Guitar dropped on toe
a concentrated thin ache.
Bruise due tomorrow.

Vantage point
As Thomas asked:
was there ever a cat so clever?
From the frayed point,
the scrag end of rope point
fleece pedestal.
An amber blink,
a leap
another cat below asleep
not for long.
Senses almost magical,
like Mr Mistoffelees,
Perdita waits
and waits
and waits
for her moment to strike.

no words
How can we
make “good art”
where pillows are concrete
and blankets are cannabinoids.

How can we
make “good art”
while bombs are dropped.

How can we
make “good art”
while coral becomes dead bone.

How can we
make “good art”
when love is tortured

and there are no truths
not in blossom nor clear glass
just words slipping past

Taste of Carpets
Castle Street amalgams:
quality boots,
pet fone,
Silvori’s hospice,
tanning bakery,
nail hair,
Happyness tackle
Castle Street collection:
pawn shop
bookies
pawn shop
bookies
vape vape vape
In your mouth the taste of carpets

Thinking through making

I craved green
so I tried to weave a wall hanging,
it came apart – the warp the weft – there were no threads left

I craved green
so I knitted a blanket to wrap the day up in,
vivid shades of jade, viridian,
it was unravelled by the cats.

I craved green
so I organised a picnic with herbs:
lacy white cow parsley, wild garlic, jack-by-the-hedge
the static rain made the grey tarmac black

I craved green
so I painted
so I potted
so I pottered.
A watercolour landscape looked grainy,
a thrown pot the same.
I walked in the park and found
dying daffodils, bald spots,
tried to grasp handfuls of grass
a reward of muddy fingers.
Looked left: a blue glass pyramid,
looked right: a beige housing estate
in front: all sloping browns,
behind: listing trees, broken brick.

We are not being bombed, or attacked.
We have fresh water from the taps.
This park isn’t (yet) being fracked.
So, why is this melancholy tract
not trying to make sense of that?

Thinking through making,
making and thinking,
wanting something to sink in
wanting something to stick.

There is more to this than craving green
and wanting to do more than making
but this will have to do for now,
this will have to do.

“Guilty Pleasures”

See all about it
the photograph tells
a thousand lies
a couple
smiles peroxide shark
eyes that lack
a starry glitter

can you believe it?
do you?

Believe that
they’re a loveheart
carved into a tree
sap-scabbed bark
a permanence
or collagen filler

They are
the carcrash
for your PritStick eyes
She’s in her free bikini
Venus with silicone orbs
paparazzi goddess
bottle brunette
hand held in the fist
of His
a butcher’s knuckle
of a Man

A Man without a Plan
for those sub-heads
tabloid’s favourite nightmare
you save to wrap
the china
you keep for Best.

On knowing nothing
ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat – Cicero

And I said: nothing will come of nothing.
Then I tried to examine my life
through notebooks, pencil sketches, a drawing,
lines scribbled over. I’m supposed to strive
for high ideals. That poem on the wall,
that creased, yellowed, clichéd observation
half-way up the stairs: a beautiful world.
Stodgy stanzas and then the frustration:
not knowing any “proper” poetry.
Subsistence, to stumble on or to climb
down, or up, to the (multi)verse. Well, try,
be that poet in that tree, on a limb,
watch the day shed in leaves then shade to blue.
There’s still a lot of nothing left to know.

Cut grass

Close enough to wake the dead,
loud as the roadworks,
close buzzcut of grass.
Morning mowing in All Saints Park

and a memory of chlorophyll,
of a green Elsewhere,
when we, summerslow,
cycled to that meadow

balancing instruments
on handles and crossbars.
We piled down on unmown lawns
someone played Wish You Were Here

on a battered Spanish guitar.
The sweet hug of hash
tugged into the lungs,
you tried to dreadlock your thinning hair.

We were two lost souls,
not swimming but drowning
in the buttercups.
You cut your locks that autumn.

I’m less green than I was;
I’ve not seen you for years
you had, and have, a habit
of appearing in the mind.

**

In the library, glancing down
at the short back and sides
there are daffodils,
drooped heads as if in thought.