth of Basalt
absorbing the sun
Listen for ancestors in the wind
and keep on the right side of trolls
and never throw a stone.

I want to keep you captive
Like a book upon my shelf
That I will not lend to anyone
And won’t read for myself

You’d lap this right up, Kitten.

I can picture you performing torture
– all wringing hands and wrenching hair,
poetry and punches –
in the waiting room.

Oh, you’d luxuriate in all this:
the tragedy, the loss, the unloved life
(and that was meant to say unlived,
funny what phones’ll make you admit).
Yep, you’d lap it up
like cool cream, warm milk, thick blood
pouring round the basin
and down the drain.

Why I’m thinking of you, I don’t know.
You’re just something to think about, I suppose,
while I sit on this bloody train to nowhere
I want to go.

One is afforded the luxury
of a jumper and no pants;
sitting on my feet
with a bare bum
makes me feel like a child.
I like to wriggle my toes and
relish the rare innocence
of a naked body;
to curl up foetal around
soft folds of tummy
and nestle down to sleep
in the gap between two pillows.

It would be a pencil drawing.

It would be a cartoon of a man doing a head stand on a surfboard on a wave. It would be sunny. He’d be skinny, wearing shorts and with oversized hands and feet. His feet would be facing the sky, but drawn at enough of an angle that you could read what was written on them.

It would say Soul Tan because the bottom of the man’s feet would be getting a tan; and because surfing and the sun and being upside down are good for your soul; and because Boots (the chemist) used to make suntan lotion called Soltan and that’s what my memories of family holidays on the beach smell like.

In London there’s a man, a composer for the broadway stage, who gets every one of his diaries professionally bound. At home, with his wife, he has whole walled bookshelves, deep mahogany, touching the ceiling of his study. And during the day he’ll be writing down the poached eggs he had for breakfast, and the clouds moving through the city, just outside his window, when his wife comes in.

“10am: Dorothy enters. Asks what my plans are (Ha!), she pauses.”

Clicking away in his study all day, you’d think he’d write about interesting things, all the people he’s met. ‘Britain’s greatest living composer’ the newspapers say. But opening any of his books, you can see he barely notices a thing.

sometimes i feel sad and i look
at your Facebook and then i feel
a strange combination of happy
and sad. i crack a grolsch and its
taste is one of melancholy and promise.

i think back to the times
i’d meet you after dark and the excitement that charged
my drunken heart. i think
of rolling down hills
in hyde park and thinking
you were the mould
i’d force my life to fill.
i think of all the times
i’d insist on getting wine you’d correctly never touch, and passing out fused and content.

all i wanted was to cook for you,
to call you
in the faint jaundiced murmur of the barely morning and hear you say “maybe lunch?”

A blessing on October days,
kaleidoscope of trees,
crunch of spent leaves,
withered conkers crooked shapes.

A blessing on spiders’ tiaras,
dew blanketing the ground,
mists snuggling round valleys,
berries shining in hedgerows,
pumpkins plump like cushions.

A blessing on Autumn.

You bought me food I’d never tasted before
So that I cultivated tastes I’d miss
You bought me a website
So that all my work was filtered through you
You bought me sheets
So I’d sleep in you
You bought me pillows
So I couldn’t even rest my head without your help
You bought me notebooks and pens
So I couldn’t even have autonomy in words
You bought me a Netflix account
So when I was watching something, you could watch me
You bought me a trip to France
So I could see worlds owned by you
I think you would have eventually bought me a ring
And the worst thing is
I would have let you
Buy
Me

The man beside me reminds me
of Rain Man, or

the character
Dustin Hoffman played, he who
could count hundreds of matches while they fell to

the ground but could not tie his

own shoe,
here at The Cloverleaf Plaza
an entire day can go by

without a single sin:
This day of wanted-signs,

lipstick samples and red onions (that are really purple)
husks of the corn islands

that scream we are alone

While most of us are born beneath
Fluorescent lights: screaming,

resisting,

he sits in his spot
rotating
the sun with each bend of his
head.

A man’s jacket, left at the bar.
She tries it on for size,
pats down the shoulders,
runs fingers along its tweed.

She sweeps back her hair,
makes the composed face
people use in dressing rooms;
a visual grammar,
the language of mirrors.

She looks at herself,
watches me watching her.
How does it look?
You make it work.