The dark sun of a god

called winter, the winter of our

discontent, unrelatable: Walnut

Whip, fury like an unspoken

wave of collapse, the gunfire cry

of fear over love. Ghost faces

flit across floors of fallen gunk,

America is itchy with mouths,

a single mind- a jiffy of dread.

Voodoo death explodes like

a joke cigar, a clown’s flower.

The wall is a hand in a slap.

The elastic-band snaps back,

always. Mildred rejoices at the
pale, the blue lives. The word ape.

Who are those filthy embers

about to catch? Children with

whitewashed bellies, no picket,

nor monstrous vehicle.

Don’t tread on me. Girlie,

sit back down. Open your legs  

for the tiniest hands. And all along

we knew it was the case. Every

Injun slips by like a day. Oil & labour,

scored like a map- footfall of

terror, complex.

Waterstones frog with a golden
crown. Remember that deep
pool, the flaxen ball scattered
by a Princess? Like a tinderbox

that held all the evil in the world,
but gooder. Apple-right. Easy for it
to slip from her powdery hands
into the gravy-black pond, now

lost. That froggy in the cold murk
flipped it up with his webbed fingers
from the sticky mud, the gore, 
and swam to greet her blue

strange planets of thanks,
the lashes that cradled the trinket.
He was neither frog nor pipe
but after a kiss a shining boy

called Prince. Now in a carrier bag,
hidden, the first belonging of an
unborn sprite. I carry him careful past
the playground where chalk crackles

like a radio. I love you Mum it says,
October broadcast. I love you.
A golden thought that waits
to surface- for all this open space.

Nectarines settle in the icy 
dawn, one skin against another.
The cherries are out of fashion-
berries in general are aggressive.

Panda bowl. 
Vivid rips in the fabric of reality,
squash like the evening sun, crass
pumpkins, pink at a banquet.

Sometimes the oranges go magic,
bobbing down the market. Slice
them for a white light, the turnips
are moons, mais quel est un gourd?

Nobody knows. Traders wheel
like birds in slipstreams, biggy 
biggy big bowl they cry, breath
exiting into the crisp morning Wow.

These the stay-at-home, elders, the wise ones,
the unemployable, day-offs, the night workers.

These the freelancers, poets, the guilty, 
artists and strangers, mysterious cargo.

River of potterers, dodderers, the aimless undirect,
the Asda shoppers, gentle with avocados,

Totting it up. The disabled, unable, the radical 
and rutted- we flow through the mall, rubbernecked.

Enlightened. Beguiled by lights, the ambient puddles-
ushering in air on some unwritten mission.

Pumpkins swapped up with
the Coca-Cola saint of chimneys
who plops down into your soot-filled
reception like a fun-ripe carp.

Bones skitter across the ice,
sycamore bobby-pins strewn in wintry hair,
leaves whipping over the forecourt as
demonic confetti whirls to the right,

archaic-sploding to left-overs, crisped.
The first trees in polystyrene storms,
the crooked fingers of a skinless hand,
and all the while the outside whispers

not yet, not yet- the glistening gift!
Like Blanche Dubois in a dirty slip
mulched whole, our broken quarter,
O lady of swans- Trump aftertaste.

No one knows where the

Morris came from, some

say Africa. Or what?

Blackface see. Tradition

with its wreaths wrapped

alien tight around our

island. Don’t touch it. We

are not for you. Our children

suffer, whatsisname prizing

out the tuck from under their

Roman noses. Scarcity,

a woman scrabbling in the dust.

Brown people bleeding their

brown blood everywhere.

Muck. Time to look backwards

to a time when things were

lighter. Just don’t mention the

wars! Our Great Nation spraying

Enlightenment all over the

place- a tired child learning

how to use the Big Boy.

Nope. Your utopia is short-

sighted. Love is finite. No

space for humanity here.

Time to dial it back

to a dreamless rock,

all lonely in its sea of Mine.

Clear Channel

carol ann 
is stuck behind the glass,
a fish of gold, guppy, 
filming us for no one.

on the edge 
of a thought, froze
motionless, poem
to fixation, to thought,
the unthought, 

regent dreamings of 
a caged sprite.
our lady of unwritten
queen-deaths, 

dead airspace,
the space between  
the words, aether,
specs in the fridge,
4'33, 8.48, projected

mind-demise, hologram
of the public sphere,
of the market place, 
flogging a dead horse-
arrested.

exposed flesh on the green- 
littered sun-littered garden under
the giant tv. it is black & white
with the same surface areas,
prone to the same cancers, multi
way. just one day of shining sky

opening treasure chests, these pastry 
legs. a boy runs between fag-ends
toward a shady dog, tongue like
a spoon. the blossom is out yet we
still won't believe in it. snow will then 
tumble from the sun into our cocktails,

and boat drinks with cherries. gale
force winds will snatch the bangers
from the hopeful coals. sod's lawyers
in superstition, it is may but it may not
last. in a few months winter will return
with eggnog and the whole circus of

cold ceremonies. we strip hard here 
on the rancid sward with the rest of the 
demographics, pinking, darkening, 
slushies from the sickly shop that sells
dummies, canes and laces, the sun
that batters our eyes, these hunted caves.  

the biggest failure on the high st since Woolworths.
88 years of underwiring, chandelier water sports,
grief-deep hearts and picnic wicker that shouts
Are You Being Served? a gloom that seeps
into the psychedelic fabric of the counterpanes,

administration, administration, administration.
the final nail and british homes all left bereft of 
Roses, the owl-shaped butter dish, towels that tower 
in spires of dry infants, the white embrace of advert-fresh
caucasions, jaunty bubbles and nose-pink skin.

depressing coffee and pain au... no, depressing 
pensioners in tans and beige, staring out at the cold 
playground, listening to the sound of sore replicants oh,
no hope for this store, the passing of time, the carpets
worn to nil- the shining desperation of a carriage clock.

Poundland the third.
Three kingdoms reigned over
by fake hair royals, a Charlie
Dimmock god- terrible and
just, plant ties for fingers-
doing the job for now. 

dream of the countryside in spring.
the birds with their songs and spaces.
we are so immersed in london now,
the fields have smoked into black-

to burning stubble. when will we be 
old enough to retire from the mall- 
if ever? faces always open, the lights
and music have infected us into 

staying. no forks or combines, no vivid
sun that yolks onto the top meadow in
black strips of ripped up tights, no cockerel
sounding out the death bell, nor silence.

The 50 pence drops
and it seems disconnected from
me. It is not mine, though
I realise as I pick it up and pass
it to the lady in front of me
that it is. I am a child, loose

change in my pocket, I had
assumed she was also. But
out comes her lady purse,
it is a brick with a movie star 
clasp, she unclasps it sort of
officious as if it is I stealing

from her. She is well to do
and I am ruffian, clothes never
sit upon me right and she can
tell it. The 50p slips into 
her void, gone forever- 
embezzled. Could have been

a tip for the chirpy girl who
makes an effort to make my
coffee sound like the most exciting
thing that has ever happened,
even in her brown uniform, 
here in Walthamstow, in the rain.

What do you call a cat in a chemist?

My favourite joke,

The only one I ever remember.

Apothecary bottles

with coloured potions 

and Mum gets her 

Nicorette there, six

months before her death. 

Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté

bags his rabbit, red as

lipsticks in the strip-lit aisles.

The Marquis of Carabas dreams

of the eighties, Anais Anais- 

the byways of Essex,

lost car trips.

rain sleeps vertically,
the scooby-doo

sea-footed crowds
slurp prints onto the

waxy floor. exoticoffee
holds them up, they

dance on the head of a
pin, camels, needles,

sharpened semaphores
pointed as poems,

coughed up, battled out,
as an april shower, and

also as plans, bulldozers
that run daggers for

ze trampolines.

the inside of the easter egg
is empty. paying for space,
the air is wrapped in cocoa
and golden foil. a bow,
the box, an idea.

A man in Deichmann
stands at the counter 
crushing flying saucers
into his mouth. His boots

are ragged as the claws 
that scuttle through Prufrock.
Sherbet is made of atoms,
the shop floor a library

of babble, cheap wallets 
the colour of stolen sit
strategically by the till,
like reincarnated baddies.

He taps his card onto the 
space-age, the wink-light 
blue as a pilot. His new shoes 
nestle in their crackling nest,

in dreams of acceleration.

grief 

Distant laughter is a bad opening,
the romance of loneliness is fabrication-
people are all around and receptive, 
open-armed, kinder than ageing.

You separate yourself with thoughts
of otherness- particularly sensitive
that day, even if every day. You are not
an intruder, they love you even if you

set yourself apart in awkwardness.
The inability to join in is not artistic,
it is an excuse to stay a science of
yourself, outsider, your nose pressed

against the window where a fire burns
in a faraway hearth and a family toast
marshmallows and laugh and lovingly 
smile at the other, gazing outward. 

what is she whispering?
we may never know

a silver bullet of a hiss:
the stench of a boss

asda you are some
fresh hell, i have lost
the passata, i am unclear
what passata actually is,

google says puree, i feel
it is inaccurate so panic,
the disorganised masses
cutting into me like a knife,

the unnecessary zig-zag,
the stopping, the starting,
the whirling and families
of a thousand children

pushing through me as if
i am transparent, no
courgetti left, i must
buy a spiraliser. i place 

papery physalis 
onto the wonky cherries 
in my pull along, this
tiny baggage, must not

put the soft things at the
bottom. please take
your items she says, please
take your items 

but the lady with the bags
for life is not paying
attention, she is swiping
her magic necklace

for unexpected items
in the baggage area! the 
sighs escape our mouths 
like waves on a boring beach

The cold that bites you,
the whistling winds. 

The polished floors,
ice and holes where

Eskimos flirt with fish.
Narwhal tusks into

Chinese medicine: Sex
dust. And the candy stalls-

bergs, dirty with sugar.
The colden days. March,

madness. Easter looms
in eggy bonnets, the tiny

chicks on wire feet. Press
yourself up to the Digital

Signage- catch the pixels
that spark into breath. 

asda gnomes
for giant gardens
not giant's gardens:
that would be unreasonable

awe.

eat some wows,

atoms. moats.

sweat,

waste.

 emote [meows] -

stems & mess.

woe.

AWESOMEstow

it is ready to go,

primed for sky.

how right 

that this future

needle might pierce

the hoary white

cloudlets. some 

time soon

Spring rises 
over the concourse,
in edges of sunshine,
and tentative Davids.

Unzipped pac-a
macs, a flourish of 
chest. Luminous gloved
fingers

unsheathed. Mother's
day in windows, WH
Smith with her globes
and ribbons,

the half-echo of 
escaping children. Jimmy
in the news again. March
offering up

the warmth of a Mall.

this is a mock-up poem

with fake people in it,

static forever-

ideal.

Backstage at the Mall,
reading stories of death,
despair, exploding limbs,
rape, Syria, bullets and
rat boys, our eyes have
gotten tired. Marketing
manager lost her window.
Promotions uncoil across
the foyer, ghosts,
that leave no teeth, or print.

Mum's the word.
Treat her up, pink.
Flowery  
breasts and feather 
dusters. Bubbly!

Mother's milk
like Chardonnay,
an explosion. 
Shiny box of
smiles and pain. 

Mother. Argy
bargy. Top tips, 
Chatting, diamante.
Hidden in her 
nest within a nest,

Matryoshka. 

self-improvement

a kid was sick
entirely and properly
over the polished floor
by the candy floss stall

his mother
drowning in
dark tissues
mops it up

an island of
puke, despair

soon opening:
a cut price 
mouth, yawn 
of last season's

bargain items
called: TK
maxx! a steal,
dress for less

bucket of mix
match- fine finds
and celebrity
scents named

WOW or YES
or ENVY
destined for 
pulses, napes

woman in stark purplet
contrasts her body onto
card factory. she leans
on her rollator and gazes
in at the mumbo jumbo,
furry handcuffs, fifty shades.

Pale, invisible,
faces bob above the walkway
like so many clouds,

fingers of human, frozen
tight into February,
jingling.

Pockets turn
for Moon Balls, the 
glow in the dark

bounciest balls of all.
Any old shit from
the pound shop quite

frankly, just 
like Ray Mears with his
sticks and gentle

coercion, lights
a tiny spark that climbs
into fire. Quality 

Street. Drown out
the ever early brutal
mornings,

soldier on. Treat
yourself, island
dwelling- a type of

war, must be
compensated. Finger
the goods!

Buy your dog a
cut-price Xmas bone 
of latex: Chupa Chups.

 lady wants your money. I tell her

she makes a good strawberry

and think that beyond that

perhaps the goodness is somewhere

about her smile, resting soft

amongst the sun-green leaves of summer.