Wheel

There are soldiers in the daisy wheels
The bell rings
Just as you lift me
Up
The bottle rattles to the floor
Wake up
WAKE UP
The doorway
Five minutes a 
Home
There is no place
Like
I try to pick it up
Make the most
You know
But the clang is final
Leaves
Me
Empty
Never enough
powder silver dust
Paper teardrop on the shelf
Candy heart in the fridge
Rotting
Insubstantial
It’s not what we need, you see
You disappear 
She comes
Tutting and strutting
Far from affable
I hit my head
Which one of you is actually here
Ah, silly
Nothing left to feel
The clothes are wet
They dry
Crusty
Sore
Galvanise around us like a white sheet
Bones soaked from the war inside
I move at angles
My range difficult
Crusty
Sore
A swift kick of a chair
No desire to get up 
From 
The 
Floor
Yesterday oozes out like a retreat of soldiers
I want 
I want
No 
Place
Like
We forget
We cry
Stuck in the smell and spin
Of the daisy wheel.

Gift

The best place 
Where things are to be found
Is where people sleep 
Squeals Alice
Licking her lips 
And tightening the buckles on her shoes
She has a plan
I can tell
She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear
Push together the holes in your skin
She states
As if it’s normal
Any of this
The splinters are yesterday’s battle
Stored suspended sustained in flesh

We did not touch the apple
Not for a whole year
Curiously the poison grew stronger inside
We dreamt of it
Fondly as a summer house
One in the country
Where the sun shines through
Every aspect
And tries to embrace us
Like a mummy and a daddy
Though we still shiver inside

I don't understand why I'm awake
To peel pretty letters off your skin
Like writing a letter home
One that will never be sent
My insides juggle the poison
Facilitate blood air breath
For a while it is right
Then I hear her

Who said you are breathing
Who said this was real
You are wrapped up 
On the white bed
Where the sky came alive
Where I rescued you from love
And feeling
You need never open your eyes
All is done
All is passed

Will you come with me
To the bottom of time
Where all is dark
And soft like ashes
Will you come with me
And keep the dust from my head

She looks me in the eye
Of course not silly  
You can only go alone

I realise why she came
What gift she brings
She is the antidote
And the poison
Sweet like an apple
But rotten inside.

Sunday

The trees drip

Like blood

On a Sunday afternoon

Peaceful

Like butter

Melting

Into sleep

So thick 

Larger than my head

Sometimes it makes me laugh

The gasp

The jerk

The sickness

Then I 

Feel

Something

Malevolent

Repulsive

A thought

Sunday afternoon should be a better place

The sheds have numbers on

Like a code

Little houses

People don't sleep in

Numbers

Counting down time

You have to find things to see

I tell Alice

She knows

We go out in the puddles

Investigating

Uncovering what no one wants to see

Her sticky little fingers

Probe around the lid of reality

Who’s Glass

A metal scroll

How do we make sense of that 

Turn it into letters

Easy, spill it like blood claps Alice

And so we do

The leaves walk like feet

Bouncing off of banjo strings

We take the hit

Go down

Like blood on a Sunday afternoon.

Second

The teddy bear is ground
Into the dirt
There is no room for comfort
Not in this world
My fingers bleed
Curled around
The rusted tin and metal
We carry on
Refuse to hear
The bend and snap
Of our spirit
Heavy
Hard
Best neglected
Balled up
In twine and razor wire
Inside
We sigh
Thinking
Back
The trinkets
The shine
All worthless
Then
And
Now
An empty nest
That locked us in
Remember the messages
The stones
I am here
You are there
Any way to get through
To conjure up
Love
I ate my heart
Swallowed it down
With powder and dust
Cleaned the pipes

The breath comes out our throat
In the place where the last people gather
The end of a climb
The light of a snow cap

I hold her tiny hand

The first day passed
The second never ends.

Pass

The room moves around me
Like
A bad dream
A bad sentence
No beginning
Middle
My hand sinks in the wall
End
The cat runs along the fence
It is marmalade and black
We are
Out
Hunting
Pulse
Anxious
To find
What I was left with
Face full of silver
Pocket full of burns
We read the empty wall
Like a devotion
A rapid succession
Of ups and downs
We prefer downs
When our bones are scrawny
And we can
Out
Run
We jump over the mattress
Tip toe through the vomit
Not much wonder in this land
On one side
A girl
On the other
We all have keys
But none of us
Belong
Outside
In the river house
My pupils are blown
Up
Big
Huge
That would be the powder
She whispers
At the railing
You do not say hello
Not
Now
We quietly pass
Our letters by.

Impact

My feet are in the cobwebs
My head is in the stone
We tear out pictures
From the tumbleweed
To make a life
A dream
A home
We are the last ones left
After the impact
Remote
Stuck within ourselves
A pool of litter
Delivered by the storm
Lifeless
On the slab
Laid out bare
Our footprints are small
Too small to illuminate
The price we paid
Sometimes it haunts us
So we walk
Painting scenes
With cherry bombs
Lemonade
Vanilla drops
Drops
Penny
Down the well
No door to sweep away the dust
Coal in our hands
On our tongue
So thirsty
Nothing we need
Seems to be where we need it
And so we move
One step at a time
A circle is only a circle if you follow it around
States Alice
And so we move
My head shakes off the cobwebs
My feet kick off the stone.

Unstuck

The cleaners are coming
Rabbit lost a leg
Gnawed it off
When the trap fell
Cheshire Cat
Smells like gin
We all fall
Down
They emptied his post box
Wiped the boot marks off the wall
Cleared the empty packets
The cans
From the side
Like rubbing out his story
You are gone now
Glue creates electricity
When pulled
We stuck stuck stickied
Fell through the floor together
Isolated in our descent
Faithful in our descent
Clinging to something
That thing without a name
Know know knowing
The trip
And fall
Maybe rabbit chewed his leg off to stop himself falling
Whispers Alice
Some lies are best not scrutinized
She lays them out as a bed to fall on
We sit quietly in the hallway
Listening to the wires and brushes
What did he leave behind
Unpaid bills
Special offers
Last year’s paper
What did he leave behind
Us we whisper
Us
We sit quietly in the hall
Waiting for the next
White rabbit
There will always be another
For that we can be sure.

Couple

There is some spare
Sky left
Behind her eyes
If I reach far enough
I can touch it
As she lies awake
In the middle of the night
It is strange
How she does not
Move
Blink
Breathe
As I watch her
I try to stay
But am always
The first to fall
The sky inside her
Is brilliant
A scarlet burn
Possibility
Hope
I wish for her
To take me there
Maybe that is why I wait
In the hope
That she
Might
The cold breath of morning reminds
Me that I am useless
Spare part
Sore thumb
Below expectation
Above disappointment
My hands explore every bit of her
A caress
Learnt
Gentle as I can be
Under her body
It dawns like scarlet
Every time
Strikes me hard
The certainty of it
Us
How her presence and absence
Saves me
Why we have become
A pair.

Blank

I put the powder
In the Pez dispenser
Ooh, a game claps Alice
Yes dear
It's all just a game
Imagination is the only way
Out of this mess
Look close
I hold his head in my lap
I am so ugly
He is beautiful
We are alive
For three minutes
Like a spurt
Of
Blood
Up the
Wall
Dripping down
The
Mirror
Not your mirror Alice
I will always keep that safe
He is just for me
To play with
Shh
Go hide
I will get the potion
And the key
Then we can tip him
Down the hole
Cover up the dust
With our feet
Ooh, a game claps Alice
Yes dear it's all just a game
Delicious
I look in the mirror

Eat the
Powder
Candy
Blank
Blankly

erofeb daor siht nwod neeb evah eW

Theft

There are thieves
Dripping off the walls
The windows
They had no air
I could not touch
What was
What was
Lost
Air is what we craved
Space to breathe
We did not rest
Sleep
Close our eyes
For over three hundred days
Now
Now we ask for them to see us differently
They do not care
They locked us up
They did their job
We got what we were due
Help
How outrageous to ask
We remember the woman
The woman we did not see
Who talked to us as we stood
Jittery in the church yard
Should we
Shouldn’t we
She said it was right
To call someone
If we needed
Help
But we know
We know how help
Scrapes and burns
As our skin drops off
The thieves wait underground
To pounce when we are alone
Again
We are alone
Again
The thieves don’t look for silver or gold
They look for something more satisfying to devour
A gorgeous feast
That has no more meaning than air
They look for me
I will never forget
There are three hundred more days
Left
To deceive them.