More new work...

Twenty Days

I want to kiss your red wine stain
I want to tame your dark lion's mane
As you stalk around me ten foot by fifteen
Just us in this space here and it feels mean.

You're so feral but you seem caged
A black heart like yours should fly free
I can't rest til you're together with me
Like all bad sailors ought to be.

In the dirty warm nights you haunt me
I think of your newborn gaze
With your feral talk and panther walk
I can't wait for twenty days.

I guess I've been hooked, baby
It's more than one cold girl can take
I can't pretend there's not a woman inside me
Who feels it when her heart aches.

New work...

London
London awaits me,
Her twice-worn skirt
Fluttering enticingly.

I can smell the city,
And civilisation.

For, in London
You can be anyone.

No small minds.

Just her hurrying children,
Scurrying like rats from
Tunnel to tunnel.

London is a wise old whore,
Who could tell a few tales
But everything is sacred;
The smallest details
Will not leave her lips
Because London is a lady
And she’s seen more than most.

Endless jabbering and sickly smells
Float from coast to coast.

The scrutiny of aristocrats
As they debate a bruised apple.

The lost words
Of a foreigner
Drift alongside others.

So many unanswered questions
And lonely beds
In hotels I can scarcely afford.

An ideal home
For the nomadic soul.

Man of pallor and sinew,
Lie beside me
As I contemplate the river
That is forever there for me,
Flowing tetchily forth
Like the disgruntled aristocrat
Who discards a bruised apple
Not good enough for him to eat.

Fruit lies forgotten
In London’s violent heat.