Extract from The Animal Series

I shall become a wolf.

I shall shed my skin and replace my teeth with platinum fangs and pull out my fingernails and hammer in new claws of copper. I shall pluck out these useless eyes and replace them with yellow marble slits. I shall cut lay lines into my skin and peel myself free of this muscle and these veins and bones and this stomach that sits like a rock. I shall become cold and sleek and hard. I shall no longer be fragile. I shall replace my heart with clockwork. I shall fear no more.

I shall become a wolf.

          ---

My skin wants to eat itself.

          ---

I got skinned by a black cat with gunmetal claws. He smirked at me and said it was time for my debt to be paid. I fought with all the strength my wasted body could muster but he climbed down my throat and settled in my stomach, before he clawed his way out and tore my guts to shreds. As I lay bleeding on the rug, he took my skin clean off.

He took my skin, and now I'm just cold.

Haiku

11:45 (July 2009)

Swallows always fly 

towards the sun and I'll fly

away home to you.

Post-Its

Post-Its

(good morning world, this is how I feel today)

London apologies:

"Sorry mate." "Sorry love."

Drunk on a rollercoaster:

"It'd be an experience!"

What I said was:

"I hate rollercoasters, but for you…"

What I meant was:

"I love you."

           ---

Russia: Eurovision oppression

Jan Palach

Burning man for the modern age

Gives a whole new meaning to

Petrol power.

           ---

I watch soap operas because

I find out what happens in them, and then

Next day, discuss with my friends

My friends

My real soap opera friends.

           ---

"I'll give you a necklace," he said.

"Oh no, please don't," polite.

They never mention that 'to necklace'

Is 'to kill', these days

More burning men for the modern age

Bringing new meaning to

'Petrol power', and

'Fuel prices'

Kevin Carter clicks a shutter

Bang Bang Blessings.

           ---

Standing in the rain

Trying to be cool

Little boy falls off his bike

Mother picks him up by the armpits

Girl runs to cross the road

Before the cars come.

           ---

James sleepwalking to my door:

"Where'd everyone go?"

"What?"

"Where'd everyone go?"

"James, are you asleep?"

"Mm."

"Go back to bed, yeah?"

"Okay."

           ---

Jewellery given to me by a friend

Who lives in a Communist state

Tribal visions and partitions

           ---

We remain in the crash together

You and I

Me and the book and the pen

You and the three of us

One full nuclear family

You

Hold me when the words don't come

And shield me when they do

And you read tirelessly.

           ---

Reality:

Where your imagination does not live.

from my bedside table, 2007-2009.

For Rachael

For Rachael

"If you and Stephen Fry

Had children

They'd just be brains

With legs. And glasses.

(Except brains

don't have eyes.

Apart from that

The argument is flawless)."

Written a long time ago for a friend at school. The argument still stands!

06/10/11

Standing in the shower coughing I contemplated that I had lost the touch, the hunger. That I had given in to middle aged spread even though I was only twenty but said I was twenty two. The flat across the hall had been broken into and smashed to pieces and I hadn't written a word about it, nor had I written about my new home, or being in love, or realising that despite this I was alone. I hadn't written about anything but what I needed to buy from the shop or read for class for a long time, barring the shitty poetry I planned to delete from my hard drive as soon as I got out of the shower. I didn't slam my fist into the wall or burst into tears or curse the tiled ceiling at this realisation, nor did I jump from under the water and run down the hall to find a pen and paper, still wet and naked and never caring a bit. No. At this realisation, I simply coughed.

Gunners (from the Fitba collection)

Gunners

The beautiful game

Played professionally by men

Who glow like stars. Gods for

Ninety minutes to a

Baying crowd of 200

At fever pitch, for Cambridge City.

How queer.

Not quite as beautiful

When played with a bald patch

A paunch. Stumpy legs

Make short passes when

Subbing for Torquay.

Fourth division, the joy division.

Coulda been a contender.

Here we go

Here we go

Here we go

Here we here we here we fuckin go

You are a body language expert

Character observer extraordinaire:

Screwed up eyes. Slumped shoulders.

High fives. Clenched fists. Hand claps.

Open arms. Upturned palms.

Pointing and a raised hand: 'I know my limits'

And then.

For one moment you are a God.

Blonde striker glowing like a star melting your wonky Match of the Day tape

With sheer burning glory

A pass. Not a goal: 'I know my limits'

But in that moment

You are Alan Smith.

Here we go

Here we go

Here we go

Here we here we here we fuckin go

Unthinkably beautiful

At eleven. The fatal

Realisation. Always

Unattainable. You will

Never play for the Gunners.

Blue never becomes red.

The beautiful game

Played in the English way:

With passion. Talent is not

The issue when real life

Gets in the way. Peripherals

Orbit you like satellites.

Your crowd is always at fever pitch.

Here we go here we go here we go

From Among the Castaways (from eponymous collection)

From Among the Castaways

I was at sea, and before I was conscious I washed ashore on a grey island of castaways.

We were ragged and starving, stood hypnotised before images of colours and shapes and false idols as if at worship to the highest power.

Despaired, I slipped into a dream.

One day I awoke, and realised I had no longer the haze of childhood or unfounded, confounded rage of adolescence, but that I had, quite accidentally, become an adult.

With a crash, nothing would ever be the same, or as pleasant and simple and free again, for everyone.

Paralysed by fear, I retreated to dreams.

In huddles, the castaways meekly resisted the invaders who swarmed the island like ants, herding soul upon soul into ship upon ship upon ship.

I watched from behind a hard layer of air, unable to move or speak or help the hearts within my grasp. I turned away.

I awoke, dreams bleached into daylight.