Collage, your pieces do not quite Fit
You, rehearsed cynic at 18, lamented about modern poetry. ‘Not everything is like something else.’ No, but too naive to omit The unbearable likeness of your being. A facsimile of a facsimile, A patchwork hand-sewn man with hidden seams, An ego built on historicity and a hai
t4t
I’ve asked around about you And get the vaguest answers, It’s not enough to paint an impression. How many grooves have you memorised To blend so well into the wall? You are a mirror, an artist of conceit, The in-between of a million things, I want to peel you off the walls bump By bump [&hel
Grassroots II
this night the night to hear to let the world run through her veins through all her veins to let to let it all of it run through his veins through all the veins to hear to hear the night this night *** The poem above recounts an evening at Saint Frideswide’s Farm, [
Maislie and Japlicorn
You wake to my eyes staring at you in the room where you loved me. Something rolls up from the depths of my stomach and rams against my lips. I’m sick. I can only spit bile, hold you where it hurts as you pull: drag me back to June, when your kisses were sweet, […]
Easter Weekend
When time stopped, at some point between frost on the grass and the break of summer, there was a day when we all went to the river. I packed my swimming costume, optimistically, given it was the end of March. I was in a good mood, smoking again, my body was so wonderfully […]
Body at Stake
Boys will be boys—my hands are tied! A witch, they scream, she’s the devil’s crook, She’s seasoned with sins. I burn—I cook. My body is here! Mine! And naked upon the stake. So, gird your loins for the big strip tease: The fire and myself at one, at ease. A biting
Alone in the House
No, I hadn’t left the downstairs light on. Had I? I hang a few paces outside my doorway. Before this I was stewing in my bedroom. I could have been doing a million other things than rolling around on my bed, intermittently swapping phone, book and laptop between my hands, wondering if this was wha
The Blood of the Beast
A crude drawing of God lies in your lap, the limp hand of a father cut in half by a fold and hastily scribbled over. Those brutish lines are shadows on my wall, chanting Gregorian hymns until their thousand shadowed heads erupt with horns. Your towering tongue speaks viscous words, confessing a toni
Baggage Claim
Our suitcases stutter forward, past packets and tins, slices and loaves. I catch myself in every reflective surface. Wrinkled shirt in the countertop; slick,blotchy profile looming in the cool glass of the cloches; wisps of manic hair creeping in the sunglasses atop so many heads. It is almost a rel