TIME OF THE MONTH/FOOTBALL POEM

I'd always been a Coventry supporter
strange, everyday for a month
to hear me shouting
"COME ON YOU REDS"

There is nothing better than a truly beautiful sky

The moon has been in a fight tonight
And the bruise spreads across the sky;
Yellow and purple. I think maybe
The mountain is broken.
We’ll need to get that fixed
And hope it sets.
You are leaning on the fender
Skirtucked and leatherbooted
Foot tapping to the melody
Of Sam Cooke singing
The sounds of dignity
In the face of oppression.
The whiskey bottle
Catches the headlights
Occasionally
And your face;
Your face.
And until tonight
I stood firm on the fact
That there is nothing better
Than a truly beautiful sky.

THE FLY

it is late and on a windowsill

like a spark of electricity

after seven short days of life

i hear the death of a fly

i weep more than for others i have lost, still

i never did understand the futility

of peoples lack of love for life

i suppose some people deserve to die

Pandora's Box

When all you have left is hope
Locked away
In a jar
Hidden under the bed
Sucking in dust
Perhaps it was a good thing
You let go of all that hate.

Saltwater

When an ocean cries
For the loss of love,
In grief,
What seeps from its eyes,
The swell of every wave
Beneath?

Damned Chemistry

Do you remember I used to sit next to you in biology class?
And I would study you rather than the texts.
Everything I gleaned about the human eye
Was from careful observation of yours.
I dissected your navy blue jumper
And weighed each breast in the palms of my mind
Ran my hands over your skin
And kept samples on slides
To examine under the microscope
Later.
And all I learned about reproduction was purely
From the thought of you
With me.

And do you remember during physics
I was always caught in your gravity?
Your mass would draw me closer
Than the teacher would allow
And I would spend most of the lesson
Outside
The Headmaster’s office.

I was always picked last in games
As I would simply stand and stare
Across the football field
To the tennis courts
And watch your thighs shimmer in the sun
Below that tiny blue skirt;
Your breasts like tennis balls
Fastened to heaven
With sports tape.
And I never took my eyes from you,
Ball in hand,
Bottom of the scrum.

In History I dug for evidence
Of my initials
Scrawled across your exercise books.
In R.E. I worshipped you alone,
Discounting all other options.
I imagined kissing you in French.
Worked out the odds of being yours in Maths.
And in geography
I would map out the contours of your body.
It was just my bloody luck
The only thing we didn’t have together
Was damned Chemistry.

Poem of Uncertainty

To think
We wrote all those stories
In just one day
Remember the one
Where you dressed as an injun'
And you hunted me, the bear?
Or the one
Where we were married on the beach
With a greyhound as our witness
And a preacher that told terrible jokes?
And You were so beautiful
Like the ocean
And I was the beach
You pounded me into submission
With every swell of laughter
Washing me in and out like sand
With every breath
And children now hold the broken pieces
Of my heart to their ears and listen
To the sounds of you

And yet I'm so afraid, my love
What if we have read the last line
And sneakedapeek
At the ending
Too soon
Having missed all the twisty
Turny
Bits
That make the story worth reading?
What if we never discover how happy
They turned out to be:
The greyhound with the chicken bone
And the priest
Who wouldn't sing

Chewing gum kiss (for Vicky Kytzia)

You took the gum
From your orange segment lips
And folded the sticky sweetness
Into shapes between your gentle fingers
So delicate yet so strong
And pressed it onto the bus ticket
From our first adventure
Next to the gum I no longer wanted

That will forever be the moment
The only moment
Of regret
In my life
But instead
Of seizing you
In my embrace
And planting the first seed
Of loves most wondrous question
I took your discarded gum
And spittle
and mine
And wrapped them
up together
And slipped
This chewing gum kiss
Into the pocket of my leather jacket

I will carry it with me
This chewing gum kiss
Until we meet again
And on days when my heart
Can no longer bear the pain
Of your stark and monochrome absence
I will peel away that bus ticket
From our very first adventure
And I will taste your orange lips
On mine
Just To see me through
Until the bus comes