Lamp light

Outside the day holds out its hands

invites the night

a dog barks
on the mantle the clock ticks

The room dissolves from its corners
rug, armchair, wallpaper
weeping into darkness

She switches on the lamp where she sits
custard light spools out across the table

her lap and her open book

He rises stiffly
lifts his sciatic walking stick
guides the edges of the curtains 

to meet across the thickening evening

The girl down the corridor

I have never told you
have I
about the girl
whose name I never knew
with angular features
a long sharp nose
and shaped eyebrows
skilfully shadowed eyes
with hair
cut short
and gelled up
into a fine comb

who had a room
down the corridor
from you in halls

I never told you
did I
how she and I
caught each other's eye
from time to time
how she would smile at me
even while you held my hand
and how
while we were studying in your room
you and I
I would listen for footsteps in the corridor
Fancy a coffee?
I would say
and you always would
and I would dutifully trip along
to the kitchen
in the hope that she might be there too

and sometimes she would be
and while the kettle boiled
we would courteously
dance
a light flirtatious gavotte
between sink and cupboard
kettle and coffee jar

and I would fail to say
all the things to her
that I had planned to
because of you

and she would ask about you
because that was a respectful
and a safe
thing to do

Night visitor

Those are not
the sheets you feel
slip sliding over
your sleeping skin,
but these, my hands,
come wandering
across a thousand seas

my silken palms
have sailed the wind

seeking a golden smoothness
on your thigh
sweeping the sweet bowl
of your belly flesh
the subtlest softest

pillow of your breast
and now 

with phantom fingertips
I trace your velvet nipples
trace your lips
I taste your tongue
I kiss your neck

your back

your hips

I rove among the stars
and find you
shed bone and blood and skin
to race the sky
and find you

I become the breeze
and wind these spirit arms
around you
in an astral cloud's embrace
I bind you

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga creeps
on chicken legs
down the dark night street
claws patches
of rain black clouds
from the sky
and pastes them to the attic window

I know it's her
I can hear her fingernails
trapping on the glass

She croaks my name
with her frog voice

if she wanted
she could slide in
through the window crack
and snack on my heart
while I sleep

I wouldn't mind
I would feel her breath on my skin

that would be enough

maps

will we be skin to skin again

will blood be hot

will bones awake

and subtle muscular ripples strum

and judder breaths

as we strip the fret

from stressful days

in naked exploration

will we find my finger

running the curve

of your cheek again,

tracing the arc

of your back

the valley of your belly

strolling the soft velvet

of your inner thigh

and the domains

that here adjacent lie

like snuggled rabbits

our bodies fitted once

leg coiled round leg

hand round breast

buttock seamed to thigh

have we forgotten

the maps

we drew of each other's desire

the songlines we sang

and danced

and dawdled down

can we redraw

before it is too late

the paths of pleasure we once knew

Physic

Should black bile sophisticate my blood 

and shock my joints into a rictus lock
then with your sharpest knife open my veins
and drain the viscous liquor into a jar

carefully label with the subject's name
spend flower petals in the velvet red
stir sweet spices through the carmine brew
and agitate until they marry true

leave this dark claret in a sun-filled spot
or by a winter fire if season must
and for the turning of a half a day
let nature take its course

the tired spirit, blessed and nurtured thus
will grow and ferment, gather strength anew
now duly pumped afresh within my veins
watch colour revive the pallor of my cheeks
and gorgeous life return into my soul.

lovesong

Night has come

like a bus stalled

outside the window

spewing mud grey clouds

I think of you

I think only of you

I only ever think of you

owls are keening

on Upper Albert Road

in treetops

slick-leaved with rain

and somewhere

some fool is playing

the cello

out there

in the rainy street

bleeding his heart into the grey rainy street

like some sort of fool

blood in the gutters

blood and tears of rain in the gutters

he doesn't even know you

          but me

I think of you

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever

I have reached for your arms

many times

          I have

but you live

in the book of another world

in the crook of another arm

and will not hear the

thump, thump, thump

of this stupid heart

this stupid raging heart

and so all I can do

is think of you

while the night bus

chugs choking clouds outside the window

with the owls

and the fool

and the cello

blood and tears of rain

and the thump, thump, thump

          yes

I'm thinking of you again

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever