options

the trees are crashing like waves
outside my window
there is
a space
between one word and the next
and all the meaning drips away

parsley

she says i am
  softer when i sleep.

  peel me open like
lychee and
   sit me on your tongue

       swallow me whole and it won't ever be enough.

i am sweeter when i dream.
       rootbitter at some strange core
my fingers tipped
                     and parsley. swathed
  in these green shoots. 

dirt

i am dirt
i am mud
i am earth
i am growing

i am beautiful

i am seedling
i am watered i am fed

i am fed up

still i grow

winesong II

whitenoise knuckles
faced in outwards and
around there are gaps
this lack, lacuna

or selfish blackholing

still, you have
milksour cheeks turned
pasty they drag on
bones and eyes glare
sunwards and driprot teeth
chewing skinsame patches

and ribsharp aches
so many linecrosses
so many ways to
bruise
so many ways to
hold
your head
armheavy
sleepdrink
dreamsoft/cry/fold

so many
rattling thoughts

Winesong

my body has been thickening itself
as a root against famine
neatly watered and split into compartments
this, thorax, here, abdomen.

all night I have been watching a spider
trace gently from wall to wall a thread.
I have been dusting.

Sweetness, I am no longer able
to take your hand and reassure you,
this wine is drowning my guts, this song
stuck in my head, I am rutted and unfortunate
as a tune whistled duskwards in some
lonesome field of wheat.

My love

Laying alone and thinking of
the lightness of you, goodly
rich weight in my arms.

The sweetness of you.
Salt on your skin, sugar-tongued,
my feast, my flighted bird, my love,

my lady love, my dear, my love,
my doe, sweetest, darling,
a menagarie and more, a voice,
a pair of arms holding me tight.

The goodly rich earth of you
to grow me, to ground me, to feed me.
That I might be a leaf to fall into you,
enrich you, make you more.
I want to see you shine.

To give and love, in this new year,
in this new light.

Saltsick IV

we have slept in these sheets.
I am approaching a time that will leave me
dry and boneached, stoneturned, moss
stripped back. Knotted hair.

I have not yet learnt the secret
sadnesses of ferns, of fossils. I am
trying, each day, a new way of crying,
a new place to stare at the sea, and I
think of this:

did I ever tell you how much water
I could swallow? Open-throated, pour
me full. I could drink and drink
and not reach the end of the ocean, and not
be satisfied with a gut full of salt

or the faint calls of lost creatures. This is all.

Saltwell

my own mania,
closeopening doors I choose,
stains on my bed, bloodhearts,
from me, from you, us, asking,
growing,

saltwashing and I remember
berries (small and white and chalky)
that were, are, mine
and I remember shells and
knives and rocks and seaweed,
remember swimming

and all of this quite literal
can't be taken away,
pennyadozen fantasy, must-smell
and old furniture,
flowers, 'don't touch the grill',
splinters and shells shells shells

taking me back
taking me back
Saltwell, Saltwell,
and I'm home.

drool

The air hangs low and still.
Know this:
I do not wear myself sleeve-hearted
for you;
this cartilage I crack
is not a war-cry
or a beat
for you to dance.

I bathe in my spit.

I am whole. 

this trick is easy:
there's nothing to it
and nothing from it.

even dawn found it
swimming through wallpaper
gluttonous for toes, for words
for a time

this trick is easiest
shut your mouth,
breathe through your nose,
repeat this prayer
through pinprick lips:

"not for me
the globular excess
waste away
waste away
waste away

not for me
milk drips on my chin
slow breath
slow breath
slow breath"

oldest friend and ashy grin
bones exposed and peeling skin
it hurt to let his words get in
happy patience wearing thin
and now, sun-eaten, we'll begin

                                        again

Garnetchild

I am Saturn's wife and child.
I am adoration, the devoration
of self, sixty-two orbits that bite at my
sweet flesh, holding sickles to bar me.
My pores burst forth geraniums.
I am womb-in-waiting, fires of war,
I am the bloodstained sword
and the cow that lows nightdeep.
I am furred, horned. I am scaled
by your deft hands on the piano.

Saltsick III

sweetsalt taste in tea leaves, in tears
in bitten fruit, in smooth pitpebbles
sinking stoneheavy to stomachrest
to play marbles in knotted gut
bubble from babbling lips and strike
once, twice, knocking at a waiting door

(the old lady's a witch teethrotted
hunchbacked and clever, spinning wisdom
from arthritic fingers, broken wrists,
pay her, pay her, pay her and leave)

this is the importance of a weight
on your bastard tongue, this is how
hands raised to a sun dawning and
elbows tucked in to raised ribs and
foreheads bowed for family and
back down to the sweat on your brow.

Apology

lead you away
from these false idols
warm hands within mine
smelling of basil
smelling of salt
smoke-choked
ashen.

fold the bloody sails
trace the words
steeped
scrawling
"dear you
so sorry
my heart is monstrous"

teeth bared
coming down hard
wishing yourself away
you've had enough of these bastards

can't keep my promises
you smashed the bottles
ferns lying restless
under your fingernails.
you'll see the sun.

after Waterflower

these strings,
these aching strings,
these bee-hum
rotten apple strings,
these whale-song strings,
gutted cat, heart laid open,
scalpel sweet strings,
these mother-tear strings,
gull strings, sea-ice strings,
damp melancholy strings,

drone gently,
gently. 

making it clear

wormeaten
oiled and offered
pinned to
stakes tall as a man
for the tomatoes
for the ripening
darlings the sunfetched
darlings noisy and cumbersome
guiltridden
definitely wormeaten
darlings the rising
beast and the
hatchling dears and the
toothpecked shell
bruising leaves and
peppermint scented

threes and fours, rising beast,
here he comes,
here he comes,
here he comes

I am acquainted with the shock
of a midnight garden
the grit and unease
and ghost winds that blow from my neighbours' houses.

Kennel

have you always been this rabid, darling,
foaming at at your chapped lips -
or did you snap along with your chain
and take to gnawing the bones of friendly hands?

Abstraction III

FEEL PULSE QUICKEN
AS IF TAUGHT LULLABY
DEEP EARTH BURIED
QUIET SLEEPING STIR AND
SHAKE SOIL HEAVY
BONES STRETCHING
HONEYCOMB LIFE-FILLED
FEAR OF SELF FEAR OF
OTHERWAYS OTHER
WISE SPEAKINGS HE TOOK
LONG ENOUGH TO REACH
TEACH PINNED DOWN
RIBOPENINGS NEAT AND
STAINED RIPE AND READY
DANCE FOR THE END
OF THEIR WORLD DANCE
FOR THE END OF THEIR
WORLD DANCE FOR THE
END OF THEIR WORLD

The Nursery

Goodnight, my angels.
There are violin strands in my hair
and here, a gloved hand to tuck you in.

Ignore the spiders, they just want
to drive your remote-controlled cars
through dreamwebs. They hit stop signs,
run red lights, leaving doll-fragments
smashed by the pavement.

Kitty-cat sits by the window, moonlight
angry in her eyes. Twitching tail. Claws.
Twist the music box one last time, and close
the ballerina safely in her painted box. Legs
splay. Long lost plastic tiara. Smile.


Sea hush, lulled salt sounds washing
from the pregnant-curved shell. Mother's eyes
watching. Sleep well, my darlings.