Homecoming

(Silvia, August, Exeter)

I watched you look for fragments

of your world

there’s a Romanian story

about a prince

who goes off chasing

eternal youth and

everlasting life

He returns home

to find

valleys and cities

where forests used to be

in the palace the lights are out.

At the Double Locks

Instagram poets

carry picnic blankets under one arm,

articulate girls

abandon their bikes

in the parking lot

We eat scotch eggs

in ritual remembrance

of student penury

and later, on the way home

I lock on Venus

to scale down the human distances

we’ve travelled

to something insignificant

like a chicken coop

Give me one fixed point

and I’ll be brave enough  

to let the sky bleed

again tonight

 every night

for the next

38 years

Camera

I am envious that the greeks could be so much more precise 

When talking about love 

Eros, agape, philia, pragma, ludus, philautia 

How did I not know that 'play' is a form of love? 

And so is 'value'

Eros sits by my side and demands attention although 

He cannot see me 

I fix the blue in my son's eyes 

They draw me in like the unsettled ocean in Tarkovsky's film

Temple pressed against the hard bone of his skull 

Love - 

Although he cannot see the detours I am taking

He seems to trust me across many spaces

And he begins to look more and more like a boy I once knew 

Debate team articulated 

Skillful, graceful, still 

There is a carnival in the city of monks and scientists 

Why not step into a dream? 

Simulated stars 

Trails of light

guide me to The Camera

camera means room 

its round shape is a longing for the columnated womb of the Pantheon 

these cobbled streets remind me of Hermanstadt 

Instinct leads the way 

Extravagant light paintings on vast canvases of stone 

At the gate I stop to stare at stars 

And trace the music to its source 

Into the temple 

I am an unexpected guest at this carnival 

But someone gives me a pass 

To Gallery 14 

Where people with beautiful minds

Unperturbed by the ostentatious sensuality 

of the Greek statues 

tell stories about Venice and Nasa and 

I look on at the Romanian lecturer

And wonder if she feels at home here.

Would she resent me addressing her in our own language?

Would she feel exposed? 

I feel proud of both of us

To have travelled a longer way than anyone else here would realise 

to have followed dreams that could barely be dreamed 

Incongruence

No cover

Clutching at 

Layers of transparency

Back-to-front cavity

Darkness to light

Refractive cornea

Locker

Designed faulty

To leak

Meaning

Teacher teach me

Stillness

How to build walls

And use my smiles

As a barrier

To design the perfect symmetry

Of benign indifference. 

Are you a dancer?

Dulcet, et decorum est

To choreograph your moves

Confined 

Inside the shoe-box

Of propriety

Claim ‘I don’t feel’

When you mean 

'I yearn'

'I hate'

'I'm fed up'

'I'm bored'

'I'm disgusted'
'I'm turned on'
'I'm in love'
Play your heart like

A transistor radio

When that
Underground train 
Screeches in
Off track

Too loud

Just tune it out

Disarm 

Disband 

Disappear 

When there's no listening ear 

Love and hate

Skulk on by

Like petty criminals

At the crowded end 

Of a busy 

Pier 

Slicer

I run out of run

In the slicer rain

Cowpat hero

I stare into 

The black mirror

Of a long road home

Light splinters into rainbows

I won’t chase them

Closer

Will never be

Close enough

I stretch out my arms

Emotions are marching creatures

In my own Animal Farm 

Just submit 

Today's love is a funeral

Summer smells like wet dogs

Its contours sharp

Drugged

Rain’s kisses have acid lips

The shell hurts

But pain is just

Skin, shin

Muscle
Flesh facet

Pressed hard against the bell jar

Labelled “This Is Your Life”

If I stand here

Will the body hive
Dissolve

Like a gigantic

Hatch-a-plastic-heart
Toy?

Migration

There's no inspecting

The bag 

Of a migrating mind 

Hastily packed at dawn

Multi-chambered heart 

Hacked

Beats incoherently 

Longs

To be trapped 

Inside the infinity mirror 

Of love 

The pure joy 

Of joint attention 

Two kids inspecting 

A snake crawling inside a fish

Eating it inside out 

Voices grow loud
Yet

No more questions 

Are asked 

The light is set 

Not even shadows can be read 

On the darkened face 

Of a perpetually

Eclipsed Moon

Unplugged

Wild berry
Nettle deep
Let sleeping beauty's
Dogs sit
Outwait
Love's outtake
Keep the heart/brake
On
Can't stop
The light
Rushing  away
Sold on
A promise
That there's more
Beyond the unreflective surface
Of the pond.
There isn't.
And so love grows old
Chewing-gum bland
Strings
Out of tune
Nonelastic stretch
Anger
Unplugged electric blanket
In a universe turned cold

Bridges

I drop the paper
We start in silence
I never look
At their faces
Angry men
Stumps
Rootless stems
I never look
but he understands
their despair
he's impatient
defiant
and he'all take me
back
To the start
bridge by bridge
we run
along the
Southbank
Reverse timeline
the crowd
will swallow me
I call out his name
the invisible
string
That connects us
Feels fragile
And it will snap
as I am pulled
into the
jaws of humanity
stripped back
anatomical model
just spine
I look out for Banksy's girl
with the heart-shaped balloon
And she's gone
Goon Park scene
hell is scrubbed clean
concrete is silent
flowers wilt
At the rain
Barrier
I break down.