every window in the world slams shut human/beauty
the first thing you taste
is the sweat & bleach
of human delivery
the story of life
is always the thing
& something to wash
away its stain each year
a step you tumble down
falling apart a little more
how time drags you
by the ankles so slowly
through the grass
you watch it all pass
the expectant faces
of the people you love
slipping into the dark
you clutch at weeds
but nothing will grip
& in the end like us all
you fall into the cold
black earth every window
in the world slams shut
1991-2006
my fatherâs pounded blue ford
& my feet barely glancing the receipts
& marlboro cartons piled on the floor
the strips of paintwork peeling empty promises
from neon signs the cityâs yellow horizon
a pair of hands composing the softly-lit dreams
of businessmen in hotel rooms screwing
silk ties in their worn palms their heads
full of yes each night a heaved dice
& weâre driving further through it each year
my toes starting to plant the mat your hair
greying in the rear-view mirror the faces
from our life passing like boarded-up doors
ouija
for as long as I remember I never wanted
what I had the half-read books cluttered
in piles the guitarâs strings ruined to dust
Iâve always been dirty tobacco wedged
under nails the shock of snowflakes shook
from scalp to shoulders Iâd never seen
someone like me stride from pay-cheques
to a wedding I slept in abandoned rooms
at school nothing in this world was worth
waking for so I tried to pry open others
the tarot with its sharp answers & shots
in the dark the offcut in woodwork
I painted with the alphabet the glass hovered
in my hands I knocked & no-one answered
I was alone Iâd have taken a broken ghost
or a death-scream reeled over & over again
in fits of tears of blood I wanted something
to need to love me to love to need me as I am
confession
the smell of motor oil & sawdust
& the moon threaded through
the chipped-blue shutter window
of the shed his breath tumbling
through my right ear & slipping
from my left as my life shook
& settled the thick white stains
hung in the sky & the warmth
expanding through denim
itâs not that I didnât want
to tell you I didnât think
youâd want to know
matches
the sudden tricks between blackened fingers
we flicked to smoulder on the grass of the hill
we burnt our weekends on twenty yearsâ distance
& now you spend summers plucking down birds
with your rifle the tiny purse of smoke & whip-
crack puncturing the air as I write you back
into my life from this freezing house-share
a cigarette pinched between lips a shred
of light in my hands & weâre here again
passing the whiskey that started the fire
in our throats watching the town-
lights wash slowly into darkness
killing the darling of smoke
a name youâve held more times in your mouth
than loversâ the weight of a full pack in your palm
as you split the film & find tw...