I Saw You

I saw you tonight
Well it wasn't you
But it would be
If you were still you

Still
A
You
Bending down
Reading the lines
Of a book you'll never see
The taste of nothing
I saw you again tonight
Dancing with your girl
Smiling and loving
Shoes broken and a finger sliding in you mouth as you think and
Bite down on your wet hard finger
Warm
Living
Mouth
I
saw
you
again
tonight.

Living tonight
Living
If
you
had
of
lived.

Burning Love

Slam, 

slum, run

over the fields and into the city

where 
the 
girls 
are 
so 
tall 
and the boys are so 
pretty.

Spin,         win,         sin

everyone welcome, everyone in!

To the city of noise, bang in 'n' trash in

a class sick tune, 

Ray sing in tempo

cha cha cha

Tra la la. 

West to East

Boys 

and 

girls 

yearning and gurning, as they feast

on the meat of their ticky tacky seat.

 Hello! No go,

lonely auld city

be quick with your feat,

run with the scrum,

step in, step out,

shake it all about.

That’s 

what 

it’s 

all 

ab

out.

Over exposure

It was you that pulled back the curtain

You who exposed the new born skin,

 the soft sweet cells that were forming 'us'. 

I thought it might be there, a growing web of 'us',
Wrapping soft, happy hooks of same.
 But I didn't dare look, it was too soon.

An 'us' needs time to grow. Keep the curtain closed.

Stay safe little us.

Just a curtain. Til we're certain.

 Then you did it. You said it, 'us'
And I said 'no'.
'Look!' you said. 'Look at at us!'

Too soon, I said.
This is all over exposure,
Us loses and we are over.

Space Invader

I like to hear him talk, his tales are so very amusing. He takes a word of mine, a slice of hers and WHAM the conversation is his. He runs headlong into a myriad of memories; skipping and jumping across fences, up and over enveloping hills. He drags us like a string of sausages, grabbed and tagged to take in the tale – he is my Space Invader.

The thing is, you see, I like him. He has a brilliant mind - one which stores and hoards like a box of Meccano, always linking and full of teeth. I am the plasticine of the toy box, sticking into plastic prongs and scraped out at the end. He is the fencer who slices my vocal chords as soon as I make a sound. He links, and he does not think that I might not have finished.

I enjoy his stories so much I forget if they started out as one of mine. He is sweet and kind, generous and giving, but prone to over emotional floods. His speech runs so fast I wonder if he will fall off a cliff one day and not realise he has fallen until he has hit the bottom. Weed makes him laugh and slightly less verbose; he reminds me of my brother.

His childhood was beautiful – we know; his father a workaholic – we know; he was once thin – we know; he hangs onto boyhood with a shambolic charm - we know. And he is very funny, literary satirists he and his chums. I feel charmed to know him, he is, however, still my space invader.

I am now looking up at someone who is smaller than me, how have I let this happen? The armchair surrounding my drunk body slides me in, and I disappear into the background of his noise. He’s getting his kicks on Route 66, and I’m driving on B roads to Bournemouth. I'm swelling up on self-pity and wanting to gasp, to SHOUT, to let it all out.
"Shut the fuck up and let me speak. I am here!"

But my mouth is dry of words and wet with wine. I smile and I laugh, pretending it’s fine. My brain zones him out as I watch him from my place at the back of the stalls. I’ve taken a quantum leap into an invisible seat and now I don’t know how to speak.
My brain starts to blot up every word that he says. Faster, faster he talks and still nothing I have said. Am I the only one here who wants to stem the flood? To speak, if I could, and slam down his hood. "Fuck you! I’m in pain and how dare you be happy and in my house?" I don't say. I’m normally strong and wouldn’t have allowed this to carry on so long, but I’m weak at the knees and not eager to please. "More wine?" he says.
I nod a reply.

I’m seeing double now and swimming in wine, eyes narrow as I round a cigarette, and avoid the concerned glance of my silent partner. Someone senses my thoughts, I think, in a miniature blink. I’m too drunk to know what I want to say, can’t be funny, smart or entertainingly gay. How long have we been sitting here? I make moves to walk away. Can’t tell them my plan, my self-loathing stealth will take me from this place and up the stairs I race.

Morning is broken and the froth fluffs and guffs, floating and boating on the caffeine sea. Here come the bohos, the Soho no hos, steamed up and reeling, through the spiders legs street. Feats, meets and greets, I understand this hour.  A power play of self-absorbed glory. Dirty little jewels, dropping off the stage, plip plop play, gay, gay, GAY!.

My coffee, froths with traces of melting chocolate. Air-blown milk, skimmed like old silk, quivers as I drip dry my hangover.  Observing all this from the safety of my own hollowed out mind, I find myself rather prickly.

The late winter sun bounces and announces the wet clean streets. I trip off down the way. Sounds pound the streets, stomp, stamp, greet. Morning! Music smacks through the alley, the druggies, the desperate, the mad and the sad, all congealed in the dirt where last night people flirted and fucked, down in the muck. I push my way through, don’t care for this crew, my pulse races harder, here’s comes the rush. The wake up and shake up, the drowning of sound and levelling is allowed.

I walk in and grin, here’s the sin bin.  Girls with no fannies, boys with their toys, smoking and choking, pimps, salesmen and gimps. A smile crosses my face, as the race is on to know who did who, and how and how long. Couldn’t get enough, look at me muff! All night, look at the bite! Coffee, yes don’t mind if I DO. You? Never! Really. And you, what did you do, yes you. My bites are all over he wanted it all. So you gave it? I did. Two sugars, wooah, hard night was it love. Me, no nothing just wine with a friend.

Whine with a friend. Trannies wanting fannies laugh and look dead. 

I work through till lunch, surrounded by the boys, cocking and sure and not delving deep, soon I am laughing and remembering, this life's OK, come on then let's play. They give me space, and do not invade as we read through personal ads, laugh at the freaks, and I crack a few lines, make a few smiles, hours pass and I am revived. I push back my chair and swing as I stare, at a blank white wall a drug splattered stall. The afternoon bends into a gentle glance through the window to the curve of the street, the path below my feet. It's him. 

Beer with the queers, that'll straighten him out. Maybe a gin. I’m out and I'm in. Mouthed greetings all round, crowd, loud, wowed. I am drinking again, ‘doubling my trouble’ neat vodka haze, and soon friends surround. Smiling and chatting, the verbals are batting. I warm up my act. "How you doing?" they ask. "Do you want to talk?" Concerned faces ask, “not about that”, I say, “yes I’ll have a shot, why the hell not?”

We slam dunk the drink and the tequila slinks deep down and into my spine, he is here. He is talking and walking, ready to run. Pushing through the crowd, kisses all round, a mouth never closed, except for the peck, then he’s back with the chat and I’m feeling sick. Shit not again,  I grab another shot, gather my guns tight, then I’m there and I’ve done it he’s dropped his word punnet! Spilling over the ground, letters spinning around, I take the baton and run, breathless and bolshy, I'm ready for the feast. My words gather and rise seeing the prize. If I slip now, make one indiscretion, take a sip of my drink he'll have time to think. But this time I win, slamming the home run IN! The conclusion is mine, and yes, I'm feeling fine. No I don't need to talk.

Thin Ice

“Right, so, a grand if I make it once round the car park while I’m alight?”

“Yes”

“Double for twice.”

“That’s not very likely, Liam”

Last year I was the number one cock in the shop, the ‘breathe and they write it down and try to be me’ copy writer; smooth threads bowl in the walk, talk in the talk, and now? Now I’m standing in a car park about to let a stranger throw lighter fluid over me and then set me alight - for kicks, his, not mine.

It was all Liam’s idea.

“Been a long time, Steve, you in a bit of a sticky?”

“Yup.” I took a gulp from the pint that Liam had just bought me and sat back on the soft old leather sofa. I like this pub; it’s an East London classic, cheap and easy, still heavy with tobacco smoke stains and propped up by the sort of men who earn their place at the high wooden bar just by sheer longevity of attendance and only speak to you when the World Cup is on.

I’m broke. A statistic of the blow them up them pop them at the top financial wave, wasn’t my fault, credit card, yeah! I’ll pay it off, I did, I was, it was all fine. And then it wasn’t. The magic carpet which had flown me up over the city was gone, and my hair, uncut for months, and unshaven face, were just a tip of the bloody great big iceberg of worry bubbling under my life. But Liam, he was always all right, which is why I was sitting here with him, wondering, hoping, desperately wishing he might have the answer. And that it won't get me arrested.

We’ve been mates a long time, I met him when I first arrived in London. He ‘saved me’ from a drag queen called Diana who was trying to sell me drugs in a late night bar in Soho.

“Leave off Di, he’s a newbie,” Liam had wrapped his arms around both of us and shoved himself in the small space between us, smiling widely. I wanted to tell this interloper that I wasn’t really that much of a newbie, and 'thanks mate, but I have met a bloke in a dress before'. But soon Liam was getting a round in, Diana was applying more lippy and I had found my first new friend in London. It was light when we left, and Diana and I were propping each other up as we stumbled out into the rubbish and puke-stained Soho streets. “We’ll drop Di off and go and grab some breakfast mate, you up for that?” As we turned a corner into Soho square Liam flicked open a shiny silver sports car, Di collapsed onto the back seat, legs splayed and shoes off, and we drove off.

 “I have no idea what to do, I am going to lose everything,” I put my hands over my face and rested my elbows on the beer stained table.

Liam smiled, his wide jaw draws out his grin in a perfect frame to his level white teeth. I relaxed, letting the cool beer flood out and into my body, the alcohol pushing into tributaries under my skin and helping me to breath in a moment of pause.

 “There is a way you can make serious money.” Liam looked down as he spoke, fiddling with some papers and licking his lips, ready to roll a tab. I looked at those teeth again. How did they stay so white? Liam had told me a story years ago about his dad being a black, and that being why he had such white teeth. I’d always dismissed it as his street talk bullshit, but as the afternoon light invaded the pub and curved over his nose, creating a dark shadow on his pale skin, I saw something. Saw how he might have looked with deep, dark, blue black skin. And it fit. Maybe his mum wasn’t lying after all.

“What would I have to do?” I always assumed Liam made money in dodgy ways; he never seemed to actually have a ‘job’ but was always cashed up.

“It’s legit mate, you just need to find the right sort of people,” Liam’s tongue was gently skimming the thin line of tacky paper to sink the glue against the opposite end of the paper and encase the tobacco pipe. ”Special people, special … needs.” Liam laughed and flicked the paper together as he giggled and then placed the rolled tab on the table. “Bruv, stop looking so worried!” I knew without asking that when Liam was referring to special needs he wasn’t referring to a disability. Least not the sort you’d go down the social over. 

“It’s nearly always blokes, who have ‘special needs’, and well...”

“What? I’m not putting anything in my mouth or anywhere else.”

“Nah mate, no need for that.” Liam ordered another round.  It was Saturday afternoon; the pub was quiet.

“This is the deal,” Liam drew his lips together, sucking on an invisible cigarette and smiling.

“About five years ago I was out clubbing, stayed out all night and met loads of new people, like you do. '

'Well you do.'

"...well yeah, and you used to to!'

"Not anymore, mate..."

'Oh come on, anyway this bloke kept on asking if he could give me a lift home. So I told him, "Sorry mate, I’m into birds," but he said he just wanted to give me a lift, and nothing else. Well I was totally fucked it was six in the morning, so he wore me down. He wasn’t a big bloke, so if he got weird I could handle him.'

“Did he try it on?” I looked at Liam’s wide chest and caveman arms and couldn’t imagine anyone easily overpowering him.

“Well I thought I’d got away with it as we got to the end of my road and I told him to drop me there. He’d been mumbling about money, but I was so knackered I just wanted to go home, but I didn’t want him knowing where I lived, like, you get me.”

“Yeah, yeah, course,” I agreed, “So he lost his nerve?”

“Nah nah, well s’pose so, but while I was gathering all my stuff up and getting ready to get out of the car he grabbed one of my boots and wouldn’t let go.”

“Shit,” I laughed. “Did you have to smack him?”

“Nah, it was just a bit odd, he wanted to say something, so I just said look, what ever it is come out with it mate.”

Liam leant in and licked his lips; his habitual moistening of his quick dark pink mouth was a constant itch to his facial appearance.

Liam lowered his voice and leaned into me. The old regulars at the bar were not happy about this close masculine contact and shuffled on their stools as they flexed copies of the Racing Post around and murmured in deep throated tones, but Liam didn’t care.

“Boots.” Liam jabbed the air with a single slim finger.

“What? He wanted your boots?” I sighed.

“Nah!' 

"What then? He nicked your boots? Wanted you to give him your boots? wanted you to lick his boots?"

Liam drained his pint and turned to face me.

"Special needs my little lacking in a very creative imagination friend, s-p-e-c-i-a-l, do you geddit now?"

"No, tell me. TELL ME."

"Calm down, jeez,. I thought you were a 'man of the world'. Well he was really nervous this bloke, and  I was getting a bit teed off, my pill was wearing off, you know and I just wanted me bed. Finally he stopped mumbling and told me what he wanted.'"

"Stand on me."

"You what?"

"I need you to stand on my head."

"Oh, OK, right, shall I take me boots off then?"

"NO!"

"You what?"

"I need them to stay on." 

"He was a dead funny bloke, not funny like Peter Kay or Alan Carr, or a comedienne, but you know, 'funny', bit odd. But nice enough."

"Nice?" I was trying not to laugh. 

"So he just  lay on the front seat, like, and I thought bloody hell how am I gonna do this, he had his head on the driving seat, so I just climbed over the roof and ever so gently pushed my boots down on his cheeks, kind of squishy them. He seemed to like it."

"HARDER." 

"He wanted me to go harder, so I started pushing up and down, the car started rocking and I started to think 'blimey I'm going to break his face!"

"But you didn't?"

"Nah, and he gave me £200 notes."

“You’re kidding me.” I sat back and looked at my grinning friend.

“Nope, straight up, he just got me to bounce up and down a bit - to be honest I was more worried about one of my neighbours coming past and asking what I was doing than what he was doing.”

“What was he doing?”

“What do you think?” Liam laughed and walked off to the bar to leave me to digest the information.

“So it’s not about sex?”

“Well.... for them it is, any way after this one, he came round every week and we'd drive off somewhere and I'd do my thing, climb over the roof, bounce bounce bounce, 200 quid, cheers mate. then I got to thinking, there must be others out there that want this 'service', so I was chatting to a  lesbian mate of mine who works on this gay porn mag. Ram? You know it?'

"Funnily enough, no.”

"Anyway, she said there was loads of these sort of punters about and they all advertised in the classifieds section of her magazine, or I could put an ad in and they could contact me, so that's what I did."

"And there was me thinking you were a drug dealer."

"Are you mad? There's no way I'd be stupid enough to do that, remember what happened to Di?" Yes I did remember what had happened to Di.  She was now in men's prison somewhere in South west France after getting busted coming in from Algeria with enough smack stuffed in her suitcase to fuel a real-life remake of trainspotting in one hit. 

“Hmm, OK, that sounds doable. Do you think I could do it?”

“Course! Why don’t I set you up a punter and see how you go?”

So, that’s why I’m here at 4 o’clock in the morning in an empty Tesco car park in the middle of Hackney, Liam reckons it’s safe. And to be honest I was more worried about the group of teenagers hovering under the nearby bridge, their hoods squaring out their young heads in boxy silhouettes.

“Course it’s weird, but he’s a good punter, I’ve done it three times now, but I’d like some time off so the hair on my arms can grow back!”

“He isn’t going to touch me?”

“Nah, he’s going to have his hands full if you catch my drift. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Mourning Glory

5am 

wake 

in sticky, 

mourning light.

Colour in 

the 

room

fizzes 

lost 
dissolved like old perfume,

hanging on

moist, heavy drawn curtains.

Yawning 

open

ending the night.

Another 

goodbye.

Shadow Skies

Fat leg meat swells in heat.

Kebab crossover legs sweat.

Trains speed

up, down, and on and on.

Mind the doors;

moving maps of light

fight, and
then 
suddenly

blossom into    light       fringes of Victorian sculpture 

dropping down into sun drawn dark

floored in heavy moods and dead hand shapes.

Speed, speed speed

Light clouds ribbons across the sky

Flash

shape

gape

gone