ARE YOU BEACHBODY READY?:

I’m just asking, face in hands, paint stained, doorless.
I’m just drifting, looking for a milder body, roasted curves,
smooth topping, stir & enjoy. Somebody’s waiting at the station,
it’s raining, smoke & steam. Sirens in the street make you
turn around howling. I got to go, I can’t take you with me,
don’t wake up the neighbours when you leave.

(K)

BLONDE MEDIUM DARK:

The queue’s too long, no time to wait, the sun’s too bright,
too early. Return us to night with dust, cold, sweet & salty,
cream passing through. Where are you going, scattering marks,
fast fingers? I’m just recovering, but you got dust enough
for both of us to return us to the night.

(K)

SET IN STONE:

Spent the morning with a stone mason, listening to stories
of Sans Serif & the post war re-design of inner-city typography.
Walked the streets in sunlight, got spotted through the colour of
my jacket by two lovers (who didn’t know it), smiling & curling
& checking each other out with glances only I noticed.
The gallery was closed, but the notebook was open, the pen was
invited & obliged by dancing.

(K)

THE JOY OF RELAPSE:

The twins take me West to the Emerald City, trawl the streets
for poetry, photograph the cracks & funny stuff you leave around,
it makes me laugh out  loud some days, your stuff transmitting
sculptural comedy. Have to leave the idyll of the country.
If I only had these fields for company it would drive me to tea!

(K)

HOWLER:

We heard a man’s voice last night, howling in the dark,
somewhere out in the fields. You said,

“Listen, can you hear that?”

we stopped, opened the window, leaned out into the night, waiting,
nothing, stayed very still & yet heard no one.

“Could be an animal calling?”

“There it is again!” you said, every time we went back inside,
as if by retreating we trigger that lonely despair.

“Could be someone calling their dog?” I suggested, trying to
lighten the mood, turning back, eager for a laugh.

“Sounds like they’re crying” you whispered, we stopped again,
letting the night in, riding silences that refused to carry
wounds, drawing pain back into it’s self, smothering the lonely
with comforting embrace. Then I heard it’s echo,
aloneness & the night, awaiting 4:00am & the ticking of clocks
without promise of respite.

Listening to ‘Highlife on the Move‘

(K)

THE JOY OF MESS:

The marks have started to shift again, following a tip-off
from the youth, a box of chalk & the absence of over thinking
– fabulous!

(K)

THE ART OF FIGHTING ART:

The marks dance too sweet off the brush today,
beauty is ugly, familiar, safe, circumvents
the groove in the fabulous scratches & stains you leave for me
– I keep going straight to ‘nice’.
They’re stuck in limbo, waiting to make the jump, the muscle twitch,
tendons flinch in sync with the rhythm of streets. I return again,
again, again to find you, in the noise & dirt, waiting in the cracks
between the flash, snap your picture, steal a little soul for later,
wait, are you telling me that’s the problem, too busy taking
photographs when I should be taking it straight into the bone?

(K)

LIMBO:

You’re home alone, curtains drawn,
waiting, wanting nothing & everything,
it’s all the same the fix.
Who’s coming ’round to play today?

(K)

ONION SLICER:

The Telecaster with the new pickups chimed like a bell
in the hands of Steve Cropper, descended, angel like upon
the flocks of Essex. We laughed,clapped & made it dance,
do it’s trick, play faster, rougher, spit & spike.

(K)

LOST THURSDAY:

I was missing, now I’ve been found.

(K)