Dark side of the moon
indentations:
we’ve laid our flesh
side by side
on this palette of life.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..
The lillies are dropping leaf by leaf, pollen rubbing umber streaks on the white of my shirt, dust on my Chinese chest, I’m being whispered secrets from the dead leaves in my garden, from the blistering cold that sends me running back inside myself for warmth. Night brings random terrors which the day flushes away, garden is a dead sea of twigs and driftwood I move on head down as year turns it’s turmoil into year.

They talk of a cliff fall
& there it was a swipe of chalk
scooped out and lost

beneath the pounding waves
the natural cost of ocean
skimming shore.

I walk beneath amazed
that yesterday the gash
came clear away

& fell amongst us rubble now
where all was smooth & white before
a little like my life

when crisis calls
& I refuse to listen.

I’m standing where the sea licks
over rock pools to raise green bands
of ownership on the white cliffs.

Over there is Flanders field
where crosses laid with poppies pledge
remembrance of our war torn dead

but I’m not gone yet.

Light fades here on winter shore
seagulls scream annoying protests
of the dark to come

& here you walk a buttoned man
with dog at heel while over there
in Flanders field forgotten bones

in shallow graves and miles of paper
poppies face the silent night .

alone.

Your face in sleep
a dream of ancient lands,
my face, our hands,
the angle of the light.

We touch our fingertips
reach out , we’re always
out of reach, saliva stretched
as threads of make believe.

We are pregnant with meaning
enveloped by a skin of purpose
exhausted by the heat of this,
opening ,skin drenched into

emptiness.

Grey, grey sky
scrapers, scrape
skyline.
Travelling to,
travelling away
self contained
in the container
of today.

Yellow suited
police concur
on street corners,
rain threatens
to engulf
the threatened.

The storm bickers
with itself,
spits regardless
of humanities
endeavour to exist
around it.

Hail flattens faces,
windows, cheeks
sting. Scan graffiti.
I time travel
to return to the
beginning, where
God laughs.

Passing places where I’ve
lived,
years of daily grind
gone now in the shifting spasm,
the hook and eye of time.

Passing places where I’ve
loved
I hesitate beside your door
wonder if I ventured in, just who
I’d find.

There’s the place we used
to kiss
buried under Albert Bridge
& the row that melted steel
shrank the river into tears.

Dean Street flutters with
our ghosts
the night I drank and danced
till dawn, in someone else’s
arms, you melted scorn.

Passing places where
we’ve been
watch our imprint in the air
sitting at this table where
I know we shared the final trip
the mystery of parting.

Sun glints through
sea spittle weed floats
like dead girl’s hair
between two buoys
coastguard stutters into life.

Oil tanker and ferry wait
for no man, sea undulates
its curves like the patterns
in my brain I want to call you up
ask you how you’ve been

but death leaves no voicemail
only disconnection & the line
whines an end..

Sunshine over sea spittle
weed like strands of dead girl’s hair
through the two buoys yachts
jitter for a slice of wind
& the seagulls hover fight for litter

raucous voices tint an offshore wind.

You danced and prayed
for tomorrow:
while yesterday lingers
a heartbeat spun
& now forgotten.

Only in my mind:
only as long as the
sun shines on this
miniscule movement
of time.

Only I remember your
face the trace
of your love lingers
like a warm bed
on a winter’s night.

Only I remember the
night time whispers
the soothing hand
on nightmare brow
the generosity of how

you let me shine.

Only for you I
linger now
waiting for sleep
waiting for you
to come for me.

When the unknown
tale begins
and the
last glimpse of
life flickers.

Fog rolls in wet
cold & spider thin
stretching the skin of my heart
masking the gold of fallen leaves
marking the places we’ve been.

Roof slick with rain
stubble falls under plough
black sticky with stony debris:
we’ve travelled light years this far
shedding memories like see through leaves

rising ghostly from the past
sentient now giving form to breath
to invite you in one last time
before the night falls.

Rainbow over the Shard
black light leftover storm
hammered in the night
waking me.

You called at 4am
I’m tied up in cumuli
nimbus falling from cloud
islands into my own inertia.

London holds its palms up
South Bank to Tower Hill
bidding for attention on
Westminster Bridge downwards to

St Pauls.

The wheel turns as other
wheels do & the plane trees
arc their fingers to November sky
Guy Fawkes lurking on the street

where the Big issue seller
& the unknown soldier
hawk their poppies.