blowing bubbles from nothing

where can I nuzzle and find some warmth?
the imprint of your arms is fading fast

where can I curl up – and be curled up next to?
be small and be strong
be both sides of a coin

where can I find a somebody
who I can be myself with
utterly
and they can be themselves with me
utterly

and words passing between lips
are irrelevant as breath
and we talk about everything and nothing
included: life, blood, shit, tears, leaving this planet, staying, yorkshire puddings, gobbing and zotting, blowing bubbles from nothing, Raleigh bikes and Die Hard

I am stirred
and cannot settle

I look for signs
but am a non-believer
DAMN

I love you

summer door

I watched the sunrise this morning
and the first thing I saw in the clear, navy sky
was a small heart-shaped cloud

my heart, flung open like a summer door,
will not close,
but winter’s coming
and the wind blows fierce

and I sing to the night:

come back
come back

the sound of motorbikes

I wish you were still here
tall, proud and laughing like a lion,
naming shrubs
and teaching me about wood
and bikes and love

and above the Orion’s Belt of freckles
on my right arm,
I’ll get a single rose tattoo

and always watch the gaps in the clouds
and listen to the sound of motorbikes

deeper than a fairytale well

it’s a delicious place
that few people know about
where laughter is deeper
than a fairytale well

and magic is found
in the dirtiest, loneliest corners

and love,
love flies, sings, soars

and questions like “why?”
are best left in other places

talking wood

I love it when you talk wood
– tell me about the moulds
used to make concrete pillars
in carparks

and how to wet, bend and clamp wood
to make curves

a song for you

I call to you
through all the foggy years
and see you as a boy
proud riding your Raleigh Grifter
endless wheely
your smile wider than Waterloo Bridge

and I call to you
through all the foggy years
and see you as a man
as a wounded lion
as a wandering star
who hasn’t slept
just shone, shone, shone
so bright it hurts

I want to curl up and be small with you
nestle in that place
where silver hair grows
like crooked music

you went grey in your twenties:
a thick mop of starlight

and I call to you through the foggy years
and the call is a song
for you
a song for the boy
a song for the lion
a song for the man
a song for the carpenter
a song of love

two four two

I didn’t want to get off the bus
and end that feeling
of being held by you
still

I wanted to stay on the bus all night
pass sleeping houses
and leaves on bus shelters

ride through bright lights
and fierce rain

and watch warmth
returning to the sky

for the lion man

you make me feel
like I’m some kind of special

rock me with your calm,
your barely perceptible lion’s growl

and riding home on the bus
I’m fifteen all over again,
but older too,
dreaming and missing my stop

still remembering being held by you
still feeling it through my coat
still grinning