when broken by the city,
be standing on a kerb,
seeing it from a distance.

the crashing sensation is real -
it’s the small glass tower
that’s been building,
like a ship in a bottle
swallowed one piece at a time

it was never finished,
tenants were never found,
it never breached the skyline.

the remains spill out of the clothes
and gather in a puddle in the gutter,
like a car window has been smashed.

(more…)

our heart
is just a pump,
a soft pump
for blood

and blood
is just the soup
we bottle

to soak our brain,
which is the bees
our heads hive

everything
we can contain
makes a fine paste
or feed

so stand proud
like the corn
and the wheat
in their fields

and like them,
at night,
when we think
they sleep,

scratch a few words
into the earth with a toe
just to watch them escape

phone numbers
are the coordinates
that make the map
that folds itself
into a different shape
each time.

the mountains
and the valleys
shift and swap
elevations,

corners and edges
cross the interior
to escape isolation.

sometimes the creases combine
to form a flower.

Cupid had a foe
who was so unpopular
his name was not recorded,
but we can call him Loathe.

Only a single, amputated statue
and a fragment of mosaic
give clues to his form:

he is thin and hunched,
his mouth is tight
and he bears a shield.

As we leave behind
the gods of earlier ages,
but carry on their pains,
so this fellow continues
to this day hindering,
sabotaging, the course of love.

With Cupid gone his job is easier -
no more arrows to intercept -
but he still finds a familiar delight
in deleting my emails to you
and misdirecting your calls.

imagine the sky divided
into columns
thin as a needle’s point
and buckling
as we skip across them

they will hold our weight
for as long as it takes
to recognise
that we are out of place

by our heft
they know
we are what they stand on

but we are already gone,
moved on,
skipping to the next,
flying as fast as we can

I made a bomb,
a tiny bomb,
there is no smaller
in the world.

Its tiny blast
makes no noise
nor any smoke to see,

and when it blows
the bits that fly
do no harm to me.

My tiny bomb’s so tiny,
even smaller still,
my atom bomb -
the tiniest bomb
i have ever built.

when drowning
i either wake
or in panic
inhale
the water like air

it works in dreams

so well
when underwater too long
my lungs plead:

just a small sniff
of the seawater -
to plump us up.

it will be fresher than air.

1. the earth is flat
around airports

plus

2. every plane
has to land

equals

3. runways conduct
arrivals and
departures
with equanimity

aphrodite,
bless this goatherd

who stinks
of his charges.

bless him,
but try
not to maim,
or kill him,

or turn him
to stone,
or into a tree
or a star.

if he must suffer
so olympic scales
remain in balance

then make him
suffer thus:

perfect his memory.

let his honey
taste bitter
after your mouth,

let his skin
be numb
after your touch,

let every woman
compare
to the beasts
he keeps.