Haggerston bridge

London Plane, trunk like old skin, lamp clad and bluing

Is portal guard like Cerebus to dark water in warm dusk

This is not the Styx, this yoked conduit of memory

Slow freight path of archaeology

Is again thinking new sediment.

Where once were dreams rise modular units

Poorly edited, I remember this manuscript

When the blocks of type had no roofs

Shards and boards, pigeons and purple budlea.

The new brick is unetched by traffic

Unwashed by soot, standing as if

It is something, the red faced facade

And underneath steel webbed core.

There is no thought of empire here no more

Thoughts are elsewhere, interest and consideration

Elsewhere, decorations, elsewhere

Stucco and arches, long ago squared

No proud punctuation of co-operative endeavor,

No ornamentation

Just railings, iron, 4x10 or whatever.

This manuscript is seen from distance

Where pride is in different things

Different interest and considerations

Whoever made this wash

Does not know this place

And what it has to be proud of.

Dusk stretches into lost distance like this

Dark artery, spun into glasses, footsteps, kisses

By a million lights, it is hard to know

When the sun sets.

But there is no thought of empire

Where innovation is a different shape of box

Frosted glass steps monotonous, myopic space

They believe in these cube units.

Cubists,

But value just one angle

There is no thought of empire here

Only conquest.

It's a donkey

We're getting sold a donkey

They said it was a Ferrari, classic

The finest engineering, cutting edge

But it's a donkey.

A donkey with bling stirrups and ergonomic saddle

Go faster stripes sprayed on for modern appeal

We're getting sold a donkey, named Ferrari.

It's the best of 800 year old donkeys

But it's not a Ferrari

It doesn't send performance data to track side

To tweak and adjust input and exhaust, real time

It ain't clocking 200k on the straight

You can't change it's shoes in 1.2 seconds

Trade descriptions, this not a Ferrari.

Cross in a box every five years

Deary, deary, dear

It's a donkey.

The mother of all parliaments

Needs to look to the grandkids

Or we will all feel plate tectonics.

They say earthquakes happen

When two adjacent pieces of crust

Move at different rates, one gets stuck

The resulting friction builds up

Until it erupts in violent shock.

The revolution will not be televised

It will not be bought to you by mail train

Or pigeon carrier on velum parchment orginals

But if we don't fix these plate tectonics

It might just come in smoke signals.

I think we've been fooled

They say it's donkey called Ferrari

I think it's really a mule.

Say that again

The things that you say
Say to others
Say them to me.
I want to hear them from your lips.
Hear your lips whisper
Hear your lips
Without words.

No plot left

In the beds that face the sun

I have grown roses

And now they are gone.

The first was yellow

Unlike any other one

An African, yes, long done.

The second, to the West

Was a classic red

Pungent, rosette blooms

That marched determined on

Through the year from June

And I never should have left

The hips on it, unprunned.

The third, to the East

Was delicate white

Fleeting, with scent so sweet

Geraniums and snapdragons

Mark the grave of each.

And now in the bed

That faces the sun

I see no plot for a new rose

Only Borrage and Geranium.

Strong and stable

Strong and stable,

Like a hairpin on a bomb

At the negotiating table

What could possibly go wrong.

Strong and stable

Like dominoes

Once willing and able

To tread on their toes.

Strong and stable

Like Terry Waite

As she sits among enemies

With her new found mates.

Strong and stable,

Like a hairpin on a bomb

At the negotiating table

What could possibly go wrong.

Of course I must forget

I.

Of course I must forget

Like a beach forgets the traffic

With the tide.

Like night forgets a candle

That has died.

Like a shirt on a radiator

Forgets the rain.

I must hold you, or forget.

A single moment from a train.

II.

Of course I must forget

Like oak forgets the summer

Every year.

Like clay forgets its possibilities

In fire.

Like a squirrel forgets
Where it buried its nuts.

Nuts.

I must forget.

Dismay

There will be no snap election

No crocodile tears

What the naughtiest thing you've ever done

Bomb London, child abuse is God's will.

There will be no snap election.

What is it he says

Sweetest summer love

My north star, so long my hope 

What is it he says to you? 

What is it he says? 

Not within my ear shot 

Or gunshots

Those echoes of harm

Snake weak forked tongue

We will see this done

Even weasels have a leg to stand on. 

A kneecap.

What is it he says? 

From the vice dripping 

Glass house of a midlife crisis

I'll be nice with this

Though it would pain me 

To finish it quick. 

He should bring water to your cup, not your eye. 

With grace and clean speed

Sparrow pierces through sky.

Heron, my grace and compass

Don't hold his sacks on your wing

His baggage and shit

And should he seek to clip

Your freedom that lets the air in

I will break each bone from wrist up

And return to his fingers

Oh dare him. And I will visit

Jazz upon his bones like Mingus. 

It gets me a bit old testament

Certain suggestions

Linguistic tricks, baited attacks and gaslight.

I got this instruction booklet called

'Making mothafuckas act right'

Misappropriated entitlements

Fed on sensation, titillation,
Obscured connections, responsibilities 

The globalised ring of gyges

I say ring, wring

Is no big thing

No big thing. 

Lilting stream, water over smooth rocks

On what level do we meet angels?

Some can only rope and drag low

Some cannot fly, and in truth

Some can only lie

For their truth is not to tell.

Your wings reach above the clouds

Where the sun shines

And angels sing at picnic
Spare him no time

Mudslingers leave grime

Bring gunslingers, he ain't yours

He's all mine. 

Man chats flaff

What spoonful of sorrow do you bring

Exchange it for medicine

Tell me where your heart weighs

My ear yours always, in all ways.

This is not you, sweet enchantment

Can't be, but for how you are an apogee

Of every man's hope and dream

Seeming or unseemly.

No, this is not thee.

In all your sweet revrie, wise liberty

Your care, and he might wish to love you

But the full you he does not dare.

Only in your form and shape

That adverts of our heaven ape

But shys from your sweet spell

Inspiring

Too enriching to wish escape.

The only freedom in your following.

Do you not know you are more than diamonds.

Have I failed you?

More than the sun's gold good bye

I haven't failed you have I.

Some years since our summer, close

But more than most,

More than any other, almost

You colour my idea of love

I colour my idea of love

From the outlines that you left on me.

Your laugh, your wit, my sweet revrie.

Forgive me

If I think I learnt

Something of the art you taught

Learnt in lonliness, an acupuncture of intimacy

Learnt in sweat where love maps to skin

Forgive, my belief

That you need to be loved easily

Like brushing your teeth.

Like sketches in ink.

Like casserole.

Your relief mapped in touch and breath

Forgive, if you left expecting any less.

Let me risk this one disappointment

You can't expect most to match your depth

To see what you see in this world and the hearts of men

See beyond how they themselves can with all reflection

You tend the garden well,

Each grows its own direction to your sun.

The way I loved you for so long as a canvas for projection.

One of the cleverest men in Britain once said to me

Another level of understanding is needed for explanation.

You in gifts explain the art of love by demonstration.

And if he wears you too full of care.

Call, I'll tell you that I love you, and ever are my pride

And that for every verse I write

There's a hundred men a tongue tied.

He might want to love you, but love you he doesn't dare

Leave him to rue and learn, go drop hankerchief on Mayfair.

Vote giant vampire squid

Vote giant vampire squid

Because squid will eat your kids.

Squid will suck out your face

And label you a disgrace

For not having enough flesh to

Suck.

Vote squid

Squid will efficiently

Juice every nook and cranny

Squeezing out every last penny

From any pocket.

Squid will beat the small man down

Squid will beat the medium man down too

Give squid your vote

Because squid will fit universal catheters to pipes

And juice your shit on remote.

Squid will pat fat cats and

Eichmann's Jerusalem enablers

Relax in tax havens

And make you play catch for crumbs

Squid will presume you're that dumb.

Vote squid

Because squid will liquidate our common heritage

For a couple of quid

Vote squid

A monster you can trust

To suck out your face

And leave you a dried husk.

Those other loves

Would you ever accept being fourth

Worry of other loves

Worry that at night

I was stealing the message of your touch

For Erato,

That I was saving my feelings for Calliope,

Or that I sang for some other better

Greying that I only wanted you

For your resonance, for sentences

Could you ever forgive leaving you alone

For a sonnet.

Lemel

Candle light

My jet, you make the page so bright

And yet, I know you can't requite,

Reciprocate a love like this

Don't fret 

You make the page so bright.

I spoil her

We shall go to the sea late summer

When a faraway storm brings waves

When moon is waxen yellow and low

And all the sky is a nave.

We shall go to sea late summer

When the air is a syrup of blooms

When the air is an oven of slumber

And all the shore is a room.

The waves will be our whispers

And all we have to tell

The waves will be our cradle

In the frolick of the swell

We shall taste salt on skin

Salt upon our mouths

Salt upon the air that swims

On the shores of the seas of the south

We shall go to the sea late summer

Without gravity or edge

Without the trappings of fashion

With nothing that needs to be said.

We shall go to the sea late summer

When a faraway storm brings waves

When the moon is waxen yellow and low

We shall go to the sea and be saved.

Make me an honest man

Make me on honest man

This tongue of mine so lose and free

For I believe there's one who can

Carry this rich hyperbole.

Would you make me an honest man

I have such sweet, fine things to say

So few who gently understand

These words so often throwaway.

Oh, let me shower them on you

In whispered passion or sweet jest

Be one to make these words ring true

Make them not lies upon my chest.

If I should say that in your eye

Is all beauty one soul could bear

Could you make this not some coarse lie

Oh, make me honest if you care.

Were I to call your touch divine

Could you make that phrase ring true

Whisper you've a heart so kind

Could you make that truthful too.

If I sung there's nothing better

Than to spend my days with you

Would your spirit make the letter

Of this commandment ever true.

Oh love make me an honest man

How sweet nothings flow from my lips

And rising flames they unseen fan

This careful tongue so often slips

And with it words slip to your soul

Like diamonds on your heart to hold

To speak in lies does leave me cold

Oh, make me an honest man.

I only wish to hold your hand

And sweet nothing seeds to flower

Would you make me an honest man

So rare that one has the power.

Thoughts of a grey day

Well, I guess it's a mess

Frayed trust is a hard set to adjust

All static

I can't ask you to do this

The edges of my cover

In lose filaments, the weave

Fading, unbraiding and disordered

Caught on the less populated edges

Like the first dogs

I must mutate to stomach

The rubbish, fed with rubbish

And fed up, to the gills.

These storms of mind worsen

There have always been squalls

Burnt carbon, methane

Now they are hurricanes

And the thick black pall

Hangs on the horizon for seasons

The only deliverance is mutation

Controlled cell growth under this light

Adaptation. The lodger left the toilet broken

My ex got drunk and pulled the guest

Of all, I know not what should be spoken

This frayed blanket is a mess.

Obama,history may see you as black

For America,

Obama, you were a great act

A mixed descent Kenyan

American of melted origin

But heritage, will see you as black.

In Damascus

They will see you as black

In Tripoli and Cairo

They will see you as black.

And all those in the Umma

With their homes on their backs

Well, they might just too

See you as black.

100 years since the Kaiser

Put Lenin on a train

The oil fields in flames

And your closer

The foreign legacy

Was a right Turkey.

You sold yourself so short

In memory of Ted Hughes

You deserved it

Outside the great court

After all our courtship

You sold yourself short

So short

Too cautious, so obvious

You chose less risk

Thinking it was safe

That he would never see you lit,

To turn your back on changing sea

And boat your passions on a lake.

Do you pretend

For a second

That I could not have made that conflict quicken

As you scurried sticky

Under the Plane trees.

I let you shrink

Not worth the ring

Not the worth the mink.

We pretended

Long after it all went awry

When you became offended

That I said your mother had surrendered

In Kent, to defeat.

And I became offended

That you couldn't think on your feet.

You can carry on pretending.

You won't forget me

Or forgive yourself

For missing out on love

However old you grow.

I saw your wedding photos

Who were you thinking of, what

That day?

Old bailey

Even best friends
Unquestioning companions
End.

The stone falls
To the well
And echoes tell
Measurements beyond sight.

Memory is the last
Remembrance.
Wish it be a brook
Fond visted
That washes smooth
Edged rock to pebbles
Like round vowels.

Even those we treasure
And best friends
Echo
Beyond our sight
And help us measure.

Tryptch

I.

Sunday vanished in the small box

Of ungodly hours

It was tryptch

A playfighting winter finished shift

And donned civvies, he said, widishins

I am too full of magic, too full of hex

To leave these streets, so empty.

Painted in earthen shades of London

Bi-curious and fluid in language

And youth in the low hall, undecorated

With the thick rimmed blind

And a set grey man who recalled

The fields of Athenry

They span happy in between

My glazed eyes wishing these

Good futures

Hair dye, simple questions and self-doubt

The finding out

Carved in stone somewhere far down the Nile

A likeness and they said they had no purpose

In a back street somewhere past New-Cross

So we walked off to another bus.

II.

It was tryptch.

The first frame left we heard on a bus

We had witnessed someone famous

Under lights that lit only the mind

Of epileptics, it took us to a place

Where everyone wears fame their own way

Down streets lost Sunday scant

The market like an empty bath

And scraped to where

A whisp of smokers jittered

Behind crowd barriers, shoulders

Shaped like hung marionettes

In the deep night and a great

Obsidian obelisk grinned

Wider than the narrow gate.

Curly locked, compact she caught apples

And let lament in arches and pirouettes

She needed him behind the bar

The other, later by the traffic island

Who left blushing in a hired car

Bi-curious and fluid in language

Sunday had vanished

But we were unaware.
Circling, waiting for a bus.

III.

It was tryptch

Hair shirt, she had given everything she had away

In pleas for goodness and treasured

Cigarette filters as her draw

For apple eyes. Cigarette filters for a bed.

Under arc lights, at the interchange, dehumanised

Made stranger by batteries of concrete

Bank vaults that rose from the clean tarmac sea

Like some new White Cliffs.

The cranes that lift us lit with red lights

In this blind dome night we could only miss

The silver arc across velvet sky

That might have made a wish.

At dawn, I was in the suburbs my mother

Would warn me of when she returned on her bike

The old Pit lay on the soft bag with fear in his eye

Tumours like tennis balls under his skin

In the vacuum of grief, she was gaunt

As if the chair in which she rested for years

Was electric. It was obvious why

They didn't take him to die and he lay

Scared, in the thin strip, bright, and almost warm

He could not understand

And I could not help

Other than to not block the March light.

Tryptch. To the bus, we stumbled a fresh

Gambol at the miracle birth of spring.

Back lit crit

And the stalker says

"I bought you wild berry jam for breakfast"

And a wall of texts, calling you a bitch

Some graphics

Depicting threats.

You're narcissistic, an accurate

Projection.

To expect.

How twisted is this shit?

"Who's Paula?

She's a great actress"

Tried to force her way past

After knocking on the glass

"She told me the house

Belongs to Sven.

You're narcissistic.

I said you had a girlfriend."

"I live just round the corner

With my boyfriend"

The stalker said when we met

In the pub, "I left him on the spot".

She said. "I'm just round the corner".
She says.

That's the rub.

II.

Eros infects with back lit ire.

What we hold close we clothe

Throwing our own shadow

If the light's not right. The danger

In spite of intimacy

Calumny and slight

On raised sights we hope might guide us.

How common is this?

To list the defects

Of that which we would call love

And project

Blind that we're backlit

Throwing our own waste

At Them, smothered in our silhouette?

III.

I didn't know the lodger was back
Till I went down to check

"Thank you and could I apologise 

For all of that." I said.

"She kept calling me Paula"
She said.