For Dara

These days go by just slow enough
to catch a glimpse.
Eight second days
and four second nightmares
all ploughing into
a heartfelt moment of slight,
swollen eyes
puffy cheeks
tiny fingers
stretching up at me
to meet my own
stunned at the sight
of emerging teeth,
separating and forming to meet curves at the sides of a mouth
such a beautiful, bright
perfect
minute
new
pure
smile

My lips, your elderly friends

I'll be honest
We brush and touch;
twist and touch

Fill and twist
but still we feel
the awful pangs
of missing out
on kissing childhood

Stick on the leather, dear.

I'm no skyscraper, Julian
I sit and stir
and stir and wank
all the drool
all the lucid
touching
brings me to shivering.
I'm no laureat, Charlie
I crouch and bend
and bend; don't break
I'm much much
stronger
and amsrter.

I've the balls to peel my skin clean
of all your silly heartfelt
nonsense

all the words
and eyes
and lilts
and thighs
and all the
things I wish I missed.

Blurred

I think this is perfect
But being a vagrant cannot last
Knocking on doors
Shutter stuttering and shutting light on ribbons
It comes out a little blurred
Hugs and kisses and blind raging friendship
Bouncing around the room in euphoria
Like a toddler hopped up on the non toothkind kind of Ribena

I don't have to ask
To even sleep in this crooked bed
Makes it feel like I'm slipping
But not the kind of slipping I used to feel

Me and my friends, we wake up slowly
With the worlds best intentions
And I'm really quite scared
That in the the morning light
With the stinging realisation of where you are
When everything is a haze of dry thick, salty tastes
With their squinted eyes
They will see me for who I really am

In the blizzard

No one really wants to be here
There’s a density in the air
All the shirts. Swaying in the inebriation.
All falling over themselves

In thought balloons we say it all
Much more than all we said
Was it?
“Don’t do that!”
“It’s her birthday”

I had lines of frustration and eighteen cigarettes in my pocket
Choirs interfered with and surrounded the young
They lapped it up
Never felt cheated at all
You pressed against the wall
Watching white patterns dance into a fall

I, in all my ungentlemanly fury
Barely glanced for a beat
My glass half empty
You pressed against the wall
Someone shouted something about someone; startled
The buzzards, the buzzards, the innards
You pressed against the wall
I don’t really know you
I should change that