Dear, dear J,

I’ll not deepen the English Channel,
widen the Atlantic or allow
the German Seas rage to tsunami
unchecked without a letter to you.

I don’t want your refugee rain
to be successfully rescued
from a damned boat or found
breathless in back of an Artic.

And the European dirt caked
on your coat shook off
like an unwanted smile,
like a false cash promise.

I said you had a home
and benefits if you worked hard
enough to reach me, but
you’ve failed to touch the hem

of this beach without undertow
dragging you back to your sheds,
and tents gleaming in the gravel
puddles of sweat and effort.

My heart is no longer in this.
I need someone to give me
110%. I have found that person
in H. He is here for me. Dependable.

Invent, Innovate, Instigate,

I.

Addendum: Upon hearing reports of your
drowning or death under an Arctics wheels,
or suffocation in one of its boxes
I shall spread petals on the ocean.

*******

(J to K)

Dear K,

I shall join your righteous cause.
Negotiation doesn’t work,
shock and awe might.
I shall stay discrete and stealthy.

You pay for your passage
through this world with blood and pain.
Forced to leave by hollow bomb crater
that was home, by death of your closest.

Fritter away your savings to move
north, where life is not cheap
and they accept you on sufferance,
so you never stop proving to them

you’re worth their smile or kind word.
You’re not educated, decent, god
loving people, but scroungers,
refugees, terrorists of their hearts and homes.

It would be unkind to say they deserve
blood and pain. It is a kindness
to remind them of the razor wire
wrapped round the skin of hope.

Justice for all,

J.

*******

(K to L)

Dear L,

Disenchantment attracts the hopeful.
I love you and will be with you soon.
Our time in England and America
was more than an education.

Keep your enemies close.
My Yorkshire puddings miss
your roast tatties and gravy.
Food is never the same abroad.

Let us take advantage of the disturbed
and cold blooded to help them
gain the world we want. Use
those with personality disorders

to attack the nations with personality
disorders. They can cancel each other
out, so we can live a normal life,
among normal people in a normal

country. Under and in the eyes
of God. And I shall serve you,
and only you can see me naked
in our love, desire and faith.

Kindle the fire,

K.

*******

(L to M)

Dearest M,

I don’t want to disappoint
your faith in my conviction
to stop these extremists
from polluting our country.

I don’t want to show weakness
in how I action my betrayal
of her purpose. She is sold
on the inseparability of spirit

between us. She is beautiful.
I cannot allow physical desire,
to overcome my hatred
of her convictions. Please

help me gain the strength
to deny my lust and move
to your moderate light.
Let us meet for coffee

in the Polish supermarket
next week. I’ll buy you
a croissant and we can discuss
over latte these issues.

My light in the darkness,

M.

(I)

She read her first hands.

Small, spatula shaped.

Stumpy fingers.

Not large enough to be manual.

Not thin enough to be artistic.

Wanted to be a true reflection

of others, but his surface

held too many imperfections.

His eyes were blank spheres,

his conflict in his palms.

He would lie to her.

Keep things to himself.

He gave her doubt.

(ii)

Another’s long tender digits play timpani

between her legs. Their slender

reach

works a flood within her.

As they helter skelter

spirals from tip to base

on each of her breasts

she loses control when

they are half way down

the slide and she flies.

His tongue: a ninth finger,

touch types her labia

so she breathes glossolalia

with her ninth finger.

He made her feel good

(iii)

Another: more fish than man.

His skin has scales

between his fingers,

at their base

a thin film to make

any swim easier.

His imagination is a fish bladder.

He swerves over her coral.

She saw another way to live.

(iv)

She examines her hands in awe,

as if newly discovered.

Amazed they belong to her,

and that she controls them.

Curls each finger, notes

how each joint works.

Finger of one hand follows

the lines of the other

as if to remap, retraverse

the landscapes of age.

She let her know what was to come.

TO BE CONTINUED

a chocolate fireguard, teapot,
or fender, an icecream sofa, a dry sea
or wet towel, glass hammer,

waterproof teabag, newspaper
raincoat or umbrella, lead parachute, ashtray kop on a motorbike,

handbrake on a canoe,
vote in a dictatorship,
loudhailer to a deaf mute,
grief at a wedding,

a condom in a monastery.
an inflatable dartboard,
a spoon in a knife-fight,
screen door on a submarine

pockets on a lettuce
tits on a fish, lolly pop van in Hell
a one-legged man in an arse
kicking competition,

this poem.

“I couldn’t live at your mam’s
It’s like a show house. Spotless.”
One of my girlfriends once said.

Tidy mam’s breath gusts over her own grave,
scrubs cold winter debris away,

her quick fragrant spring rain spray
polishes the surface as dead leaf

and blown bud dusters rub
the Yorkshire stone black letters

to a sparkle, feed the vase of flowers,
whose heads move toward the sun.