LUSTRE:

Last night we left the theatre, just in time to taste
the bright lights. Bars & clubs, queues of wild eyes,
hungry action, the soul food of back when…
Were we thinking the same thing as you turned & stole
my words?
This was our playground, the aroma of a thrill, called
by sirens to sail our little ships on warm electric winds.
Brass, glass, grape & a nicotine breeze. Glutinous colours,
skins prepared, dressed to graze in the black light of
salacious illuminations.
We walked fast, laughing, thinking ‘Home’, watching it all
slide by on the other side, wondering when & how it ever
lost it’s ravishing allure.

(K)

RADIANT MAN:

Riding the steely twins West into the Emerald City,
scraping poetry off the streets. There’s a gathering
in the Fruit (or Veg?) art department today, a reunion
of a tribe that used to camp in Soho back in the day.
Inclined as I am to recoil from talking about the past,
the man from the USA was so radiant on the phone last
night that I recharged on his electric-pure-joy,
dancing amongst the black marks dripping paint onto my
Jackson Shoes, recalling nights in ’92 when I first cruised
the night streets of Manhattan.

(K)

NEEDLED:

The Nurse said, “I can’t find a vein, let me try again”
I laughed “Take your time, this is fun…”
She was cool, had soothed hundreds of stressed men,
I trusted her, my best alternative, she went in again & again
& again…
“I think I’m going to have to use the butterfly” she tutted.
“Yeah, you said that the last time I came. What happened
to my records?”
“Y’know sometimes the blood gets separated from the
documentation”
“Like it’s getting separated from me?”
“Well there’s nothing coming out at the moment, you may
have to come back again”
“Do you think the blood is on holiday?”
“Let me try your other arm”
“This is fun”
“Make a fist”
“I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now”
“I don’t think you have any blood today”
“Yeah, that happens”
“Wait a minute…”
“I’m not going anywhere with this needle in my arm”
“Here it comes…”
“Oh joy!”
“Oh there’s loads now!”
“What a laugh”
“I’m going to send this one directly this time”
“Maybe by pigeon?”

(K)

STRAIGHT:

Ploughman cuts straight lines into corn stubble.
Copper turns to brown with grey whiskers.
I wave, raise a thumb, a hand, nothing.
Ploughman looks ahead, focussed on a point
on the other side of the field, the future.

(K)

TRADING PLACES:

She rides in the night bus leaving Dallas at 1:00am, 
lap-top on her legs surrounded by people she’s learned 
to love. She slips her in-ears in & the world recedes, 
leaves the confines of the bus through a screen. Reaching 
out, she throws her name, picked up in Essex at the kitchen 
table. A beer & a lap-top is a space she can call her own, 
as the silence of the fields is mine. I’m leaving Dallas 
concealed in my cocoon, wrapped in a hood of virtual bloom 
& she’s buttering toast, waiting for the kettle, watching 
the sun arc across corn stubble remembering who she is. 

(K) 

ALL THE STARS:

The morning sun turns to face the sky, it’s light
the colour of copper corn stubble surrounding us.
Low mist hugs the earth, solitary bird on a wire watches
single silent silver car slip slow between the fields.
And all the stars forget their names & fade as Black turns Blue,
turns White & another long dark night recedes into the firmament.

(K)

THE GREAT COMEBACK FROM NOWHERE:

We talked on Skype for an hour or more, me in Essex,
him in Spain. He sounded familiar, but more present
than I remembered him when we used to travel together.
The tone in his voice had changed – it made me smile.
He’d become the person we all knew he could have been,
instead of that loveable couch-surfer who left random
hearts & parts of guitars & clothes strewn across
his borrowed addresses at cheap student houses.
Some people have a look in their eyes like they’re
searching for something, but he never did. He had a
look of not ever wanting to find it, like a man putting
off his inevitable, holding onto his Peter Pan.
He was a striking front man, the best in town, a premier
division raconteur. He could hear a song once, pick up a
guitar (borrowed) & play it note perfect. He was
so good he didn’t have to try & that was his cross, to be
so gifted, he could wait & wait & not even have to get
out’ve bed until you broke down the door,
(“Everybody’s waiting in the van man! Get your trousers on!”)
secure in the confidence that he could turn it on in seconds.
“I know what it’s like to watch a band become successful
after you’ve left” he chuckled. A throw-away line that
haunted me. The knowledge that he had, at one time, stood
at the mic that was now mine was the ragged note I found
in my pocket before every show. His face, his intellect,
his razor wit & the shoes that I would never fill.

Last time we were together, we walked along the
seafront at San Sebastian. A blue sky full of gliding gulls,
white wings outstretched, hanging on a clean wind, the taste
of salt in our mouths. Pulling on a cigarette he talked with
enthusiasm about his new band resurrecting a song I’d
written in 1979. I watched him, waiting for a sign that
he’d moved on, that this obsession was for fun, but on he
drove in his excitement for that old wound. Then, just as
we were leaving, perhaps a little tired from the walking,
a small crack opened & I saw a man who had stopped running,
a Happy man who had opened the door & let that thing in
that he’d never been looking for.

(K)

INCIDENTS & CO:

A man turned up at my door with a smile & big hair.
A black bag concealed a world he’d created for us
to play with. I invited him in, offered him tea,
strawberry jam, something hot & buttered. We sat
around the table, he showed me his things, we got
excited & laughed. Then he told me about a woman,
who came down from the north, loved by everyone
who met her. Music came out of her fingers, light
in her eyes, wild smile she reserved for the night
when cities would welcome her with open arms.
She met a man, the man was my old friend, he
welcomed her in so he could listen to her fingers.
When I met him he told me he had a band, women
only & he was happy, the happiest I’d seen him
around music in years. I thought of this woman
from the north & how ideal she would’ve been for
his band, how sad I’d not known in time to recommend
her, but I let it go. The morning of the big haired
smiling man was when I discovered that, through no
thanks to me, the man with the band was making
music with the woman from the north, touring America
& that made us both so happy we laughed & drink tea
till we fell down drunk with love.

(K)

ON HIS KNEES:

There was a man on his knees in the Lavender this morning,
wearing fat orange ear-defenders.

(K)

DITCH DIGGER:

The man with the machine came to dig the ditch.
We squeezed through hedges, snagged on briers,
climbed down into nettle beds & wondered if the
man with the machine would bring all the things
he’d need to dig us out from the great flood.

(K)