Pulse

To say I love her is not untrue.

But iits more that when I feel in her that vein blue pulse,

some counterpart pulses in me.

Like the animal that doesn’t know it has a voice

until it meets another, calls out to it, and so

finds itself in the same breath as it finds its mate.

Like the sound of her heart beat,

makes me suddenly aware of my own.

But more than that.

The sound of her heart sends an electric pulse

that runs from her body to mine,

so that the quiet starts beating

and I find within the emptiness

a throb separate from hers, that is my own.

She calls, and part of me I never knew existed answers,

and that answer hangs in the air,

like a ringing in the ears,

even when she is gone.

And I’m in love with the sound of my voice,

as it echoes through the room.

Black Jack

People have so many selves

they shuffle them round like cards in a deck.

She’ll say ‘pick a card, any card’

and you’ll take a chance, make a bet,

try to get her Queen of Hearts.

But its hidden too well,

you end up with the joker instead,

and by then its too late.

The black souled jack waits grinning.

He’s already dug your grave with his spade.

Soup Spoon

Summer has gone

the stunted days darken into

round silver moons

the soup spoon kisses

our mouths when we’re apart.

Stomachs full

my softness circles yours

dipping into you as we lie in bed

round as spoons

Fragmented

I

She’s lost her centre again.

A broken mirror, she fragments out,

a galaxy throwing out its arms

unravelling stars from lips and hair

Feathering the air with light,

The whole world inside its dark broken heart.

II

The smashed mirror sent out a galaxy of glass,

reflecting your face from its broken mess.

My fingers are drawn towards the fractured

shards of your eyes, your lip’s sharpened edge.

No less beautiful fragmented.

The Harvest Moon

The light switch clicks loudly in the silence,

power’s off again - the fuse,

or you forgot to feed the meter. Either way,

I know better than to call your name

and expect an answer. Though I do it anyway.

Headlamp’s throw bars of light

that climb the stairs as cars go by,

I follow them up to your room,

framed in your window the harvest moon,

huge and yellow on the horizon,

stand in for an absent sun.

You lie on the bed

pale and slim as a candle,

waxen tongue hard and still

in your mouth’s shadow.

A love like anger rises,

sharp as the strike of a match,

that wants to push the flame of my tongue

against the roof of your mouth

until you catch, melt into motion,

roll back this wordlessness.

I go fix the only thing I can,

back down the stairs into the basement.

I reach in my pocket for a pound,

slant it in the meter, a golden half moon

hung between two fingers.

We’re both hanging, holding our breath

Waiting for the light to come back on.

Waiting for the light to come back.

Autumn Equinox

In spring it could have happened another way.

But now the edges of shortening days

draw together their sunlit corners,

sheets to be folded away for winter.

Night and day look at each other as equals.

The path splits like a serpents tongue

and we take the darker one, less travelled,

that ends with the apple falling in our hand

We all know what they lost in the darkness.

But not how Eve felt when knowledge emerged

like stars from under the ignorant light.

Or why God made temptation ripen

on the cusp of the seasons as though

he wanted us to choose the night.

Generation Gap

Or Dissent in the Biscuit Cupboard

I’m from a long line of rich tea biscuits

First made in the seventeenth century.

To satisfy Yorkshire gentry’s demand

for something sweet to dunk in their tea.

Since then we’ve been dunked all over the world,

through the ages, from shore to shore.

But these young biscuits of today

don’t respect those of us who came before.

These young’uns seem only half baked

with their cream fillings and chocolate chips.

But we’ve been there through destruction and war

brought comfort to trembling lips.

We’ve sat in shelters with the poor

and with the rich taking tea at the Ritz,

praying that the tin hat of the lid is on

as V2’s came down in the blitz.

Now young cookies laugh when I purse my lips

at this fad for biscuits individually wrapped.

We knew how to live as neighbours back then

snugly together in our communal packs.

And though my decadent doughy decedents

are more to the taste of kids today

their granny’s eyes light up with joy

at my familiar face on the biscuit tray.

Because we have a lot in common these days:

This world feels strange to her as well.

We’ve both seen it changed beyond understanding.

Both survived the blast of a shell.

So a moment passes between us

every Sunday at quarter past three.

When, smiling kindly, she takes me

and dunks me into her tea.