Us

Sit still with me

betwixt the stars

Where there is no light 

No light at all 

Where there is no broken 

Where there is no fixed 

Where there are no stories 

Where there is no next 

No me, no you 

No skin nor bone 

No life, no death 

Just us 

Tyre

Socked feet

on carpeted floor; 

comfortably curved back. 

The hum and crackle of 

expanding copper, 

as heated water 

warms the nativity 

of today's time and space.

I am here.

Where is Memphis? 

How much of Maslow's 

tower is systemically 

sculpted of blood and cracked bone? 

I am here:

with waking seagulls,

where an actualising butterfly

easily waves a left wing 

into a thimble-sized breeze.

I am here;

Tyre is there.

Hurricanes of fists and batons. 

Painting of Celia on cardboard

 

Then to Spring

Fists furled 
Sweep up the shrapnel 
of dereliction 

as blossom bombs 
carpet cold stone 
and flowers explode
from the earth

Limp into spring
with winter 
raking at our backs 
snarling as we flee 

Palms to the sky 
wet with tears 

Gerhard Something

An early tormentor,

Gerhard Something:

scalped on a Friday

by the unbuckling 

early eighties’ bonnet of

his mother’s white Corolla.

The news on Monday drifts over

the assembly- draws 

gasps, sobs, palms to young mouths,  

before the bloody, 

eagerly embellished details 

reliably seep through the school veins. 

His eyes were open.

Still holding his Coke.

Alive…Still Gerhard Something.

Alive, but dead, you understand? 

I had no doubt that 

the early eighties’ Dutch Reformed Jesus 

I knew and feared then,

would have sent him, 

Coke in hand, 

swiftly  to hell…

Yet.

He’s an angel now,

Headmaster,

Van Der Walt eulogises. 

Here among us, eyes open.

Dead…Still Gerhard Something.

Dead, but alive, you understand?

Untitled #1 Vaka

So that’s where it’s been:

locked away in this track.

Once overplayed, 

then forgotten. 

See our young faces 

as they were: 

spectres amidst reeds of

the instantly familiar piano.

I had so much to learn 

about hurting you.

I see you scar-free, playfully

peeking through the mournful violin. 

I’d be dead to the man I see

adoring you in the ethereal vocals.

Meandering through our early days,

lost in songs.

First Light

Dawn spills renewed promise

somehow spun from vapour  

though sleep 

Something seems different 

though nothing has changed 

Your ear on my chest 

We lie fresh in our stale air

Our limbs comfortably 

intertwined

My heart beats like pop 

A jukebox of hits 

thought lost 

Then

the sheets yet again

shaken out and laid straight 

Corner finding corner

Two Cuts

My English pleas:

dead butterflies on an Afrikaans desk.

Van Der Walt gestured for me to select a cane.

 

Or should we make it three? 

His dastardly crew of hitmen, 

clipped into a glass-doored cabinet:

mean and thin through to thuggish and thick.

Spoiled for choice, hey? 

These men are gone;

their accurate arms and wrists, 

dust, bones and ash.

Swish! Swish! 

Their canes are just sticks,

preserved by lacquer 

and a sadist’s dead love. 

Don’t let me see you here again! 

Refractions

On this beach of smashed shells,

and sunning pebbles,

for you I dig

a Sisyphean pit, that trickily floods

with buried sea and tiny darts of life.

Then, while the walls inevitably

collapse over my burrowing hands,

I naively dwell on nurturing journeys 

 and the illusion of destinations.

***

I sometimes take long ocean swims, 

almost sightless save 

for the opal opacity below

and the dizzying rush of light, 

as I drink in a breath 

on every three stokes. 

There are inexplicable pockets of cold,

and the currents play games with 

time and space.

The sea is more volatile than it

looks from the beach.

***

Lying next to my grandparents’ pool, 

circa early eighties:

filter humming and every now and then,

the Aquanaut would climb the walls

to slurp in air like a lungfish before 

slipping below the surface.

Breathing into the crook of

my folded arms as my head rested on my hands;

my hips pressed sharply into the hot slate, 

while water striders once again jigged their way 

over the calming water.

74 Model

74 model:

workings exposed, 

leaking altruism,

sputtering hope;

yet all’s not lost

you softly say.

The floor: 

an undone jigsaw of nuts, bolts,

memories and ghosts.

Your face and torso
hidden beneath 

the dissected chassis;

I feel my heart 

revving in your hands.

What broke?

What broke?

Your voice chimes
as a surviving
saucer pirouettes
quicker quicker
on the kitchen floor

From where I'm frozen
amidst devastated
porcelain and glass
I can picture you
vividly

Stretched out on
the couch
Warmly socked
feet crossed
like long burning logs

Finger suspended
a kingfisher
over a churning stream
of social media
and happier fish

their unbroken
lives and crockery

Zithulele

I can remember

the susurrations 

of snakey, knee-high

love grass, 

breezed into the

effortless uniformity 

I now glimpse in
West Pier starlings 

on lucky autumn days.

The evocative 

scent and shade 

of thatch, the lightness

of a single sheet.

A mattress on the floor.

The sea: 

a soft riot somewhere

behind hutted hills,

through the truthful smoke

of wood fires.

Seidel

Seidel

like paracetamol passed its best

you’re not helping

I look to you

for a pinch of filth

and fanciful suppleness

But this day

under a cold quilt

of clouds

when conversations on the air

carry like lost children

off the street

through my window

and the wind

whips saline tears

off the ageing face

of the English Channel

you bring nothing

but confusion

and the foreshadowing

of more rotten Brighton weather  

Monet's Sea

The sea’s a Monet

today.

The slight chop

pieces away into

the idea of a

horizon;

this is where I set

my gaze,

beyond borders

or edges.

I’ve never been

to sea

but can imagine

the secret that

voyagers to this

point must hold:

that they come apart

here,

as the painter's brush

intends they should,

undress and lose shape;

run like colours

into the notion

of another’s arms,

as floor gives way

to bed,

and lips to thigh.

Then back to the

photograph

of my sandaled feet on

this pebbled beach.

I won’t set sail today.

Wait for the Wind

Wait for the wind

in an open space

look listen feel

spread your arms

splay your fingers

run run

catch it

and take off

over what you’ve

done or haven’t

over broken promises

and bracken fields where

you’ve been led awry

or lost your plot

and on passed the cusp

where baked ice and the scab of sin

meet flowing promise

and the unpredictable green

creep of confederate jasmine

and here we can

gingerly touch down

debts ignored

dark arable soil to

plant our feet in

and virgin space to scatter

memories and scars

here they won’t

know us yet

we can act on the new earth

and sow fresh character

for our friends

the worms

The Stew

Over the infancy

of what I hope

will be a piquant stew

I dwell on the

shape of things

how meekly

those who have

nothing to want

surrender

and how those who

have nothing to fear

feign empathy

almost convincingly

HomellS Pepil cAn Stay Here

my neighbour’s

seven year old

blu tacked this

up in their window

It’s been there for

the best part

of a year

seeing off window clean

after window clean

from the inside

A suburban gesture

made in the best

of faith by the

best of people

a child

I fetch bay

from the tree in my garden 

as I think about

the complacency

and complicity

of a middle class

who can conveniently

just about bear their

guilt

and now look...

Somewhere

between Trump

Global Warming

and Brexit

I’ve forgotten the splash

of red wine

By Ruodprecht - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25490318

Bracken Ward Hero

My father has returned

to shore,

from asea behind his eyes.

He lays his poems

out, the ones he found,

like fish of different size.

I read them then,

and they make me weep,

because they show

how far he’s been.

They’ll sustain us though,

and to him that’s all;

my old man rests...

serene.

Fall

Let me row to sea my love,

then behind closed eyes

and unrequited sighs,

let me ratify this truce to come

and stitch winter to my skin.

Let me relent to the tide my love,

and when I’m distant

and my touch seems dead,

let me breath in salt from darker waves

and stitch winter to my skin.

Party

Pry words

like stubborn

mussels off my tongue

It’s been this way

from before I

can remember

You see me

seek anchor

wispy plastic bag

in the swell

Wander my way

you lonely island

Sugar on Lemon

You can still just 

about pinch at summer

if you’re nimble

and are able

to sprinkle imagination

sugar on lemon

sun on cold steps

You can still just

about scratch out affection

if you’re sanguine

and are able

to see beyond lost time

sugar on lemon

white wine on ice