How Aily Grew Up

Johnny turns out to be
the thinnest rake of them all
with his weedy eyes that train
on you
all night long
outside the diner or during
church.
I lost a lot
that evening, semen
on my dress, the lonely roadside.
In one blackout alone
I grabbed all my photos,
threw em in with the hotel litter.
I wasn't a looker, not fast
enough for the boys, not
cute enough for
Patsy; wailing
to my mother
through the cloakroom wall.
She never answered, course -
hair pulled back, mouth
dangling
like a ripped out appendix,
Moon River on the turntable.
I didn't wait
for the final
climax
that might lift us all
to God and heaven,
I just
crossed my legs
and cried
cos Jesus was a man
who'd never
come
fuck it better.

Mumps

Mumps, I tickle
what’s left of your fur:
king losing his crown
on the stinking rug,
thin graft of lamplight
beneath the stair.

No use struggling
as Mr Seams
lights up the fire, as
Thomas, skimming
The Racing Post, concurs
'This here dog’s life is passing…'

Mumps, your paw is rotten,
jaw, forgotten.
Soon to be like liver
hanging in a butcher’s shop.
We wait for Seams to sharpen
his claw, his jack,

to clean the molten tacks,
as his trolley squeaks;
as charcoal reddens your eye.

Wrap your tail around my hand
before he snips, before your
long ears, yesterday
dipping the water bowl,
get parted like some young tart's lips.

I won’t stop him. I’ve been here before.

Mumps, your time is upon you.
I’ve come to close the door.

the stars outside are shouting my name

I get my laces twisted up;
my face, lit up
by what's shining in yours.
You say: I've got to go.
Messing with my zip, I say:
If you're going, then go,
and light a cigarette,
forgetting I don't smoke;
get up to make coffee
but the fridge is empty.
The stink from the pan
comes sweet and sickly,
like a man's last rites
when his end's come too quickly.
I wash it up, rinse off suds,

leave the window half-open

like a secret weapon, like
history.

Swings

Tiny one,
you never grew so big
that the world outside
could tear you apart
when you dropped out
onto it like a newly
baked scone.

Inside was so soft -
it protected, encased.
But the outside world
had a way of getting in.
It made you
what it already was;
in its own image.

Days were no longer ours
to play with.
They closed in
the same way
the world closed in
on your stick-thin frame.

By the rope-swing
wood pigeons
cooed
what could have been
your name.

deserter

tied to the back
-------------- of an old woollen horse

into a land
made of white sand
like snow

rides a cornucopia of flowers
------------orange cherry
-------------------------------- red jet black
--bristling in
   the early dawn weather,

in a sack of aged- brown- leather.

exploding vision,

breaking--up
eye--- sight,


petals
-----------massacring
--- the senses.

the horse is blind----a deserter,
------------------------------------the morning is eyeless

walking to the edge
------------------------where memory
-----------------------reigns useless.

this desert's got no second life to complain about.

vermillion's
--------   gone.


inhale this comedy
of an all white
---------------------waste ground,
a sightless horse


drowning
---------spilling in,


terrifying






   colour.

tuesday

Alone, I left you
to the quietude of seagulls.
It was a windy afternoon
when I went,
your small arms
lifted towards me,
trembling like
shutters,
hinges of rust.

frail, we (for Mum)

You were the littlest bird
i'd ever seen;
feathers falling
under the open
window.
i touched your head
with my finger.
your
eyes looked down.
you'll not flit
around our garden again.
nest's empty,
alone, again.

You Were My Girl

We were the lost ones,
the pretty few,

lining boots with finest fur,
diamante dripping from our veins

till our faces turned milky blue.

I saw you the first time
down O'Brien's alley

amid Coke cans and litter,
the sounds of Frankie Valli.

You stumbled from his car,
hitched up your mini-skirt

against the bakery wall
as he flipped his cigar.

I shrank back into my doorway
like Orson Welles,

only I was wrapped
in sheepskin and gold;

hair like seaweed,
fish scales beneath my nails,

sipping on nicotine.

You swung round,
big-eyed as a rag doll
or a puma;

your coat clung to you
like it was your only full-time lover

as you mouthed a curse
at me, raised a finger.

I wanted you
there and then,

as you disappeared into clouds of rain

at the back of 54th street,
behind cheap car fenders.

Fear Of drowning

What if the book and the pen must become my only lover? What if no one else will be able to… love me this way… make love to me this way… with the power of such feeling?
(a thousand valiant horses pounding on my brain, dizzying sex like opium or headlights, flushed breath, insane noises, all flock towards me… eaten by birds)
   
A deranged spinster in an attic flat filled with birdcages and Venetian death masks, radioactive rocks and black and white Audrey Beardsley pictures on her wall?
Muttering to herself, giving herself completely, surrendering all she is, legs akimbo, a sad hallucination, all adoring to her art?

Is this horrifying beauty?
Is this the only way?
Already, no one sees me for dust these days.
Who can match up, how can I match up any more

when I am an overgrown forest, a babbling brook, an overcast shadow, a yellow crab with pincers, a veritable feast, unknown still, misshapen, god, who will take me with so much emotion?

Too many tectonic plates moving, sliding.
I got Ethiopia in my twisted right foot, full scale blizzards in my cheeks, aurora, red, snowdrops, a wealth of peonies, fickle shadows, black legions of marching men, all tramping through the silent place where pleasure soars and danger beats (it’s here, sniff, the light between my thighs)

My writing voice is that of the wizened and post nubile.
Anonymous, androgynous, without form, shape, breasts.

Take me out of this place and I’m ceasing to know myself again.
Alien to me, with my lustrous hair, fingers soft and simple, and they still call me a beauty.

I shed her in these blank pages, dead as a door nail, voiceless abandon in a ferocious wind, graceless.

Such freedom tears me, all abrupt, seeking triumph, absolution...to be faceless.

I fear total submersion in my own rivers, death by drowning.

Pavlova

I watch your face change
like a smooth stone,
water running over;
like wet weather
in September;
like troops invading
a sleepy East European village.


Here it comes.

I’d sat in that same cafe
six months earlier,
Examining every ice cream flavour –
toffee, apple pie, raspberry pavlova.

I'd felt it coming,
like the pull of moon on tides
or a sure bet on ‘Lucky Numbers’.
We slept together
he'd said, face changing
like pebbles,
an ocean rushing over;
like downpours in July,
like men taking up arms
beneath an East European flyover.

I tossed the menu aside,
overturned his
banana cream gondola.
Stuck a finger up at the waitress.
Stomped outside, shouted at cyclists;
shook my fist at a seagull,
spat her name as if it were cyanide.

Felt stupid, went home.

Now I sit watching your face change
from spring to summer to winter.
This time I won’t stick around to hear it.
So I drop my spoon,
lick sauce from my chin,
say: "I bought the last lot.
Six pound fifty.
This time you’re paying."