This is the Best Kept Secret

This is the Best Kept Secret

This is the best kept secret

For you will never know,

Of aching in empty beds without you

Of the future that does not lie before us.

By stealth I will not see you;

A camouflage of happiness to be near you

A conspiracy of words to hush my body language,

Cloak and daggered in the car inches away from touch.

For we will never be as god’s spies,

My chicken hearted espionage will not allow it.

I comfort myself with discreet contact in public places,

Ache for the private places you share with another.

The Shape of Dalek Desire

The Shape of Dalek Desire

I don’t desire much,

Universal domination, subservience

of all living creatures, the total annihilation

of all time lords especially the doctor.

not much to ask.

a bungalow in Holland, (nice and flat.)

a parking space at the BBC

did I mention the total annihilation of

all time lords especially the doctor?

I don’t desire much.

Davros’ autograph.

Gender assignment.

it’s not much fun being genderless you know.

No Dalek Porn !

Impossible to do much with a sink plunger anyway.

No wi-fi or Netflix in this tin can.

No holidays or picnics on the beach,

No dancing

Not a chance of just once,

just once, actually being in a plot

where I get to exterminate the lot of you.

Not much to ask.

Did I mention the total annihilation

of all time lords especially the Doctor?

The Life of Wood

The Life of Wood

Ratchet backed easel,

Starter handled .

Made of school days

and homework.

Pre war spined

from machined

severed branches.

Bone squared,

the arithmetic of

woodwork classes.

Measured from the hip,

ornate walking stick

to step on ash, over

the parapet of art.

Cousin chair sits

in a silent corner

dumb as logarithms.

Storm in a Teacup

Storm in a teacup

That gift you brought me,

A cloud in a bottle, disturbs me.

It stands on the bedroom window sill

Pining for sky. I hum lullabies to it

Feed it rain and blue,

whisper soft

Cumulus words

But it merely becomes overcast

And weeps.

If it’s weather doesn’t improve

I think it might die.

Is it right to imprison clouds?

Should they be free?

Am I being over sensitive?

Lately it has become elegiac

It sings melancholy folk songs

In its cotton wool type voice.

I’ll set it free, shall I?

What if it stays? Hangs gloomily

Around the house, leaving little wet

Shower marks on the axminster,

What if it turns nasty?

Thunder in the lavatory

And storms in the teacups?

I’ll set it free, it’s for the best.

I’ll buy a plastic cloud from the supermarket

One with a free fift or a coupon off for money back

One with a lifetime guarantee.

Rook

Rook

we seek to cover the sun today

wreak havoc in thermals rising,

we are rook and you are not,

we choose the shadow under our wings.

we are gathering under a harvest moon

we break the back of bird song,

our barks bite deeper than the black crake,

our brotherhood mobs the eagle and the gods.

you are not fit to share our carrion,

our black thorn crowns of  lofty nests,

our beaded eyes as bright as elderberry,

our ragged squadrons draped in night.

we seek to outnumber the daybreak

clatter it to earth with choral empires,

the book of rook is written in the leaves

and cannot be undone by gull or crow.

Northern Rain Mask

Northern Rain Mask

(for and after Gerard Rudolf)

Remember the first time I laid eyes on you?

Another cold afternoon.

You turning in widening circles

in that train station in Edinburgh.

Were you wearing black 

Pashmina

for a funeral?

Were my first words to you about weather?

Something mundane at least.

Did you say, You are very tall?

Did I reply, I lie about my height.

Did I fall in love with you there and then?

In all our brutal years together

we left each other nailed to walls;

gutted in so many houses,

disembowelled by sex.

I am sorry, for my part at least.

Your cruelty is your business.

We made so much rain between us,

with not so much as a tribal mask.

I am drinking latte in the place

where we first made plans

near your ex boyfriend’s flat.

Rain runs down the window.,

I am reading, ‘Orphaned Latitudes’.

Some other poems from 'Making Buildings out of Gods and Glue'

If Love is Only

If love is only a box of chocolates

It will be gone before you finish this poem.

If love is only a bunch of flowers

It will be rotting in a wheelie bin inside a month.

If love is a big red heart full of clichés on a card

Then it will mean less and less as it is repeated every year.

If love is only these things then it doesn’t exist.

But if love is a tangible thing

Measured by how we cherish each other

By how we put someone else before ourselves

By how we choose to keep someone in our thoughts

Then perhaps it is more of a long term investment

More of an unconditional thing, a natural human thing.

I will buy you the card, the flowers, the chocolates

The material things that don’t prove a thing.

But say I love you without advertising prompts

And expect your love to be as tangible as mine

And as obvious to the world as a red ribbon

bowed around a manufactured plastic rose.