Bryan Adams and the Ritual of the Curtains

My brother must still have been in a wheelchair
because we pushed past high rises
and people who were respected at five
and drunk by seven.
I threw pennies at the Carnival Queen.
"Don't aim for her face" someone shouted.
Now it seems I was smaller than I was but
I'm sure I saw more than knees
and hightops
and plastic cups filled with Carnival nectar.

Later, my hands greasy with vinegar and the memory of chips,
we walked up the hill that unfolded into the sky
Unending
and unforgiving
At home, Bryan Adams played on the radio.
I realised then that my family would die.
Thats when it started.
Vinegar hung heavy like dustsheets over everything.
It's what I remember most.
That smell of vinegar and the overwhelming realisation
that I controlled my families future
with the ritual of the curtains.

A Poem for Katy

Here is my latest entry for creaturemag. My friend Katy and I had a very compelling late night visit to the West Hill recently. It was during the Super Moon and as we stood, cold and still, staring as the sea glimmered under extra big moonlight, we spoke about the sky and the moon and how we’re all connected and how we’re all made of stardust and how we’re all falling, constantly falling.
This poem is for her and it is for that night. Its all I could do to ensure that I didn’t forget.


I fall deeper into billowing sheets of grey and blue
anchored only by lights that shone once before
and just for a minute.
I scribble words onto sky and watch them glitter and drop onto ocean
and into your hands
finding it difficult to seperate you and it
so intertwined you have become that it seems unnecessary even to try.
As we stand before magic that exists not only in our eyes
I consider piling sticks
one
on top of one
on top of one
so you could climb above and see what tonight looks like from another place.

As evening breathes into night
and blue and grey part company for black
we pause and anticipate involuntary change.
Buoyed by our own design.
If music had been playing I would have danced with my eyes wide open.
Cosmic rhythms.

It isn't always easy to be brave.

The Weightlessness of Knowing

This is my latest poem for Creaturemag Its called 'The Weightlessness of Knowing.' You can see the illustrated version on their website but for those of you who just want the words, here they are.


I almost saw a fortune teller today
only a wall between us.
Between me and her,
the future and I.
A plasterboard representation of the barrier that keeps me held back,
suspended here.
As others have their fortunes told I sit.
As doors are opened into and towards untouchable things I wait.
Nothing but now crammed into my pockets.

Later, as I sit in bed I consider what I could have seen.
With the lights off, the smell of clean hair fills the dark,
knotting itself around bedposts and door handles.
And I lay
thinking about what she may have said and
how I would have tied one end of strings to each of the stories
and the other to my wrists
allowing them to pull me into tomorrow
carried by the wind
and the weightlessness of knowing what is waiting there.

The elephants are becoming everything. A reminder, for now, that there is more.

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We are gold-dust

I think Joni Mitchell is saving my life today. Without her I'm almost sure I would have held my breath until my eyes closed.

End. Period.

I sat on the step into the kitchen where I've sat for a decade and then I got up and it was the last time I sat there.

You make the sky less scary big.

I sewed a little picture to celebrate Valentine's Day and I gave it to creaturemag.
Now I give it to you, with love.

Observations that stem from getting nowhere fast

This is my latest entry for creaturemag. Last week I had a few days when I was questioning the direction my life was taking, doubting whether I had the tools to build a successful life for myself. It all came to a head when I text Katy saying ‘I don’t know how to exist in this world’ and, whilst that sounded like a suicide note, it opened up the flood gates for me to reassess how I feel about the energy I put out into the world. This poem is what manifested from those days.


‘I think I would be better served with the elephants'
is something I thought today,
and yesterday and some times before.
I'm not sure I know how to exist in this world
and no matter how dramatic it sounds I know it to be true.
The rain falls too hard
and I don’t know which way to turn my head.
Thelma and Louise bleeds from the television
and I want them to drive into the gap between the two sides
because here doesn't understand how their minds worked
and anything but the gap between the two sides would be
wrong.
Thinking about the elephants, I touch the ground with my hands
wondering how they feel the earth as they move across it.
When one of them dies they visit the spot year after year
to mourn and to remember,
Saying everything they need to say without the words I take
for granted.
They stand and they wait.
'They would understand me'
I say inside my head as my hands sweep the ground.
The thought makes me self-conscious and so I erase it,
leaving only a faint mark behind-
I don't want to lose it entirely
because today I don't know how to exist in this world
and the elephants are making me forget.

The moments in between the big things

I picked up a sticker and stuck it over and over
on my jeans until the stick disappeared
and there was just space in my hands.
I smiled for a moment and then stopped myself.
There is a time to laugh and a time to cry.
Now was neither.

Too many are

Today has been small.
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