Rotting

Rotting

Commitment. That’s you to your sofa.
Choose life. No thanks, you prefer inertia:
Migraleve tablets, beer and DVDs. Regret:

you splat dead with a rolled up newspaper,
grind its remains into the carpet, defiant
with your dirty socks. This new freedom

glues one hand to the remote. Memories
shoved to the back of the kitchen drawer
slash you with paper cuts when you grope

for the Chinese menu. Order on auto-pilot.
(No. 66, 108 and a 132 – prawn crackers free.)
She always had a funny habit of sucking

spring rolls. Teasing out stray beansrouts,
with her tongue, getting her chin all mucky.
It was gross – now you’re smiling. Fuck it.

Not thinking of that. No hope, no way back.
You unplug the phone. Crack another bottle:
swallow, anaesthetize, forget. Remember

to take out the empties only in the dark:
neighbours like to play their counting games.
She’d laugh that. She’d give them a wave.

They’ve noticed of course, she’s not here,
not now. You keep the curtains closed
mostly. Make efforts some weeks to buy

well-intentioned vegetables – healthy diet,
healthy mind. Broccoli stinks out your fridge
when it rots. So, what’s on telly tonight?

 

Near Miss

Near Miss

I’m missing. You won’t find me.
I’m not decking myself conspicuous
with antlers or a jolly Santa hat.
No “kiss me” mistletoe.
No thank you.

I’m not nestled quiet in the library.
Not revisiting “A Christmas Carol”
or lost in a gothic romance.
No dreams of snowfall and corsets,
open fires and stern-faced anti-heros.
Match Girls and December changelings.
Earlier, I did go in to look up poisons
and anatomy – though I already know
a little about that. Now I know a bit more.
They’ve got cardboard angels hung
all over the children’s section.

I’ve not gone into town.
I’m not in that mosh of shoppers
on the High Street. You won’t catch me
bartering for baubles in the Christmas market,
supping mulled wine with a pink face
and a teary eye. Happy clatter.
All those tourists bussed in from Wales.
I’m not jostling tubes of shiny paper
on the overheated train home, still smiling,
‘cause it’s all part of the fun. Not agonising
over perfect wrapping and symmetrical ribbons,
to be ripped off the perfect gift on the 25th.
Not doing that.

I’m missing. Not in plain sight.
Like when you were a kid, clambering
precarious and over-excited,
to the top of your Mum’s wardrobe
to see what presents you’d got.
Still, always a little disappointing
on the day. It’s like that.

If you did look for me
you’d find it’s not you
I’m missing.

And here’s the prompt from Stu at dVerse that, um, prompted this…!

http://dversepoets.com/2012/12/01/poetics-missing-you/

I Saw Him With Her

I Saw Him With Her

And then
I scuttled away
to have a little cry.
Actually, quite a big cry.
A good old weep and wail.
Sloppy, loud and snotting.
In the bus station Ladies,
where people pretend
not to see. ‘Cause, really,
we’ve seen it all.

And then
I wandered out
dazed in Saturday sunlight
through the oozing market cackle.
I found I’d bought a banana.
One of my five a day. (Not five
bananas: that would be strange.)
I wished it was cake.
I sat on a bench and began
to unpeel.

And then
I had a thought.
It caught me unawares
three and a half inches
down the banana. The old man
in the butcher’s van shouted
his fresh-meat deals, slapping
down cold flesh, dead fillets.
His mic-patter cricked through me.
(The deal I’d had before wasn’t good.)
I bit down on more banana,
chewing, swallowing, the thought
solidifying in my shins.
The itch to walk.
Away.

Face Break Heartache

Face Break Heartache

How now monobrow?
A little bit brown, a little
bit cow-like. Tug forelock
down to hide it. Dip head
low to sly-ride it out,
out, on and up and
away from Lady M’s
damn’d spots and
scabs and grotty
shame-plugged pores.
She gnaws lips, hers
or anyone’s. Anxiety tics,
flicks, grabs words from
her cold-sore mouth.
Eye bags overstuffed,
nostrils scarlet flaring,
chins sinking in
to a limp neck.
Tired, tired, tired.
Wants another go
at being. No more
broken veins.

A Year On…

A Year On…

First of the month.
The best month.
Day one.
Fresh. 5:00AM dawn
glows blossom on
the trees outside.
Him next to me,
sleepy breath,
limbs cradling.
Smell of dew
through the window,
tobacco and shampoo
in his hair. It’s all new.
So good. Too good

to be true. And he
wasn’t. A year on,
5:00AM dawn
on the first day
of this new month.
Flash floods washed
away the blossom
weeks ago. Smell of
dew through the
window that lets in
a draught ‘cause
the catch is
broken. It was
broken before,
but I didn’t notice.

Afterwards

Afterwards

She lies there looking at you afterwards
and you know you’re already gone:
stood there in her room, looking out,
beyond her net curtains.

She can’t mop her sticky thighs
or clear her aching throat while
your eyes reach out to
the house opposite hers.

She doesn’t make any move to touch:
she knows you wouldn’t like
her to do that, now. Unless she
was someone else.

She won’t cry with a man still there
in her room and you know it’s
time you took your sorry
corpse away to let her.

Favourites

Favourites

Those jeans, they lurk right at the back of the wardrobe.
That jumper, it’s pushed to the back of the drawer.

They used to be my favourites.

Not now.
Not since…
Not anymore.

Close my eyes and…

I can feel his hand on my back through the wool.
I can feel him stroking my thigh through the denim.
I can hear each tooth of the zip. Undoing.
I can see indigo empty legs and limp strangled sleeves.
Limbs splaying useless, loose and crumpled.
Tossed on the floor. Like rubbish.
Kicked away by his boot.

I can’t look at them.
Not now.
Not anymore.

I could get rid of them.
Anything to take this away.
Give them to a charity shop,
or a homeless shelter.
Sell them on Ebay.
Make a fire and burn them to
nothing, nothing, nothing.

But, they used to be my favourites…

The care-worn demin that skimmed each curve:
miraculous flattery to my bottom, cleverly cut
to stretch my stride to a taller walk forward.

The snuggly warm wool that knitted comfort
round my ribs and tummy, wove soft over my
back. Long hugging arms to wrap me up safe.

My favourites… Still. Maybe…?

Today…
I am redeeming these jeans.
I am exorcising this jumper.
I am wearing them now.
With new shoes.

All He Wants…

All He Wants…

Whiskey-numb and muzzy, the room begins
to swing and sway in time with the lull of the
music, but “the boys in the NYPD choir” can’t
help him now: he could drown in Galway Bay

and no one would care. Or he could down one
more double and try not to stare, keep his eyes
from straying, pretend she’s not there – glowing
pink-cheeked with vodka and holding hands with

some bloke. Nothing bold or indecent, just sweet.
He could spew. She’s far too old to deck herself
in cheap pound shop tinsel, like a giggly teenage
girl – his cruel ear still picks out her soft-curling

laugh through the crowds, a sick homing device
that he can’t seem to tune out. With the back of
his head, he sees her wriggle and flirt the tinsel
round her hot, snappable neck, wound and looped

all jolly: shiny festive rope to choke down more of his
drink. To not have to think, not remember, not even
feel. She ought to know better: big, brash, baubled
earrings and that best little black dress? (He knows

how much it cost too and the way the zip snicks if
you try to run it too quick.) Next it would be reindeer
woolly jumpers, santa hats, antlers. A “naughty elf”
outfit from Ann Summers. Just a few small steps

from matching leisure wear. The bloke, this new one,
looks quite content. As well he might. Looks like he’s
taking home the treetop fairy tonight. They look good,
they look happy, they look drunk and fuzzy-edged. He

downs another double, wonder’s why he’s still there.
Her frill-suspendered stockings are filled for someone
else this year. He should leave, get a bottle, go home,
get wrecked. Talk to his dead pot plant, his unringing

phone. But he can’t, he can’t move. He’s in for the night.
Him and the NYPD and the bells on repeat. Kirsty and
Shane understand him. Santa won’t bring him comfort
or joy. Perhaps he wasn’t a good enough boy this year…

Ok, so this is for anyone drunken from the sight of a former love with a new love, which is always going to feel worse at this time of enforced jollity… Some of the references taken from this, my favourite Christmas pop song of all time. Ah yeah, and Merry Christmas to all and any who read this! xxx