Too true
Or too good
to be real
thought the manic phase
was a joie de vivre
Thought it was God,
or me
turned out to be the chocolate
Jittering through insomniac hours
tick tick twitching two
Me and my overactive ego
My overactive ego and I
Ever enlarging sockets
liquid-filled and swimming around in their own
salty solution
Sore-throat stitched and prickly
Slowly unpicked with pocket knives
Post-operatively
this sharp tongue [...]

Highheeled
En-thrusted
Jet forward propulsion
Toppling over tractors
and mowing through the crowds
leaving only stubble in her wake
no-mercy sister
miserable mistress
wrapped
in cellophane
tapa-swaddled baby love
tightly clamped shut
Time-trapped patterns
of promiscuity
Sucked in
Just
like I
used to be
Before the fall
shook me up
and took me
aside
to view this
see-through stupidity
Spare me the detail
There’s nothing at all to prove.
Assuming
that you’ve made it
this far
You must be doing well
Congratulations!
For the moment
And every [...]

It’s a metallic melancholy
that tastes like blood
a familiar flavour
Cold and shiny
Can’t see
over its sharp edges
Keep out of reach
over the ledge
to make us stop
….stagnate
Concrete dammed up so high
on its curved sides
down at the bottom, where I stand
clammy
chip packet-wrappers and apple cores
discarded
used to be
an ‘out of bounds’ skateboarder’s secret spot
police tried to move kids along
but they were
elusive [...]

The sailor staggered out to drown his sorrows
earlai in the morning
One by one by one
Licking and screaming
as he held their heads under
only semi-submerged
they put up quite a fight
Now the sea is his again
Free to enjoy its vast majesty
Neatly numbered and regimented days on deck
Fitted neatly into place
Keeping each other afloat and moving forward
cutting sharply through
to [...]

Sunday night motorway speaker hiss
Running-out on its responsibilities
From kissing strange boys the night before
Driving yourself out of town
to a nowhere-in-particular all-aloneness
Used to be the day for visiting a Grandmother
or, two if you were lucky
over on the shore
Gathering up speed for the next week
Cigar smoke still in your hair
Smell of benzoin resin’s cough syrup flashback
to other [...]