After disconnection

This old house has grown
since the debris of a life
was carted away by strangers
and the clocks had stopped. Only dust

finds renewal here, and after once
sweeping these empty halls
I find I must do it again
and again. Still the past returns

to haunt this staircase
where once those who had fallen
in love trod lightly
for fear of waking the dead.

There is no slaking this thirst.
Copper pipes rattle like coughs
but nothing comes from them now,
just a cold, rasping wind.

The golden fountain

She'd been the eldest of seven siblings
all of whose bottoms she’d wet-wiped
for mother—two sisters, four brothers—
cleaned shit from them all, learned
to wipe from front to back, and paid

close attention to their special creases.
She’d laughed at the tiny penises
of the boys, not envying them
their gift of directing a stream of piss,
pushed their willies aside with her pinky.

Then one summer's evening in a copse
she learned how oaks from tiny acorns
come, and, as her lover stabbed her,
stabbed her over and over again,
all she could think of was the shower

scene from Psycho. And if years before
someone had told her her vagina
was there for the want of a penis
she could never have understood,
but would have known better than to laugh.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Drift

There is a body lying
on Waterloo Bridge, tucked in tight
to the wall as though blown like the dead

leaves tossed into drifts
by a wind as unfeeling as unfelt,
covered only by a dog-stained sheet.

I would stop if it weren’t too late,
lift the sheet if it weren’t so dark,
touch his cheek if it weren't so cold;

but it’s late, it’s dark, it’s cold,
I pay my taxes,
my conscience should be clear.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Japanese bride on Westminster Bridge in February

No trinket sellers will venture out yet, the summit
of every wind-crimped wave stands, Fuji-like,

encrusted with ice, diamonds scattered on grey,
her jewelled gown against the stony balustrade,

silvered tear-tracks from her eyes catching
the dawn, to be played down later with smiles

very like the one set rigid on her face right now,
a glasshouse posy in a fist clutched tight

to her breast. Her escort, a young Japanese
woman, bridesmaid perhaps, dressed for winter

in quilted coat and beaver-fur hat, takes aim
with the Nikon, waits for Big Ben to strike eight.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Spit or swallow?

The retching subsides
and I foolishly decide that if only
I ignore the itching inside my chest,
focus instead on my aching ribs,
I can out-stare the impulse
to start up again.

Hello, I'm here.
You're not my friend, I'll not weaken again.
Hello, I'm still here.
Not for long, if I ignore you you'll disappear.
Not me, my friend, I can keep this up all night.
Expect I will.

Maybe just one mechanical
push then to clear my throat
and massage the urge aside,
but how could I have ever
imagined it stopping there?
Rhythm established, I fall on it
hacking at that itch
with all weapons, attacking
with axes, picks,
pound it with rocks
and sticks, in quickened
convulsions, reddened
and upright until the inevitable
happens, expectoration, the bliss of release.
I lie at ease for a moment, unwilling
to disturb this peace, but my
tight lipped mouth is filled
with sputum.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Miracle on Wandsworth Road

There was something
in the air, something more than thunderclap

scrap-iron tumbling, than sudden downpours
of kerosene burning. There was also

luck in the air that morning, and not all of it bad.
—Ask the market

trader, kneeling to straighten a pallet of lilies
dampened by drizzle, who looks

up above to see a tangle of machinery
tangoing overhead. He rubs imaginary smoke

from his eyes, a crane and a helicopter
are skating across the underside

of a dust-grey drumskin of cloud.
—Ask the driver of the crane

clocking in late, while up above him
a carbon fibre rotor blade bearing his name

bisects his cockpit and pirouettes
earthwards to Covent Garden Market.

—Ask the poet who'd just sauntered past
with his music silently blaring

turning at the spectacle
of blue lights coursing along the embankment

like antibodies honing on a virus,
to see smoke rising, a pillar of basalt

propping up the sagging cloudbase.
—But don’t ask me,

for if my luck runs only
to not to have seen the shadow growing

on Wandsworth Road, I’ll take that. After all,
it could have been worse.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Maiden flight

And when I stood, my bare toes curled
about the edge of the wind
blown roof, perched there with the crumbling cement
adding its grit to my own resolve, I watched

a seagull as it rose towards me, spiraling
upwards and past on an updraft,
and then as if it chose to step from a ride, yawed
into the wind and soared away. And I changed

my mind about jumping. I decided instead
to step off the ledge and fly,
fly wherever the air would deliver me,
be it to earth, to the sky, to heaven.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet