Every Road.

Every road

inclined

as weighted

days and

weighted limbs

collide.

Children

scurry through

his minds as bright

as the morning

sun.

Eyes of piercing

certainty

truth and grace

embrace these

last scenes

and hold them in his

mind like

luke warm

wine.

The Cement Garden.

A warm incestuous writhe

of bramble and honeysuckle,

the sweet decay a funeral cologne.

I taste your marzipan breath

yet suffocate waiting for your eyes

that stall and never reach me.

In your garden the rain sounds a

discord of our coupling – a gentle

trespass playing summer’s saddest

symphony.

Promises

We promised each other the little
things – for tomorrow.
Prayed for lottery wins
when first steps passed us by.
Baby laughs and chuckles from
some other room.

Days slipped by with death
around the corner – thoughts
that death was for the old
not for the young.

Waiting for the next pay
cheque - the next weekend -
anxiety scurrying through
minds like starlings trapped
in the loft.

We promised each other the little
things for tomorrow
while birds sang in other
trees - in other skies.

The sun and sky, brutally quiet -

another industrial morning where

corrugated friendships gather

and sleep is wiped out the corner

of sad red eyes.

Hulks of corroded metal

hug the earth, while the

harshness of another day

is softened by comradely

joshing.

Shared crusts of bread are

washed down with ice

cold water, floaters rise

in the glass, like moths.

We grow with each other

aching arms - aching minds

and push into another shift

like mice, like men.

The Boulevard.

It was streetlight that
shone in their bedroom -
streetlight.

No stars or moon no
sunshine - the room
ached in its dull thudding.

The children slept three
to a bed, they slept in -
threes.

They wove stories
and dreams huddled
against the naked cold.

In the dark,
panelled light plays
on the nested innocence
of their eyes.


An arrowhead of
promise whipped
circularly over
their heads.

The granite of
tomorrow
still
in the ground.

Aberfan

I didn’t lose God from

theological argument

or scientific dialectics.

I lost him in Aberfan

in Vietnam in

empty cupboards

childhood hunger

bread and jam.

Here are my feet.

Here is my clitoris

you need to know

what makes me tick

own me from

head to toe

here is my clit.

And here is my heart,

I wear it upon my

sleeve its so easy

to see raw - pink

and throbbing,

here is my heart.

Here is my mind so -

so grey - see through

almost translucent

fertile - a newly ploughed

field words fizzing out

of the furrows -

here is my head.

And here – here are my

feet,

I stay - I remain -

paint them up

red just for

you -

my feet –

here are

my feet.