The Course of True Love (under commission)

He was telling his tall story in the kitchen again

She could tell it right back, it was got quite that

Systematic. And since it was stodgily beautiful

She felt free to make out, well, enigma variations

Course I could feel the current.

You're leaving out the glaciers again,

darling.

Have you ever had that feeling

When the storm glowers its worst

Shines in its own bale

And you're soaked to the bone like an oxo-cube

And you sort of, when it comes down to it, want more...

Come now, it was only a showery spell,

Angel-features.

Viciousness

Well, my unendearmented,
You know about bad nights.
Well, then, I elected one -
Left the double rights –
Took the doubled duvet down
To a sofa dell –
Thought about the evening time
Said nothing, which was well.
I think you got my adjective,
Lasting, mistaken yet,
For I am always viscous,
As you'd struggle to forget.

To the pure

You were, then and now, scaling the verandah
Where we diced up scones, and took solace in cream.
Then you wound your way into a cool salamander,

To lie, just refolded, lapped up at a seam –
And that pause was dreamed of, for fanning your spread,
And your photo cheek had to sheen in teapot steam.

Like a hangman’s last darling you dangled your head
As you sparkled the supplement, azured the air –
Why are blue movies blue? Where’s the sky in the bed?

By endemic illogic I had to be fair
And give you a fighting round rolling with blood,
Sense a holier scent in your papery hair,

So, later, strung out to the asthmatic thud
Of a Dell’s shaky breathing, you made your own case,
Shot down causes and worship; your critical dud

Left a page to be turned at a sobered down pace,
Slowed by understanding the point of the chase.

Villanelle - "After Sasha"

It was no causal embering of the heart –
No pattern falling out, no steps outlaid;
It was where you and I would love, and part.

Nor as it had been by the page’s art,
The culture section where Miss Grey lay, splayed,
When embers swam and coursed my idle heart.

Congealed time must end by rapid start;
The consequence drew out my gasping, flayed,
Caught from the place where we’ve been used to part.

A strong line froze out a precision dart,
A complementary light lay thinly made;
But riot bellows blaze my, still your heart.

She was notorious, the queenly mart,
As she lay printed, the cruel pinner maid,
I dropped her where I tried to live and part.

A slimline guide to ways to writhe and smart?
She was a type perfected for and paid –
A causal muse, who smudged this ashing heart,
The hour you and I learned to love, and part.