Hello

      Sainsburys, Chertsey. 3:30. Friday Our heads close, we walk the length of a hundred recounted steps, our time ghosts frequenting a town we have come to pace and slumber, maybe dance in. I watch the back of your head and the way the wind cradles...

      Carboot Every scratch from every needle is hidden inside these sleeves – the scars off inadvertent drops from when a certain personal hit was needed – carried around in square bags worn as badges accumulated on Saturdays browsing Eastern Bloc,...

      The day job gave me a recurring dream on a frozen lake circles of ice were cut using giant hacksaw blades. Telling them I couldn’t swim as they smeared oil onto my shaking body was ignored. See them struggling placing me under the water chanting...

      Boy and Stick In the old black-and-white photo he’s still up that tree in the park, a shape among branches, a kind of negative space, detectable only by mathematics and his pull on other objects. In shorts. Moustache of milk. Scabbed knees. Coins...

      A State of Being  Under blue shadows of a red cliff I dream the sky will collapse. * The moon is an eye that does not suffer the sun is an eye that does not blink though it burns in the haven of my skull. * There are signs I have ignored knowing...

      The Elixir It began with nectar weeping from your tear ducts. Your mother shone like a martyr. It dripped from your nostrils – the ambrose became mixed with the stink of the house. It oozed from your ears, hardened. Your father called you...

      Sign  I can visualise the street sign— its unfamiliar name— but not your face. Not really— flecks of shooting star shone in your hair then. I remember that but a friend tells me you are bald now. Standing on that corner: sage, bay leaf, baklava,...

      Llorona, Llorona Midnight is blurry like a rapid photograph Blinding streaks of light slamming through my skull and vibrating Zzzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzzz There are snakes writhing around my brain This flesh is the optimal hunting ground, so full of...

      Never to the Ball undressing herself continually & dirty in her habits* Bruises buttoned down to my naval. My bust goose- pimple decorations, arms embroidered with a tattoo-sleeve. Nurses throw blankets over me, protect my immodesty, brand me...

      Early-stage menopausal psychosis, Nyhavn hotel room, 5 October 2019 There’s a red eye / in the corner of the ceiling / yesterday it was a smoke detector / today it’s pretending to look elsewhere / seeking out fire The stilettos by the bed listen /...

      Neşûştî / Unwashed unbutton my spine towards the shitty full sounds of istanbul throw my discs at the drunkard as the imam punctures our howls into the mosque lucid green walls may he hang us let us be examples is there anyone who loves like us?...

      Question Mark I live in Question Mark. It’s at the end of the sentence. The road to get here has a sharp bend. It’s not easy to guess what folk who live here think. There’s always a slight doubt. The town itself has a querulous nature; people are...

      Dry January I. to be like the box turtle, constantly contained in rigid carapace, opened and closed at will, always at home. to be like the lawnmower run till empty at end of season, no fuel gelling in brittle lines, awaiting fresh gas in spring....

      Superpower You’d imagine they’d make more of it, that feathered superpower of theirs, leaping across this planet ripe with air. Take the wren: there she hops, perpetually earthed in topsoil and grubs, happiest hidden behind a rock. The sex-crazed...

  An Elegy for a Stinking Pigeon I jump at a thud against my window, but nobody’s there. I look into the courtyard and glare, see nothing, until My sight falls upon the pigeon, dead as a dead pigeon, The corpse nestled into the leaves to hide from the wind....