All Blog posts
Recording
Erasure poem taken from Tracing the Lines Magazine
How long until your inlet valve chokes up
with lint and grime? Oil seeps into every
exposed surface, delays the build up of rust,
but decline is inevitable. When did you last
consider your camshaft bearing, your crankshaft
drillings, your line shaft? You forgot to follow
the established maintenance schedule,
didn't you? Made a checklist then delayed
consulting it. Eventually, your pistons
will stop pumping, a spark plug will fail,
your alternator will burn out or a wire
to your battery will fray. How much grease
lines the walls of your intake manifold?
Is it enough? When did a professional
last give you a look over? Your catalytic
convertor is clogged, you are speaking
in toxic fumes. How long has your engine
management light been flashing on and off?
The Days Stack Up
Recently, I was speaking to someone about journaling, and I casually mentioned I'd kept a diary consistently for over ten years. As I said it, it seemed wrong, so I checked the next day. Yup. Over ten years.
Discovering My Allergy to Scallops
'You don't want to end up like me,'
the man on stage screeches.
Laughter unstoppable now, like
a falling body embracing gravity.
'I'm serious. Why is that funny?'
I feel three hundred people's heat
Pressure Drop
Erasure poem taken from Good On Paper.
Goal
Erasure poem taken from Crack Magazine editorial
Vapour Whisper
Erasure poem taken from Crack Magazine
When I took my mattress my duvet and their dreams
I said I was keeping them for safety and I almost believed it. I laid down in the middle of the nearest woodland and named it Mine. I rigged canvas between two branches but the wind whistled through my bone marrow. Waking in the night, I started a fire, using their dreams as kindling. I had plenty to spare. Still I did not sleep soundly, So I felled the ancient oaks and built a bed frame from the trunks, raising myself above the cold ground. When this failed, I chopped down every tree I could see, whittled and planed the wood to planks, transformed the land to make myself a shelter, created walls around my bed to define outside.
Gathering
We are racing against the dying of the day
over fields flooded with twigs and silence
towards a broiling bruise left by a canula,
our tinny engine whine now a mosquito.
Ego Death on the M4
I am driving home at night
hands gripping the wheel
empty tarmac surrounding me
fertiliser stinging my nostrils
The engine shaking all the space
between my scattered atoms