I go everywhere alone
but I can’t leave you behind
you’ve seeped into my skin
you’re a bandstand blaring
in my mind.

I go everywhere alone
in hope that I will find
somebody new who’s not like you
but they keep turning into frogs
the only Prince I ever found

was in that pub those years ago.

I go everywhere alone
you’d think I’d learn t your stupid tricks
I’ve sailed the silent seven seas
& climbed huge mountains in my dreams
but when I turn around I see

I’m better off alone at home
till you decide to be with me.

You want, the sunshine to paint rainbows
on a polished floor
you want, heaven neatly packaged
from a summer storm
a space to lick your nightmares
infinity arranged somehow in human form

a mirror for your ecstasy
an interstellar highway
bought without the cost
& so much more.

I am the face that broke a thousand hearts
without a thought
a Helen watching armies marching past my door
a catalyst I offer gifts you’ve long been searching for
but I’ll take you high,
too far I fear from the safe and warm.

I love the twilight, open night, the river’s call
the soft breath of my sleeping son
fever in a lover’s eyes disputes round an open fire
hands that hold with fingers intertwined
you see I need it all.

There is no answer to the riddle snaking at your feet
I’m no Desdemona honey, nor is she
but remember in your early mornings there is always me
& I am free at last from bondage baby,

to just be me.

I offered life my prayers ,
Ave Marias
strung from sleep
to send me a love
I’d want to keep,

close to me .

The shaft was imprecise,
but it burnt the sky
moved satellites
a coloured ray of
blasting light ,

was all I hungered for .

I asked that he be kind ,
respect my ways
heal darker days
brush frosted fears
that ice that clings to powdered tears,

sharp breath of star-kissed night .

Then I settled back to wait ,
it wasn’t foremost on my mind
my time was filled
dusting cobwebs, filing thoughts ,
renovating long-held hopes ;

until you caught my eye ,
and showed me I’d been blind .

I’ve a drawer full of promises
you made to me.
Sequin edged cards
that glow in the dark,
emails gold tinged
from the ends of the earth.
I’ve a hole in my heart
where your words have engrained
the seed of you.

I’ve silver tipped pearls
and amethyst pledged
with the feel of your skin:
your eyes that caught mine
from the edge of a room.
Games that we played
are lost to us now
with the sweat that we shared
and the death of you.

I challenged the stars
and searched for a truth
to fit with your words
a place we both knew
the song of first bird,
your hand neat in mine:
simple requests that you would
be there the time that it takes
to rebuild a life.

I’ve a drawer full of promises
you made to me: a watch from Karachi
a goose downed duvet
that keeps me warm for you.
A head full of memories
a hole in my heart
as big as the moon
where the seeds of your love
are engrained in me.

You are omnipotent
with your beauty:
it walks across a street.

Clouds draw breath.

Midnight chatter
binds us tightly
into tomorrow’s spiral

The stars crumble.

Stubble on your chin
like a thin mouse
kissing me.

Tying us in.

The night has
footsteps
we watch them.

Sleep falters.

Your kisses burn
like powder sparks
suddenly I find:

need of you.

Make a wish
blow it to the wind,
a seed pod to settle
in unknown nook
set to blossom where
least expected.

Take a chance
that day will follow
night, & night screams
settle into flight of bat,
or humming insect doing
exactly what they do.

Life’s a park
laid out in corrugated
plains, where just out of sight
the future meets the past &
all things settle into one
precious movement of light.

Take my hand
notice how our curves
fit like granite cliffs eroding
into dust, as a bird flies by
with silk scarf &
touches us.

Take my love
weigh it with Maats feather,
so when you find it true
know that justice has been done
as we sleep side by side
in God’s country.

Ground neuron pathways
like crushed petals
like atomic fission
channels to an ecstasy
not understood
not even whispered
cognoscenti.

Brain flutters a byway
there is no blue print
for this:
just hard learning through
body’s heaving.

Love is an echo
lips a skin
fingers entangled in hair
you draw me in
you draw me
you demand everything.

Ground neuron pathways
crushed petals
slimy underfoot
you make promises
promises for tomorrow
ask for today
ask for everything
promise tomorrow,
will be without this.

I have knives in my belly
mouth twitches from holding
tight the grimace
the grimace born from us

& you ask me to talk to you
talk to you,
muscles held tight from pain’s spasm
you offer everything
then draw back to ascertain:
you make promises for tomorrow
which should have been fulfilled

yesterday.

You come and we contain intimate spaces, I wake and find your head beside me on the pillow, I breathe your breath and then you disappear again, till every moment has a meaning and we wait for the right moment to have the right meaning. You stretch me out like elastic and I dread the snap of returning to myself feel the ropes of silence tie me down again.
I am the revolution come to pare away the excess flesh you carry close to comfort you. Tear up your settled bed throw out the garden flowers. I am searching for a map to tell me where I am going, as the sun falls I walk along the dusty river past the Temple and the evening crowds of tourists, the Nile flat at my feet with a dark felucca silhouette against an ailing sunset. Later the palm trees rise like sentinels in the perfumed garden and the sound of drums floats across the rippled pool against the glitter of dusky belly dancers
All men are morning people; they wake with huge erections mounting stele like to the sky, the bed climbs with their desire. Men think they want women to be soft, gentle, yielding. He talks to her in body talk, whispers nonsense syllables and she watches his eyes dilate with the pleasure she’s dispensing. She’s not the little girl he claims to love, and doesn’t weave him mysteries, they just arrive like a new wind from the south, like a strong perfume smelt walking along a busy street. She is always three steps ahead and around a corner before he’s even noticed her absence, here the river is a heavy aube of glinted light, she’s cried too much.
I’ve been asleep for ever meandering through the meadows of my mind peeling snippets of past conversations gathering questions I thought we’d left behind. So now I understand how it’s all about you, and how you feel fulfilled, full up with love, and it’s all about me and the roads I have or haven’t walked , it’s all about this loop in time turning back to strangle us.

It’s always when,
the magnolia bursts into purity itself
beside the shuttered houses along
these grimy streets, and the pear trees
gentle stubble turns the starkness of the
year into a children’s wish,
it’s always then, that you begin to be
close to me.

It’s somehow Camellia
dancing in pink skirts belting
psychedelic colour to the ground
in fallen perfumed petals: and the green shoots
pierce the grumbling winter soil,
to raise the shadow of a smile
it’s always then, that you bring
a single rose to me.

It seems that time
has thrust you from her depths
& death is nowhere to be found
for somehow memory is bound up in the bliss
of each succeeding spring, the sketch of long lost
kiss & the garden tells it all,
it brings me to my knees in thankfulness,
that your hand was once in mine.

It’s always when,
the magnolia suddenly appears
& fox cubs scream their loathsome
midnight song, when cherry blossom looks
exactly as it should, like some blowsy bride’s
bouquet at the ending of this day
when the moon is throttled in the sky and your birthday
rings bells in my head, it’s almost always then

that I feel you, so very close to me.