Phoenix

Posted: September 16, 2013 in Poetry

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Blazing and brazen;
Watch my wings unfurl.

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Fire-flicked and fury-licked;
Taste my flames.

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Scorched and scarred;
Lay on my ember bed.

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Furnace-fierce, internal-inferno;
I’ll burn right through you.

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Molten-malice, combusting-kisses
Melt you in to me.

At night, I am a Phoenix.
Searing and soaring;
Turning to ash.

At dawn, I am flightless…
Lifeless…
Tar and feather me.

Help me fly.

 

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Cloudrem

Posted: March 25, 2013 in Poetry

I’m falling,
Deep down into your words.
Alice’s rabbit has beckoned me in;
Too late to look back now.

I’m falling.
Calligraphic sentiments
Kiss my ‘i’s and cross my t-eeth.
Letter-case me your way.

I’m falling.
Your alpha beats to my rhythm;
I harmonise your notes,
Taste sweet letters on my tongue.

I’m falling.
Your linguistry laps my wounds,
Heals my scars,
Bestills my trembling hands.

I’m falling.
You indent my dreams.
Catch me in the curves
Of our italicised hope.

I’m falling.
Stitch my broken wings and
Watch our worded wanderlust
Take flight.

I soak into your words.
Alice’s rabbit has beckoned me in;
Too late to look back now.

I’ve fallen.

Tears at the Yaramar

Posted: July 23, 2012 in Poetry

I clasped the hand of my sand-storm lover,
As we walked the beach at night,
Picking amongst the debris
Of a thousand shipwrecked dreams.

I stared into forever with my sand-born lover,
As we paddled our toes in tomorrow;
Listening to the waves whisper
Promises of tide-born hope.

I sought solace in my sand-lorn lover,
When we kissed as the sun rose;
Pouring sea-salt tears
Onto broken, seeping wounds.

I tasted fear on my sand-swarmed lover,
As we drank messages from bottles,
Crushed stones in anxious fists,
Ground memories between teeth.

I uttered my sins with my sand-torn lover,
Cowered in our sea-sick confessional;
My knees still bleed from the shards of
What was left unsaid.

I drowned in the eyes of my sand-sore lover,
Wept as the sun set on my Yaramar dream.
My king amongst the midnight flotsam,
My pauper in the sun.

Mercy’s Corner

Posted: May 13, 2012 in Short Stories

The smell is disgusting.  The mixture of piss and decaying meat is how I imagine a month-old corpse to smell. You know, a corpse that’s been left to bloat and fester undiscovered, like that chap in Brixton I read about last week.  They only found him when a cat was spotted playing with a gnawed-off finger. When they got in his flat, he was just a nameless lump of rotting flesh.  His eye sockets were writhing with maggots.

I stare at my father slumped in his faded Queen Anne chair.  A bottle of Bells lies abandoned by his side, its backwashed contents seeping into the carpet, staining old stains.  I paid £12.99 for the whiskey at the Polish shop down the road, it’s cheaper at Tesco but the walk is too dangerous. It’s never worth getting dog shit encrusted on your soles, just to save £1.50.

How easy it would be for me to hold my hand over his mouth, to pinch his nose and watch him struggle with his alcohol-numbed limbs.  That would put us both out of our misery. That would mean I’d have to touch him, though, and I’d only do that if armed with a gas mask and industrial Marigolds.

He never eats, just glugs his poison before pissing it out into his trousers.  Sometimes I wonder if when the cirrhosis does finally finish him off, whether his body will decay like a normal corpse. I’m sure that all the booze he’s drunk will embalm him from the inside-out, and preserve him for evermore. I could keep him then. I’d wash and shave him and dress him in his smartest suit, the one he wore to Mum’s funeral. I’d play his Bobby Darin LPs on Grandma’s old gramophone whilst we played dominoes. Just like we used to.

Joan Collins winks at us from the TV screen. The foam pads in her gold Lamé make her look deformed. Her lips are stained with L’Oreal’s Cherry Passion; she looks like a whore.  My Dad’s had a soft spot for Joan ever since he saw her on the cover of Tit-Bits back in ‘51.  That’s why he married my mother; he always said that with her hair up, she looked like Joan, only with chunkier ankles.

I’ve laddered Mum’s stockings again. She wouldn’t be happy with me.  As a child, I would sit on the floor and watch her as she put her tip-toe up on her dressing table stool. The stocking would be crumpled around her ankle, as though her leg had discarded it like a snake skin. She’d pull on baby blue cotton gloves and delicately slide the nude silk up her leg, before securing it with straps at her thigh.  I loved how these stockings changed her skin; all her blemishes vanished under a silken illusion of perfection.

I always try to be as careful as her when I put on stockings, but I guess men’s hands will never have the delicate touch of a woman’s. My fingers are calloused and rough from years picking litter and cleaning the cobbled streets. I’ve got an old pot of Mum’s Ponds Cold Cream locked in my bedside draw that I put on my hands every Friday. There’s hardly any left now, though, so I use it sparingly.

Dad saw me once, dressed in Mum’s Sunday best. It was a blue viscose tea dress, sprinkled with small white flowers. I remember her wearing it the Easter before she died.  All the men stared at her as we walked to church. I didn’t like them looking at her like that. I spat at them when her back was turned.  I wonder if I look as beautiful in it as she did.

I was getting the meatloaf out of the oven when I felt his hands on me.  He cupped the curve of my buttocks as I bent over, murmuring her name. I’m not sure if he knew it was me and not her. Either way, he didn’t seem to care. I heard him fumbling with his zip. I stayed bent over and clung tightly to the hob. Maybe my plan would work after all. If he thought Mum was still alive, maybe he’d stop drinking. Maybe he’d get better.

 

Labelled

Posted: April 19, 2012 in Poetry

 

Lids stuck with labels;
Glue seeps into my tears;
Streaks mark my pallid face:
Tattooed suffering for those who look, to see.

Oh, out dammed spot;
I rub but can’t remove;
Scrubbed raw, an open wound:
Those shadows play havoc with my weary eyes.

Violent concerto;
A rhythm of pain;
A symphony of bruised hope:
Your strings make me burst into flames.

Are my tears more worthy now?

Shipwrecked

Posted: April 1, 2012 in Poetry

At sunrise I saw him,
In rusty casing,
Tarnished,
Burnt by the breeze,
Branded with sea salt and in-memoriam’s knife.
His soldered cracks seeped past misdemeanours;
Sanded edges softened spiked blows.

At eventide I saw him,
Lichen-love,
Suffocated,
Gasping for air.
Jetsam ditched, lagan abandoned;
His flotsam washed upon my shore,
As the sirens stalked, singing… ‘I love you’.

The Last Autopsy

Posted: March 22, 2012 in Productions

A short scene involving three characters and lots of entrails which I wrote a while back and recently re-discovered…
I hope you enjoy The Last Autopsy

My Loverbye

Posted: March 11, 2012 in Poetry

My Loverbye

Diseased butterflies,
Flutterbyes,
Shutter, gutter, stutterflies
Drip waxen tears of lust and hate.

My skin, it burns for you.
But, to open, spread, present and promise
Leaves me hollow from lip to lip.

Your stutterfly,
Shutterbye.
Gutter, tutter, nutterfly ignites
My all. My nothing.

Your tongue does pierce my soul.
My hole. My whole.
Oh, shutterbye love, extinguish my flame.

My flutterbye, stutterbye,
Beautiful, bastard lullaby.
My disease. My cure.
My lover, bye.

Brave enough to say it’s over

Posted: March 7, 2012 in Poetry

I pressed the red button today.
Torpedoes raced through streets of mayhem;
Mothers wailed, throwing babies out of razored windows.
Glass shards scattered across torched tarmac.

I pulled the trigger today.
Sneaked around crumbling columns, sight fixed on pain,
Dotted crosses on furrowed foreheads.
Oblivion: staining starched collars crimson.

I administered the injection today;
Ending dysmorphic visions of
Fatty tissue and engorged agony.
Sweet silence ebbed through swollen veins.

I broke my fast today.
Supping the hot cup of freedom scorched my throat.
I tasted liberty on my tongue & grief on my lips.
Dunked nuggets of independence left soggy reminders.

I high-fived life today;
Packed my lunch, dusted my heels & clicked three times.
Doting Dotty hop-scotched across parched amber tiles
As I waved ‘sayonara’, my face blistered by the sun.

Trojan9X9

Posted: February 29, 2012 in Monologues

Here’s a short monologue from one of the plays I’m working on, Black Berry. The character is Trojan9x9 – a businessman…or is  he?

Health. Family. Work.  In that order. When you’ve got your balls on the line and I’m standing over you with a claw hammer, you’re gonna need your strength to fight.

Family. Work. Health.  In that order.  When my hammer’s done its dirty business and you’re limping home with a ball sack as blue as a nun, you’re gonna need a hot mouth to help you forget.

Work. Health. Family. In that order.   We are the wired generation.  If you fuck up, there’s a hundred people waiting to replace you at the click of a button. Never forget that you are dispensable. Don’t lose focus. Ever.

Work. Health. Family. It’s all about juggling those three balls. Your balls.  My balls. Crystal fucking balls.  You can’t afford to drop any of them.  It’s all about getting the balance right.  I’ve got you teetering on a wire as thin as your dick and I’m telling you to perform.  Cirque de freak, cirque de chic, cirque of the fucking week; I don’t care if you’re Moscow State or council estate, this ain’t no fucking act.  Do what you’ve got to do to keep your balls in the air.

Walk the wire and don’t stop juggling. Do that and we won’t have a problem.