Dad was yellow, behind his greying beard. ” It’s his liver,” the doctor said, “It’s failing.” He took it well, the news, because he’d feared For a while: Dad could feel his body ailing. It was the drugs that did it, we all reckoned. The pink and white pills that were fixing him: Saved from […]

I bought a rechargeable torch with winding mechanism from my first salary. By the sides of roads, under bushes and plants, geranium and box, I find the choicest hedgehogs. Then I light a safety match, put the jars down, and smoke the fleas out from the spikes.   If the hedgehog chokes on the smoke […]

I have considered picking these cow eyes from the ground stowing them in woody-smelling bags to moulder as I forget amongst multi-coloured stickly bricks (encumbered by cylindrical heads). It would feel good again to stash these off-spherical shapes of marbled browns and creamy stain patches – to roughly select the plummier specimens fantasise about their […]

Doors are opening like nails pricking tiny points into limbs, she thinks but nothing says. Oh, this is the time of the coming, the future, the eyes strained ahead to the one perfect rhyme and the rest of the dead.   She says nothing of memories of parks and her dad on the see-saw. For […]

It’s night And Bukit Timah Road is glowing orange With the visitations of Halogen angels   I am alone on the bus That groans and mumbles as if I have company But this is a solitary din I dissolve into the evening on my own   Cars pass Full of expatriates in transit With Cold […]

It slides up the smooth, damp tube Then waits. Rough friction as bristles squeeze through. Quick slurpy toad-kiss And it’s out. Deep channel of mud Left behind.   Crust of old dried-out mud Clings to the top of the long Thin wand, reluctant To join the rest. Blackness pushes Though the gaps. So strong! Stronger […]

It seems I complained too hard about the rain shrivelling my skin or feet burning on hot sand, making me dance madly like a chained bear. Perhaps I sighed too loudly about the rough tugging of a snagged nail or the way my raw feet would bud blisters.   For, when I opened my eyes […]

Hold my hand – you’re not safe. Your skin can’t take the heat Of the lights or the burn of Humiliation. Don’t look at The people we meet.   Our skins are like wings Flown too close to the sun – A blush would kill us, A loss of face would Be a loss of […]

I peel open the door and everything becomes real. My heavy footsteps embarrass me, Though only the grass notices. I sit upright on a damp log bench And feel the wind running through me, Humming and uncoiling and draining away With the waves of traffic and treelimbs Filtering together. Every sound gone Before it reaches […]

I used to bring my boys here, I tell him, back when the sea was further from the village than it is now, and they used to run into the garden of the b&b early each morning to scramble down the bramble-clogged bank at the back onto the narrow beach. Even in the rain, pearls […]

I used to keep potatoes in my cellar in brown bags. But they grew green shoots and wanted to be planted.   When it rained my friend came and looked at them. They were coal painted and their green roots were neon bulbs. He said I should give them some ground, a little bit of […]

Check the pockets for the tickets, Reds, Lighter, Travelcard, tied shoes, keys and cash. No rush, no hurry –   No matter how late you try to turn up there’s always a support band to sit through, a guy with a beard, a banjo and a bad hairdo.   And after an hour of standing […]

  We shall learn how the footsteps should be printed together, so that the light of the Moons does not hurt when we count them and stars will keep their distance We shall learn through the rhythm of a raised eyebrow and quivering lips, the same truth only an ant in a puddle of honey […]

He knows more than they think, As the rust tricycle harries The grey-evening puddles.   Slut. Bitch. Whore.   Why always in the kitchen, Where the fierce strip light Shies drawn out spectres?   She by the sink, Pretending to wash up; He by the stove, probing Until she turns.   Why always Yell, murmur, […]