Poetry

Extract from 'Moths in the Torchlight'

In Girl Guides, I snuck from camp to dip my feet in the moon

on the river’s sleek surface, break its face into ripples.


Across the water, the wind licked aside the long grass

while a dead tree held its boughs up to the dark.



From the distant shadows, a torch-bulb emerged.

I crossed the shallow swell of water;


the pebbled bank clattered like stacked plates under-step,

and the beam swung towards the din.


A nightjar whirred from the thick black.


Drawing closer my feet troweled fine earth;

dry, like human ashes laced with stinging nettles.


Gasping as though the air had turned to fumes,

I stepped into the glow, saw a silhouette hulked behind.


Extract from 'The Scarf Game'

I buoyed just below the surface,

where it glowed hospital green

and bubbles trailed upwards like tug rope.

Sea lilies hovered,

cirri drifting feather-like in the current.

Flotsam glittered above,

touched by the sun and sinking.

Below, indigo.

A Nemertean worm, piled like intestines;

proboscis teasing its way between.

Hundreds of lampreys,

their bodies like scabbards

with yonic undulating teeth.

Nine-eyed,

lurking, shameful as pudenda.

Inviting, in their still, wet way

as I descended.


Extract from 'Beware Trespassers'

Me and Trista liked exploring.

The railway had bridges, ledges, steps and fences,

Beware Trespassers signs.

We would walk along the line

scuffing our trainers shuffling through the ballast,

counting the sleepers on the track bed.

We lay on the sidings as the quarry trains passed,

lime dust swirling through our hair.



We crawled through the dried up culverts underneath the Wastelands

along with wild-faced rat skeletons.

Pencils of light shone

through the man holes.

In the penumbra, an Aldi bag

spilled fur and bones over a dried black

patch on the red bricks.

The tunnel stretched

until our torches ran dull orange.

The rain began

to trickle through the pick holes.

It spread into our jeans,

soaking our shins.

We fantasised about being trapped,

almost disappointed as

the corona formed round Trista’s head

as the light bled from the exit

and we emerged like Earthfasts.


Visiting Dad


Dog shit, made liquid in the rain

dribbled through the cracks in the flags.

Half a kebab, like a wet sock

festered on the corner by the telephone box,

the crows seemed to growl,

prisoners behind the fog.

Dad’s house waited round a corner.

When I pushed the door open,

five days of post slapped onto the mat.

Dad was sat in his chair,

a pen clenched in venison sausage fingers,

black scrawls on his chest.

His crossword was sprawled on the floor,

a mug of tea, breeding grey clumps beside him.

Dad stared with his mouth agape,

his tongue a melted bath pearl,

his skin like curdled milk.

His glasses lay on his lap like a baby,

arms open for a hug which never came.

I thought his dusty eye might roll towards me in a wink,

the pen would drop as his fingers loosened,

and a cackle would sound low in his throat.

“Give your Dad a kiss, don’t turn your face away.”

His gruesome tongue would slide over his lips,

and his feet would squelch in his slippers

as he stood and shuffled towards me,

pressed against me,

his face like a squashed plum.