abbey national

my health, my health
your kingdom for my health.
I gritted my teeth for so long
that they have become sand,
and I am not a liar,
so I will not deny that I pray
for your body to be cystic,
anxious, cancerous, unappealing.
I don’t believe in god at all,
yet I clasp my hands to my face
like a raggedy Carmelite
cloistered in my living room.
at least I have a living room-
where do you imprison yourself?
you don’t believe in anything but
your own superiority.
hopefully that will be your
encrusted downfall,
an intellectual toaster
in the bath, as you scream
“this cannot happen to me!
I read Vonnegut!”
my anger has turned into a
hot spare tyre.
of course, I cannot
scream in Abbey National
or the Docklands arena
or the Blockbuster Video
like my Divine mother
once did.
I just swallow the burning.
the sand in my mouth helps.

ctrl + p

i love you so much
you are so special
i have never felt this before
you make me feel
you have taught me how to feel
(no words, silence at 4am, staring at the ceiling while a man sleeps)
i am so sorry
i’m sorry
but i know i won’t hurt you again
i would never hurt you
you have to trust me
you can trust me
why do you hate men
you read too many books
that’s not fair
(no words, silence as a chest repeatedly slams into my face)
i promise this won’t happen again
i don’t know why i did it
you’re so amazing
you’re strong
i didn’t mean to
i love you so much
wow you’re so sexy
you’re strong
i’m not a rapist
i would never do that
how could anyone do that
you made me feel like i’m a rapist when you told me to stop
i would never do that to you
(no words, silence as my head is pushed downwards)
i’m sorry i pushed you
i’m sorry i did that
i don’t know why
i don’t know why
i don’t know why

they never know why
none of them ever fucking know why

body

deem only my body of use,
so I use it.
my rage has no outward path,
so I use it.
I make the marks of rage,
weave with it, the raffia thread
across and over my skin,
the only thing I have of use.
like Frida, like Sylvia.
only my body is of use.
so I decorate it with
black sheaths and red ribbons.
I cannot pick up my pen or paintbrush,
and my outward rage has
no use, no road.
but my body is my totem,
so they say,
a nationalised service.
I do not get to say what is wrong
or right.
so I decorate and mutilate,
pour water on this block of clay.
this will not end with an armless Venus.
it is not mine.
I tremble with the shining scissors,
and wonder why I never
comment on the ugliness of
Male shoes-
yet the shaved head of a woman
makes me Feel

the birds

it’s only in the dark that the words come, in the lonely space next to my sleeping lover. I read that bukowski had a sweet little bird inside him, begging to get out, and I heard that boys all over the world read his poem and wept. I do not have a bird. I have a nuclear war. it is four in the morning, and the rain has been hammering us all. I am the unreliable narrator. queen of the ashes, of burning paper covered with years and years of indelible ink. I gear up to get sick, and wonder how long the fire will burn for. the birds are stupid creatures. they sing even as it rains. nuclear wars are precious, tenacious, unpredictable, full of warnings and suggestions and promises of destruction. but they only exist in the heads of powerful men, so far. if the atom splits, and the rain drops, then we all die. or perhaps only inside the heads of powerful men. 


I would like the past to stay gift-wrapped. if I breathe hard enough, perhaps it will. I have a guilty curse. I wonder if I should apologise to all those men I burned. I wonder if I will burn any more. I don’t want to. I think my grief has gotten mixed up with the nuclear war. I want that girl to stay gift-wrapped, but I realise she is a part of me now. he stirs upstairs. I hope not with upset. I realise I do have a bird in my heart after all. it lives outside the body, delicate, with precious little wings ripe for the breaking. I sit inside my domestic womb, covered in blankets and cinnamon sugar, and hope that none of this will touch me in the morning. I must remember I am not a film. I must remember I am not a poem. I must remember that I am a human. I drink more water. I can look nuclear war right in the eye. this war belongs only to me. I must remember that I am Hecate. life is not a mythology. 

open and close

12 may

the leaving of one
makes a heartbreak, a hole.
a space so them-shaped
but not empty;
it has electric borders,
charged with
all they made, and left.

it is not a black thing
not a hollowed trench,
waiting for a new inhabitant.
clear new curtains draw,
but they do not block us out
or shut them in.
they only preserve.

they are not now a thing to
be held in a hand,
and that opening and closing palm
leaves a stain, irremovable.
but the rest stays.
all the rest, it stays
in a living network of roots

some we see,
some invisible, but no
less real than the scar of a lightning bolt
or the crashing of a wave.
they live inside laughter belonging to
the ones we love,
the ones that we still can touch.

those roots cannot move on,
cannot go gently, or loudly,
into that good night.
they are too imbued with spirit
they connect us far too well.
the touch of a hand is sorely missed
but all that meaning lives alive forever. 

cracks

some people think
I am a trodden-on sapling.
a pathetic thing
made up of fragile acronyms,
they think I should shake like
a tin full of thumbtacks.
should they feel afraid? 

I have seen rivets on
many wrists, on secret wrists;
heard the wailing
of secret mouths and
felt the fearful breath
of so many pairs of secret lungs
on my shoulder. 

not a trodden-on thing. no.
a swimmer in the naȉve sea –
a swallower of salty water,
I can’t deny.
but I never drowned
in the space between the cracks.
I am not afraid. are you? 

septic tank

inside my chest
there is a nuclear reactor.
so don’t forget,
you are made of water.

your torn pink flesh
cannot mask what you are,
cannot save you from
my burning core.

inside my chest
there is a dying star.
but I am still alive
and I can still destroy you.

you are not you anymore.
not a special strawberry
growing from a crack in the patio.
you are a shit inside a septic tank.

inside my chest
there is a great black hole
that only I have the key to.
you do not have it now.

apples

scarecrow,
you cruel bastard.
you never scared the birds away.
the little sparrows used to line up
on your tattered jacket sleeves
and they’d sing into your false ear.

they should have been frightened.

I had a field of fruit trees.
I put you in there, amongst
the bright green granny smiths.
they were mine. they were mine.
the birds weren’t interested, but
acid poured out of your rotting guts of straw

it burnt holes in my crops.

you did not do your job,
you cruel bastard.
you did not protect my apples at all.
apples are not supposed to bleed
but my neat orchard was broken
and awash with a clotted red river.

you were not the last, either.

I got better at making scarecrows
no thanks to cruel bastards
or bad fruit that stewed on my tongue.
I don’t need a cruel blue doll
like you around any more.
I have covered the orchard with electric nets.

the birds die, but they come anyway.

fingers

somehow I know, already
what you have inside your hand
safely kept in your gentle fist

two seeds of an amethyst flower
common, but still something so precious
they rattle inside your fingers

and leave their dust behind
saturating the lines in your skin,
turning your scars a little black and dirty

the clock has not been ticking long
dear, but I know that these seeds
of purple and white

are what you are going to give to me.
despite my prior protestations
and yours, I know that they are mine.

you cannot explain why you would
trust me to keep these valueless, precious things
of yours. neither can I,

but somehow you have the talent
to make me feel like I am a mother of the earth-
damarian queen, growing your seeds into crystals-

when I thought I was a sea of fire,
who turned forests into barren deserts of ash
and homes into burning rings of hell

anderson

I am like the east-end once was, too
not like you, in your old-world charms
more a smouldering widow, more like

whitechapel in the wartime. fieldgate street
burning, the collapsed fifty shilling shop and
gaping blank holes in the rows of houses.

visibly, you can see
that I am missing a few bricks.
I am a city, vibrant, of violent scars.

I still stand, despite iron girders
hanging off me like balloon strings
they are heavy, you know-

but she tells me that if I take them off
well, the whole damn thing will fall down.
and life is worth it, even if it is a siege.

I clatter and moan and whistle in the night.
I know you darling-
I know you forget your Anderson shelter

even exists, when you flutter your eyes and
get squelched tight in the peat bog.
you should go, you should go.

I don’t want you to die here
on my street-
I don’t want you to become a hole in the row.

I am a war
I am telling you. a total war-
and you will wish for peace

once you have seen past the
pretty pinny I wear, the dust-scarf
in my hair-

I know, I remind you
of something you know.
but I am not that-

just an itchy glow.