Millhouses

 

Millhouses

 

In a place as palpable as knives unsheathed

she caught baying squalls. Hollow hooded shrieks

by stepped stream, dropsticks float from tangled trees,

you children who exist in her watery memories

as tousled twigs that clambered banks and pushed

away from picnic blankets spread on summer grass

until these shoots who seized their chance at last.

 

Her modest cascades that then tumbled taller,

topped tall slides that in time came smaller.

Look. There amongst her fallen willow leaves,

that float and drift downstream on breeze,

and clag rusty grates, fair windward passage block,

breasted upstream waterfalls and braved the locks,

until snagged sunshine in her eye burned hot.

 

She could not have known on reaching spring,

how scald those watersheds in scolding bring

reedy steel blade lips that pressed hard and thin;

now only think on sin. Underfoot, the smooth tiled floors

of the lower bleaches were traded in for muddy worms,

looking back downstream over years that burned,

until old trees drop leaves in lessons learned.

Double Oh Seven Oh

 Double Oh Seven Oh

 

Last night you asked if Bond knew Shatterhand

was his last good face while his stick stirred ants

by a beach. Fifties France, spying on girls afloat

upon blood orange paths of a near drowsing sun,

flicking extinguished stub with dissatisfied hiss

remembering how hot lovers’ flames are doused.

Winding up ants, black on red with bitched bile,

remembered uplifted heavy grey rocks as a child;

black frantic things scuttling all compass points

and quickly we bleached our shocked nails of filth,

moved back black pieces from crushed lace edges

of her half cultivated garden to run from skirts.

Somewhere Bond forgot to fight, lost it somehow,

she looked back at him with ill-concealed regret,

all witchcraft, magic 44. Mount playground slides

like giants, caged on top of towers tasking skies,

tall Jacob’s ladders and we scurried aloft like ants,

young burnt faces overtopping lead painted chutes

to spill in descent. But nobody gets to live twice:

in time, Bond knew not when, his malady comes

in one spreadsheet more with more million cells,

his melancholic eyes burn, oozing sweeping ills,

discharging a languorous burden of sleep no more,

until that day come knocking on crossed backdoor.

4 Why 2 Run?

 

4 Why 2 Run?

 

2 tiny pigeons on 2 treadmills trudge

with feathers of fledge, 4 2 shall strut

side by side, push 2 puffy rouged chests,

pour 2 simple ditties in 4 middling breasts,

where 1 pigeon coos, the other 1 goes,

put 2 square pegs in 4 round plastic lobes,

4 sweat into rivers is 2 seldom flowing

and 4 tiny titties in apathy keep growing,

plod tread 4 hours, 4 running won't do,

would cut down on time for 2 sexting 2,

while watches add up 2 winking seconds,

4 counters are pulsing, judging 2, reckon

clocked calories racking are given 2 lying,

2 tiny pigeons coo-coo that they’re trying

but work becomes 4 someone else not 2,

so 2 puff chests out 4 here’s 2 fuck you.

Quick-step 2 check-phone self-self 2 pout,

better 2 flock within than 2 hang without.

Jock Strap

 

Jock Strap

 

Jock Strap sits in staffrooms, his cell phone set on mirror,

loving looking. Voice shot like arrows, his throat’s a quiver,

shouting boys who are making much of classroom clatter,

long lost dressing room hollers of: ‘listen, mates’; flatters

but deceived, they ignore him now. Do precisely as they will,

pick up phones, putting down books, if his looks would kill.

Jock Strap reasons another dog day’s needed on the sick, soon,

manuring heaps of unmarking will make his soft cock swoon,

where’s that tarpaulin? Best it's left hidden in the classroom,

closed eyes, let’s fly, clicking his heels three times and home.

Lush

 Lush

 

This morning at the pool, Dobson puts fifty

lengths between himself and some lush

who put the moves on him and blushed.

A two-glass touch, swimming in a lake of red,

told him she’d already booked a hotel bed,

to shelter from that untimely storm without.

He’s recalling ships put into any harbour,

siren slot themselves in protective sleeves

when gathered clouds in knitted brows shout

how stray pussy is never not worth the hunt.

You’ll find it sheltering who knows where

from tempests, torrential his hot desert rains

bring circling cars, flopping in filthy floods

like one-armed single legged whirlpool frogs

floundering around stirring lily white pads

in tillerless circles, oared by a one eyed cox.

She’s smiling affirmations and offering slurs,

push jalapenos topped with clotting cheese,

chocolate roses adorn pillows plump, tease

cherry stalks in his and hers - but he demurs,

thinks it’s not just wine that’s bringing her flush,

red throated warbling, but still, something lush.

Tunnels

 

Tunnels

 

She’s calling me, come away now Geordie, come away

from where your mother once should have spooned soup

down the phone to feed some smallest dog in the world,

so small you can only see it with closed eyes open wide,

or I am David, standing stark naked, I feel nothing inside.

But come away, sweet love, come away and come back,

don't build libraries from happy hours in sorry need of repair

where boats chase boats amongst secret water’s hidden lair,

flyleaves are itching for tape, your bindings lack glue,

book's stitchings in threads and this yacht wants for crew.

Bury me in tunnels, mountains of adventure and come away,

stand like Icarus, defy gravity with these sweeping wings

upon some vertiginous man-made stockade, dream and spin

dizzy in tossed aside and bide flight for some better day,

oh, my love she’s calling me softly now and come away.

Here be monsters; triffids come real possessed of death’s sting

even though the years have fled from the horrors you bring,

strike up your damned orchestra, sing your vile duet, sing,

wake sleeping kraken with midwich cuckoo’s stabbing pin:

Geordie away, come back where my warm skin warms skin.

Mentors

 

Mentors

 

Those cloaks fall like autumn, amongst leaves

dried and pressed in books of black trod path,

and who wields evermore maniacal laugh

pass green striplings his sorcerer’s black crafts.

I cannot think they ever stop to ask

what possesses them, what was passed to them

from above to below - glow grim you torches, glow

eyeballs so close they can watch thoughts grow

from lines on faces to borders on maps.

Which part of your story belonging to these

madmen all, hold you in thrall, heard you call,

watched straw crawling from low manger’s edge

to that green hill without and far away?

Bullets and bombs indiscriminate fall

like Autumn, like nuclear Winter’s snow,

warm your hands by his ruddy face aglow

with pride, thinking now all mentors arise,

ascend to sterilize some man’s land

with ideas dispatched, old and hoary,

come, take disciples with this smoked hand,

conduct bit parts in someone else’s story,

sup on immortality and glory.