Since you died

A lot has happened since you died.

I lost the house you loved so much

– for which I’m very sorry –

I slept in our old car for a month

– then sold it too, needed the money –

Since you died, I visited the abyss

– several times over, in fact –

I gained thirty kilograms

– I lost thirty kilograms –

I wrote a play about us

and all the poems were about you

– even when they were not about you –

and I talk to you every day

– because you are everytime –

Since you died I met a lot of people

many of them I couldn’t trust

some I might have, given the chance

one whom I now do, and love

– she isn’t scared about me

   she isn’t troubled by the scars

   or the memories of you

   – she’s the most patient soul

      – you would like her –

Since you died, it’s been what, six years?

– no, seven years now –

   I’m losing count like I’m losing skin cells

   – each day built like a lifetime

      – entangled past, present, future –

Since you died I’ve slept with men

and I’ve slept with women

– I wanted to find love again

   seeking you in each and every one

– you know how people are stories

   – so I weaved myself in them –

      – finally finding that which I wasn’t looking for –

         – myself, of all things –

I’ve dreamt of you so fucking often

it often feels like you are still here

– it's silly but I kept for ever so long

your pillow case, unwashed

   – cursed be my sense of smell

      cursed be my thirst for remembrance –

I used it to bury my face

and cry to your pile of ash

– in the end I had to burnt the case

   – I couldn’t put it in the trash –

Since you’ve died

it’s time to let you go

– today I’ve decided that

   because I broke my love’s heart

   – undeservedly and out of love

      – the most complete heresy there is

         – I almost killed the two of us in the process –

So I need you to be, from now on

and for ever, in the past tense

– not because you’ve been gone for such a long time 

   but because you have been half of my life

   – and I have need of what is left of it –

      because I’ve been hurting since you died

      – and I can no longer wallow in that pain

         – that pain is not home, is not me

            – I too deserve rest, care, and love

               – for grief is that thing which fucking hurts

                  like a ton of bricks every morning

                  – it needs to stop, for both our sakes –

                     – It isn’t like you will die again

                        – you will simply become a fond memory

                           and, in time, a faded memory

                           – you’ll be somewhere in the walls of my heart

                              – like a name etched on the bark of a tree

                                 – each passing season diffusing

                                    less discernible each time 

                                    – until the tree gets too old to remember

                                       – forgets that it is a tree

                                          – now simply marking a spot where

                                             two people used to love

                                             – and the spot where now

                                                two people begin loving

The Merchant of Disappointment

I sell disappointment by the bucket!

Want to disappoint mum and dad?

I’ve got your back for every fad:

Silent letdowns; ones that make a racket;

Ones that punch in the guts like a rocket;

Ones that in the end make you glad.

I sell all types of dashed hopes and heartbreak,

My disillusionments feel like a quake!

I’m a mouth-watering mirage expert,

Fata morgana is my stock in trade,

I’ve a bewilderment for every hurt

And a chagrined throat for every blade.

Made redundant? Swindled by family?

Lover cheated on you? Adopted?

Not fitting in? Too nerdy? Too quirky?

Hookup gave you herpes or sarcoptids?

I’ve the disappointment your dark thoughts crave!

The despairs I sell go beyond the grave.

Thought a little happiness couldn’t hurt

But realised much too late that it does?

We forget that life is such a bad flirt,

Hence the gutting I sell is quite the buzz.

We’re all someone else’s disappointment,

Probably even the greatest there be,

Bear in mind that there is no treatment

For disappointment is behovely.

 

The Pedlar of Hills

“I’m selling hills, name your price!

My hills are whole, fertile,

Full of the fat of dreams,

Brimming with falling stars

And animals dancing

Around flowered tombstones.”

“I have hills for everyone,

Just name your price!

Is it marvels you seek?

Legends are wrought in these hills;

Prodigious beasts are tamed,

Hunted, killed, befriended;

Unbelievable beauty abounds,

Summoned by your flights of fancy!”

“Name your price and take everything!

I have sold hills for generations,

And my father before me,

And his father before him.

Hills have always come to us,

For we have sold hills for aeons.”

“See the comely hill yonder?

Name your price, and it’s yours.

I’ve seen miracles happen there:

People rise up from their tomb

Galaxies collide and explode

Flying whales and singing baboons!

This wondrous hill has it all.”

“Name your price, friend,

And be merry on this hill.

If you can call something yours

In this godforsaken world

It will be this hill where everything

You can dream of happens.

It’s a hill like no other.”

I realised too late the hill was cursed

for as soon as I took possession

of the hill, it took possession of me.

I became the hill.

The pedlar grinned.

After the rain

His face white as chalk,

in the rubble

after the quake,

his black eyelashes

and bright red lips

as ready for nō

The debris blanketing 

his body, his chin

tucked in, he is asleep

if not at least 

taking some rest

after his ordeal 

A sudden grey cloud,

a frowned eyebrow

over his eyes,

sunshowers

drops of rain

splashdot his face

draw a constellation

– inverted black stars

on a pale white night –

His face serene somehow

accepting of

the pain and the rain

– not even a scowl –

in the lambent air

as if prismed with mirrors 

the skies aclear again

he slumbers on

He might wake up

– any minute now –

wipe the dust off his face

shirk the rubble off, smile

and start changing the world.

De/i/cides

poets can't be choosers

they say

I say

when the words line up

their throats exposed

like sacrificial lambs

beggars are gods

Fragment #31

     I’m the type of people                         You’re the type of people

for whom one person is enough          for whom the world will never be

Shells

Ambling along the lorn shoreline

Each footfall soul-crushing shells

Hushed husks of discarded loves

The stones

 
The stones came from somewhere.

One came from a ruined mill in Devon, which flowed and eroded downstream.
One came from a basalt flow in Surrey, carried away by the heavy rains during the Precambrian.
One came from the cleats of the shoe of a boy of sixteen who picked it up in Dumfries, who then took the train down to London to visit his aunt Millie, who then proceeded to run away, never to be seen again.
One came from beyond the sea, torn from the ground by the great swayings of the tectonic plates in an age men can only recall in the mind’s eye.
One came from deep underground, dug up during the major roadworks of ‘66, with unnoticed traces of blood on it.
One came from a larger silex which cracked open under the intensity of the witch bonfire that burnt there.
One came from a mother who laid it down, painted as it was then, by the riverside, for her daughter’s spirit to pick up on her way to distant shores where she could not then follow, and which paint had now been washed away.

There were other stones too.

When she picked them all up
one by one and by the handful
and packed them in her pockets
she didn’t know if it was the weight
of billions of years of history
of the stories they evoked
or that of her depression
but she loved each of the stones
for what they were and meant
solaced that their presence
would keep her under the surface
along with countless other stones
where she would come to rest
for millions upon millions of years.

 

Poems of love

chainwriting poems these days

lighting them off from

the smoulders of the last

like cigarettes

                        not even

blank-paging them but

firing them bukowski-style

the man would probably say

“as long as they come

bursting keep them burning”

downing poems

like glasses of whisky

for when passably drunk

time gets lost but still

flaking metaphors

with the fingertips 

rolling them up in paper

expertly adding a bit of spit

to hold it up together

keep the hunger sharp

I say

         like a murmuration

of starlings splitting into

chaos because a kestrel

decided to feed

but then in the midst of dark

comes the spite of love

almost invited

                        slings and arrows

                        songs and marrow

unhooking its barbs

caught in the heart

and it’s bloody painful

you know

                so we hope to drown

in booze, smoke and solitude

but we know it’s not enough

it never is

                until we plead

love please leave me be

leave me alone now

you’ve taken enough from me

I have nothing left

not even the dignity

to cry soberly over my drinks

love you know

I never learn

you know I’m an idiot

with far too big a heart

not to be swindled

like a tourist

                    I never learn

always fall flat on my back

winded and despondent

saying never again

but then I forget and then

I think a bit of love can’t hurt

turns out it does

even the tiniest fraction

and nothing, nothing

abates the pain

                         believe me I’ve tried

meds, whisky, cigs

only the poems cool the fire

only they provide

                            a measure of quietude

Shimmers

The heap fluttered under the softest breeze

autumn leaves yet too heavy to fly off

a shapely pillow for a dead lover

The heap the colour of sunlit prisms

everchanging, reminding of summer,

blanket sprawled on the grass on a field day

The heap seemed to laugh, or breathe in, and out,

stilllifeness bursting out of the canvas

unrequited bouquet smashed, then bundled,

The heap a myriad dead butterflies

once a lover’s most precious sentiment

now snubbed, and wilfully left to the crows.