where you should be
where you ought to be

sinewed spirit belongs
where your bone belongs

where your lips are home
where I expect you to be

where your heart flops
breath snuggles, bones rest

with me, not someone else
somewhere else somewhen

at this breath’s end
at end of the line.

to know what each breath brings
and what it takes away.

to guess what ground your feet
falls upon, and how safe it is.

to hear another’s hidden half
and hold it close to your own.

to taste a new fragrance, but still
have faith in your old senses.

to inhale new knowledge
and when you breathe out
accept its loss.

to have your sweat drip
and know it is not misgiven.

What so special about stars?
Attention seeking baubles
I shouldn’t wonder.

What’s so special about spring?
Gaudy flowers showing off
I shouldn’t wonder.

What’s so special about children?
Eyes hugging breath from you
I shouldn’t wonder.

What’s so special about you?
Flaunting yourself in next to nowt
I shouldn’t wonder.

What’s so special about stomach buzz?
Keyed up indigestion
I shouldn’t wonder.

What’s so special about wonder?
Makes you better off than you should be
I shouldn’t wonder.

Employers say ‘Can I have a word outside for a mo’?
Are you happy here? Sorry, but we must let you go.”

‘You are a nice person, get on well workwise, and so.
We needed work done faster, so must let you go.”

‘There is no problem with your work quality, and what you know.
You are thorough, but, sorry, you are too slow.”

Business wants workers always accurate and quick
When you work too slow,no choice, they ask you to quit.

Slow workers move from job to job always expect
the phrase ‘Are you happy here?’ and always regret.

There is no reason for business to employ
the snail, for if it did that business would fail.

the relevant part of a map.
When he gets lost, he stops,
at the entrance to the busiest junction,
sometimes, before a roundabout,
and unfolds a view of the world
to its fullest extent to find his way.

Perhaps, at work when he changes
a tiny part of the system he looks
at detailed, draughted whole diagram
of council offices,hospitals
or nuclear subs where he is to install
new heating waste management services.

And I at work or home cursed with the same
need for thorough deliberation,
find bosses, wives and workmates sigh
at my slow, detailed examination
of an issue, that had I rushed,
as when angry, only find confusion.

My dad and I bring the whole going on
to a brief stop as others
who wish to get on hoot,
whistle and toot their dismay.
We ignore them all to, quietly,
stubbornly map our way.

On the bus my wife
speaks to me loudly
and clearly so all can hear
what she wishes to say.

On meals out she reaches
into her bag for wet wipes
so I can remove foodstains
from my shirt or trousers
and tells all who are present
“I don’t carry these
for the grandchildren.

You’re worse than the grandkids.”

When I have Man Flu she says:
I think you should stay here, dear.
Don’t want you coughing
up phlegm in the restaurant.
It’ll put the other diners off.
We’ll be thrown out.

You don’t want to look common,
when you draw attention to yourself.

I hope that’s not a poem about me.
You’re not drawing attention to me.
You weren’t sordid when we married.

more work for her.
Always afterwards
she
strips the bed,
changes the sheets,

puts stained sheets
in the wash, hangs
them on the line
or clothes horse.

On ferries or in hotels
his jewellery catches
on hers, hours disentangling
earings, repairing necklaces.

All Seventies men
were sexy sweat
and thin as sticks.
She calls herself
“a cold mortal”.

down on her moon specked tears
at his words to her over
what to do about the
Staffy that ragged the leather sofa
in their Caravan on their 
honeymoon at Skeg Vegas.

Coffee goes cold in their mugs
as a money spider creeps
into her hair when she laughs
at his suggestion that she only defends
others, turns her second hand diamond
wedding ring round and round
her finger because it feels good.

Her tears taste like morning salt
from the high tide waves, and his night sweat
when he is full into her,
dry sand in his belly button
briefly grits her newly shaven thighs.

She nurses his cut eye, broken ribs,
after he stands up to young men who crush
with their boots a blackbird’s head who has a broken wing,
both left bloody on path of recently converted
Working Men’s pub to Seventh Day Adventist church.
She buys him a dog as mate until he gets fit again
while she works at the Post Office.

dreamcatcher
in her eyes shook when we made love
above the Chinese takeaway and its fragrance
of fried horse chestnuts, green peppers
and oiled sinew like mushrooms.

Earlier, change had fallen out of her pockets
when she fumbled for her Nelly the Elephant
key ring as I unclipped her pink lace bra,
in the dark doorway across
from the abandoned Charity shop.

Facets of her appeared in the dailies,
and I questioned her later in afternoon shadow
about the sexual positions she enjoyed
as she asked over the miniature red
rose in its thin glass vase
for her live bloated lobster to be boiled.

A silver claw around her neck
brought her round in the gobbets of rain
she was only too pleased
when the Chinese woman downstairs
asked her to fashion a gold cat with rubies
for eyes out of metal dredged from the canal

the grain,” I remember my stepdad,
the carpenter telling me,
as I play with the olive wood birds
he has carved for me.

I stroke along their pinions,
make their smooth fragrant
shapes dive and swoop, or,
follow others as if in a flock,
I run wildly, raise them above
my head. “Ouch!” I shout,

as I stumble against a thorn bush,
blood drips and I cry. Tears
and blood mingle on the wooden
wings are inhaled by the grain
so that their chests move in and out
as if they have breath, claws
leave tracks in the sand, some
have red breasts or wingtips,
a flutter and they rise onto the limbs.