stride differently
step without the roll
maybe heel down first
not ball, incline to outside
or inside edge, wear down
leather differently,
walk with an edge.

Way I walk too well known
for surprise, danger or risk.
Have to take chances
gamble, though, not familiar
or comfortable this is good.

Step change and thought,
if think as you step
around, change step,
how thought is reached,
how words reach page.

St. George was Turkish,
I have Dane ancestors.
Our Queen is German.
My dad was Welsh.
Our favourite dish
is Chicken Tikka Masala.

Celebrate impurity
with impunity and dignity.
Mongrel culture lives.

Other things can be drugs.
I decide I don’t need a tab,
yet, get dragged back
by curiosity and hope,
to find the empty still there,
pushes ever wider into need.

Go cold turkey. Try it.
You did it once and the crave went.
That crave is now demolished
and the space used for other
interests, the gap filled. Try it.

Wean yourself off the hunger,
desperate need for the reaction:
laughter in your head and stomach,
endorphins in overdrive,
frisson at the good looking,
a wanted warm hand in yours.

Take time away from its pull,
render the tides inert,
turn your eyes to other sights,
tread fresh earth, let others entice.
New people, new places,
other resolutions.

Expect us as you find us.”

my late mam says to expected afternoon guests,
as they sit on the morning polished
sofa,

their rarely seen fine rose design china coffee cups,
jug of creme, full sugar basin, Bourbons
on one side plate,

Fairy Cakes on another on the freshly Lemon pledged dark wood table,

shoes on newly vacuumed Axminster carpet,
as they look on the spruced lawn,

through the shiny white French windows,
and see the sun shine on dustless surfaces

far down
into the pit of hell
as it is possible to go
and still see  stars shining.

I have been as far up
into the spit of sky
as it is possible to go
and still see the wood for trees.

listen to tiny voices
on massive screens
as she does not like subtitles.

A better speaker hangs above
the easy chair curled into
by our ginger cat. This is
a cat house and her beauty
cannot be disturbed.

ginger cat stares up
ready to harvest
the spring fledglings
who fall into its teeth

As if a Lion who waits
outside a hospital
for the harvest of newborn
babies on their way home.

At sixteen she is precise
with her makeup,
and dances to stay slim.
“You could be a model,”
her nannan tells her.

Carefully she opens the fridge door
for the umpteenth
to catch the little man
who switches on the light.

It must be true because
she wants to believe it,
and her mam’s boyfriend,
adult and streetwise
who told her, can be trusted.

Dear (insert first name),

Thankyou for your application, unfortunately, you will not
progress further.

Your sap and sun will not rise,
bud flower, grass grow.
You will not enter spring or summer,

take one step further forward,
open your eyes,
touch, taste or smell freshness.

Your tongue will swell,
voice mute, sourness weigh
heavy in your bones,
and your mouth pack with ash.

Your wife divorce you,
kids disown you.
You will die lonely,
unwanted and unneeded.

Best of luck in your future endeavours

I’m more southern:
cold hands, warm heart.
You’re northern:
warm hands, cold heart,”
she says.

A marriage of opposites.
her with her tv quizzes,
me with my documentaries.

We have similar thoughts
at the same time. Always
pass on the landing,
but never on the stairs.

Never room enough
for both in the kitchen.

I go to a cupboard.
Hear her huff and snort
behind me, as it’s where she
needs to be.

She’ll spin in her plot
when I’ve taken her place
in the graveyard.

“You’re always in the way,”
she says. We are one
flesh. I need a shed.

When out, I go my way,
she goes hers, so we double up
on milk and bread.

Clairvoyant said, “You’ll marry a foreigner.”