Recipe for Disaster

A handful of sugar.
A penny of salt.
A pinch for your thoughts,
your light and your faults.
A tight squeeze. A light squeeze.
Freshly squeezed orange
and you.
We squeezed into my single bed:
room enough for two.
But only room for one
in my heart and in my head.

Clown.

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Such a public mockery.
You are a tool in his all-consuming self-love.
Unwilling to face the one way, blackhole nature of it all.
You stand in painted smile.
The audience watch clutching breath
for him to pull out the chair.
The ringmaster owns your eyes and time.
Are you so blinded by footlights
that you can truly call this
astounding self-degradation
love?

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Watch the pretty girls lead the horses away.
The spectacle is leaving town.

06/04/04

As a teardrop I fall for you.
Melancholic. Mesmerised.
So far, so fast, so frail I fall.
Shattered before I crushed.
A stolen heartless kiss -
That thoughtless thief of trust.

Pools of blue that overflow.
Tissue peppered cheeks.
The condiments of grief.
I smile through gritted teeth.
And love love as my foe.

Hiding

Long sleeves. Long legs.
These lines are too telling.
I wish I could explain
how this pain helps that pain.
But language is limited.

Christmas 2002

Once there were three:
The magic number-
3 witches; 3 wishes; 3 wise men.
Maiden runs away; goes to see a crone.
The witch of the East
My, my - how she's grown.
They smile and compare notes
but will scars tell the whole story?

Then there were four.
Ugly; clunky; boxed.
4 sides. 4 corners. 4 angles.
Parallels everywhere.

There are no witches in mathematics.
Only mother's apples pi.

Mary Poppins

Idyllic, but my brain won't SHUT UP!

He Says, She Says

He says I'm not the me I was,
That I have changed irreparably.
He says we argue all the time.
Ironically, I disagree.
He says he looks at others now
And admits it's hungrily.
He says that there is nothing wrong,
then dredges fights long-dead to me.
He says he wants his favourite food;
My single staple kedgeree.

I says he spends no time with me.
I've substituted him because
we spend our evenings silently.
He is not moved by beat or rhyme
or language - aural gold to me.
I know I've changed, but badly? How?
It's all improvements I can see.
Does someone always end up wrong?
Or is it plainly sad to see
That Jude is our saint-patronly.

Speaker Celebrity

Three years of ridding myself of my rage
left me bellaputrescent and old for my age.
I appear to you now as a mere wizened spectre;
A wrinkled and cynical regret collector.
My most squalid and heartbroken version of self.
Insurmountable walls built on negative wealth.
Don't judge me on all of my confident bluster.
The truth is so human, severely lacklustre.
The best metaphor is that I am a pearl;
A wist-wasteful woman in guise of a girl.
Layers of glamour, a heart made of sh**;
My place in this world an uncomfortable fit.
Now hollow of eye, of cheek and of heart
I fantasise daily of ways to depart
and romanticise leaving no remnant behind;
Of wiping all memories of me from all minds.
Don't get me wrong, it's not my own demise
that's driving me now - I'm no suicide.
I want retrospectively not to exist.
I would never have chosen a life such as this,
knowing now what I know. If I knew then
that my life would be guided by follies of men
so selfish and cold they can't even admit
when they've lied. Would I want it? Not in a fit!
They tell me that if I pretend long enough
-at happiness, love and all of that stuff-
that one day I'll wake up and I'll feel content
walking this finite and f***** firmament.
They tell me that life isn't really so bad,
that I am environmentally sad,
that all will improve, given hope, given time.
"It's just circumstantial. Try going outside."
So I straighten my face and strengthen my defense
And once more construct my perfected pretence -
That I'm choosing to live, I've the world on a plate.
That I'm not just a selfish and boring ingrate.
And who knows what will be in the days still to come?
Not me, if I freak, chicken out and just run.
Now I bid you good day, tip my hat, flash a smile
and invite you to wander this path for a while
and keep walking until we emerge in the sun.
For my life in the shadows is near enough done.

Surely?

Life as a Legal Drug Dealer

Daily I hunch as a pensive Paolo
Upon the stool of derailed dreams.
Bathing in burning garlic fumes
and the stench of chip fat
long since past its best.
Squinting at the scores on miracle cures
purporting to prolong a painful life.
Apothecary's emanuensis.
Tightrope ballerina between
The Junky
and
The Medicated.
I paddle in their suffering,
bailing out water where I can.
These dosette boats only float for so long.
When they finally drown
I step out.
And carefully dry the skin between my toes.

Roundhouse, London, 12/07/2013

I steamed and spun one London night,
As trains did long ago.
Euphoria; experimental;
Honesty and woe.
My facial vines of eyeliner
mystified the wasted
and a one-off song from Palmer's tongue
set straight the rag-most-hated.
Unexpected overwhelm
and floodgates rattled open.
Lost and then the Bed Song
un-numbed my heart so broken.
The gift she gave - an awesome show.
An unguarded performance.
The gift I took - the strength to glow
and keep on moving forwards.