Studio

My new life

without you

makes me wonder

what the old life was for?

why I hung around

in the face of such wrongness

when it was so easy to leave

it took a month

in the end

and I was gone.

I don’t think of you now

but if I stay up all night

sometimes it hurts

not because I miss you

but because 
yet another 
bit of my life

is done.

Extol

I was wrong

before

about falling in

love being about

me

It’s not.

And fitting together

Is one thing

But I’ve never ‘not’

fitted

with a lover.

All people fit

If you hammer hard

enough.

So love isn’t that,

either.

Our love is about

light up deities,

pop gods

and seasides.

And how you came

from space to save

me,

did you know that?

  

The story is

upside-down

from the way you

tell it.

___________________________________

You are my nicotine patch dream

You came via electro mail

And gave

the crushing drudge

of twenty four

after twenty four

after twenty four

some punctuation.

Before you

I was

chasing a hearto

mainlining sweets

of both kinds

Now,

I’m still part

slow motion suicide          

But laughing

Let’s cuckold old age

Who wants to live in bungalows

via panic buttons

anyway.

Father's Day

The posters in shop windows

order me to buy a card.

They tell me how to feel.              

They describe you like this:

You’re special

Number one dad

The best dad in the world.

They remark;

Thanks for being there.

There are cards for dads who like

Golf, gardening, DIY

There are cards with cartoons,

motorbikes

and racing cars.

Cards filled with sentimental slop

and silly jokes.

These cards speak a shared language,

Between sender and sendee.

Dad, I love you.

Dad, take it easy

Dad deserves a day off.

But where are the cards for un-special dads

For the worst dad in the world?

The ones who took a lifetime off

Where are the cards for the dads who failed?

Where are the cards for the dead dads,

the rubbish dads, the missing dads

the violent dads?

The dads we don’t love, or can’t like.

I want a card that says

‘You fucked it up.’

Maybe then you’ll stop calling.

________

Lost

What happened to the letter

You wrote to your parents

That breezy letter

like they were a pen-pal

Or a dear friend.

I was in awe of that letter

The tone of it was just right

You told them about me, about Yarmouth,

and Brighton

You hoped they were OK

And you didn’t want anything from them.

I wept when you showed me it

and said you didn’t mind if they didn’t reply.

You said it so convincingly.

What happened to the letter?

That should have been the letter

They’d been waiting for

For 15 years.

Did they even open it?

Did your mother weep, like I did

Why didn’t she reply?

Lost in the mail once, maybe, but you sent it twice

Unless they were dead.

Your dad is 80.

But then, wouldn’t someone have told you?

What happened to the letter?

How can you turn love off?

I wonder about curiosity and

Maternal and paternal instinct.

I wish they could know you

Like I know you.

Like I love you.

If I had their address, I wouldn’t send

a letter

I’d send a bomb.

________________

Sundry

The walls miss you

The bed calls your name

The bricks hold their breath.

They wait.

The sheets weep

The soft toys huddle in corners,

asking after you

Which one saw you last?

Your clothes pine, abandoned

The food in the fridge counts the days

since you were here.

The milk tells the mould that never knew you

stories of who you were:

A chance

A gaggle of noise

A gush of joy.

Now the stereo lies mute

The lamp not lit since you left

The ashtray’s heart

Yearns for your return.

_____________________________