Category: Poetry

Canary Wharf persuades you
People can get busy in all directions,
But the woman cramming bagels,
Wedging salt beef between gherkins,
She points directly – right through.

The news is of tunnels.
Rabbits burrow through walls.
In my bedroom, they recur like dreams.
There are many, so many.
Something’s wrong with their bellies.
Whole warrens are swollen and sore.
You’ve seen them on maps (nests clumped in dim corners),
In photographs (eyes limned with debris,
Plastered with ears and daring assistance).
Their heart is a home is a hole.

YOU’RE A HUSTLER. ICON. CO-FOUNDER.
MILTI-MILLIONAIRE. ANY CURRENCY YOU CHOOSE.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS:

TEN EX YOUR LEADS.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS:

FEED A FUNNEL.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS:

TAKE THREE TIPS.
FOUR HACKS.
SEVEN MAGIC BULLETS.
TO THE FACE.

BOOK YOUR CONSULTATION TODAY.
NO TIME LIKE THIS TIME RIGHT THIS SECOND.
SKIM POSTS ABOUT POSITING.
ABOUT LEAVING AN IMPRESSION.
ABOUT LEAVING NO CHANGE ON THE TABLE.
I MEAN, LEAVING PEOPLE CHANGED.

YOU SHOULD – IF FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY –
DOWNLOAD MY STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
FOR CLIMBING LADDERS LIKE SUCCESSION.

OPEN YOUR GULLET LIKE A CHICK.
TAKE MORE THAN YOU GIVE AND GET AWAY WITH IT.
NO SWEAT. ZERO UP-FRONT EFFORT.

IT SHOULD BE ON EVERYONE’S AGENDA.
AN ESSENTIAL SKILL FOR SURVIVING CORPORATE WHATEVER.
‘DEPLOYING WORKPLACE-APPROPRIATE HUMOUR IN THE WORKPLACE.’

SIGN IN AND CHECK IN AND CHECK OUT OUR SHORT COURSE BY THE SAME NAME.
HALF OFF BUT STILL SEVENTY-TWO PRINCIPLES, REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES,
TWELVE PRE-REHEARSED JOKES THAT KILL EVERY TIME. BESTEST-EVER-SELLER.

MY ADVICE IS…
I’LL TELL YOU.
MY ADVICE. IT’S…

BE.
YOUR.
SELF.

THAT’S A LIFE’S WORK, RIGHT THERE.
THAT’S A WORK-LIFE BALANCE.
THAT’S A QUESTION LIKE: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE PRODUCTIVE
WHEN YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF LACKS SELF-CONFIDENCE
WHEN PUBLIC SPEAKING?

IT TAKES GUTS, MY HASHTAG-FRIEND.
IT TAKES THE QUIZ FOR ANSWERS.
IT TAKES SUPPLEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTS ITS WAGE WITH PASSIVE INCOME.
IT STREAMS LIKE A GLAND. IT WATCHES LIVE. TRACKS PACKAGES.
FREE SAME-DAY DELIVERY. RESULTS GUARANTEED.

AND, IN A REFLECTIVE TONE, I ASK
WHAT DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES.

YOU, ME AND JACK DORSEY.
WE ALL HAVE THE SAME HOURS, DON’T WE?
THE SAME BRACE OF TWENTY-FOUR CARAT GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES.

SO MEDITATE, IDEATE,
VISUALISE, DRY YOUR EYES,
AND GRIND, GRIND,
GRIND, GRIND,
GRIND, GRIND,
GRIND, GRIND, GRIND.

FOR MORE INSPIRATION, LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE.

We were queuing in Berlin
When Tom explained the senses:
Waves, beams and vibrations,
The pin-holes of the eyes.

“That’s one interpretation.”
In a courtyard, we were waiting,
Entering gallery spaces,
A nerve-bundle at a time.

Then framed before Athena,
We quailed before Athena,
Thoughts stirring in the oils,
Oils dancing though bone dry.

Two to make a painting.
One more again to tango.
And all museums unfinished
Outside the viewer’s mind.

I.

Earth’s crown cracks a chasm
Through thunderhead stolid as marble
And inflamed fissures glow to fracture
‘til anger dies – wretched, self-devoured

Such a night
That the billows bellow bloody murder
And the sleet sheers through the makeup of a fool
Lifting layers of grief from twinned, unfathomed pools
That reflect the insatiate sheets of fire

Here the orison of the horizon is undone
In the wilderness, waves wits and winds toss – unspun
To the tune that Tom, not to be outdone
Sung with the best and the worst of each lung

Brother-betrayed
I am man

II.

The last spark of evanescent sight
Is spent to scope high nebulosity
That I fancy rages, not with grey scud at night
But busses in colours of French ferocity

If white is purity, and blue stands in for royalty
They belong with daughters’ loyalty 

Alas, I’m with painful red marooned
Withered, writhing and winking
Unnaturally with an open wound

O, in a world, not a womb
I linger for a second, colder birth

III.

A tongue
Silverware, not forked
Given hoary reception
Birthmarked psychically, not in skin
Named by illicit conception

Poises with practiced precision
It spells in pitch with borrowed voice
To instil an old man’s gross decision
To force a father’s pernicious choice

Look sir
I bleed

That same meat, simpering sweet
Turns the direction of sisters’ affection
Weaving words for their delight
Lustrous, curling, sterling, white

White, hot with passion
White, shot with death
Words penned in black ink
‘scaping on breath

Too late

IV.

You’ve overfilled the abyss with dead-march drums
The bodies are weighed with terrible finality
A battlefield bathes in the military beat
Homesickness seeps into every cavity

Heaven make you free
Of the grief and weariness of life

And because we must
We’ll go on.

Lunging forward, knuckles ‘gainst the green
Ted demonstrates the knack

Bending to the gravity of desire,
Consciousness flung just shy of the jack.

Downstream: small white and
Large black knock and clack.

You raised a finger to draw something.
The air had been plain before.
Now it wore a triangle.

Samurai arranged flowers, you said.
And revered nature, particularly trees.
Of course, the cherry and the maple still captivate Japan
During their short, separate seasons of brilliance. 

These words themselves formed a careful arrangement.
You lit white candles so it could be displayed. 

This is the classical style. When you see
a vase with three branches,
Think of Heaven, think of Earth, think of Man.

I nodded, but struggled for years.
Heaven was high and I was afraid.
Then a samurai with a pink face told me to jump
And, like a match, I burst into flames.

The cooling body
shrinks within its skin,
white tissue that folds,
creases. Wrinkles
line the surface,
mountain ranges
at a distance,
etched into the moon.

And again you ask
how to fall for this
flawed body.

Here is the secret:
set down your spyglass,
lower your mirror.
You are luminous still.

The white box plugs into my laptop.
It uses a USB.

Settings include
engine, rainfall, birdsong.

Press the right buttons and seashore runs
five hours at a time.

A hush so large and shapeless
thoughts lose purchase and drown.

Ah bliss.

No quiet touches
this nothing noise.

Her pink palms clasp a pomegranate and the flushed
flesh basks. Yes, the sleepy warmth of fingers seeps
into ripe belly, soaking ruby pulp. Ah-me-oh-my,
to be a thousand seeds stirring in deep jelly.

Flesh basks, yes. The warmth of sleepy fingers sweeps
a quivering handle, reducing bursting vesicles
before me. A thousand seeds stir and weep in jelly,
spilt at the pleasure of the sticky blade, dangling now – 

a quivering handbell. The sluicing, bursting vesicles
cry out in scarlet. Yes, open up for excavation –
split at the pleasure of the sticky blade (dangling now) –
meant for messy juicing, warm mammalian lips.

Crying out a scarlet yes, opened up for exploration
her mouth. Her tongue flicks mellifluous whispers.
(My, it’s made for messy juicing.) Warm mammalian lips
shape vowels, crude protean language. Yes.

Her mouth, her tongue flirts. Promiscuous whispers
of sea issue as seeds stirring deep in jelly. We
shape vows out of rude protean languor. Yes,
her pink palms clasped a pomegranate and I blushed.