Textual

Textual

“I’m sure we’ll have text”, you said.
Textual, asexual, a clean means of
touching on something you were too
scared to get snared on in any real

and grubby way. A stubbed toe of
existence, too rubbed raw wanking
to lust on anything human. Tanked
up on ten-minute-freeview spanking

and spike heels hooked and yanking
on dental floss thongs cheese-slicing
between fake-tanned buttocks. But
we shall apparently have text. Lucky

me. For you to get stuck in and fuck
me, even digitally. Graded hard out of
ten on your chosen standards: body,
enthusiasm, technique, verbiage. But

what do you do for me? You critique
my mistaken slip of almost-love, you
fall on my emotions with a red pen
slashing. You don’t like kissing. Bye.

Curmudgeonly Christmas

Curmudgeonly Christmas

Oh crap, it’s nearly Christmas!
The lights have been slung over
the High Street like gilded nooses.

But I like Christmas…

Oh bollocks, it’s nearly Christmas!
Season of smugness, spraying fake snow
over the cracks. Season for the single to
cop off or sod off.

But I like Christmas…

Oh fuck, it’s nearly Christmas!
The shops are crammed with tacky shit,
credit cards spitting and smoking.
Buy your family’s love.
Bearing gifts, we travelled
from Argos.

But I like Christmas…

Oh balls, it’s nearly Christmas!
The jingle bells are chiming a migraine
in my skull. My head a tapped
chocolate orange.

But I like Christmas…

Oh god, it’s nearly Christmas!
The baby Jesus was just a kid. Social
services would probably put him in care
‘cause of “insufficient housing”.
Poor bugger.

But I like Christmas…

Oh shite, it’s nearly Christmas!
The mince pies are on special, mistletoe
all over the show, spreading seasonal cheer,
flu and cold sores. Good will to all men.
O, come all ye unfaithful!
Joyful and repugnant.
Mulled wine and
a good stuffing.

But I really, really do rather like Christmas.

Debunking

Debunking

Hearts are cliché.
Souls are old news.
“Luv” is not a word.

Heroes can lie.
Virgins near zero.
Full moons are
every month.

Kisses are mouths.
Skin is covering.
Sin is subjective.

Hands are tools.
Feet are transport.
Dreams are time
gone slow.

Cherubs do puke.
Black cats laugh
at you. Want
is not love.
Nor is need.

The band won’t
always play on.
They pissed off
home for a beer
and a smoke
hours ago.

Witches eat toast.
Bitches are dogs.
Vampires sunbathe.

Mice are men.
Men are nice.
Nice is OK.

Love is more
than Hallmark
and teddies.

Red is a colour.
John Lennon was
not God. Candles
are fire risks.

Clenched

Clenched

She is a clenched fist of a woman,
compact, defensive, ready to cut the
air. She is a closed book, hardback
with sharp corners, to clip painfully

on soft bits when hurled. She is a
beer bottle, freshly neck-broken on
the bar’s edge, swinging in a gritty
glitter-tipped arc. She is a razorblade

slipped inside a loose sleeve. She is
a quick kitchen knife, a stone thrown,
a cricket ball wrapped sly in a sock.
She is a mouth closed like concrete,

a brick wall of silence to bang heads
on. She is a deaf ear and a blind eye,
both gouged deep with an acid-dipped
knitting needle. She is terrified, empty.

Beauty?

Beauty?

Diet pills and glossy magazines.
Black coffee, a tape measure,
a mirror and a critical eye.
Dry-heaving concave stomach.

Remade: silicone pumped in places,
other bits sucked out, sheered away.
Botox-smoothed and collagen-plumped.

Every inch plucked and waxed and shaved
to porn star baby-softness, a skinny newborn
piglet for the spit. Barbiedoll distortion.

She paints over pasty vulnerability,
bakes a thick skin with fake tan, slicks
a slime of oily glitter to contours.

Extended hair, nails, lashes.
Rubbing out fine lines, drawing
on new ones. Conceal evidence
of a life once lived with interest.
Swab over the dead-feeling planes
to get that poreless alien allure.
Then puff on a facsimile of the demure
blush she’s just covered up.

Lipstick smeared on a plasticated pout.
Spiderleg eyes, blue contact-lensed and
blankened in wells of bruise-glow darkness
Careful mock-eyebrow surprise-arched above.

Squeezing into the night’s outfit: up and out
and in and thinner, slithery-sheeny, wipe clean
and synthetic. Zipped in, trussed up, spilling over.
Strapped up and slapped up.
Slippy-thighed and bedroom-eyed.
Bambi-legging into ankle sprain heels.

She bares her whitened teeth in the mirror.
It is almost like a smile.

Flood

Flood

Early morning and he is slurring to me,
drowsy with want, whisky. Last chances
blurring and merging. Every lost girl, every
surging rush of red. Every sorry angel’s cut

wing and crushed halo. All the empty, all
the strung out no-strings, all the hurt, flirt
and razored urges. Every wrong he ever did
cried into my neck for me to absolve. I can’t

make it better, dissolve it. I clasp myself to
his rasping breaths, arms and legs tightly
grasping to hold him still and steady, keep
him in, keep him safe in my bed, his fuddled

head cuddled against me. Shuddering to
quietness. Sponging up his bad thoughts,
plunged under the duvet ‘til it all goes away.
Flooded and diving for a brick, gulping air
before we drown.

If I…

If I…

If I wrote you a song,
it would be banned for profanity.
(Not to mention my singing.)

If I painted you a picture,
it would be gratuitously obscene,
gorgeous whorls of sticky-fingered
oily daubs.

If I wrote you a poem,
it would be pure Aglo Saxon,
“uck”, “unt”, “uff” sounds.
Not for public consumption.

If I told you a story,
it would be a top-shelf late-night
shudderer. Even without illustrations.
To be read under the covers.

If I spoke my mind,
it would all need bleeping out.
I keep the sound turned right down.

Our Games

Our Games

Your game was chess.
I was more an habitual scrabbler.

You tiddled my winks.

My past was checkered.
Your board a bit battered.
We both had a few pieces
missing.

You always wanted monopoly,
though it often felt like endless
ladders and snakes.

We shuffled.
We dealt.
We rolled.
We played.
We scored.

All those Sunday afternoons,
passing time, wet and grey.
Totting up points
against each other.
There was nothing on telly.

We cheated.

In the end perhaps what we had
was merely a shared but
trivial pursuit.

Fortunately, not cluedo.

Effigy

Effigy

He made an effigy.
He made it for her,
picking all the things he
thought she would like.
It would be his gift.

He made an effigy,
using his own body
as carrier. Using his own
mind as template – selecting
the good thoughts he knew
would snare her. Cutting
out the ones gone bad.
She would never know.
He would draw her

a new love, an artist’s
impression. A pastiche
of her ideal man.
Holding it together

with blue-tack, tobacco
and home-grown denial.

He made an effigy,
built it with his own
hands, sticky with insecurity.
He studied her, watched her,
tweaked and perfected,
‘til he was sure this was
exactly what she would want.

It was ready. Finished.
A complete thing.

He gave her the effigy.
He said she could have it,
this body, this mind, this
beautiful boy, built for her
pleasure alone. And lots of
pleasure alone, he hoped.

He gave her the effigy.
She was amazed.
She put her arms around it.
She opened her heart, her legs.
She didn’t understand
that it wasn’t real.

Stinky (A Love Poem)

Stinky (A Love Poem)

I will wrap myself around you.
I will hold you safe ‘til morning,
even – especially – when you
whiff of puke, ‘cause it’s likely

now I do too. You shared: life
lesson no.1 learned. Churned
my own stomach. Your smiley
eyes sleepy, but don’t want to

miss any good bits, or be chased
by monsters if you do drop off.
Please drop off… Just for a bit,
I promise to wake you if anything

happens… I promise. And scary
monsters cannot get you here.
I will outrun your nightmares on
sturdy Celtic legs – piggy back

on my dreams. You are warm
always in my arms. Your truth
is protected sweet to my belly.
Snuggle tight and cuddle into

me, tiny feet sleep-tussling,
scrambling for purchase. But
shush – the world is not ready
for you yet. Hush awhile: be

patient, just be and be you. But
sometimes be quietly… please.
Lovely, stinky, bubbling, grubby
little thing. You are newness.