AT FOXTON DAM

It was June when we came to the fishing lake.

The midges were hazing the water for sex.

Fisherman sat at their poles in silence, deaf

to the blasts from the open-cast. It would change.

I showed him the plaque with the plans

for the nature reserve, said the hole

would be filled with marshland and heron.

No human would set foot beyond the barbed 

wire fence and patrolling guard. He said

he would like to see that, but I said, 'no,

it's off limits.' Instead, we scrambled

up the bank to the pit edge and looked down

at the diggers and trucks fetching slag.

SUBURBS

after Edwin Morgan


Through the neighbour's window, a cat disturbs the ironing.
A cat disturbs the ironing and knocks over plant pots.
Knocks over plant pots and smashes the dishes.
Smashes the dishes and skulks to the cellar.
Down there salted meat is cured.

HE COULD HURT ME

He could break me. Take me up
in his arms and throw me or cut me,
stick a knife in my bowel and gut me,
wear leather boots and parade me
around the showground. He could fire me
from a cannon into the mouths
of a gasping crowd, watch them swallow
me down, sneering and cheering. He could
lick me or whip me or beat me or bite me
and I'd never throw the towel in.
I'd give him that. I'd give him that.

UNTITLED

NHS staff have been warned to expect

storm weather and floods. Tsunamis

of alcohol related hepatitis will burst

through the automatic doors in A&E.

They have been told to be underprepared

like the police for the fallout of Friday night

violence in city centres. Blood will come

like a flood. A riot of scalpels and syringes

held to the throat — Give us your money,

you bastards, or we'll burn you. The Fire Brigade

are on strike. 999 is a disconnected number

and nobody gives a shit if you die.

In Westminster MPs stand on the roof

catching fivers in nets. The bonfire of services

turns ash into cash and the unscorched snatch it.

CHINESE WHISPERS

'Nita's cat died.
No I don't know a 'Nita either —
not even an Anita.
Who's she? 
                   Is that her natural colour or dyed?
Someone else has died! The dog.
'Nita dyed the dog the way Jane bathed Peter.
Look, there's a picture.
                                       'Nita's hot!
Some days I want to take a 'Nita home...
                                        an' eat her.
Wish I knew a 'Nita or Anita.
But how you gonna greet an Anita
                                        with your stutter?
Let's start over.

SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT

1.


I couldn't say it. I was afraid.
While ever it stayed in my mouth
I could taste it like the word yes.


It floated on a sea of saliva.
My jaw trembled like a fish.
I wanted to throw it up in the air.


If this was the feeling of never,
it was the feeling of always.
Possibly. Maybe. Yes. Yes. Yes.


I wanted to keep it locked in a box.
Out of light. Unobserved.
I wanted it to be true and not untrue.


Then came your eyes and your words
and your science to explain everything.


2.


In this theory, I become two people.
The first is naked on a rumpled duvet,
sweating in the undisturbed evening.
Moonlight paints the hollows of his body.
The second is naked on a rumpled duvet.
Under his head, a chest rises and falls.
Moonlight paints the edges of their bodies.


I dream of a life I never lived.
Under my hand, my chest rises and falls.
In this first life all I do is dream —
I dream of a life I never lived
with a man I swore I never loved.
In the second life all I do is a dream.
I drift between rooms aching
with love for a man who swore he loved me,
lingering in the scent of a well made decision.


I drift between rooms aching,
sweating in the fretful evening.
Scent. A decision lingers unmade.
In this theory, I become two people.


3.


This is the
single life theory.
At a word
the wave collapses
leaving a 
wasting of water.
At the shore
there is no choice
What is left 
is devastation
This is the 
single life theory.

ELIOT REFRACTED

At the violet hour other echoes

inhabit the garden; a voice that was broken

with sorrow — a tedious argument of insidious intent.

After the event he wept, forgot

the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell

and, clawing at the pillow slip,

Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,

by sea-girls wreathed converse with spirits

and find themselves disgraced. The vacant

interstellar places between desire

and the spasm held the housemaid

on his knees. The undertaker wiped his feet.

When the police dog returned to his beat

there wasn't a single one left in the street