Due to be published this month (I think) in 'Fire' poetry magazine. Read at 'Fire' poetry reading in London Oct 2003.
Energy (kcal)
Somehow, she feels,
this food alone
has the capacity to change her:
make her unattractive to the opposite sex.
As though the apparent merits
(of personality)
are concealed by blubber
and so overlooked.
Thus these protruding ribs and brittle bones
are deemed perversely beautiful,
perhaps evoking a masculine instinct to protect:
so thin, so vulnerable,
she unwittingly becomes submissive.
Time passes,
lust withers and dies
leaving only the bare branches of decorum
and pity.
Now she is but an Oxfam child:
her sex is lost in hand-me-down skin.
She has no energy to live, to love,
to breathe, to bleed.
Hold her gently close
as she slips away
leaving only dust,
a guilty memory,
upon your fingers.
Due to be published in 'Fire' magazine sometime this year.
Stillborn
Maybe you knew I didn’t want you.
You aborted yourself
to make up for my failed attempts.
I would have learned to love you
(they would have made me).
Maybe I would have loved you more
or less
if you were bawling,
red-faced,
squirming in my arms.
But you lie so still and quiet:
there’s a good dead baby.
Maybe once again I want only what I can’t have.
This is your ploy:
to have me love you somehow,
even posthumously.
My womb is the scene of this
delicate suicide.
I weep in grief,
or perhaps for pain endured
in vain,
for the fruit of my labours
is this perfect anticlimax.
My body,
its midwives,
blush in shame
At caressing this cold skin;
dragging this tiny corpse
out of her maternal tomb.
Climb back in,
and squat like a cold stone
in the empty cave of my stomach.
See how it holds its shape:
leaving a space for you.
We can begin again.
Oh my ice baby,
burning cold to touch,
your lips of polished quartz:
You are melting in my arms
and slipping away…
Please, climb back.
A stone to keep this wound open;
a memory to keep the pain fresh.
The blue half moons of your fingernails
will keep me from healing.
Relapse
So it begins
again
and this time will it ever end?
So it comes again,
Red as violation.
Here we go again,
Slip into damnation.
My skies are overcast now.
The immediate relief of monsoon rain
After months of draught and desiccation
desecration.
Until I find myself-
so soon I’m drowning-
overcome and flooding.
Staring at the wall,
Despairing of it all.
It’s only a matter of time-
I’m waiting for the fall.
This gradual emergence
from numbness.
As if after anaesthetic-
pain I was unaware of,
infringes on my consciousness.
And now these bloody limbs;
this twisted mind,
Slowly become mine.
There I go again,
I’m falling in slow motion.
Oh here it comes again,
I’m drowning in emotion.
Only inches from the end.
Withdrawal
Pills lie unpopped-
wasted potential.
Powdered promises of happiness
trapped behind the foil divide.
Half empty packets,
half-life:
all I am encapsulated.
Strip away the flesh and leave the bones,
strip away the senses and leave the numb,
strip me…
who knows what will remain.
Now the past is leaking in,
under the door and around the window frame,
claims to myself, yet unremembered.
Newborn mouths,
bright red, toothless,
open and scream:
Oh what has become of me?
Undone
Gashes on her cheeks
smile up at you-
pursed lips-
and swell with bated breath.
Bruises blossom like flowers,
like kisses with dark lipstick.
Split lips where their knuckles hit,
where your fingers trace
the contours of her swollen face.
Her hands shake, torn fingernails.
Blood on her face you long to wipe away
her pain.
Scabs form,
skirt over the emotion.
Flashbacks trapped behind her eyes,
and her half-hearted smile lies.
Cardboard cut-out
sometimes I think
you wish I was 2D,
standing in the corner of your room
like a cardboard cut-out.
oh I am easier without depth,
I can be just looks, just sex.
I can be your trophy:
untouchable, wipe-clean.
you don’t need to understand me,
love me, care about me.
I am dirty magazines, pornography,
wrap me up in cellophane:
flat packed, slid under the bed
when you bring your girlfriends home.
close myself and wait for you,
don’t bleed or cry alone,
don’t exist without you.
I am no one.
I am sweet nothing.
Al fresco
the elastic of the trampoline gently buckles under the weight of our bodies
the fabric rising and falling in time with our breaths
the leisurely swell of your chest
shifting my head from the pillow of your stomach.
you slyly slide your arm around my shoulders
i nestle my head in the niche of your shoulder
the alcohol seeps into my bloodstream and makes everything beautiful.
as our eyes adjust to the darkness of the new moon
you tell me to look for shapes in the clusters of leaves, like clouds
there is a headless marionette and a smiling dog that i can’t see
you laugh and pull me closer.
you take my hand and knead the pads of my fingers
you turn your head so your lips rest against my forehead
you talk more softly and gently stroke the bare skin above my waistband
i slide up your body so your lips run over my nose and touch mine
for a moment, we breathe each other’s air.
your hands are callous and blistered from labouring
run over my face, they make my skin feel like silk
your kisses taste of vodka and tobacco
when I take a breath, i tell you to give up smoking and you laugh in my mouth.
the trampoline trembles in anticipation as i wrap my legs around you
your heartbeat against my chest quickens
your tongue intrudes, imposes itself onto my mouth
the sun begins to come up behind the shapes i still can’t see.
later, we wonder back up to the house
i sit on your lap while we watch the others play pool and you stroke my hair
we talk about nothing, just enjoying the fission where our bodies touch
and the still-pulsing adrenalin of our secret liaison.
when you leave, you kiss me on the cheek, the same as the others
i sober up and realise you didn’t ask for my number
i lie on my back and watch the sun rise
searching for a meaning in the clusters of leaves
but finally all i can find is the shape of a dog, laughing at me from the trees.
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