He couldn’t understand why they all seemed to be ignoring the truth.

They buzzed around him testifying to this theory and then the next.

Disputing it then refuting it then effusing on another.

Couldn’t they see the truth in front of their long noses?

Strange they all prided themselves on their training, their intuition and intelligence.

And yet they denied him the truth.

It infuriated him.

His petulant wife, with whom he had drawn many truces, was again one up.

He was ill, it was his fault because he didn’t follow instruction.

He was ill, but it was she who had the cross to bear.

She who’d be left with the doctors’ bills and the funeral arrangements and the grief.

Though she hadn’t admitted it, she couldn’t believe he would die.

The living don’t understand death.

He was to die.

No medicine was strong enough.

No man’s theory irrefutable enough.

He could feel time taking its toll.

Last month his hair had, he was sure, been less limp, his skin less sallow.

Now his tresses hung in grey, lifeless strips on his sweating forehead and his skin was yellow.

 

Wide eyed.
Breathing fast.
Heart racing.
Pacing and pacing.
What's next?
Seconds drag by.
The mind circles and circles.
Like crows round carrion.
Grabbing.
Trying to fill the future.
Satisfy the urge.
The race.
Give it up.
Move on.

i can't see that high.

He thought.

His tiny toes stubbed up against the inside of his shoe.

i am on tiptoe and I still can't see that far.

His hammy hands, red with life, clutched to grip the flat wall.

i just want to see the cake.

let me look at it.

i don't want to eat it.

His eyes fed until his belly thought it was full.

 

The dry heat of the radiators was on full.

It pumped through the windowless room.

At first it was welcome, in short minutes it was suffocating.

 

She filed her nails and fiddled with the buttons on her phone.

He coughed, a smoker's, haggerd, throat ripping huff.

And the half mad woman sat with her beige knees wide apart like she was waiting for a train.

 

Listlessly turning the magazine's pages.

Tits and fat women. Bikinis and skinnys.

Screamed in turn with the drill.

The umbrella dripped onto the carpet.

And the reception clock ticked.

 

 

 

The bottom of the sea.
Black and calm.
Tiny tossed lights of tiny lifes.
Twist on a deep current.
Down here there's nothing going on.
Except for water's tale.

All she wanted was sleep.

There were windows of life.

Glints of energy.

But really he knew that all she wanted was to curl up and shut up.

The drawbridge went up and he couldn't get in.

It was too submissive to fight.

So his aggression turned to grumpiness.

To begin with he thought it was sweet.

Then he suspected it was a symptom of a deeper malaise.

She wouldn't let him in.

And this frustrated him.

All she wanted was sleep.

Switch off.

He loved being awake, he said it was because there was so much to enjoy.

She hated it, she said it was because she wanted the day to end. 

That wasn't normal and it frustrated him that she lived like this.

That was a perfect place.
It was silent.
Except for the city's hum.
A few free minutes.
Empty of lists and dos.
Stretching into a warm night filled with plans.
It was lit by sun at the end of the wet April day.
It was warm.
It was light.
And for now it was respite from the fray.

He was tall and wiry.
His black suit flapped around him like a fastidious crow.
He had a greying moustache and eyes that promised to make you laugh.
He was a waiter.
Working in the same restaurant for twenty years.
She was tiny.
Smaller than a doll.
And had a patch of hair missing from her forehead.
She scrapped back her thin hair to a tight bun.
And seemed not to have any sex about her.
She'd been there for five years.
Her buxom colleague, also a waitress, was buoyed by abundant blonde curls.
And blue eyeshadow right upto her brows.
At the end of the night he would rest his corns.
And little and large would rush around sweeping, mopping, tidying away the night.

'I will look after you.'
He said.
She fiddled with her spoon.
Stabbing the frothy mousse covering her profiteroles.
'I love the way you love life.'
He said.
'You take such an interest.'
Her glazed eyes flashed a sardonic smile.
And she tugged at her straggling curls.
'I will have another bottle of wine and a spoon, please'
He said.
She poured another glass of wine.
and shutting her eyes continued to smile.

She'd walk across burning coals,
She'd take bullets from a machine gun,
She'd climb mountains,
Swim oceans,
Slay dragons,
To protect me.
Her eldest child.
I will never know love like this from another.
The force of it is bigger than her person.
I am lucky to be know love like this at all.
</div>

Pictures of a court.
In morning's light.
Painted fresh white.
Bright walls the glowing canvas of long leaves;
their hearts, thick stems.
Brightly coloured flower heads whept dawn's pearly dew and the Queen slept.

</div>

She sat in the sand.

Her short legs stuck out in front.

She was duffeled up in a pink puffa.

And her tiny hands played with whatever they touched.

Her curly blonde hair was as short as she was young.

Two maybe.

Her nan stood beside her chatting to a man.

It was early morning.

The whole place was a basket of sun, light and water.

All I could see was fresh and clean.

Swept by night to a clear, heavenly morning.

The man walked on and the beach was empty apart from the girl and her nan.

When I returned ten minutes later.

The little girl was walking her nan's dogs.

Her tiny hands gripped the leads.

She led them.

Though they stood almost twice as tall.

That little girl would grow to love all dogs and would always love her nan.

Old man mountain.

His beard mineral streaked.

Cheeks mossed in velvet green.

Fresh green lips ringed with black, black shadows.

His ears hear the cries of seagulls

And his eyes water with the clouds.

His bark arms hold the grace of sunlight and the moss of kings.

Maps of the emotions.

The streams of love.

And torrents of aches.

Love-on-Tyne and Pain's ocean meet.

Flowing to the sea, turning to rain to come back down again.

Maps of the imagination.

One dream scape, a rainbow haloed stag on a distant crag.

Another the diaphanous dress of a flying woman.

Far below the iron gates of a violet, dawn swept park.

Or spires against the billowing rain clouds of a sun tinted April sky.

Rivers of thought.

And mountains of molehills.

Art as a shrine.

A shrine for eyes.

Art as a continuum,

A continuum of all the art before,

From stone riding bison to poo on a pot.

Trinkets and artful artifact.

He looked at his knuckles.

Clenching and unclenching his fist.

His jaw bone flexed.

He threw the cigarette butt out of the window.

And took the wheel.

Scanning the blank land.

His black soul spoke.

He knew where to go.

And what to do.

He neither did or didn't want to go.

He felt nothing about it.

It was what he did.

What decided it or guided him to do it

he would never know.

And didn't need to.

Pain and havoc came to him.

It just happened,

free of will.

Free of any will.

As though it were happening to him.

He was though always the catalyst.

The instrument of fury.

Big black birds circled over head.

The bleached skulls of big beasts stared openly at the sky.

The sky and the land was all the eye could see.

There was one line of sky and one line of desert.

And the road.

Heat shimmeyed on the tarmac.

Road trip chic.

In the yellow glass.

Rippled like wave washed sand.

There were long leaves and tiny white flowers.

They swayed.

There was broken earth.

Like a sepia photo on fast forward.

The reflected scene flickered like something seen from the past.

Now.

I never knelt down in front of you

So that you might think I was shy.

It wasn't submissive.

It was an invitation.

I never knelt down in front of you

So that you might think I'd die!

God forbid the strength in me made me do it.

I wasn't asking permission.

Tick tock

Time will tell.

Stepping through seconds.

Marching the minute waltz.

In the arms of Hour.

Tall, dark and handsome.

Flashing white teeth

He spreads his coat.

At my satin clad feet.

I lift heavy skirts.

A milky ankle.

Flirts in the moonlight.

I step through to the other side.

Under the cloak of night with her smiling stars.

I step into eternity's dark horizon.

Turning like a feather on the wind.

Slowly, twisting in the arms of fate.

Tag team tongues lick to chimney soot.

Heavy rain falls on smouldering logs.

Embers twinkle in the grate.

Dying to black.

NO

A simple word.

Meaning not on your nelly.

I am being assertive.

F*** off.

I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Please stop now.

This isn’t making me happy.

It makes me sad.

STOP.

 

Waiting.

Nail biting.

Cuticle clawing.

Clock watching.

Finger tapping.

Tired of reading now.

Tired of looking at the blank wall.

Tired of knowing that everything is running late.

Just want it to be over now.

 

His skin crawled.

It shrank across his face.

Shirking away.

Slipping behind.

Running away.
He’d always drank too much.

Always tried to mask the pain.

But his red face it gave it away.

 

A kyanite surrounded by diamonds.

Who’d a thought it was a couple of quid?

That the kyanite was glass.

It was so pretty.

It could have been real.

The diamonds twinkled like baby stars.

And the kyanite looked like a deep blue sea.

It was hard being civilised.

Everything had a rule.

Everything had a precedent.

Little was left to chance.

People believed that historians were right.

That some men were great.

And others average.

And that too left was soft.

They believed most of what was told them.

Despite the inconsistencies.

One day it was definitely warmer.

The following was even warmer and just a tad brighter.

The next it was Spring.

And for all the days following the sun shone.

People felt light hearted and smiled.

They dug holes in their gardens.

Sat on park benches and warmed pale ankles.

Birds fluffed their feathers ready to mate.

And Winter gave way to Summer’s mate.

 

 

They’d never had it so good.

Their houses were so warm they wore t-shirts in winter.

Their clothes smelt of fresh laundries.

Their food was salt, sugar and fat free.

Their cucumbers straight and their carrots bright orange.

Their feet so soft they winced at rough cloth.

They’d never had it so good.

One day it was hard, red tipped, green bottomed buds.

The next a pink spray.

Cherry tree confetti plastered the streets

And peppered the sky.

Love filled his heart to overflowing.
And in loving fellow man without cause.
He never failed to discover incontestable reasons that made them worth loving.
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