I remember the cold, the inept attempts to close it out
I remember the love, words that came too easily, becoming tiresome
and meaningless on release
I remember you lost and crazy with sadness
I remember the moments when everything seemed right

We weren't happy
We still aren't

As it should be

I pretend there's something left, in weak moments,
when silence aids a wandering mind

Or before I fall asleep


I find it odd that I never dream of you.

Warranty Expires On Purchase

It doesn't work
and I can't work out quite why.
I won't pay the money for the good stuff
I suppose.
I go and use something that does work.
The gas cooker,
the toaster,
the kettle,
the HiFi......
I get what I need from them
and they don't complain.
The pre-historic values of functionality
aren't dead just yet my friend.

I take comfort in the notion that,
while I can't get online
to spout gibberish
to a dozen strangers
on an obscure weblog,
the chances of me dying
of hunger
or thirst
or not hearing some Johnny Cash,
remain fairly remote.

Up With The Birds

I notice the cat out the corner of my eye.
I'd never seen it before;
it was usually just an old lad sitting,
staring out at the street
from his tiny, impeccable living room.

Up with the birds,
Day after day.

The cat stares manic,
pressed to the window pane
and I follow it's gaze
to a crow on top of a lamp post.

I find it the strangest sight somehow.
A trapped cat straining
for a bird on a wire,
thirty feet in the air.

But then I would.
I have never been a cat.

I saw the old guy again
the next morning,
standing at the window,
squinting at the yellowing pages
of a book in the early daylight.
The cat out of sight,laying in wait for less troublesome prey,
or maybe just asleep.

The cat and the old man don't appear for me anymore.
Maybe they got a new agent and a better gig,
something better than
providing momentary entertainment
for half awake drudges,
preparing to spend their day going slowly mad,
battering their empty heads against their
empty desks for the benefit of
a strange little man who
can't stop scratching
his scalp.

Siamese

I saw them ahead of me

through the gloom and a little distant.

They seemed joined at the hip

and walked as one beneath a small black umbrella.

For some reason the sight of them heartened me.

I tried to remember if I'd ever

walked that way before;

arm round her back, close,

passionate, at eight thirty

in the morning, in the

pouring rain.

Or any time.

It looked to be a cumbersome arrangement

as they made their way along the narrow pavement,

yet preferable somehow

to flying solo.

Closer now and I can hear;

"Gie us the umbrella, gonnae!"

A nasal caw that could scour steel.

"Ah bought that umbrella fur masel, You use yir hood!"

They stop to bicker, hemming me in.

A silent oath is offered for

their self absorbed display

and I work my way to the subway,

reminded and chastened.

To preserve the illusion, one must

Never get too close.

Battered As You Like It....

I live in fear of my friends finding out that I'm not a real battered wife. Don't get me wrong he beats me senseless. I'm a fixture in casualty, I've stayed in a refuge twice but my suffering doesn't feel authentic, real even to me. Let me display the boiled and rinsed bones for you.

I'm minding my own business, I feel a punch or a kick, it doesn't matter which. I feel the familiar tightness and wetness in the snatch but try telling Women's Aid that, to be fair and I am fair , angelic , maternal without being frumpy, phobic about fat and age and a fraud. I am practically perfect in every way or I try to be. I don't like sex but I like the cuddles. Kissing is good when he has stubble and my face is worn to the thinnest rice paper. I like to look raped in the morning.

So like I said I'm whipping up a ready meal and feel a blow. That is a good night. That is a hot night. That is a night when I scream and sob out of curiously dry eyes and the neighbours come, followed by the police and I say officer 'him? beat me? he'd be fuckin lucky'. They go away and I remain in charge. Notwithstanding the above I do want and deserve your sympathy my marriage will fail otherwise.

The best and most beautiful nights are those when I goad him past the point of endurance. In my head I call it bullfighting, the books call it love, the modern world calls it abuse. I provoke a fight and as the beating reaches it's crescendo I scream and scream and scream. The neighbours rush in and there I am ripped clothes, spreadeagled, ecstatic in my agony, a crucifixion on the kitchen floor nailed to love, libido and my own garish, soap opera exhibitionism. True martyrdom won't work without an audience.

My big moment, my ecstasy is when he's worn himself out with beating, questioning and running. He comes to my breast , nibbles like a giant, stubbly baby and moans sorry, sorry, sorry, I love you again and again. That way I know I've won and always will.

Thud

Thud, dazzle, thud, dazzle thud, dazzle and so on. I cannot say I am happy. I merely have a place and everything should be in it's place. Dirt is just matter in the wrong place. I am not dirt so must never leave my place.

It's all on the NHS, I know what you've read but I've never had to shit the bed. As long as you don't get the runs the work to rule can't touch you. Speaking of shit we have a new wheeze. Vi brings in razors and we secrete them on our persons.

In this place a young nurse is sent to watch you shit and piss, we wait till she's distracted and embed razors in our shit just to see the look on her face when she examines our bedpans.

The one bit of advice I have for newbies is never leave a Barbie head in your bedpan. They will regard that as a cry for help. They respect razors because they are sane. I am mad but they inspect my shit for no good reason. I think the Americans would say -go figure.

I'm going home, I've done my time.

I remember when I was wee, I used to sit in my dad's car and watch him drive so I'd pass my test first time. No lessons it's all in the eyes. In the end I couldn't be arsed. Upside is I can get drunk. Downside is I take the bus.

Fat semi downs face three weans, one whopper of a pram flings her phone across the bus and weeps. A decent person would intervene. Instead I watch it like any other soap. I never really believed that other people have feelings or at least the same feelings I do. I expect she only cries because she can't find the words.

The inevitable farting contest up the back. Average age 19. They talk about pumpin lassies. One lassie is a 'fuckin donkey' but one doesn't look at the fireplace. Her party piece is shitting the bed. One lad kept going, the other punched fuck out her, the rest fuck her when they're desperate. Who is she? I've never shat the bed so I know it isn't me but do people talk about me like that. Like I'm a repulsive mass of dead nerves, fine for fucking in a drought and little else.


Sometimes I wish I could slaughter that flatulent 'back of the bus'. In fact I wish I could all the time. Something quick and sudden. I'd love to see the look of shock on their faces as they die in the most unlikely of massacres. Years ago I would have wanted to reason with them but I'm tired. I'm always tired. My grannie had rickets, her sisters had smallpox, my mother caught a cold and I caught the bad head gene and an unquenchable desire for sleep.


Two African women to the right. They look like statues. It's not their colour that makes them look out of place. They're clean, quiet and proud looking. The style on the 41 is tired, pasty, dumpy and full of rage with no obvious target. Do try to keep up. Mind you I'll bet they're stenchers like the rest of us. Everyone is a disappointment.

The inevitable pensioners. 'Ye wouldnae wear red tae a funeral'. Well I would but I don't but in. I want off this bus before the 22nd century. 'Ye wid wear the darkest jaiket te huv', 'aye darkest jaiket'. I'd wear the skin of a dead grannie, I think.

Fight with the driver. 'ye dae go tae the Forge'. 'Aye hen only if the bus goes backwards.

That's my cue. Off to wet feet, possible trenchfoot, blisters and French fancies for tea. Just get this shite out of my head. Too much.