The trumpeter.

All the shades of blue in creation
bled from his trumpet,
his fingers nursing them
into their fullest expression:
the tenor of those tones,
like little anchored feathers,
escaped with a weight
at once crushing
and at once full of a
beautiful serenity,
like an azure sky
gently stroking the land.

Martin played in the Kettledrum,
a small jazz bar in 1950s Brooklyn.
The Mississippi was on him
and in him, its dirty waters
bursting with the topaz potential
of the Delta,
where the river bled out into
a warm, and open sea
welcoming the oppressed like soft death.

He blew into the tube in that dark space
like a hoarse lion on a Prozac-lithium trip;
he reached into that brass organ
like the Oracle peering into a netherworld
of whining, flaring truth.
His playing painted the mood a deep navy
and an arm reached from the end of the trumpet,
splashing him in a patchwork of black and blue
violently, in an exchange of meat and bone.

All the luxury of jade and its resplendence,
all the depravity of easy aqua,
lives in the breath of his trumpet;
whores in the cobalt reflection of flurried notes
could be seen holding onto breathy poles;
young men crushed under a regime of unending
tiredness, death, inescape, cynicism, and helplessness
breathed out the blue crystals of life reworking itself.
Flashing from face to face, and back to Martin,
one could see the eager concentration of transition
being puffed up with warm and deliberate life.

Morocco.

The heat was sweltering:
the young boy had gone to Gibralta
with his father, and his friend.
It was enough to make one falter -
the Rock of Gibralta -
and the monkeys were thieving brigands.

There were caverns inside
deep as the Earth,
deep, as the Earth;
stalagmites and stalactites
descended like calcium limbs
in the making, without forms.

You can buy cheap cigarettes there -
in fact, anything that sweetens your fancy.
Perfumes, rum, sweets, electronics
(all at a reasonable price).
Apparently, the Spanish want it back.
Wouldn't that be nice?

The young boy was taken high -
high as the Rock would yield -
and he looked out through a viewfinder.
Like a hazy, lost world,
across the Mediterranean
he could see Morocco,

with its bazaars,
and boy prostitutes,
and trick-performing capuchins,
and high-standard hashish,
and its shanty shacks....
He bet it was a red dream in that heat.

Of course, the boy didn't really think that -
couldn't:
he thought merely:
'My! Isn't that beautiful!'
That'd make a neat screensaver
or a heavenly life-saver -
those mountains, and that sweeping shore.

Happiness.

Happiness.

The rain pitter-patters outside

onto the plastic-roofed conservatory.

It is warm in here.

Wounds gracefully close

like flower buds.

Knock, knock, knock:

in varying tones;

the music of the clouds

is by me.

It tells me that everything will be fine

and that each voice

is there to encourage.

I met a girl today

who talked to me about W. H. Auden

and wouldn't look me in the eyes

when she talked to me:

she seemed beautiful

and slightly tragic

but her beauty swallowed that.

I'm sitting here with nothing to do.

How glorious is such a thing?

I could do anything right now -

stand on a mountain or read some poetry.

If I've learnt anything,

it's that death isn't necessarily always dignified;

if anything,

it never is.

Like I once heard:

sometimes the Sun shines into our yards,

and sometimes we notice it 

and feel it warm on our backs

like a welcome hand

or the spirit of a sexless god;

but only the brave and beautiful

grab the sunshine by its lapels

and swing it into their lives.

Go to bed

and smile,

and read.

Make tomorrow glorious.

Promise never to look the horse in the mouth

unless you have to inspect its teeth.

And always complement it

on the pinkness of its tongue.

Colin.

He was a member of the National Front.
He marched in Nottingham in 1982.
He hated pakis, niggers, polacks,
Jamaicans, jews - he even hated
Scotsmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen.

He had a large and ugly skull,
dented like the bonnet of a poorly made
British car;
his jaw was simian and his head was bald
as a brass monkey's eye.

He wore Doc Martens, boot-cut dungarees,
a white tee-shirt, and a denim jacket
with a flaming eagle on its left side
to disguise the vacancy below his breast.

His name was Colin - not a typical
racist's name, I hear you muse.
He loved his father, he told himself.
He secretly wanted him dead;
he secretly wanted to sexually mutilate him.

He went home one day to have eggs and ham
when he saw he'd burnt his toast.
He didn't mind burnt toast, mind.
He sat down in his living room
and purred like a dead cat filtering through leaves.

He got on the blower to his mates.
All of them were busy doing ought,
so he just sat there and looked out
to grey streets and a grey sky,
and trees kind of pining for better air.

All of a sudden, his sister called him.
'I'm coming 'round,' she said.
'I want you to meet me new feller.'
At 2.33 pm, there was a rapping on the door.
He answered it, to be met by a
big, black fellow wearing a smile
and his sister beside him grinning.

'Hiya, Colin! Well, don't just stand there:
give your big sister a hug!'
They entered, and Colin went all black
as if he'd seen a ghost
or he'd been eating soot out of a sock.

They sat down. The man rested his hand on her leg.
'Guess what, babe: I'm pregnant.'
'That's brilliant, sis...' Colin said with bilious trepidation.
'We been goin' out fah a time, now, ya see.
I hear ya quite the little trouble maker, ay?'
Colin twisted out a smile that seemed to screech
from his maggot pit.
'Yeah. I am.'
'Well,' the man said, 'we'll see what we can do about dat!'

With that, the man rested his arm on Colin
and gave him a brotherly shake.
There were gonna be black babies running around!
There were gonna be white babies somewhere else!
There were gonna be coffee-coloured babies!
They would swim like the injustice
'plied by plantation owners upon the council estate.
They would share his blood,
and share the blood of the world.

A heavy boot settled on Colin's head.
His temple was left like a mole hill;
the recess had risen like a bubble of spit
and he slowly realised that his little black demons
had finally got him.
His little white angels laughed.
The pakis in chorus laughed.
The polacks laughed through their poverty.

And Colin suddenly started with a tiny laugh
as his small eyes rested singularly, unchangingly
on the small, pale dream of bigotry
that seemed embedded dead
in the invisible niche of the wall.

Venetian.

I met a girl all waxen wan
and I wanted to be her champion
so I asked her if I might subjoin
her person or her heart purloin
for a romp through delicate Venice streets,
to draw her near as venetian blind.

She drew her look with some askance
then broke at softness of my trance;
my eyes to wield the sickly heat
of a heart dark like coffee sweet.
I took fair lady by the arm,
and imagined the serene and lovely streets of Venice.

In whimsy of a wandering wish,
in kindling of an unmade kiss,
her fingertips began to glow;
dark pigmentation began to show.
And in moment's art of remedial will
my wonderlust received its pill.

There I stood in Italian realm
where East and West have sat at helm;
the architecture like intertwined desire,
the midday Sun like rippling spire.
I took the softness of her palm,
and walk'd her like Romance of Venice.

Through waterways, 'cross bridges, did we hop;
this darkling beauty and English fop.
The Ocularis, deep in Rome, and pantheon of Roman lore
look'd lustrously at courting's paw.
Merrily, we both did laugh in creamery of the heart.
Her lips so thin and forehead broad
kiss'd the streets of Venice.

8 am (rough version).

8 am awakens
in a blaze of cold
and realises
that no-one ever
wakes up
on it.

Morning frost covers its lips
and it lies on its back,
eyes glazed over soft.
It waits

for to rise
steamy
to meet hazy sky
and breathe deeply
chilled, clear air.

I want to go back to bed
and sleep on your shoulder.

8 am is a mute child
in soundlessness.
It wears a retarded smile
and has pure eyes.
It wants the birds,
but the birds are nowhere.

It watches the children
being dropped off at school
and its fingers are chilled
as it fumbles a wave.
It lies still,
in waiting to turn over
for its friend.

A man cycles in the cold
and has a frozen head
like the hour.
8 am inherits the chill
from earlier hours -
it's still cold enough
for shed locks to cease up.

All is seemingly dead
and transition comes slow;
thunderous in silence,
racing through the moments
with a frozen shield
and pained bones.

There are people walking through the town
at 8 am
and they are barely conscious:
the chill has got them all funny,
bleeds into them
a quiet sigh.
8 am tries to reach out

to all its children -
stripped-bare trees,
and lonely walkers;
it sees these, victims
of season. Treason would be
to console from pity.

Thinly worn smiles
and children with bright, young eyes
and tight noses
parade around -
some on foot,
some peering from car windows,
some floating on clouds of ecstasy. 

Adorned in snug coats,
with their cold feet
and frigid toes,
these little lives go about life
whilst 8 am gives an ear
to shuffling animals
in their autumn beds:
they murmur about winter solemnity,
how they wish their dwellings
were deeper
and warmer
and about how they can't wait
to dance with their grandmothers and aunts
by hearth fire.

Household object.

He's a robot from Short Circuit
(I don't know why
I'm attributing sex).

My housemate brought him down
from Bristol -
he was squatted
in an old attic.

This Tomy product
used to play tapes;
now he's relegated
to the corner,
his thick eyes glazed as honey;
his claws now
underworked and
unfunny.

He's a cute little thing:
an Omnibot 2000
(what a grandiose name
for a creature
of 80s slapdash innocence
and stupidity).

Sometimes, one of my housemates
thinks he scans the room,
changing position;
I just think
he wants a piece of the action.

Those claws seek softness -
or maybe they just want to reek
mechanical rage
on a world
that's abandoned them
and left them
as rock fingers.

A poem about a picture - Thanksgiving (John Currin).

Three girls:
the one
to the left
is skinny
as chicken bone
and is feeding
something
to her acquaintance.

They could be sisters.
The one to the right
is mulling
over broken flowers
and looks numb -
not even
disspirited.

The table is dressed
with a turkey,
an onion,
red grapes,
and a herb (maybe rosemary).

What seems
an empty Christmas
could be full
of
sisterly weirdness.

The one in the middle
being fed
is beautiful:
maybe the other two
are servant girls
(but what an odd
repose!)

The room is basic
an yet grand;
the colours brown,
like earthly mound,
and in this spirited
spiritless picture
of decay
life is seen
in palette grey.

Dear diary.

Dear diary,
I've never felt this alone,
this inconsolable,
this much in touch
with the wind.

I've never felt so blue,
like cobalt steel;
I've never felt so lost
in so much noise
or so close to closeness.

I've never been so mad,
so incapable
of doing anything,
so blank -
and for so long.

I used to have a diary,
diary, but I stopped all that;
filling in the blanks.
Now I wait for years
and fill in blank.
There are no ghosts here -
just the stillness of deadness.

Diary,
I want for so much
and want for so little -
just human touch
or lip spittle
or naked arms
and something more
than nothing's arms
or moment's paw.

I want something lasting
to live in these cracks
and inhabit everything
about me
and between me.
I'm so lonely, diary.
This is no joke.
Your pages can laugh.

Diary,
all I can do is walk now.
I can't think. Appetite is useless.
Water is a chore. Speaking is an end.
I wish I were more sensible.
I wish I weren't built
to self-destruct
like this.

Diary,
I wish I could burn you
and hear you cry.
Diary, I don't want to die.
I don't even want to live.
I want for nothing.
I just want to cry for something.
Diary, I wish you would burn all this
for me;
I wish you would re-write all this.

Train, morning, hangover, blue.

Look humanity in its
cold, dead eyes
and you will
see
the truth:

offer it paradise,
and it will continue
to trudge to work
carrying its briefcases,
and laptops, and satchels;
it needs this.

It is a creature of habit -
the human -
and it desires
the machine;
it doesn't question
that there is one
or whether it needs them;
they just suckle iron milk.

Even the more beautiful
of them
would rather sip
crowded coffee
than be faced with
endless periods of creativity.

But this mass flow of flesh
is comprised entirely
of individuals
who've made their choice;
have chosen not to choose
but just accept.

I always wanted to be
an astronomer
as a child,
and I wanted to live
for a long time -
perhaps not forever.

Trains make up the veins,
and rails make up the flues,
and we are pushed
in our comfortable shoes,
comfortable blues,
into our alabaster cells,
in which
we try to claw at the sky.

Sky over Brighton.

On a clear day,
I can see the influence
of the south-westerlies
on the trees;
all bent in respectful observance
or dance.
It seems they bow away
from me.

The sky is well-painted
soft,
soft bristles,
gentle palette
with November 11th 4 pm colours -
Brighton's flag.

Crystal lines and splotches
up high divided,
white manna, pink hues,
God.

In the lines,
in the colour,
infinity, madness.
Easy blue, endless.
Arc of arm,
now swollen thin,
pulls day down
to night recesses.

Changes, walks.
Subjectless, everywhere.
Fill in your sky.
Your Moon appears,
crested with details.
You're finally here.

Girl in the purple jacket.

I was sitting down
in Chichester Station
when this ratty figure
skulked past:
she approached a huddle
of teenage infancy
(her story not so clear).

She enquired of them
their moods.
She told them she'd tried
to check into a hotel.
She walked off.
They laughed.

The train was delayed -
something about
British Murphy's Law,
imperial decay,
or the breaking down
of a previous train
somewhere along the line.

When it came,
I walked in to the
first carriage
and this figure
came in with me
and settled opposite me
with her blue blanket.

She started mumbling
about a cousin.
I asked her whether
she was all right.
Once, twice.

Then we started talking.
She's from west London.
She complains it's not very countrified
any more.
Her father died three years ago -
'recently,' she said.
She came upon this figure
in a roundabout way.

And that's why she's in Chichester.
She's looking for a place to live.
That could be a lie.
She got off at Barnham;
she'd got the wrong train -
only went one stop.

Now she's out there
in the night
alone, ratty, crazy, insensible
but completely human
and ears.

The last thing she told me -
aside from that she won't live near Indian people -
is that her grandfather was a Roman.
As I mulled this over,
I looked at the standing girl
with the purple jacket and gloves
and perfect auburn hair.
I'm not so worried about her, though.

24 hours!

24 hours!
Hamsters like to feed
and walk through tubes -
where else can they go?

Throw them onto
the motorway and they'll
just wander
with their grocery carts.

Neon arrows
dictate the sky
and coals
show the myriad
faint hearts
in the night.

They walk:
the walking dead;
the spiritless.
They are hungry.

Their eyes are painted violent,
belying underlying
softness:
just stroke them;
let fingers
filter through hair.

Encouraging words.
And up comes a smile.

Dead town.

Suburb of London.
Shopping centres have spires
like churches.
Streets are lined with
ashcan buildings -
deposited by some unseen,
ashen hand.

Clouds of grey
descend upon London,
and wills of white
walk on black streets -
bleak with stodgy
unchange.

We live in porridge -
time is sticky,
and change's texture
is like a mire.
Dead town,
lift me up.

Dead town,
motorway-bound,
lift up your dregs
from the streets
and throw them
into London.

Rain #2.

Summer was boring;
I worked all the way through it.
I saw little of my friends,
little of my father;
I played football but twice -
not like the previous two summers.

It seems like all that misspent opportunity
is now raining through my head;
today, faces in the raindrops
bother me, and jostle me;
they ask questions and have
such big voices
for such little people.

In vein of judgement,
like a petty, ineffectual god,
they pour on me,
but do so in a drawn out,
grating manner -
more destructive
than any atom bomb.

I get inside
and write about those little people
to exorcise myself of them.
I eat a pound of salt,
put myself in the oven,
and wait for the water to go
(and soon the water is gone).

Their faces, however,
stay on the window
and I laugh
a hollow laugh.