A deep tender ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude

don’t forget the washing

if it rains don’t forget to bring the washing in;
the responsibility is more than I can bear
so I stand in the kitchen watching
our elderly neighbour struggle with the prop
and her one good leg, thinking
somebody should really try and help her.

Rodin’s Kiss
for Laura

he poured his soul
into one perfect kiss

and the world
loved him for it

so I stand apart awhile
away from the crowds

with their harsh looks
and opinions,

to think of you -
for I am Rodin

and I only ever
think of you

PCW 2005

reading Larkin in a whisper

she sits naked
in my old arm chair
with the Chinese cushions
reading Larkin in a whisper
and her long legs are curled
beneath her


a strange lament

I used to like to write about romance
had a girlfriend and she had me
would send her little cards of poems
And bring sunflowers to the station
one day she said we would be married
the future held its breath
she went home for Easter

back to her place amongst the hills
I took the train
two hours through the city and away
for just one day together
and so it was
that on our last night of pleasure
she killed all that I’d come to hold so dear
and sent me home again

it's a beautiful evening, I should be working, but it's a beautiful evening...

Before the altar wall

I lie close tonight
close to the feeling of wall
and it’s coldness
reads like wetness
and sturdier places
of high ceilings
and flesh hung ornaments
of a gross empty sacking
that proclaims man and men
are broken
whose perfect eyes writhe
upon the farthest wall
that clings to me
in dreams
speaking of a deep and mythic sexuality
that pleases me
and causes me to crane my aching neck
and imagine sacrilegious acts
tearing chisels and claws
through the soft bellies
of their perfection

untitled

I am only twenty-three
and yet I feel I am at the cutting edge
of my existence

the few jobs I have worked
have taught me a few things
here and there

but I have no great talent
or ambition for great things
just a longing to love

and while some might laugh
at this sentimentality,
when I see my father

at peace in his garden,
and his wife
my mother

watching him from
The wooden bench we made together
That summer

I can see the simple happiness
In her eyes, and feel his joy
Just to know she is watching

Then I know
That sentimentality is not a wasted
Occupation, but is vital to the
Understanding of ourselves

I am just a young man
and I read
The work of others
Without really knowing why

Movies Gift Certificates

So I would take a pebble

I have never lived by the sea;
although one day I see a cottage
with old books and slack back chairs
in which to nestle a reader wearied

by the smell of seawrack blistering
in the sun, as she the sea empties her
old maid’s pockets upon the shore
as if the mark the farthest point

of her influence, darkly underlined
in the gathering sun of another day
where pebbles, wet as kidneys
bleach silently in quiet anonymity

beyond the thoughts of those who
pass by thinking this is just a spit
where land falls to the passing hands
of water and marks of lovers on the

sand who last night ran down to see
the moonlight and speak of romance
and how they would love each other
into old age, sharing their infirmities

bearing the other as a love against
the tides, so I would take a pebble
for my pocket, to keep to touch
to turn for you and all that might

have been, to share the child in me
to show you the things I cannot express
though I know you see them too
from your windows by the sea

PCW 2005

On feeling a bit lack-lustre, and overly tired, and too tired to read that book on female body-builders I'm supposed to be reading for the essay...

Standing on a rock screaming at the sea;
or the sound of a fish flapping
on the sand:

I fell in love today
at a quarter-past three
by half-past eleven she’d
left me, and I had to ride
home on the bus
all alone

There’s a seagull after my chips

mum, there’s a seagull after my chips
‘It’s a Larus ridibundus, she corrects me
‘and please don’t eat with your feet!’

- I am a twenty-three year old with a fear of sea
birds and an aversion to fried foodstuffs -

according to the RSPB web-site
the Larus ridibundus is not really
a seagull at all, more a chocolately brown
in fact, and has a white head and is near-sighted
and is found commonly almost anywhere inland.

so I look to my chips for some answers
I am an eight-year old child with delusions of ketchup,
think I should have taken the hamburger option

Epilogue:

Joyce would have written something profound, no doubt
and his mum would have looked across the table
and said ‘why don’t you go outside and play with
the other boys,’ and Joyce would have carried on reading


Truth no. 114

is sex merely helpless fun, or is it pure egoism
at the expense of someone else’s self-image?
I honestly don’t know
just wish I was having more of it these days


would like to meet

would like to meet an interesting
woman age important who likes similar
things to me and does stuff I could appreciate,
and looks good naked and who will read me
poetry in bed and post the bills that
need posting but I keep forgetting to take
with me when I leave the house in the morning,

and who likes the look of me, and savours my
awful cooking and stupid, unmanageable
hair, and likes men in glasses and more importantly
likes this man in glasses, and likes wandering
around aimlessly, and who doesn’t mind
me waffling on about this and that
without ever seeming to look like I know

what it is I’m talking about, like some
meandering idiot who walks leaning
forwards as if people are continually
pushing him out of the door and never
has the time of day, regardless of how
many watches he has bought over the
Internet thinking that they might be

a worthy investment, but are in fact
worthless, and I’d like it if she had the
long, dark hair and eyes and eyes and eyes
and a good reading voice - reading is important,
I think I’ve mentioned it twice already;
it’s important that this gal can read, and likes
lying in bed reading, and other things too rude

to mention here but worth hinting at anyway,
and likes watching foreign films
is critical of babies, and I’m not going to settle
for anything less than what I think I deserve, since in the right
company some might say I’m quite agreeable

Narcissus

started going to the gym recently
can’t do as many press-ups as I thought
I could, but I didn’t want to be overly-pumped,
would just look silly, and besides,
It just doesn’t work on your willy

Beware of a sharp unguarded point

I remember Cornwall and the holidays we
wintered there, in our static caravan
by the high cliffs, amongst the rough
winds and cobbled beaches that bruised
Our feet and required the use of stout
walking boots just to reach the foam

that never tasted as good as it looked
and where pink toilet paper snaked
through the water like a nightmarish
beast from the deep, with sharp inverted
teeth but kind on your bum and available
in three different varieties from the

camp shop that still had the old
style 5ps and yards of garden twine
and crab fishing lines that seemed to speak
of adventures with rosy-cheeked holiday
makers who spent their days dipping children
into rock pool sanctuaries while
trying to avoid the dog-poo

The Bottle Lies Empty

lately I find the bottle lies empty
the darkness has come and is clinging to me
and I feel like the man come home
to be washed by his woman
in the coal black waters
of the sea

she holds him close and calls him love
and sadly he looks to her lips
as if to ask permission
to kiss his love whom he misses at work
and who waits by the gate
for his return

lately I find these days grow dark too quickly
the children stand around and practice their spitting
by the bus stop, that reminds me of home
and she whom I love who left me
before I killed us
both