'The Black Room' poem

The Black Room

Dragged up from the ocean screaming, I slip

into bed, the black silk of my nightdress

making me shudder, soles soothed by the tide

I glide my hand like an eel under the duvet

with no electric charge it bumps blindly

into a turned back or floats over the vacant

side of the mattress, sometimes I spot whites

of eyes flickering, a torch with drained batteries

searching for a way back to the girl whose

auburn hair spread like a paintbrush to paper

on the pillow as sunlight dressed two tones

of flesh like a photo negative pressed

to a window, waiting to develop its colour

in a silent room glossed with memories.

Heart- Shaped Balloons

Heart- Shaped Balloons

She had once kissed the cold, glossed lips of men

against the powder- pink walls of her room

she slept underneath their vertically thin bodies

and often woke to discover a head with a body curled

tightly up the wall in a swirl like the shell of a snail.

She had thought that the body that lay by her side, with

arms that threaded through her like needles was a man

of substance and his lips were warm with pulsing blood

his tongue dizzy with sugar fizzed in the stifling room of

her mouth and his skin rolled into her like soft dough.

He had fingers that were ballerinas with dislocated hips

but she relished in their burning tips that woke something

within her, that until now had lay dormant and unspoken,

he made her molten by lapping at the teardrop of her stomach

white wings flew up over her head, as toes clenched like talons.

For months her head had ridden on the wave of his smooth chest

but the morning came when stillness gripped her by frozen arms,

their liquid limbs had dispersed, her body skinned and bared

and she tried to press her lips to his neck to resuscitate his heart

like a balloon, unresponsive, he drew the flat line.

Writer's Block

Writer’s Block

You hear the grasshopper strike

a full box of matches

igniting the grass with song

your mind is like the library,

silent

so full of resources

so hard to find.

Outside, the wind whistles through

two yawning bullet holes that

sit in the owl’s gyrating head.

Bitten slithers of white

drop from your mouth

in a frustrated feast

scratching the surface.

The fridge hums

food for thought

but the humming bird

of inspiration

is in torpor.

The prodding hands of the clock

jab each rib of ability

as it tuts disapprovingly

like the headmistress

over your shoulder.

Dark and unreachable

shadows of agile antelopes attain

the white stretch of land before you

and have gone before you can

place a dart in their hearts

and mark the page with their ink.

The tap drips every

1, 2, 3 seconds

as all thoughts seep

Into the drain.

The red buzz of standby

alert

but nothing to show

waiting for a finger

to send a spark.

Creativity lodged

in the doorway

of success

waits for its release.