Kirk-fall

Edinburgh

Friday night pants
they were flares but you
wash them too many
and they shrunk

now to lose so badly
promised to come back
the last week, it's not
really like this before

it's okay for a sad story
there's a lot going on in town
the distractions are the nice ones;
drugs, skates, sell-out position

call me when the neighbor-bell
sounds, it was a moon moved
in purse, I might go out too
always wanted to tick off the lost

v) visor's revived if you turn to
me now, just too madness
approved going to try and
get me to go over-night

vi) there's no poof - evil shit
an arranged pornographic ride
undies in tow - packed by your
mum (you don't own a pair)

vii) too tired to do all day,
you, you; don't need exactly
it's an implement (you've been
charmed) the only way down with it.

viii) in baby belly to what was
that arch, a white slip thinking
each pluck punch look a
firth to my kirk-bound altar.

ix) yeah, it was funny, half-children's
paper, off a side-show alley
you got tickets, they only bought
got to go public, out of our hair

x) like a dialogue, do you remember
I might recognize as something
yesterday you did exactly the same
thing, forced to drink w. us

xi) a long long machine-crawl crunch
mine's at fire at up there, provided
who's the thievier of the latent modern -
not the party's I go for.

xii) so what's happening - I might do it
it's just a bit of an attitude
(what tomorrow?) M & S baggie - that's
mine, just so you know, yeah?

xiii) or you can hear it during the show
I don't quite like twelve at night,
end about two, a very long haul
when you're strange come lightly

lidless

typingbacktothewall
my hand is still burnt
there's a melted cheese smell
bare-knuckle oven-backed
she's not here
cancelled, delayed, protracted
she's removed herself to me
I'm the career criminal
no more big heists
you know you're hurt
the writing's so shit
the poetry doesn't flow
it's selfconscious fucking literary fuck
the gizzms of your deluded second guesses
what's she..?-
It doesn't matter
It doesn't matter
you've done nothing wrong, you're perfect -
let's change
sure, why not
4.5 years down
one testical less
why keep going, we've exhausted all we could right?
I'm just holding, we're just back
only that's not the -
turn off, switch-back
eek out nothing from nothing
december again
december always
if i knew what you, I'll wait
demeaned, displayed
cut open and enamelled
bronzed
remember this shape
that's me
they'll have to use the teeth
most reliable way
i'll already be here
going
going
I would already be
septimus prime arcadian
but anywhere, differential
something to wait for
some dignity in squalor
half-packed - eyes shut
like a pet, like a lidless eye
searching for affection
finding only you

Oberon

there’s scruples in the lessons travailed
hymn of him gone Oberon way with
a fire-brand in his eyes, droving,
seeking only water-tank Golems -
he arches left through tense Lantana
and seeded eucalypt crushes
that’ll be the necessary
‘indolent and capacious’
‘more fuel than last time’
‘only the timid, I love –
that’s the least of the dividers
that mark, there on the trail
between the Holden, rusted
ochre, an dirt-paint bleached
I make a dark circle, walking
the route more times than ants aroused
it always sweeps to the left,
past the first, past the second
fire-trap, scorch tin-foil mark
empty ‘2-minute’ wrappers litter
tagalong patois cities
a dreaming from the time
outlander, starch white, stiff cane
stumble stumble to a carve mark
they met this tree, a bollard to death
boil leather to thicken the gruel,
horse-jerky for the road
bury a buckle for all to find
something tells me the mountain’s
insurmountable
but bitumen eat through trestle-tables
and picnic spots
gilded tractors, primary slick and painted solid
they don’t allow tree-houses anymore
too much pin-stripe action and
aspirational summons
close the parks, fold up the cinder-block castle
‘it’s too Norman, don’t you know’
‘but Battersea is closed’
‘farewell to old Eng –
we’ll not find acacial-fields or Banksia men;
they’re spending cheques at 6am pubs,
scrubbed up for pay-day, the welfare
all allotted, neat, sleeved portions
head up to save money,
facing Mecca for all we know -
isn’t isn’t good no longer
they taught me to ride a bike there
chain-teeth, prop down, revved
in a blue woolen jumper.
They’ll find the body with a teddy-bear -
someone has sown it magenta over-alls,
their buttons match
‘found one’
‘not dark, not like –
‘the rest, no.’

torch-light

Torch light
A boy runs through the space, small, blackened with soot
The torches follow him, searching
Their beams pick up the smoke, curling upwards as the boy disappears
The torch light grows until the beams crisscross the space;
endless, sweeping, building upwards like a fire
Crackling, sirens, wood...

penta

i
I'll carry weaver-lock baskets
reeds made mute with wed-
lock times down on the river

ii
You'll make jelly-fish allusions
bite deep cores of fruit
bowl a pitch too high

iii
He'll not take stock of
brown high-waist marks
of furniture arrayed in rivers

iv
She'll keep candelabra vigils
at ease with Tudor sentiments
can't see our rough delight

v
why we're grass shewn illusions
to idyll Picts and pinafore days
dreaming that we're going




and people, far prettier of mind,
recite our verse into the ether -
safe, knowing the benevolence of
interpretation does not sully meaning