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we found her, ashen and withdrawn-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

Lavender

The nurses had scattered it around the room
A gentle touch of humanity
To ease the days that never seemed to end
Neither by your side, clammy hands clasped
Nor at night watching street shadows wash
Across the bedroom walls,
Each one a sympathetic memory.

The swiftness in which the black storm stripped
You was like death itself.
Hard to imagine the steep valley of your abdomen was
once a swollen mountain of my making.


I wanted to lock the doors from the inside
When from the corners of their conscience
Forgotten faces surrounded your bed
Like imitation angels. Where was they at
Your 60th, in that sleek orange gown,
The black storm a continent away.

Cards with country landscapes, lush green fields,
fish full rivers, sun spilt and clean
Encircle your bed like out of reach wishes
Loved and signed by cousins
Who recoil when you pass stools into the
Bag beside them.

The nurses placed it under your pillows
And when death swallowed your last breath
I removed it, so the memory of the storm
And the stench it left behind would bury itself
Into the corners of the conscience of which
They would surely border, once the last of
The soil was thrown.

Worm

It dangles and squirms inches from
The hook like cotton near the eye
Of a needle. We laugh as we fumble
With the thinness of the tool
Its barb catching our skin, blood
Like a teachers full stop.
He cannot steady his hand.
The worms flesh parts with little force
Hot knife into butter. We cast the line together
Losing sight of the worm till it ripples back
Sleek waves expanding like news of death in a village.
I cannot help but notice his arms.
He does not notice how the sun shimmers
Upon his patchy haired head,
Nor how pale he looks beside the sun lacquered
Fisherman who sit like Greek Gods
Awaiting the fall of some tragic Hero.
Water Breaks like broken dreams
The fish reflects the light of day.
He bends the knees, arches the back
Knuckles white as he grips the rod
I think I hear his knees click.
The fish flaps exhausted by the bank
He stands Victorious, sweaty but smiling
Breathing deep the summered air.

It is not death the worms it way through
But the dark stubbornness of the unknown,
That which shakes you awake.
The bedside vigils, the glitter coated cards,
The indifferent bleep of the machines.
The Fish flaps, the worm hangs mangled from the hook.
We lower the fish back into the water,
I catch his gaze, there is no hospital room
Discolouring the emerald in his eyes
No pale sunken skin, nor motorways of feeding tubes
Just the sparkling sun spilt river
And the smile of a child, on the day of his first catch.

Birthdays at the Cemetary

In the shade of the silver birch
Where the birds greet with drawn out reply
We return. Yielding grief as though only
Yesterday the scattering of soil Echoed below.

Dew tipped, the blades shine our shoes
Mornings sun, lies low not yet ready to reach out
The chill bears testament to the position
A family at the grave of a birthday boy.

Despite your passing we fight to assure the
Letters of your name, rampant weeds
Concealing the history of our line.

In the foreground bearded with green time
Cracked slabs wilt with age-
Like vacant buildings in a disaster movie.
Stone crosses, ivy enshrouding the arms
Nothing but scarecrows of cold grey.

We bring you back to us. Place fresh flowers,
Wipe damp dirt from the stone
Gather crisp curled leaves throwing them
Skywards just to watch them fall,
Not for fun, but for the memory of youth.

There are fathers and sons, mothers and daughters,
Babies, and soldiers, leaders and the losers
Silhouettes of passing, lining the ground.
Visited only by the wind and rain.

Two kisses against the coldness of the stone
And we leave, taking the best parts of you home.

After Service Buffet

Some gorged on finger foods placed there a few hours before.
Cling filmed wrapped on the once packed family table.
How many candles blown, how many turkeys trimmed?
A C.D of soulful classics plays in the background
Gently ebbing the day onwards, silence still too raw.
Some get pissed, death of a loved one. One not seen
For eight years, a good enough reason to numb the
Pain of an indifferent wife, or an unfulfilling job.

The curtains are drawn, keep it private and low key
He was never one for chatting, he raised the garden
Fence to keep the neighbour at bay.
The widow walks with the weight of the day.
Accepting condolences as though they were apologies
What to be sorry for? It wasn’t your fetish for Asian girls
That gave him cancer. The grieved ones grandchildren
Frolic in the garden, on hearing of his death, they

Cried then resumed their gaze upon the cartoons.
His children each with their partners smile fondly
They’ve still got the long drive home. And so when all is
Done, when the leftovers of once life lay scattered
Upon the table, picked on, chewed on,
Gulped and drained, there is nothing left to do
But wash and clear away the day.

For The Rain, From the Grave

They carried me with the caution of a newborn:
Stern shoulders to careful to droop and grieve.
What the bearers of my casket concealed, their
Faces could not. Sunken eyes, ringed by
Fractured nights of sleep, levelled at the hole.

It rained that day; Children’s feet scampering
Across a floorboard. The patter of droplets upon my lid.
A gentle percussion tapping upon that which
Assured the finality of my life.
It was then that I felt the empty end of death
Not in my passing, not in their heaving breaths
Of mourning, but in the knowledge from this
Day on, when clouds open and shower below
I shall never feel it’s decent upon my body.

When finally I was lowered held for an eternity
From reluctant hands and lingering hears
It was not the thudding of soil I feared
It was the fading of the rain.

Photos on the Piano

They would always say look dear boy
Do not wish your life away, looking within
Themselves with a look of regret.
They are all just yellowing pictures now
Peering eternally from the top of the piano.
Occasionally I softly finger the dusty Ivory
coloured keys, It does not matter
That the sound is strained and out of tune
It’s the vibrations, deep and reverberating.


The centre picture holds my fathers face
Wind swept and happy, my mother loosely
Holding his hand, she had no reason to think
Otherwise. Looking at the photo, it’s hard
To hate him, at that moment, under a
Crumbling roman ruin he made my mother
Happy. He is saying something to the camera
And I am sure it’s not a drunken “fuck you”

Dressing for Death

White had always served me well:
Enhancing the parts that have now let me down.
Harold always said he loved my breasts
He died a happy man.
Parading in the bedroom, bones crack
Like rotten twigs,
Last years weekly squash sessions
Seem someone else’s memory.
This face that the mirror takes no pity on
Hangs, weak, and frail
A shadow of its once healthy self.
I married in white, making a pact with my man
Now death waits patiently to take my hand.
Everything has become a symbol of demise
The tube of toothpaste
Which lessens as it’s eaten away
The rotting apples on the table,
My hair which dams the plug hole.
And this dress, white with cherished memories
Now a sheet hanging.
Who to wear it for?
For those that will mourn my passing
To lessen the impact of my withered form
For Me? To ensure a little dignity.
Two weeks, Two Months
It’s hard to say,
Even for the nominated doctor.

Black seems too formal.
I first made love in black
A sleek silk dress,
I remember it drooped on the floor
Smirking back at me.
Yellow too bright for such an occasion
Green is too mocking
Red is blood, which will
Soon no longer flow.
The mirror softens
Is must sense my inability to decide
Sunlight falls upon the diamonds
Of the dress
And for a moment I resemble me.
Today I shall choose white,
Tomorrow should it come
Might see me in lavender
Harold would moan
half his life was spent
Waiting whilst I got dressed.
Will Death
Remain as patient.

Family Meal

He told us over dinner one evening
In between mouthfuls of pork chop
Said he had cancer, calm and distanced
Like it was our great uncles cousin.

Of course mother knew, the way she
Lowered her fork, heavy yet slow.
It was the first time I’d seen her elbows
Rest upon the table, hands together
Fingers entwined, like a nun in prayer.

Our Steve began to cry. His blue eyes
Lost behind great exaggerated sobs
It wasn’t the talk of cancer
He cried for the silence, for the unnatural
Mood that hung above us
Like smog over a country field.
.
Sounds unheard since mothers first borne
Seeped out from the silence
The thud of the clocks hand echoed
Hidden timber creaked with age
.The possibility of death
Whispering from within the walls

We left the table like strangers
Dispersing upon our own private grief.
All that we had taken for granted
Was scraped away with the remains of the meal.

Later that evening they washed up together;
Only when father dropped a plate
Did my mother, picking up the shattered pieces
Begin to cry.

Old Man, Father, and You

I peel back your mask of wrinkled misfortune
Scanning your frailness, as though it were contagious.
I had so much to say, so much to throw at you,
Yet here you sit, crumpled like a discarded jumper
Silently murmuring to yourself
Unaware that an absence has returned.

I wanted to hit you with my life, how I had made it:
The wonderful wife, the perfect child,
The fulfilling job, the new car., fuck, even the semi
Rented bungalow four miles from the sea.

Words formed then were swallowed like glass,
Dried spittle glistened on cracked lips, misty eyes
Scanned white walls in startled confusion.
In your vulnerable incapacitated state
I saw moments of happiness. Before
The drink, and whores, lying and leaving
As a mother might discover the essence of love
In the sleeping sigh of her newborn
I see a once innocence in your struggled for breaths.

Father

Skimming stones into a dirty English sea
Being my dad, you’d always allow me
To win by a skim or two.
For you was the Atlas of my world
And I adored you.
Standing by the by-line hands buried
Deep inside your jeans, breathing
Deep the crisp February air
There you stood watching, waiting
For that second when leather and
Left foot met, to cheer, to challenge
Those whose faith fared elsewhere.

Out walking not much was said
Yet such silence reassured me,
Words mere fodder when settled in your presence
Every so often you squeeze my hand
A secret gesture of love.
A love for you father,
Superman, painkiller, joker, magician
Gather of tears, keeper of promises
The master, and then the slave.


3. You

Apart from the murmuring we sit in silence
I have no hate to give, the error of age robs even this.
On a piss stained seat sits a crumpled you.
You gaze at a splintered window,
Lost somewhere between then and now.
Your cardigan mocks your slender frame
I reshape it around your shoulders,
Kissing you gently I dissolve you from thought
Crying only when the road opens up and swallows me whole.

Half Past Three

HALF PAST THREE

Like the last strand of soft down
You are never coming back.

The shift of whispering time
Leaving memories on the sandy

Banks of our days. Each droplet
Represents a tear, every time

It rains, you’ll remember her
Running into the garden snatching

Clothes from the line, cursing
The gods for their poor timing.

The sun refuses to settle today
It has no time for pity- yet all

That is thought, is the way you’d
Smile at weary mothers in parks,

Or how you gritted your teeth,
And broke into sweat, when grating

Cheese. The dog whimpers most nights
Belly up, beside the unlit fireplace

Aware of your lack of presence
Unsure of where you have gone

So my brother I say to you-
At least you have the memories.

Death Whiskey and Morning

“It left its boot mark on me at an early age, an age
When only the lipstick of loving admirers should have
Spotted my face”

To signify his disdain for my moments of wandering mind,
With sergeants volume he’d bellow hello
Lingering on the O till its lasso hauled me back to the table.

From atop the daily paper determined eyes bear down,
Shrewd tools of silent power. Far from the look given
When my pale faced mother presented him

A fair haired, wrinkle skinned reason to stay.
Two days later she died, a rupture in the womb,
We never met with our skin, just with the haze in our eyes.

From first hold it was always going to be a struggle
Stern and unnatural I screamed till I slept-
Nine months of waiting, the crib overused for its purpose.

How else to raise a son but by the book
Dinner and maths, evenings of demanded silence
Breakfast and Biology. Love shimmers in the dullest of places?

Can the slap of a slipper translate as concern, all young
Minds are balloon full of hope, he never had nipples,
How could he ever compete? Whiskey for some is danger

I only have praise for the stuff. There is pleasure in
Pain, eight shots down, we became equals, comrades
Of a cruel blow. Watching cartoons, cuddling silently

Ruffling my hair. Till morning bullied its light through
Worn curtains, shattering the equality of suffering
Slamming it upon the breakfast table, spilling it upon my lap.