On Googling Death

On January the 17th 2043 I shall die.
Of this, the website 'Your Death Date' is certain.
Drunk last night I Googled death,
there was much I demanded to know-

Why, when I was only five, had he
slipped in shadowy form through
the foundations of the family home
slinking under the duvet like
father after a late night no-phone-call binge.
Lassoing tight her lungs till come morning
we found her, ashen and withdrawn-
her eyes caught in mid question.

And why, as we sobbed beside her bed
did he allow humour to enter the
scene, disguised as two silent crows
peering in from atop the burnt garden tree.

Why not have us discover in the company of angels
there chubby unscathed hands fondling her hair
till lifting her their whiter than white wings fan
her parting words of love and reassurance
upon our calm and understanding faces.
Maybe those next 11 years would have found
themselves forked down a different, far more amicable river.

On January the 17 2043 I shall die: so said the website I clicked upon
In the mantle of probing darkness, alone I pondered-

Would death take seat on a white plastic hospital chair
orceshtrating the bleep of the machines
as cancer burrows itself out of house and home.
would he scoop down like a seagull
through clouds of burning gasoline
scooping me from the roadside to lift me
from the shrapnel of bonnet and bone.
Into the firmament of the endless gathering mourned.

Or will he take note of these words
and instruct the angels to decline upon me fanning their wings
Upon those who will surely be by my side.

Same sides of the Glass

He imagines the spot he’ll cum- just beneath her Brazilian,
Where a star shaped birthmark guides his mind.
Beneath the glow of the cut price bulb
Her oiled breasts glisten-
Twisting her nipples she arches forth, fake flaxen hair
Falls seductively.
Tunnelling her mouth she glides a finger
Over cherry red lips.

It’s just a perk, a break from the sediment
Of married life. Its clear she’s pleased its him
How she smiles when the curtains part
Or gasps as he unclasps his button.
Of course, if she could, she would lend
Her slender hands upon his perfectly able penis.

She pities the fat fuck. How he
Has to fold back layers of skin just to find it.
Her breasts ache; he doesn’t know she’s on.
When she sweats, she checks for blood
Professionally bending over the broken bar stool.
Its just theatre for her, controlled sensual dance
Such an art to part her vein damaged legs
Always her dream to grace the ballet halls.

It happens not soon enough
Holding vomit as though it were her final breath
He cums over the cuff of his shirt.
Shrivelled and spent, stumbling from the booth
He sobs in an alleyway
As she mops up the milk of his indignity with her bra.

Eyes Open

There is no dream like a Child's dream, even those nightmares
The ones that held on tight during those moments of coming to
Even they, heightened my senses more than any drug or fuck”

Awake, but as though bobbing in rough
Sea, I sink in and out of splintered image.
It's Father without his dank tobacco smell.
He sits in a twisted wicker chair, wearing
Himself like a crumpled jumper,
On a balding head, blood-blue veins
River his head.
Again and again I go
To embrace him, he fades and I fall
Alone upon frozen grass in the field he
And I first kicked ball.
Car lights path the darkness
Each shadow Freeze pausing across the bedroom wall.
This dream so honest in image, I tremble beneath
Star Wars printed sheets.
Had I known this was but a possible image to come;
That I could stand toe to toe with the canvas of all that I feared
Maybe, just maybe, the drugs and the fickle fucks
Could’ve given way to those valued moments
That air each night on every ad break, where the family
Sit round a perfectly polished table, eating a wholesome
Part meat, part veg supper, which when finished
The children patter on upstairs to play
In harmony as mother and father chat idling whilst
Washing the dishes with products that soften their hands
And soothe their souls. Dreams, they say, speak mostly
The truth, I never wanted the idyllic merely a moment
Without the desire to flee into the folds of every passing
Woman, or the yellow cloud smoke of a plastic pipe.

The Departed

There are locations of treasured thought
Mostly in the outer regions of childhood memory
Where the fields are carpeted with an eternal dawn’s frost
A frost that sometimes, when a remembered song, or smell
Finds me, sparkles and dances with light.
Often when sleep won’t come, when car lights wash across
My dim lit room, I hear the sound of drunken laughter
And irregular grunts rise through the floorboards
Overwhelming me like the surrounding darkness,
A darkness I would finger, searching for reasons
As to why I had been discarded during their hours of joy.

When they died I was watching soft porn,
I recall answering the phone sweaty and stiff
Head bowing as the news came through
Watching my member droop, feeling everything fall away
I searched for their faces, the familiar lines of their wrinkles
The grey flecks upon her cotton blonde hair,
Yet only a rainbow of colour and blackness formed.

When you and I first met, I mocked your ability to see
Those no longer of flesh, how humorous your yelps
When the dead surfaced on the steamed windows
Of the laundrette, or the misty figures swirling inside
The smashed up call box.

The night they first appeared, you brought me into
The pillow of your breasts, accepting my words as
Though your own. My tears worming their way to
Your belly button, as though conscious of its origin.

it’s often the corridor they dwell, lined like silver drapes
I do not fear them; they are petals quivering in fields
Of splintered light, I accept them as though words
To my favourite novel.
And now when sleep acts like a stubborn child
Bare footed I linger in the hallway watching them
Watch over me, as they did some thirty years before