Christmas Poems

Sheep

Sheep totter, suggesting they will fall

Off the precipice and into the fire.

One ram stops them.

Shrewd, beside the gold poppy seeds.

No one moves a glassy eye.

Red Wine

Red wine, murky, muzzy-headed,

Pitch-purple-blackness.

Dive in,

Dive in,

An ocean is waiting,

A wave of tummy warming aromas

Hints of currants and oak wood sail by

As a smile forms, and storms fade,

Until a mudbank hits

And the bottle lies empty on the shore,

Its label torn, illegible.

Nothing,

But a lubber-legged, wobble-headed wine drinker

Fretting in a chair all at sea.

Cycling

Lungs breathing free,

Cycling, three hours, across the city.

No helmet, no fluorescent jacket,

A white light flicker-flushing at oncoming wheels.

Knees hurt at every revolution.

So tired that stale teenagers make me angry,

Stealing my water at the crossroads,

Laughing,

Joking that they stole fifty quid.

Not funny.

I don't have fifty quid.

That's why I'm biking all this way.

Biking in the dark without a back light.

Without a helmet, without a yellow jacket.

Lungs breathing red bus exhausts,

And late night orange London lustre.

Cycling, free, across the city.

Anitcipation

Waiting, throbbing in limbo,

No washing up done,

No daily tasks of brushing teeth,

Or taking clothes off before bed.

Perusing my unknown future,

A job, a party, a kitten.

Waiting, days spent imagining,

Horoscopes read,

I Ching consulted,

Sitting at Google considering

What destiny to type in.

An exciting future might be in store.

Can't wait to get there.

Damage

The damage that impairs our coupledom

Is not the sex and not us being cosy.

It's mercantile and mercenary loving,

A fondness of the dating side of us.

Except that now I'm feeling so observant,

Our wily ways of sparking fire just seem

A little conscious, silly bargaining.

Ode to Anti-Psychotic Drugs

Half moon yellow pill

Chopped with a bitter knife.

Without it I cannot perform,

Pacing with paranoid impressions,

Flying with notions of resplendence.

Half moon yellow pill,

Flavourless, I swallow.

Flavourless, I take it.

I crave the highs,

I crave the lows.

Half moon yellow pill.

Don't tip over the edge

Losing shared reality.

Take the pill.

Take the pill.

Take the pill.

secret

The brown-eyed girl spoke further,

Her grief a secret from the audience.

As if they couldn't tell.

Twenty years made me cry.

A secret man -

Unknown to family

Unknown to friends.

He exists to me alone and

Will leave me twenty years

In pain.

Luck

Forwarding on chain emails

Always brings me luck.

It's how I got my council flat

And all my unemployment money.

I saw a cat today and it was an omen.

My friend should go to university,

It'll make him rich.

I texted him to say.

Texting makes me happy.

I better hope for a sign,

The sound of birdsong like a ringtone,

It'll stave off losing my phone.

Ella Fitzgerald singing of luck,

Calmness before I finish dead.

The urgent miaow of a hungry cat

Sends shivers and three shakes.

Luck comes in triangles.

Luck is secret, even from God.

Announce it and unluck will follow,

Announce it and you will fall apart.