Her - For N.

Her eyes bleed molten gold,
Upon her caramel lap,
Her white-hot touches scold,
A dark world’s coldest snap.

The copper and nickel,
Of her electric hair,
Twists, writhes and crackles,
Igniting the black air.

Her metal-plated skin,
Vibrant against the night,
Glowing wildly from within,
Proves a riveting sight.

The rapture of her heart,
A pulsing supernova,
Practitioner of lost art,
My muse, my liege, my lover.

Old Gods

Do you remember when IRAK

Bombed the Brooklyn Bridge?

Perched against its iron hide,

135 feet above the

Shit-filled slab of the Hudson River.

Did you hear about Justin and Harold,

Clocking out ahead of time?

Thompson Square pioneers,

Slickly varnished across silver screens,

Then left to bleed out alone.

And you must know about Dash,

Sucking down 20 bags of brown?

A flame so

Sick’n’fuckin’ tired of everyone’s crap,

That he chose to burn out his own way.

You can’t put a price on that shit.

Friends

Your shadows haunt

Our parties.

Darkening lips and faces,

Staining the walls.

Sometimes I stray so close

To your new home,

But pause.

You reach out

As I waver on the doorstep,

And stroke my cheek.

Your dead fingers

Still feel so warm.

Fuck.

I miss you all.

Private Party

Today I collected polaroids of all my dead friends

And snorted a line off every one

So we could all party together again

One last time

Your Eyes

I thought I knew the weight of a glance:

The gentle glimmer of the wind’s dance;

The meadow’s dew-clad morning scent;

The sun celebrating the cloud’s relent;

The soft tongues of dusk’s dark skin;

The warmest touch of the night within.

Until, one moment, meeting by chance,

You showed me what lies beyond the glance.

Star #4

His pink and blood flecked face stares out,

From the scarred asphalt paving slabs.

A thousand footsteps press about,

Hammering his eternal scabs.

Flashes pelt his gold-embossed name,

A famous body never seen,

Broken and crushed, looking the same,

A Hollywood grave for James Dean.

Girl in LA

First Night Jitters

Could she smell her own blood as she stepped down,

The rubber-clad steps of the Greyhound bus?

Did she taste the flavour of corruption,

The street’s glowing slime and contagious pus?

‘Make sure when you arrive there, you call us.’

Her mother’s gentle, caring reminder.

Now rocking warm and alone, a foetus

With an entire lifetime left behind her.

The hungry boulevard has no grandeur,

Her stilettos beat out her innocence.

The wolves emerge from their red-lit shelter,

Keen snouts pricking the air for precious scents.

One night down so many more to be lived.

To what end if the first is not survived?

Second Week Realisation

The morning coffee smells like a rare gift,

Undeserved, yet so desperately grateful.

She stares vacantly into the black rift,

Tiled with sunshine, her corpse sips and feels full.

Her fake Gucci bag by her blistered feet,

Across the path, she spies its reflection.

Its white, lambskin handles kiss the hot street,

Whilst its owner basks in blank pretention.

Such women are made of her childhood dreams,

Mannequins littering her childhood home.

She slams down her half-drunk coffee and screams,

The dummies stare from their faces of stone.

She goes clattering off down the sidewalk,

Out of earshot, the women do not talk.

Third Month Numb

Skin-like scales of torn paper make their bed,

On the tessellated floor of her home,

Once important lines marked over with red,

Now hollow and torn, their meanings unknown.

Scraps of language littering her sweet head,

So many tongues and names, yet she’s alone.

The woman she was in her dreams is dead

Her own voice a blank, cadaverous tone.

Her life lies in piles, just size two algae,

Her eyes have bled out, her pelvis aching,

She so yearned to be an anomaly,

But ended up the same as everything.

A body sold on a sun-baked story,

And then sold again for next to nothing.

20:39

Sitting in front of a marble coffee table,
Snort a line,
Wait for cab to West End,
Friend in from LA,
Have to make sure delivery comes before I leave.
Look at phone.
Doesn't ring.
Ah... tastes good.
No alcohol to mask its flavour.
Yet.
Look at TV - switched off already.
Check playlist on Spotify.
Sit back.
Sigh deeply.
Phone rings.

Thru Till Morning - For Garth

The evening’s ghost clings fast to your bowed head,

The morning sunlight trickling through the night,

You leave the dark souls to play with their dead,

Turning your eyes to dawn’s soft crimson light.

The music of midnight fades out of sight,

Animated dolls collapse where they stand,

Sleeping kids exit their worlds full of fright,

Whispering back to the warm, living land.

And Morpheus slowly lets go your hand,

Taking your waking dreams far, far away,

Leaving you so still, staring where you stand

Though you silently beg for him to stay.

And the faintest talons of night’s brisk cold,

Vanish as black becomes glittering gold.

Razor

I kill myself slowly,
saw till veins sever.
The demons, they know me,
And embrace me forever.

Query

What do you do
when your whole life ends,

Then

You realise
You're still breathing?

End Game

Unsure as I am on how to proceed

I bow to your summons, defer to your need.

For I see in your eyes

The plea to despise,

And I, like a pill, succumb to your greed.

What will you do when I break from my cell,

Not heeding your call, ignoring your yell?

Will you wither and die,

Or scream, scold and lie,

As I drag your soul down to foul hell?

Z

Today I tattooed myself with the letter 'Z'.

I carved the lines into the webbing between the index and middle fingers of my left hand, then rubbed vermilion ink into the open wound.

The letter stands for Zigeuner - the German word for 'gypsy' - and preceded the tattooed numbers used for prisoner identification in Auschwitz.

My family is of Romany descent.

And now I have a permanent, homemade reminder that no matter how bad shit gets

it's never as bad as that.

Vogue

Dear Grace Coddington,
I think you're THE SHIT.
You should be long gone,
You're too good for it.

Needles

Their points tiptoe across

The surface of his skin,

Poking holes therein,

Leaving his body in distress.

Their burning stab still slays,

When he tightens his eyes,

Their bite draws weak cries,

It's forever like that. Always.

He accepts their poisoned sting,

The needles dig deeper,

Reminding him of her,

That, in truth, she is everything.

Imp

Fantastic visions
Shower before sleeping eyes,
And then forget me.

ink

I want to tattoo the word fuck
somewhere on my body.
It will scare away
all other harsh words
people throw at me.
Except maybe for cunt.
But that's ok
cos I like that word.
It feels like home.

Self

I used to think
I was hard,
impenetrable,
A rocky outcrop
resisting the ocean's tongue.

Then I read my writing.
And heard myself speak.

I am not the rock.
I am transparent,
soft, changeable.

I am the water.

The first 800 or so words of a long form poem I have just started...

First splinters of bright grey skies
Fracture the ragged curtains,
We view our hero. He lies
Eyes open, mind uncertain.
Swivels in his bed sheets,
Launches torso upright,
Rises to his shaky feet
And switches on the light.
He tumbles down the corridor
And into the grungy shower,
Slaps on shampoo and conditioner
Flicks the switch for extra power.
Steam sticks to the mirror,
Bubbles cling to his tan skin
His woken hands grasp silver
Rails, as he starts to dry again.
Checking out his reflection,
He pulls on PRPS jeans,
De Vines with red’n’black sections,
XL T-shirt by Supreme.
New Era tops his head,
Screwy coils tip down the sides,
He scoops up his iPod
And makes his way outside.
The apartment sits atop
The concrete filing cabinet,
Renovations halted
Coz the council can’t afford it.
Sweeping down the stairs,
He kicks needles to the side,
Foil wraps and burn holes
Cooling right beside.
Body in the playground,
Face tilted to the sky,
He listens all around
To the sounds of the city.
Welcome moments of horns,
The low thrum of trains,
The fabric of silence torn
From wherever it remains.
He pulls a ready joint from his hip
A plastic lighter from his pocket,
Wedges the roach between his lips,
Flicks the switch and lights it.
He inhales deeply,
Still listening to the music,
Letting it run sweetly
Never getting sick of it.
Kid Cudi starts to play
‘Pursuit of Happiness’ in his hand,
He raises fist to ear and says,
‘Hey, whattya up to, man?’
‘Hey T, I’m just hangin
down the skatepark with KB,
come check it out, it’s bangin
can’t tell you, you gotta see.’
‘Sure thing Dan, I’m just goin
ta grab a bacon’n’egg sarnie.’
‘Bring some weed with ya dude.’
‘No worries, I gotcha covered.
Anyway I ain’t rude
Enough to show up empty-handed.’
‘Sweet, laters seen.’
‘Yeah, catchya in a while.’
Blank goes the screen,
T gifts himself smile.
One bacon’n’egg with ketchup
And a bunch of tube stops passed
T manages to catch up
With Dan and the boys at last.
The clash and scrape of trucks
Chewing on metal coping;
The familiar noise of skateparks.
The music of kids coping,
With the shit that days deliver,
At their feet every single day.
The sounds of escape forever,
Or at least some time to play.
Clap hands, bump shoulders,
The greeting’s the same
Whether younger or older,
T just plays the game.
‘I got that shit you want,’
He whispers with a smile,
His light, brown face gaunt,
But healthy all the while.
‘Nice one mate - damage?’
‘Tenner to a mate,’ he mumbles.
Dan hands Darwin’s image
To T. Behind a kid tumbles
From his board onto the floor,
The board goes rumbling off
Towards the park’s far corner.
Dan lights, breathes, coughs,
A goofy grin lights up his face,
T smiles right beside him
Then hops on his deck to chase
Easy pleasures from the rim
Of a halfpipe and a death box,
Pushing off and surging forward,
Hits the lip, the back truck locks,
He flicks the board then rolls backwards.
A single, fluid movement,
A ballet of wood and steel,
T times every single moment,
Every second has its appeal.

Not much makes him smile

Like a concrete playground,

He often dreams of miles

Of asphalt all around;

An endless landscape

To be skated and enjoyed

To grind, to scrape,

Every step and rail employed.

He pulls up beside the entrance,

Yanks his phone from his pocket,

Marie’s ringtone: Cheesy trance.

A booty call, fuck it.

He thinks hungrily to himself

As he puts it to his ear,

He’s been fucking her on and off

For the best part of a year.

‘Hey where you at right now, sugar?’

Her syrupy voice enquires,

‘Just skatin’, so not too far.’

His libido starts to fire.

‘You wanna come round and hang,

keep me busy for a while?’

‘Sure thing, I’m up for a bang’

He responds with an eager smile.

He flick the board off the floor

And catches it in his hand,

Hustles towards the door

That leads from the enchanted land.

‘Laters Dan,’ he calls over his shoulder.

A muffled response drifts

From between the human boulders,

He exits and his world shifts

Back to partial reality,

Market stalls and criers

Appealing to shoppers’ vanity,

Randoms thrusting out flyers.

T ignores every single bleat,

The real is without his mind,

As he treads the grubby, cobbled street

Leaving the tattered morning behind.

He enters the bowels of Notting Hill Gate,

Giving his soul to the underground,

Praying to the hollow, metal potentate,

And its familiar rumbling sound.

His world becomes clad in black,

The Ramones scream into his ears,

He shuts his eyes and leans back,

Letting the city steal his years.

Grind

If no one does it,
Let's do it.