How to Live your Life


Arrive screaming.

Drink milk,

sit up,

smile,

take first steps.

Join school.

play,

write,

read;

adore a deity.

Learn,

learn,

learn.

Leave school.

Get job,

join a pension scheme,

a gym

a funeral indemnity.

Just in case.

Earn a promotion.

meet a girl,

fall in love,

get a mortgage,

buy a house,

have two children.

Work 9-5,

come home,

eat your dinner,

go to bed,

start again.

Work 9-5

come home

eat your dinner

go to bed

start again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear David


While he’s in the shower

she opens the laptop

and scans his emails.

 

He wafts into the room,

What’re your plans today? he asks,

smearing body lotion into his chest.

 

Rain slams against the skylights.

Housework, she says,

watching him dress;

 

consumed by the belt

tightening

around his waist.

 

In the mirror he cups his hands,

teases his tousles,

mumbles, I’ll be late tonight.

 

She logs into her emails,

begins a new message:

Dear David,

 

By the time you get this message…

She stops.

Looks at the photo of them

 

iron-framed

on the bedside table.

His arms around her,

 

he smiles with vacant eyes.

She types again

as he walks towards the door.

 

Bye, he calls, in a sing-song voice

Bye, she writes,

lifting the duvet,

 

feeling the cold wood against her feet

Love (Part II )


Love took up new hobbies.

Love bought a ukulele,

a harmonica,

then tried to play

them at the same time,

like Love’s

Muse

had at first sight.

But the duff notes

and clumsy strumming

failed to impress Muse

so the music ceased

and Love blew

sorrow into the air

in despair

before wondering

why Lust got all the good gigs.

The view from where there is much to do


There is much to do.

There is the table

I sat at, writing.

There is the sofa

from which

I saw little

but parked cars

and the rows of windows

in the two up

two down

terraced houses

of this street.

There is much

to do,

much to read

much to write,

yet the infrequent footsteps

of passers-by,

deep in thought

about the lunch

they just ate,

punctuating the scene

of parked cars

and rows of windows,

holds my attention

for so long

that, until a dog barks

and a driver beeps a horn

at a cyclist ringing his bell,

and my own world wakes up again,

I am the lifeless street

of windows,

the parked cars,

and I am the thoughts

of infrequent passers-by

deep in thought

about the lunch just eaten;

unaware of what it’s like

to have

just sandwiches

to think about.

The Rhyme of the Downtrodden Girlfriend


It wasn’t in good condition
it was a little frayed
I’d only had it cut last month
from my earned yet modest wage.

One day it wouldn’t go this way
one day it wouldn’t go that
most days I could do nothing with it
so hid it with a hat.

My boyfriend told me something
my boyfriend said, no jest,
‘If you do not sort out your hair
I’ll give you up, you mess!’

So I looked into the mirror
pulled from my head, my hat
then with a pair of  shiny scissors
turned to this man and spat:

‘There’s many things I need to do
there’s many things I want
and there’s many things I’d do right now

‘cept anything YOU want.’

I knew he’d come straight for me
I knew he’d need to vent
so out I stuck those shiny scissors
and into his heart  they went.

Now there’s no bad hair days
no more do I wear a hat
and when I do feel like a mess
I just remember that

my boyfriend can’t tell me anymore.