Here Here in this place Heels kick and beats brew Here in this place Language spoken time and true.
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Stinking Hot Summer NC: In my mirror is me My Mexican mirror In America once I was soft and sweaty Soaked in humidity Pools forming in my shoes From rivulets Coursing silently, invisibly From my neck, under my sports top Down my stomach And pants and inside thigh Accumulating As it ran sometimes dammed By waist-band and seam Gently absorbing until all Became damp And the only cure Was a luke warm shower.
Iron shoes The guns in the gun-rack Signify a beautiful day ruined again. Smooth shiny barrels in gun metal grey Wooden or plastic stocks Packs of BB pellets. But do tell – why are they here in my wardrobe? Along with the net dress I bought in Stoke PVC bodice, boned and zipped plastic leather skirt. Unwise choices slotted together In their bungalow of belligerence. My stance with my two strong feet planted Is firmly against. Against these guns And the violent potential lying submerged, Latent, haunting, threatening Unspoken violence. Against him The unwanted advances he takes advantage of When I’m asleep The cigarettes and beers The maudlin obsessions:- Serial killers, Survivalists, Vietnam, Army outfits - Multifarious camouflage patterns. All these things I am against His shiftlessness His lack of ambition. Irresponsible Sackless Selfish malingerer. His arsenal of guns Bought in my name With...
Richmond Hill: Down the clouds, across the way Washing streaming and steaming Hanging across flats only window Sadly sagging the line drooping down No breeze even to float dry These flats many many Close knit, tight knit communities Kids Dad’s on strike from the mines For months and months food banking before it was trendy How did the mums survive on this windy hill? Looking down over River and canal Barges up and down To and fro. Strangely silent, up here. The long haul of shopping bag trudgery From the echoing, noisy, humidity of the market To this high rise separation Wind rattling the taut plastic.
Trial by Space: Mount Sinai and Mourning Lace. Centre stone, Pendulum, Down, down, down. Think, imagine, centre Concentrate, reach, reach out. I am standing in a room. It is a physical room. It is a remembered room. In this room is a life-times worth of memory – not mine. Striped silk bustle skirt, pink kid dance slippers, fans with petals missing. Petticoats, bloomers, chemises, camisoles, gloves, bags, top hats, cloaks, boaters, and beaver furs. Draws of mourning lace, cards of buttons, reams of tapestry wool and embroidery threads in rainbows of colour. Fountain pens from the 1940’s, fencing foils, tankards, Kafka novels, portraits of Louis Armstrong. Each object shouts for attention and significance. Yet as I stand in the only space there is a small corner next to a four-foot crucifix in the room, it is empty and it is dark. Dillon’s room was also dark and memory bound. His thoughts have shifted and sifted and s...
I have made my nest in Flats, tree houses, old offices Crumbling mills I have made my home With enemies and disinterested disregarders Alienating some Infuriating others Misunderstood and mistreated my garden a concrete yard A brick wall, the street A roof, a carpark, acres of forest The living only makes sense With the loving Otherwise it’s just another set of keys.
Number One, Back Mount The bannisters up How interesting it is that They are the same at number one, number three and number five. So old and black with thick, thick carving. Here at number one, Piles of children’s clothes covered in a dust-sheet lie like a library of children’s lives. Folded neatly, sorted by age, on each landing of each of the four floors. Children that come and go quickly, children that stay for a while and the ones that live here. Stationed around the landings of each floor are weird locked wardrobes with padlocks on the front. In the front room – not the best-front-room but the every-day-back, front-room Gas fire on full Stifling, dusty and winter-time-hot. Richard sits scissors in hand. He is perhaps six or seven years old A small thin pale boy, quiet and watchful with wild curly red hair He’s off school for the day – enviable position especially if you are not that sick. He has taken all of the dolls ...