pissing in the dark
i need a plausible blouse
to stick to my arms
i drew the line there
when you wanted me to read
the silmarillion
hoping against hope
clothing and eyewear choices
let down by the sun
what if oranges
really were the only fruit
i’d fuck vegetables
pink small animal
encased in tubular steel
sniffing the tarmac
lateral sandwich
eating more hair than i lose
still transvisible
always a relief
to be first amongst losers
a self deception
it’s only darkness
it rolls around the planet
and comes back again
bear it a minute
surely it’s not such a trial
as to outfox you
cold heart answer me
are you instead of this day
or just a bonus
space becomes a gap
then the gap becomes a gulf
and impassable
winter is on us
in cold dribs of entropy
which pass only time
spoiled it still awaits
solid and intravenous
and no answers yet
waiting for what is
simply inevitable
is truly pointless
calder than a wood
he is away to his bed
leaving me a cure
six eyes and three mouths
virgin and mother and crone
why not fuck yourself
in these pallid dreams
my insipid hopes and fears
chime like dead rabbits
it was a surprise
to see you there in my shoes
you wore with aplomb
i was a failure
when you came into my life
you were a failure
thirty six years old
and still gazing at my shoes
will i ever learn
trees are fruiting leaves
are falling the sun is low
in the sky falling
shuffle off to bed
don’t forget to brush your teeth
or to wake up dead
set into the road
ringpulls from another time
fossils in tarmac
believe it or not
the aimless wasting of time
isn’t that much fun
towards black roses
the drifting sky is dusky
with golden starvings
i did nothing wrong
a punishing emptiness
i give it away
575
5
some dogs are barking
a man is violating
my integrity
a halo a hood
convolved in blue folded hands
coiling at my feet
virgin victim vamp
privilege is violence
surviving the worst
still walking is not
the same as not being dead
to outlive one’s life
learning to walk on
broken limbs that never heal
still isn’t healing
7
cops neighbours husbands
white men all day every day
life as an assault
walk in stolen shoes
as reflexive as breathing
a boot on a face
at the king’s table
carved from dust by someone else
the spoons are just there
all encompassing
and yet inconsequential
to put life in place
creative problems
everything and nothing both
all of the above
lost it in lockdown
and then when i fell in love
there’s a pattern here
you stop creating
fall out of love with an app
with the camera
5
writing saved my life
it’s how i processed my rape
how i transitioned
you died without it
then art and photography
worth the twenty quid
it kept me going
the medium doesn’t matter
glass verse little books
the cosmos does it
tv licences itself
whistles while you work
everything is fucked
just create my beautiful
everything is fine
Sonnets
It was nothing but what it was.
It wasn’t your fault that I was
In love with you. So it wasn’t
Your fault that what you did to me
Hurt me as badly as it did.
But it’s still your fault that you did
What you did. And I’m still waiting
For you to tell me you’re sorry.
It can only be what it can.
So we can’t go back but we can
Go forward, instead of wanting
The past to somehow go away
As though it had never happened
And now wasn’t always today.
Corrupted memories
I can’t go out so I go in, the back
Of the drawer, old phones old memory sticks
Old memories buried for a reason,
The strata of new life set down in pain
Crumble now to sand—context, the mounting
Board of old positives now set hanging
On today’s grey wall and the new darkness
The negative that comes into focus
In the sharp eye of yesterday’s future,
A long sad soft sickening exposure,
Today’s light on yesterday’s—every step
Into the future changes the past—hope
Then you can keep going on, falling through—
If you stop, it all catches up on you
Ecstasy and irony
Eternal Sunday clouding summer’s eve,
A burst spring in the timepiece of the year,
The weeks adrift like hats and coats, believe
Yourself real then believing what you fear
Make life unreal—an endless chocolate bath
Would be insufferable, the joy of days
In idleness ringed with the beaten path
Of tomorrow’s work like the cup rims May’s
Wine. Saúde! A strawberry then, freezer
Fresh, a virtual hug, faceless, still life
In mobile phones—if life without order
Or death then may chaos reign, may the knife
Take me before the clock or the briar
Before the big sleep of reason’s liar.
An ill-fated walk down memory lane
For our ill-fated relationship—cheers!
Revealing nothing but perhaps that mine
And not ours is this unluckiest star.
The past is now under new management.
Its boarded windows are probably as
Well avoided as those who gaze into
The unknown but certain future. Which leaves?
Avoidance, I suppose. One tiny and
Perennial moment of avoidance—
How in the moment you are, sad old quine,
How present and admirably distant—
And too intelligent to waste my time
Doing anything but wasting my time.
You’re all caught up, like a fish in a pie,
Scooped like dredge water into the great hold
Of everything, bailing out the round eye
Of the sea into the sea, cupping cold
Hands of brine in cold hands of brine, the men
We use to keep men from using us, whose
Using us we use—or used to. And then
We win—what else to make fire than fire? Lose
The key to the master’s house, we’ve no use
For a kindling doorway back to old flames.
Ablated, we survive. Then every loose
Tooth blue scar each finger less ten proclaims
Victory. Catch as catch can, a fish wire
In the oven—they’re only catching fire.
folio
why don’t we give love one more chance I said
to finish up its drinks and move outside
and here you are silent reading asking
that I love you succeeding acceding
fine I love you now what will you speak long
to me and hard that I may know your tongue
now upon the soft embodied pages
where you have marked me in absent stages
of long silence or with your licked fingers
holding me open hitching your trousers
turning to go as you settle the bill
leaving me to stay uncompleted still
and drinking alone only read over
what you like and turn back at the corner
elizaburns
Simmer, my love—you are the only one
Wonderful enough to boil my heart
And yet you gut me like cold fish, eye on
My inbox ageing. Will this be the art
You bestow upon the world, one girl’s pain?
Open yourself and let me bleed into
You, you are more than even I have claimed
And will be more again, cutting through
The long grey veil that binds you, breaking free
Of all that keeps you, rising to fuck up
The world, not screw down the lid. Need you see
Where every stream is flowing ere you dip
Your perfect feet, not cold but becoming?
Dash hopes if you must; but do it running.
Smoking Kills Time
Like a tail on a donkey
I have pinned my hopes on you.
Are you speaking a foreign
Tongue or do you have no tongue?
Are you blank in face or mind,
Thoughtless or only stupid?
But it’s not just, not really,
That you don’t understand me.
You don’t understand me, but
You’re culpable beyond that
For you dismiss my values
That you don’t understand as
Worthless, meaningless, or still
Less—as me. You are a fool.
Paroles
garry hubris
They call him Garry Hubris,
For the hubris in his wonderful eyes.
They call him Garry Hubris.
Phew! What a disguise.
And what do you think you look like?
(And he says) about a million dollars!
And what do you think you look like?
(And he says) I am like no other.
They call him Garry Hubris,
For the hubris in his wonderful eyes.
They call him Garry Hubris.
Phew! What a disguise.
And what do you think you look like?
What do you think you look like?
not today
always in the right place
five minutes too late
and say the wrong thing
to just the right person
hey, you’re beautiful
let’s take our clothes off
i would’ve yesterday
but not today
not today
somewhere everything must be alright
someone must be having the time of her life
some time must be the right time
just not this time
here
for me
not today
always in the right place
five minutes too late
and say the wrong thing
to just the right person
i love you, are you trying to kill me?
yes, he says, you know i am
but not today
no spoons no money
Louboutins
I can’t take it any fucking more
I’d cut myself but it never really helps no more
Took some pills, I don’t know where they came from
All I need is a promise of a change to come
If you give me something to hold onto
You can watch my fingers let it go
If you give me spoons, piled to the moon
You can watch them falling to the floor
I can’t take it any fucking more
I cut myself but it doesn’t seem to help no more
Took some pills, I don’t know what was in them
All I want is a promise of a change to come
When they came to ask for my donation
I spit my heart into the fire
When they took my name, I fanned the flame
When they took my pulse I bit the wire
I can’t take it any fucking more
I’d cut myself but it doesn’t really work no more
Give me pills, I don’t care where they came from
All I need is a promise of a change and
All I want is a villa in the Douro
All I need’s your number and a biscuit
All I want is a pair of fucking Louboutins
a thing
Nothing’s gonna work out
Nothing’s gonna be fine
No one’s gonna save you
Never gonna be time
Everybody goes away
When they realise that I can’t play
A thing
Nothing’s gonna work out
Nothing’s gonna be fine
No one’s gonna help you
Never gonna be time
Everybody goes away
When they realise that I don’t say
A thing
plooms
Big blister, little blister
Oestro poppers, testo blockers
Here I tuck and there I pluck
I love my life, I bless my luck
My luck
One pill makes you taller
One pill makes you smaller
One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Oh boy
Big blister, little blister
Testo poppers, oestro blockers
Here I pluck and there I tuck
I love my life, I bless my luck
My luck
One pill makes you smaller
One pill makes you taller
One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Oh boy
Five for silver, six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told
I love my body, I love my fam
I love myself the way I am
I am
Chaos
The last time I saw you I walked
Past you in the street and didn’t
Even smile or say hello ’cause
Hello is just what it isn’t
It’s help me please I’m dying scratched
Here on the toilet wall and both
Your smile and false hello are good,
You sound like a cunt scratched beneath.
FOSSIL GROVE
Cigarette stubs deep in ashes—
a grove of fossilised trees, bound
by the ashtray’s circle of glass;
a snow globe—or—the frozen world.
Would we hold hands in this darkness?
Still gazing at my shoes, I lost
what I was looking for at last
and settled for a cigarette.
a critique of polly smith
Cold and hard and frantic and lost—
I used to be all of these things.
So much for my glorious past,
For where it soared on gilded wings
Was here: or nowhere, I should say.
There’s no such thing as potential,
All this and more. A road that takes
You nowhere is no road at all.
I was a child.
It’s hard to say,
Hard to believe.
But i was once,
I must have been.
One day I’ll die.
That seems more real,
Less a bare fact.
Past the middle
That feels closer.
Upset and down.
Is it really any wonder,
when I am dying every day
in every way?
And falling down
from the cradle straight to the grave,
and watching things pass on the way
I might have known.
A TRICK OF THE DARK LIGHT
Declining everything,
I came last to nothing.
To myself, I suppose—
Though to what end, God knows.
Should I fall now from here,
Hanging out the top floor
Window smoking, this fag
Would be my last—so drag
It out and let doubt fall
Up the red sandstone wall
To be hit by a parked
Car, burst in orange sparks
On the black road and be
Snuffed out, as all shall be
On this endless decline,
On and on, to sunshine.
THE SKIDS
life is a slipping stumbling tumble down
the wet tiles of a pitched roof, a stagger
towards the precipice arms outstretched
clutching at air, shifting, twisting, struggling
not to fall when all we can do is fall
onwards towards the edge and the last fall,
the last and most pointless struggle of all
that brings an end to the slipping stumbling
you open your mouth and go to sleep and
a little white bird comes out your mouth and
flies around and sometimes it comes back to
you and sometimes you die. with me it’s a
little white worm and i fart it out in
to the tangle of my arse hairs and it
wriggles for a while and dies and i get
a little more prosaic every day
ugly beauty
ugly
is a beautiful word
it’s an ugly world
but it’s beautiful to say so
rope
is a short word
life is a short word
beautiful is the wrong word
but it’s ugly
to say so
road still
a cigarette and a walk in the dark
a pretty boy who once admired my scarf
a fat smarmy wanker a cobbled lane
the wet mud where the sewer burst its banks
i lay hurt in the gutter truly
believing i would be found but they
stepped over me or on me none stopped
till i was just ashamed to be there
and turned my face into the wet leaves
Weather of all kinds of weather
Weather of all kinds of weather
Of all kinds, you smiling smoking
In the Tampere sun, limping
Through the Glasgow snow together
Apart to no bed, in the end
An ambulance, to a ruin
Decommissioned, Victorian,
Bicycles and bars and a grand
Old nothingness, deconstruction
And reconstruction, Govan built
And proud to limp apart, from guilt
Fierce, extended self distraction,
Fuck it, spell it out, I hated
Myself so much I hated all
I loved, so let Hell’s Heaven fall
Forty days, forty nights waited
As our moat deepened nor still yet
To let you down hair dyed and bobbed,
Tear free our hearts yet tied and stabbed
And took only midsummer’s jet
To break all of that. Now it’s warm
And not the same park, or not, same
Is not the same, immune to home
And thereby to all kinds of harm
Of all kinds and yet to kiss you,
Belonging to you and no one
And yet waiting in snow and sun
And rain of all kinds, I miss you.
my life is sepia toned
nicotine stained, coffee ringed
whisky tinged and chocolate smeared
food only occasionally
exercise by mistake, sex
now and again and again
but not in pub toilets with
coked up strangers no matter
how big a plate it’s put on
la porte bleue
derrière la porte bleue vit alain
dans une chambre à une personne
une chambre impossible de treize murs
et la crasse et littérature
derrière la porte bleue baise alain
avec mon amant et mon âme
sans amour et sans une sonnette
sans préservatif, sans regrets
devant la porte bleue je criais
après la fenêtre verrouillée
parce que je n’avais pas de clé
entrer dans les jardins privés
et qui vit derrière la porte bleue
maintenant qu’alain a disparu?
un autre con, cul ou salaud?
ou juste quelqu’un aux mêmes rideaux?
the transgender body
The transgender body the bottom the top the pituitary gland the catalysts the blockers the receptors the inhibitors the cramps the gas the diahrrea the depression the irritability the aches the engorgement the tenderness the fatigue the atrophy the smell the sense of smell the sweat the body temperature the colour perception the appetite the cravings the balance the spatial awareness the alcohol tolerance the caffeine tolerance the impulse control the dreaming the sleep the full-body orgasm the velvety perineum the inguinal canal the prostate the seminal vesicles the median raphe the mouthfeel the sublingual the transdermal the subcutaneous the ducts the nipples the lactation the breasts the chin the jaw the cheeks the lips the brows the eyelids the eyelashes the eyeballs the focal depth the vision the iris the eye colour the hands the wrists the feet the fingers the fingernails the pelvic tilt the height the hips the gait the ligaments the fat the skin the spots the follicles the scalp the colour the curl the transgender body
Spindly wee cloud tracing ragged margin earth and sky jupiter and saturn occluded by the light of day and the glow spilling over from the next page • a creeping swallow sears a pleasuredome’s invisible struts then pigeons thrown like fireworks bursting in mossy sparks along the rooftops • a chalky day scribbled in lazy pastel hand prints a blue just that blue what does it remind you of waterloo toilets nineteen eighty nine to anywhere to anywhere the falling cylinder of sky’s turn left again left again the needle scraping out I•love•yous into the black horn of space can sound travel through a vacuum I forget
the clouds pile against the buildings
like driven snow world keeps turning
have I stopped here in the middle
of it all then am I only
the pig stick an apple in my
mouth then a sprig of rosemary
a gin and milk the end of all
illusion I want to go home
drugs
I need a fix, a Vitaly,
some kind of fucking magic glue
to hold my shit together, to
force me through one more christing day
and one more. It’s survival that’s
necessary, no more—and some
things are necessary in turn
just to survive, that’s all. It’s not
destructive, not a will to death—
it’s the will to live that causes
all the fucking problems—or just
the will to take another breath.
one day all that will be left
are your weaknesses
which unlike your strengths
do not diminish with age
Que fait la vie
Waking dreams in the house of love—
We can ask what happened to us
and what we do now—we can ask.
It could have been a number of
things—meaningless coincidence,
gift of a benevolent star …
I don’t know what to do either
but don’t turn away in silence
or rest in joyless division
endlessly everafter. We
don’t need to know what to do, we
just need to do it, that’s all. Then
live with it, of course—fair enough,
what is life if we don’t live it?
Is this a life? Perhaps. It’s not
exactly the life I’d dreamed of.
I walked around you backwards and saw too
late that you were the door back out of where
I’d come from backwards and saw then that you
were not suffocating me but the air
that filled my lungs too late and they were filled
then with black bile from the cigarettes from
which I sucked life backwards out of me, killed
too late the killing feelings like a bomb
that goes off backwards pulling everything
into itself. This is me. I am not
a shit-magnet at all but a fucking
bomb and all of these things that I forgot
because they had not happend yet were things
you had done to save me while I fought you
off and closer and closer broke your wings
until you took flight and backwards saw, too.