ray morgan

The death of Kodak

2012-01-20T01:15:00.000-08:00

"When was the last time you looked at a photo album?"
the news reporter asks,
a trembling teenage boy conjuring up a childhood memory.
"It has to be six or seven years ago," he says,
and we cut to a piece about the death of Kodak.
We just take and store our photos in a different way,
they're saying,
and my bookshelf panics
wondering if it will be cleared in favour of a machine.
For those nights when there's nothing on the telly,
or afternoons that call for a pot of tea,
or when you're trying to remember who came to that party,
I like to go through my albums of printed
yes, printed photographs.
How novel, it seems, that these archaic albums exist, now
that we have the opportunity to
watch our memories on a slideshow,
tagged with the attendees,
on another screen.
We have become a world of screen junkies:
why read a book when you can have a baby screen;
it's just like the real thing,
look,
you can turn the pages and everything.
It looks just like the pages of a real book!
Except, well, it's not.
And what happens if you want to lend your book to a friend, or
you drop it in the bath, or
you'd like a reading session that
isn't dependent on battery life.
I don't know about you,
but I spend at least eight hours a day
a slave to the screen,
so the thought of curling up with
another humming LED display of an evening
fills me with dread.
I remember when at gigs,
it would be a sea of lighters,
a romantic fan's tribute to how much they love the song.
Then it was mobile phones held aloft,
so your loved one would listen to it too.
It then became a photo on a mobile phone,
then a video on a mobile phone,
and now it's an iPad held proudly.
Picture an intimate gig,
and the dickhead next to you is
watching the entire thing through an iPad,
his arms wobbling with the endurance,
his mind already forgetting what he's seen.
I want to argue over an over-folded Ordnance Survey map,
lend you my dog-eared Raymond Carver, well-loved,
be asked to sit down and look through your
physical,
actual,
tangible,
real-life photo album
(even if it's pictures of you at Disneyland, or
swimming with dolphins).
Don't put my address book into a memory chip,
that at one strike could be obliterated;
don't ruin a pub debate over who co-starred with
Meryl Streep in The River Wild by
looking it up on fucking IMDB;
I don't want to know,
I want to get there myself,
without you,
and your guest wifi,
and your shiny palm buddy,
a touch-screen conversation-killer;
I want us to wait for the photos to be developed;
a four-day limbo - a lesson in patience,
without deciding we look shit in that photo you've just shown us
on the display screen,
so could you take it again?

christmas-on-sea

2011-12-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

take me up the high street and buy me
oversized gingerbread hearts
from european vendors with
cold fingers and
kind, crinkled eyes.
buy me a praline latte from a
corporate coffee chain and
we will talk about how christmassy we feel.
there is a tree,
outside the odeon,
that towers and sways with poor baubles;
decorations that look like someone has thrown them
from street level
and hoped for the best.
a sudden ice rink happens,
just shy of nando’s,
where small children risk severed hands and
broken ankles to the
blare of slade on repeat.
walk me under the railway bridge,
past ann summers’ festive display,
past the 99p shop bragging its slashed prices,
past mcdonalds and its flashing, police-like blue lights,
and take me past the doors of M&S,
where a hot breath of cinnamon and
middle class panic buying
pours out of the doors, up up and away.
let’s talk about how neverneverland used to have
the first christmas lights of the year,
and how creepy it was before it was bulldozed.
remind me of how many times I thought
I wanted to move away before realising that actually,
this is home,
this vagrant town,
this beautiful mess of cheap shops and aspiration;
this is, for two months of the year,
christmas on sea.

A Winter's Tale

2011-12-08T05:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a week now since NaNoWriMo finished… I didn't submit my word count to them in the end, because I kind of felt like I didn't need to: so no certificate for me, and in their eyes I am probably not a winner, but I'm still walking with the glow of knowing I got 51,355 words down in 30 days. PHEW.

Well done to everyone else who completed it!

I'm still working on it now, adding bits, completing backstory, and taking out the trite nonsense I bashed into it on off-days. I've given myself the deadline of 31 January to have it all tied up, and then I might just start sending it out. If I'm feeling particularly brave, I might post a preview of it on here…

In other news I mentioned that I was going to be published in the Railroad Poetry Project, so here it is! Big thanks to the gorgeous folk at Railroad for the lovely opportunity and early Christmas present :-)

Hope you're all well and starting to put up fairy lights and write your Christmas cards and generally Be Festive.

Have a great Christmas and see you for more poems in 2012…

Ray x

Nanos and railroads

2011-11-16T05:22:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all well and digging the frosty mornings and stocking up on hot chocolate like me. I've not done much on the poetry front lately, but have completed my first ever collection, titled This is a Coastal Town, which is hopefully going to be turned into an exciting project, so watch this space.

I'm also doing NaNoWriMo - writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. I'm almost halfway through, and really enjoying the challenge. It came at the same time of starting a new job, which is pretty ridiculous timing, but the commute has proved invaluable as I attempt to tap-tap-tap my 1,600 words a day.

I have some poetic news... the lovely Railroad Poetry Project are publishing two of my poems in their second issue, due out later in November. It is a brilliant publication so I'm truly honoured to have not one but two poems in!

I'll post up a link once they're published, but for now I'll leave you to look out of your window and get excited about Christmas.

Much love

Ray x

15.09.11

2011-09-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

the platform is a pebble’s width from the sand,
a wash of frothy sea my morning sound.
I smell salt, and
broken shells – ripe, bursting seaweed
and
newspaper print.

the train slicks into view,
a gleaming rocket,
pregnant
with station-bought coffees and
station-bought toast in
damp paper bags.

the city is erupting;
drills shake my feet and
charity buckets shake themselves
and
the street smells like
someone has blown out a birthday candle.
Sweet:
coffee shops with morning pastries,
and pavement dust, and sour:
cigarette smoke blown into faces.

a craving for rain
to wash it all clean,
and a craving for home,
for air you can breathe.

Toe woe

2011-08-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

tom and jerry toe
ingrown woe
I need help getting in the bath
foot in plastic bag
feeling like a dag
it doesn't help by stifling a laugh

they cut away the nail
major pedi fail
elevation is the key to healing
the sofa is my friend
through a slow weekend
when all I'm looking at is the ceiling

iplayer daze
toe feels ablaze
sickly pallor growing on my cheeks
cream tea from my mum
I'll get a fat bum
recovery in four to six weeks.

Love song for The Alex

2011-08-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

I was seventeen,
my friend’s passport in my sweaty hands,
queuing outside for the promise of £1 beer.
It was in my lager days-
when Foster’s brought on burps
that I suppressed to make it look like I was enjoying it.

I would wear cut-off tights and plimsolls
before Primark started selling them,
and blazers when they were only meant for school.
I’d get in thinking
I got in, I got in, I got in,
waving goodbye through the window to those who’d been ID’d
and wishing they were with me.

I would stand,
with a Reef
(remember them? They were awful),
with Kara.
Kara was mental. They said she
drank Aftershock for breakfast
and she wanted us to be mental too.

We scrawled on toilet doors and
shoved empty glass bottles in comedy places;
pool table pockets, pot plants, holes in the wall.
We would hold back her blue streaked mullet
as she vomited in the loos,
before running for the last bus home.

Now, ten years on,
Sue Sylvester above the bar,
I look around at the squashy sofas
and vintage TVs
with a fondness,
like this is where I grew up, but with new people living here now.

I tell people this is the only pub in Southend that serves Irn Bru,
and for that reason alone it deserves your love.
It is Scream burgers and cups of tea,
home to Sundown;
a pub that loves poetry, pear cider, and pool.
Yoda lives upstairs,
downstairs: my sticky Converse memories.

I’ve got different tastes now;
lager has given way to Brother’s,
and the rituals start anew.
I hope it remains in ten years’ time,
when I will look at it with the fondness
of people now in their forties who
still call it ‘the Top Alex’.

I will watch with nostalgia at the
underagers,
and I will chuckle at their lager love.

I have a small and respectful umbrella

2011-02-27T03:29:00.000-08:00

I have a small and respectful umbrella;
a 1 pound,
children's
'bought in Battersea in a charity shop when it was
raining' umbrella,
a modest affair,
not like your banker's bank umbrellas taking over
HALF THE STREET,
not like those,
no not like those.
Not like the Barclays Corporate patio umbrellas
that pointy-shoed City boys wear
to detract from the fact that they've
got one in the first place,
Not like the oversized Radley ones
sported by Elizabeth Arden commuters,
to match their Radley bag,
Radley purse,
Radley fucking pantyliners,
no not like those.
Rain at 8.45am in the City is a minefield;
dodging spokes at every step;
walking the tightrope curb,
watch your side for Boris bikes
and MIND THE BROLLIES:
duck under the Deloitte,
rise over the Radisson Edwardian,
the corporate umbrellas sneering at my
children's charity special.
I'm not on a brolly power trip,
it's functional, not weaponry,
I have a small and respectful umbrella:
your pub garden capitalist brolly ain't got nothin' on me.

Hello! waves

2011-02-18T05:43:00.001-08:00

Hello, poetry pickers.

Firstly I'd like to apologise for the lack of entries lately; a new job, very slow home-computer and a dismal lack of reading have all contributed to my not having written very much lately.

That's not to say I've been lacking creatively; I'm working on a children's book idea and planning creative writing workshops along with helping run Sundown Arts, so don't you be sayin' I'm lazy...

Anyway I'd like to thank the very lovely Jessica or 'Writer's Helper' as you may know her as, for nominating my blog as a stylish one. It's fitting considering Jessica inspired me to get a blog and 'pimp' it in the first place!

Take a look at her lovely blog, and we can all join hands and sing... ;-)

Be cool, kids. I'll be back.

R x

Blue Monday

2011-01-17T04:55:00.000-08:00

Today is apparently the most depressing day of the year. Not so, say I.

You will try to squash us,
by tempting deprived tastebuds with
golden caramel chocolates and
leftover Christmas panettone,
goading our unrealistic resolutions to
give up a food group.
You will pour rain, cold and unrelenting
on coats bought in the sales and
soak our trouser hems with a smile on your face.
You will cloud the sky with doubt,
and make us feel our lowest when
a week ago we were aglow with newness,
a rosy cocoon of promise and wellbeing.
We will fight you, though
with endless cups of steaming tea,
and pull out our emergency store of
carrots and crackers;
you will lead us not into temptation.
We will brandish overpriced umbrellas and
smile against the lashing rain as we listen
to our new records bought as gifts,
in our new earphones, bought as presents,
as you try to smite us.
We will make broad, bubbling vats of
warming stews and casseroles,
using healthy ingredients and
food to fight off colds.
We will not let you defeat us,
we will think of brightness, beauty, and truth
and be yellows, purples, lime greens
and look for other days
amidst your blue, blue, blue,
Blue Monday.

January, early morning

2011-01-13T05:41:00.000-08:00

A platform, 7am.
Umbrellas flap like batwings,
shaken down towards the floor
in sodden, sinewy shame.

The tide is glugging in,
unseen and thick,
burbling muddy promises.

A dog barks, and our necks crane
to see if it's loose on the tracks.
The noise travels on the wind,
and we hear
its source; the darkened beach.

A peninsular blinks and twinkles,
a whole other county getting ready for the day.
Enormous ships slice towards
the mouth of the North Sea, more
lights,
and lowly fog horn sounds.

Cargo, bright yellow drums; we see them from
the shore,
the only ones escaping.
We are city-bound,
and I stand awaiting the sleek,
unwanted train,
wishing I was on any ship,

heading out to sea.

Apple picking

2011-01-07T05:54:00.000-08:00

Our faces are rosy apples,
cold blooming blush on our cheeks
as we crunch our way to the lower branches.
They hang heavy, bowed,
leaning their fruit our way.
Your feet sink into wormy windfalls,
and we make gurning faces
at the slime.
I pick one off the tree and bite,
crisp skin bursting
and tart, too-early flesh tingling my tongue.
You lean and take a bite,
mouth smiling at the sourness,
and we look up at the chiller cabinet sky.
Your eyes are saucers and
my face feels numb
as we fill paper bags with our finds.
Your phone vibrates in your pocket
and we are hurtled back to real-time,
to the real world,
shattering our illusion of centuries past.
I felt like we were in a Christina Rosetti poem;
you said Anne of Green Gables.
You ignore your phone and take my hand,
the other swinging apples in our bag.
We pad our way home,
talking of crumbles and maybe jam.

This poem was originally posted on Helium.com

Shawshank moment

2010-12-17T04:29:00.000-08:00

Beneath a gherkin shadow,
is a building site of yellow jackets and
giant cement mixers tumbling their churning tummies.
Tower cranes swing chains that
slip like eels through the cold air,
unoiled hinges singing their sad song
calling out in a minor key
as far as the Square Mile can see.
Sharp-suited City boys look up, searching
for a source of this mournful call;
Boris bikes clunk to a pale blue halt,
their riders joining the collective gaze
and everybody stops for a Shawshank moment.
A police officer, biceps swelling under
regulation navy blue streaks out of a health food shop,
chocolate button eyes flicking up to the sky
as he hears the tower-crane-song.
His arms are full of plastic packets of nuts;
cashew, brazils, almonds and dried apricots.
He wrenches open a police van door,
sliding open my curiosity and throwing
packs of health snacks to his officer friends.
The van pulls away,
the tower crane cranks to a halt
and the song is done,
everyone moves on,
smartphones are whipped out as people
remember their business
and we keep on keeping on.

Win the cover

2010-12-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

Back in the Autumn, before the weather dipped and we were sauntering about in light jackets, I entered a competition from Metro newspaper to literally Win the Cover: have your message posted on the front cover of the newspaper for everyone to see.

Sadly I did not win (and am surprisingly un-bitter) but here is what I submitted, along with super-duper illustrator and all-round girl wonder Laura Barnard.

Who knows, we may do something with it in the future, but thought you might like to have a nosey.

Happy Christmas to you all x x x

Scrabble in Millie's cafe

2010-10-17T03:39:00.000-07:00

You just added 'life' to 'boats'
and the Scottish cafe owner is getting involved
with where I put my 'Q'.
We drink green tea with peppermint
and eye up the cheeses. A baby cries,
bashing a plastic plate that drills into our skulls
and her older sister spills a milkshake.
We tut at children let loose in cafes
and get back to our game.
Hungover teenage girls troupe in,
all big woolly scarfs and ordering coffee,
talking about who they kissed,
and who vommed last night.
You win, 236 points to 195,
so we shake hands, fair and square.
We settle up,
treat ourselves to 20p barley sugar lollies
and walk home with collars up
with goat's cheese in a paper bag.
When we get home you will cook
Nigel Slater's butterbean-stuffed-tomatoes
and I will read the papers on the sofa
with my legs crossed and a glass of juice,
and think about my Scrabble loss.
I make it my mission to beat you next time.

A room of one's own

2010-09-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem when I was very fortunate to be given a space to write for a week in the glorious Chalkwell Hall, Southend-on-Sea, which has been lovingly renovated by Metal Culture. For more information visit www.metalculture.com.

Bare feet on floorboards,
a room of one’s own.
I look out and glimpse the estuary,
all blue and brown and glitter lines
peppered with coloured boats and
half-butterfly windsurfers.
I hear peacock cries,
a dog barking,
the click and crack of
expanding plastic guttering
in the heat.
I hear the tap of my keyboard,
the stirring of tea,
and rustle of papers on the breeze.
I watch the solar panels lie like teenagers
sunbathing on the roof,
catching rays, faces up to the sun.
There is peace
and real quiet
and a coolness from
exposed plaster walls.
Flies buzz around compost towers,
and the trees that envelope the house
whisper and sigh.
I strain to hear ghosts of the past
padding on floors
and in the skirting boards,
telling me eighteenth century secrets.
The sleek Aga stands
head of the house,
sash windows a love-letter
to the past.
Turbines sleekly coil,
winking out to sea;
a reconstructed past,
a new life for old walls,
a labour of love.

Bugged: good news!

2010-09-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

Some exciting news: thanks to the Bugged project I will be having one of my poems, a previously unseen piece entitled Sonny, published in an anthology of overheard quotes turned into creative writing.

For more information on the project, see www.buggedblog.wordpress.com or follow their nosey asses on www.twitter.com/buggedproject.

Thanks to Bugged and Jo Bell, the anthology will be published in October. Other writers include my current favourite new author Jenn Ashworth alongside heavyweight names such as Stuart Maconie. Wahey.

Ray x

PS. Also, credit to my Mum for telling me from a young age to write down what I overheard people say in the street. They teach that stuff on creative writing courses now, and I should know.

High speed rain

2010-08-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

The platforms are flooded.
The train windows steam with
commuter breath;
I draw a face.
Someone is talking on their mobile;
his daughter left home last night,
packed a suitcase,
went over to Dean’s.
She's always been independent, he says,
Too f*cking independent if you ask me.
She’s coming over tonight, he says,
so we can
iron out our differences.
I watch a cyclist
curving arcs of rain from under her wheels
as she charts the pavement
by the swollen canal.
Another train passes the other way,
sounding its horn,
making everybody jump.
I jump.
The man on the phone says,
F*cking ‘ell, and carries on.
Streaks of high speed rain claw
their sodden fingers across my window
in diagonal lines.
The sky is a purpling bruise,
whacked by the back of August’s hand.
I watch the cows standing up,
putting up with it all,
the ambulances flashing on the flyover,
and the fields as green as spring.

Profile on One Stop Poetry

2010-07-18T13:02:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Pete at One Stop Poetry, the new online celebration of poetry, for profiling me this weekend. A top chap, a top site, and a top compliment.

Have a look at the site and enjoy the poems on offer:

http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/2010/07/pda-by-ray-morgan.html

Thanks!

Ray x

A balcony, brandy, and a family holiday in Corfu age 17.

2010-07-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

A balcony is morning;
a breakfast of torn fresh white bread, with sesame
and cream cheese. Jarred jam of
forest fruits bleeding purple and hitting
sweet and sour notes.
We walk over the hill behind our apartment,
and try to remember the lyrics to 'Colorado'
by Manassas. Skinny cats dart
out of bushes, slinky and streetwise.
We swim. Pine needles fall like soft pins
around the pool and we think about
cider, and feta cheese.
There is the clink of china outside
in hot sun, and
the ruffle of napkins.
A balcony is drying swimwear,
halter-necks swaying in a
warm breeze,
my childhood swimming towel slumped
over a railing, faded tutti-frutti colours.
We fizz local brandy, Metaxa,
with cheap lemonade in self-catering cups,
and watch the sun winch down the sky,
a bold orange sinking,
letting out soft pink veins that swarm in the clouds.
Dad and I play a game of guessing song intros,
while Mum reads. She is cool
and beautiful
in a tie-dye sarong and her arms
are nut-brown from the day.
A balcony is getting ready for our evening meal;
we have picked a restaurant with friendly waiting staff,
who give us free kumquat liqueur;
a kindness we are not used to.
We get changed, Metaxa swilling in our
hot, easy heads,
and I decide against jewellery because it is
just
too
hot.
The drying towels wave us goodbye
as we track the pathway down the hill,
side-stepping squashy fallen fruit
and laughing at something Dad said
about a fig.
I already know I want a cool, crisp Amstel lager
which they will give to me in a girly, stemmed glass,
my Dad a pint.
Mum will have wine,
and I will not yet understand why. Wine is still vinegar
to my teenage tastes.
Evening food smells rise like steam off tar
and beckon us into gazebo gardens.
We push on,
looking in a window at a bracelet
we will buy for my sister,
then take our seats with growly tummies,
ready for the local catch.

Seasoning.

2010-07-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Something about a hot, sticky
August afternoon,
makes an ice-craving witch of me.
Something about a still,
warm night,
that urges my limbs towards the freezer.
An ice cube,
melting its hard lines as it meets
lotion-slippery skin,
or a plastic picnic ice-pack
seamed hard against a leg.
I wish it was winter.
Take away your treacle nights
and give me hoar-frost,
rimey windows and the
crunch of a walk home.
Cups of tea are lost
in fogged days,
steam curling into the atmosphere
and beading our top lips.
We walk through cushioned streets,
buffeted by clammy pockets of air
like fenders on the sides of boats.
December days are clearer,
like the sound of a bell
with air so crisp
you can tap it like a pane of glass.
Here we are wading,
ears plugged with cotton wool,
sweat a second skin.
Trees, shed your leaves,
and days, race towards the autumn term.
We will sharpen pencils
and dig out full-length trousers
and put our feet away.

Ink

2010-06-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up today with a craving for ink.
I can remember the rush,
the excited thrill;
you got like a parent all
creased brows and motherly concern.
I was wary too, and wondered if the
parade of framed safety certificates were genuine.
I showed her what font I wanted
and she traced the image off a screen.
I was a human canvas.
My bum rustled on the plastic sheet and
I had sweaty backs-of-knees.
The needle was tiny,
obscured by the Terminator-style gun,
and I felt well 'ard like
this was really dangerous and
I could take any pain.
She was wearing blue latex gloves
and I idly though of the dentist,
although there were no
Where's Wally? posters here.
It scratched, as she wrote
and wiped
and scored and wiped
and wrote some more.
Your eyes were full of worry;
you mouthed "Are you ok?"
and I nodded, dizzy on fun.
I stared at it all happening,
and then it was over.
Anti-bacterial wipes,
and my arm bound in clingfilm.
Masking tape pulled at the
summer-tinged arm hairs,
and I looked at it
like you would a newborn.
Cash in hand,
then out into the world,
rebranded;
Me and you drank pints of ale,
and Naomi cut a glow stick in two,
flicking our clothes with the fluorescent insides.
We got the train home
and I slept under my coat,
til it was our stop.
The next day I felt like a new person.
I'm ready to feel that again.

Help

2010-06-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

I noticed you before you spoke;
two tanned hands with liver-spots,
clutching an enormous suitcase on wheels.
Your pearls were classic,
your shoes sensible.
I wondered where you had been.
The tannoy ding-donged
to tell us we were now approaching Chalkwell;
please mind the gap when getting off the train
at the next station.
I saw you, uneasy, as the train rocked
and I knew I would help you.
You looked at me and said,
peeking round men's besuited arms,
"Will you help me, love?"
I said of course. We smiled.
Then a man coughed so loudly that you jumped.
We rolled into the station and you clutched my elbow,
like I did to my mother
in supermarkets, as a child.
The train stopped. I pushed the flashing button
and lugged your giant suitcase down the step.
You creaked your way on to the platform,
and I held out my arm for you. You said,
"Thank you, love," and I had you on one arm
and your suitcase in the other.
We were driftwood in a sea of suits.
The staircase was a mountain
that we scaled together,
a three,
your suitcase, you and me.

Ink, Sweat and Tears

2010-06-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mr. Charles Christian for publishing my poem Twice-Baked Potatoes on his wonderful online magazine:

http://ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com/blog

:o)

Ray x

Biscuits for Breakfast

2010-06-10T02:54:00.000-07:00

It is morning
and I am seven years old.
Saturdays are better than Sundays,
because on Sundays Dad gets up early,
to prepare the chicken.
He hauls it, buttered and bare
into the medieval chicken brick
which weighs heavy on the oven shelves,
and we wake to roasting smells.
Saturdays, we sleep in.
My sister sleeps through hurricanes,
and Mum and Dad do not stir.
I wake up and get bored.
I try to comb my hair into a perfect ponytail,
no bumps, just smooth,
but it never works and I throw the comb
at my pile of toys.
I sneak downstairs.
You have to walk on the sides of the steps
so they do not creak.
I try not to look out of the front door window
in case of monsters.
I creep into the kitchen,
grab three malted milk biscuits
and sit under the dining room table,
laying the biscuits on the foot rest.
It is raining outside,
and blobs of silver are pinging off dark branches.
There is not a sound in the house,
but the sheen of falling rain on windows
and the crunch of my biscuits.
I go back upstairs,
slink into bed (it's still warm)
and curl down with my Strawberry ted
and wait for sounds.
Dad gets up, puts on his brown dressing gown,
and in the doorway signals a letter 'T' with his hands.
I nod, and wait for him to bring the tea tray upstairs.
I hear Mum say "Lovely" and the clink of cup and saucer.
Dad brings tea to me, and a sneaky malted milk.
"Don't tell Mum," he whispers, and walks off to make toast.
I sting with shame,
and eat the biscuit anyway.

Love song for home

2010-06-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

It isn't about the mud we trod into the carpet
on the day we moved in,
or our landlord leaving a
greasy pan in the oven
and it filling the flat with smoke.
It isn't about the time we went out to
Chris's party, and came home to find
the lounge floor flooded from our
leaking leaded lights.
It isn't about the boiler breaking
on your thirtieth birthday,
or when the front door got jammed
and I missed my train.
It isn't about the bumpy floorboards that
make your guitar jump and go
"ca-dunnn!" every time we walk past,
or our downstairs neighbours getting home drunk
without any keys
and vomiting underneath our bedroom window.
It isn't about those things.
It's about the late evening light off the water
streaming into the lounge, all creams and egg-yolk-yellows.
It's about our to-die-for upstairs neighbours
and their show-cat, and their pina coladas.
It's about you painting shelves with trees, and
serving dinner through the hatch like Samantha from Bewitched.
It's about our June tomato plants that are
weighed heavy with their fuzzy green marbles of promise.
It's about the party we had, where we woke up in our tights
with friend's children's pyjama-ed feet around our heads.
It's about coming home and looking up at you,
waving at me.
It's about our estuary view,
and those A-Team posters we found in that second hand shop,
and your grandad's armchair
and my gran's sofa.
It's about me and you
and our walls.

Ursula and Minnie

2010-06-07T04:35:00.000-07:00

This is me getting into the Bugged idea before it goes live on 1st July...first line overheard London SW10.

“Darling if you want café you are going to have to beHAVE.”
Ursula is pushed out of the large front door.
Her pigtails swing, defiant.
Why can’t Mummy take her to school?
Because Mummy is BUSY.
A stamped foot can achieve nothing anymore,
Ursula thinks, as Minnie tries to grab
her tiny white arm which
bites sharply away.
Mummy loves Minnie because Minnie
does everything.
Minnie is not good at English,
but she runs the house like a
smoothly oiled wheel.
Ursula hates Minnie because Minnie
is doing Mummy’s job of being Mummy.
Mummy is always at the dining table,
at sea,
picking through islands of paper
and avoiding the sharks.
Ursula is given grown-up promises, like
being allowed a croissant before school,
or a fluffy cafe au lait to the envy of her friends.
Her patent T-bar size twos slide
on the restored 1920s herringbone tiled path,
inelegantly trying to stand their ground.
It doesn’t work; Minnie is tiny but
surprisingly strong
and Ursula drags her feet for a full thirty seconds
before forgetting why she was cross.

For the homies.

2010-06-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hello!

*waves*

This isn't a poetry post. If you hadn't already guessed...

...this is just to say thank you for reading my blog. I really appreciate that in a busy world people might not have time to read my poems, but I have written 26 or so poems this year and would love to know what people think. I'd really like some constructive criticism (no "It's just shite!" please...) so if you have time (or are bored on a train and have a portable internetty device for example) I would love to know your thoughts.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the sun. I'll be in the shade, reading, sweating in a woollen cardigan, pretending it is still winter.

;o)

Ray x

Bugged

2010-06-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends :o)

Thanks to the lovely Jo Bell and her call for 'overheard' writing on Facebook, one of my poems is being used on the brilliant BUGGED website (http://buggedblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/hello-world/).

Bugged is a new writing project encouraging creative eavesdropping to get your writerly juices flowing. My example is an overheard conversation from a London to Essex train; oddly a regular source of much inspiration for me! (But then I do spend 2 hours a day on those trains...)

Thanks to Jo and Bugged - do check out the website as this is a really cool project.

R x

Two of hearts

2010-05-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

I found a playing card at the end of our road;
the two of hearts.
I stoop and pocket it,
smiling because I know you like it
when I tell you I've found a playing card,
because you always say I
find the best things
like that teddy-bear still life greetings card
from a Maureen to a Doris,
that now nestles in your scrapbook.
Or the child's picture of a boat
with scruffy stick men family members sailing,
and a crayoned "I love my Mum".
I am also smiling because me
finding playing cards
reminds you of the Jack Berger episodes of
Sex and the City, and you always hated his
character and preferred him in Office Space.
We talk about this often.
I think about the fluffy sentimentality
of finding the two of hearts
but how fitting it seems to me as
we sail ourselves, in our second year.
You aren't a fan of hearts or
obvious romanticism,
you prefer to be punk rock about
these things.
Do you remember when you
crossed out the printed hearts on those pink post-it notes?
And put "pretend these are bananas" instead?
I would rather have a punk rock romantic than a
Clinton Cards bear,
so it works out well.
In our world is a warm weightlessness,
of evenings in and shared pints and
laughing really, really hard and watching Corrie and
making up recipes and going out for pineapple smoothies
and you talking to the window plants
and me doing my Shane Meadows accents.
I will put this playing card on our wall
and you can call me a soppy wanker if you like.

A love affair

2010-05-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

You coddle me on mornings when ice sheens the windows,
and I return the favour with my hold.
I press your delicate, porcelain form to my face and
warm cheeks and eye sockets with your caress.
We are one.
I fell in love with you when I was small,
when chubby hands clutched Tommy Tippee feeding cups
and squidged soggy Rich Tea biscuits with pressing fingers.
We were together always;
you knew me inside and out.
And call me a cliche but after twenty years of soothing
you always sweeten up my day.
You are always a hit with the parents, the grandparents,
who respond well to your liquid charm.
You fit in anywhere:
the Ritz, the doctor's waiting room, a fast train,
a greasy spoon.
If we ever meet abroad,
things are not the same. You are not well-suited
in a sticky climate. I'm okay with this:
your temperament suits mine.
We can while away hours on British soil and
toast our love.

Pica

2010-05-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

I grate the tips of my teeth
along a hard, fine, powdered line,
a solid tube of white;
this is the cigarette that ghosts smoke.
My teeth aren't as white as this,
but maybe they will be influenced.
My stomach growls with envy for blackboards
and hopscotch pavements
and I find myself standing in post office queues
with three packs of my very own candy sticks
that children should have snatched out of
wondering hands.
You might think you understand a craving
when you think of a chilled glass
of white wine on a Friday night,
or you think about your lover's earlobe
taunting you to bite it.
But you do not understand how my
stomach yearns for these
bitter sticks of compact dust.

I want to draw around us,
a crime scene-line embrace,
so we cannot distinguish where I end
and you begin.
Call me magpie,
I will consume this unfood
and when my hunger is slaked
I will white your face with chalk.

Fitting

2010-05-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for a writing competition where the theme was 'Bust'. It didn't make it, but here it is:

You will methodically park your car
in your designated space,
you will straighten up
your name badge
and you will sheen your fringe with hairspray.
You will glide into your department:
sensible shoes on shiny floor,
greet Dora the cleaning lady as
she sways the mop in your wake.
You will hang up your frumpy handbag
in the Heat-magazine strewn staffroom
and make your way
to the fitting room.
They tumble in
like dropped peppercorns,
a steady flow throughout the day.
They are nervous,
just like you.
They have gone their adult lives
thinking they are a 34B.
You will tell them
with the pride of a mother at sport's day
that they are a 36E or
Double D.
You will tighten their straps
and delicately avoid
their lightly sweating backs
and recommend a tshirt bra,
or plunge for dramatic effect.
You will wave them on their way,
but they will not see you
as you
watch the spring in their feet
as they move from the B stand to higher.
You will remember them
on your drive home that day,
and you will hold them in your mind.

A morning cigarette while revising for A Levels

2010-05-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

She thinks she lives for her first cigarette of the day.
A pair of cotton pyjamas,
Christmas-present slippers,
the milkiest of teas.
Her ample rear is perching
on a damp patio slab,
her glasses slightly askew
with the morning hours.
She worries briefly
about clouding the new neighbours' washing
with her smoke.
She remembers her mother mentioning
the man next door is a vicar.
She wonders if they are allowed to smoke.
She hears the other neighbour shuffling,
filling a watering can,
as she sends her clouds like thoughts
over the wall.
She draws it in,
fooling herself into thinking
she needs this. The tea is gulped -
frog-like swallows,
with nicotine fingers
cupping the cooling mug.
She remembers the first cigarette she smoked:
stolen from a school play props table
with furtive, curious hands.
Now she lives in a blue, cartoon cloud,
with pathetic unpopular girls
sitting with her between lessons
and wishing they had the guts to smoke too.
Her mother smokes,
but she must never know.
Our girl will hang out of bathroom windows
until she is thirty if she has to.
She will never steal her mother's supplies
as her love of detective dramas
has made her a sleuth of sorts and she
would absolutely know.
The girl stubs it out between
patio cracks and
slides the butt underneath the fence.
Let that fence never be knocked down.

Lunch.

2010-05-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

My health kick
has begun.
Four weddings this year
(no Hugh Grant jokes please)
and I have a stunning
strapless
cinch-waisted
tulip-hemmed dress
to squeeze into by summer.
My usual lunch of hearty soups
and tiger bread
is replaced by celery
radishes,
cherry toms.
One wholemeal pitta
and an apple to follow,
good lord I'm being good.
But it's this crunch of
ice-cold salad
that makes me think of you.
You used to keep radishes in
old Vitalite tubs
in your heaving, visitor-friendly fridge,
and I would pop them in
to my mouth like sweets.
Rachel Radish,
everyone called me.
Well guess what, folks?
She's back.
A squirt of
Be Good To Yourself salad cream
and I am back at your dining table,
Grandma,
with one of your classic lunches.
Cheeses, hams, rolls, a basket full of crisps.
My sister and I would fight over
the last Smokey Bacon.
Grandad would ask for the ham,
and my small arms would wave
the heavy plate towards him.
You would stand an army of dressings,
condiments and sauces
and I would test my young tastebuds
with honey and mustard,
or blue cheese.
There would be pie or cheesecake for afters,
after you hovered around the table
making sure everyone ate but you -
we would have all nearly finished
as you cut a tomato in two and
buttered a piece of bread.
I would love one of your lunches now.

Estuary

2010-05-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

The estuary is made up of lines.
Seams of pale blue
and brown are being
pecked by wading birds,
with Tim Burton branches
for legs and
eager, striving necks.
Kent is staring at us,
all giraffe pylons and
squat gasometers like
tubby cans of paint.
The pier is our offering:
stretched out,
a laid-down Eiffel Tower
in a dirge of water and sand,
limpets adorning
each rusted girder.
Pompeii crab claws are jammed
in one last reach for air
and someone's welly
is forever lodged in molasses mud.
The streaks of sea glitter
and shine like mirrorball specks,
and they gurgle with the
creeping tide.
A dog barks,
four seagulls wheel,
the boats are being pushed back round
to face us.

Minus9Squared

2010-05-11T05:15:00.001-07:00

A poem of mine has been featured in Issue 2 of the wonderful Minus9Squared magazine:

http://issuu.com/minus9squared/docs/issue_2_-_memory

Many thanks to Anna Hayes for putting my poem 'Grandad' online!

Ray x

Home

2010-05-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

Home means
getting a seat facing forwards and
a fully-charged iPod battery
and only a few pages left
of my tattered paperback,
and me thinking about how
much I enjoy watching people's faces
on trains
as they near the end of their books;
are they sad?
relieved?
are they smiling or frustrated
or do they do what I do
and contentedly sigh and go back
through the beginning pages
to make it all make sense?
I like looking out at the pastures
between Upminster and Laindon or
between Pitsea and Benfleet or
just by Hadleigh castle,
standing strong,
and watch the speeding flashes
of sunshine rape fields, like
steamrollered sherbet lemons.
I watch cows lying down,
standing up,
swishing tails,
and cyclists on the sea wall
rumbling along on the tufty grass.
There are phone calls
approaching Canvey Island
arranging pick-ups
takeaways and
"Have you remembered to drop the dvds off?"
and I uncross my numb legs
and stretch like a languishing cat.
People drop off,
that tired hometime dullness in their eyes
and Evening Standards drift
between different pairs of hands
and I think about cold germs and
just peer at headlines over
shoulder pads instead.
I jump off at Chalkwell,
climb the stairs,
call you even though I will be there in
six minutes.
I kick stones along the pavement
keeping an eye out for good ones.
I walk up our garden path and
sometimes I hear Chet Baker
or the Sex Pistols drifting out,
depending on your mood and
sometimes I can smell garlic
and I turn the key with the weird
90s acid faces plastic cap on
and I climb more stairs and that,
that's what home means, actually.
You tell me what's for tea.

Coming second

2010-05-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning,
lie-in,
bliss.
Your mum dropped The Guardian
through the door,
we've got plenty of milk for
pots of tea
and maybe I'll make
those Jamie Oliver pancakes,
fluffy and round
and crying out for
crispy bacon.
I waft about the flat
in domestic bliss,
angle for a pancake kiss,
start wittering
about what to do today.
I have a habit
of talking to you while
my head is in the fridge or
while I flush the toilet or
while you are making the bed
and this time I am saying
"Have you watered the tomato plants or shall I?"
But I get no reply.
I remember what day it is.
Saturday:
the day your other lover
comes round.
You suddenly ignore me,
favour not me, but him.
You do not reply to my chatter,
or cut me off and tell me
how funny he is;
"Read this! Isn't it FUNNY?"
I scowl.
You interject my comments
as you clutch him in your greedy hands.
He lies, sanguine,
firmly in your hold,
staring face-out at me,
and taunting me to fight.
I hate him.
I cannot compete with him.
He is your favourite,
your weakness,
the best around, and
I wander out of rooms
with a teenage frown.
You were mine until ten minutes ago
when he slinked his way
into our lives,
slipped between the sheets
and turned me out.

Guardian Guide,
you stole her heart.
I wish I had the courage
to tear you apart.

The first day of spring where a coat is not needed

2010-04-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

Plimsoll feet skiffle
through littered
blossom as it falls,
catching in hairstyles
and sneaking into pockets.
Leaves whisper softly,
warmly,
a calmer way of speaking
than when fending off cold.
Bare arms steady themselves
and the gold hairs ruffle,
unsure of what to do without goosebumps.
Wysteria, warmed by sun
is leaning from a whitewashed wall,
emanating its sweetshop smell,
all Monet lilacs and
looking like grapes.
Sounds occur,
like small aircraft buzzing through
the blue,
or children in a playground
and you wonder whether
you hear them at all in winter.
The air is soft
like apricots
and you keep your jacket
tucked under your arm.

Pygmy Giant

2010-04-28T03:13:00.001-07:00

Hello folks,

I have just had a poem of mine, 'Wallpaper', published on the delightful Pygmy Giant. Check it out!

http://thepygmygiant.wordpress.com/

Many thanks to TPG for putting it up :)

Ray x

Twice-baked potatoes

2010-04-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

I come home and
you are making
twice-baked potatoes and
it smells
so homely and
so wholesome and
you turn round and
wipe
your hands on your trousers and
we have a potato-scented kiss and
we pour red wine and
I slosh it about a bit and
pretend to be like Oz Clarke
or something and
you are laughing and
we sit and
eat and
agree how annoying it is when
Coronation Street isn't on because
of the football and
then there's cups of tea and
biscuits from the christmas tin
we still haven't put away yet and
at night when you're sleeping and
I'm awake for once and
I can hear foxes outside our window
shuffling through our rubbish
so it makes me think there's someone out there
I watch you so close to
make sure you are breathing and
I touch you on the side because
I know you find that comforting and
you stir, and
I feel safe again and
the foxes get bored as we never really
throw any food out do we?
I drift into sleep
while the night freight trains
skim past our window
with their smooth warning sound that
rattles the walls.

P.D.A.

2010-04-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

There is a cello on the Jubilee line.
He is standing tall,
chest puffed out,
all smooth and smarmy,
all Nigel Havers, all
Yes,
I'm a cello.
A small child looks up with saucer eyes
at the petite woman holding
him.
She caresses his smooth,
black
Batman-chested
case of a body,
all muscles and brawn.
People look away,
stare into their paperbacks,
look intently at their fingernails
on the grimy handrails
or notice themselves in the
opposite windows.
The cello woman sways,
her floral dress flutters flirtily,
she sways
and gives her body into him.
Above the clatter and din
of the 8.48 from Canning Town
you'd swear you could hear the
low
grumbling
twang
of his strings.

The paper boy who never grew up

2010-04-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Willy was a paper boy.
He started off at 13 years
so he could buy an Atari
and by the time he’d saved up
no-one had Ataris anymore but
he could escape in his room
and be somebody else.
He’s pushing 35 now
and his mum calls from her
threadbare chair,
up the stairs
“You won’t ‘ave any friends Willy.’
He wants to save up for a
Nintendo Wii
and make friends with people
so they can come round and
play tennis and
bowling and
baseball
like they do on the adverts.
But she’s right,
and it started at school when
he didn’t think to say
‘The name’s Bill’ or
‘Will’ or
anything,
and he didn’t understand why
they were calling him Dick all the time,
he just did not understand.
He’s still delivering papers,
up early,
out before the sun,
and he trips the light confused
and he knows he could have more
but the truth is he is
frightened.
He keeps on delivering on,
his giant yellow bag
causing permanent slouching
and a series of pressure headaches
but he keeps on,
posting papers like,
like only he knows how.
At 7.34 every morning
he passes a girl,
every day,
every day for two years,
she must be
getting a regular bus or something
and she decided to smile at him today
and Willy,
he doesn't know he isn’t doing the right thing
and his mum will never get out of that chair now,
and he will never find those friends,
but Willy was never
told right from wrong.

Fat Quarter

2010-04-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

A non-poetic update from me:

I have just had a short article published on the gorgeous website Fat Quarter -

http://www.fat-quarter.co.uk/archives/1192

I hope you enjoy it. Have a look around the rest of the website too, for it is a place of wonder and awesomeness.

Big thanks to the very lovely Katie Allen @ Fat Quarter too for letting me say my piece :o)

Ray x

Morgan Ray, wallpaper

2010-03-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

Feed my ego, Google, and
report back to me
at the end of each day
just how many people are reading my words:
My small, insignificant words.
Analytics reports show
that during the week beginning 22nd March 2010
I had 42 hits all sourced from Google searches.
My show-off heart flutters with pride.
People are GOOGLING ME.
They want to find me, source me, read me.
This continues to excite me.
This is what it is all about;
writing my words
so that people read them, like them,
respond to them.
I've still only got a small 15 followers
if we're following Blogger's own statistics,
but this is good news.
I decide to find out how they found me:
how do they google me?
'Ray Morgan poet, Southend on Sea?'
'Ray Morgan, wonder poet, inspiration to thousands?'
Ok I'm getting carried away.
The first one is Morgan Ray, wallpaper.
Ok, that's interesting.
I wrote a dark, quite depressing poem called Wallpaper.
How do people know about it?
I re-read it.
It's nothing spectacular.
I notice that an awful lot of people
have clicked their way to my blog
using these same search terms.
Hmm.
I try it myself.
Morgan Ray wallpaper.
Oh.
Morgan Ray is a...
porn star.
And people are looking for screen wallpaper,
screensavers,
downloadable
pictures.
I am a little deflated.
I am not a popular poet.
I am one wrong click away
from a busty MILF.
I hope they enjoyed one of the poems,
at least.

Sleepy Orange

2010-03-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Two of my poems, 'Mist' and 'New Years' Resolution Gone Wrong' have been published on the delightful website magazine Sleepy Orange.

Many thanks to the Sleepy Orange team; you can check out the link here:

http://sleepyorange.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/poetry-by-rachel-morgan/

Ray x

I promised

2010-03-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Pick your way
through the copse of second-hand clothes,
gloves and
camisoles like fallen leaves.
Undone laces
shrew away like
mouse tails,
burying themselves.
Cleave apart the trunks
of butter-soft leather,
fifteen suitcases or more
displaying some chaos.
Half-read books are teepee tents
fanned out and face-down,
spines bared
to a vulnerable sky
of scarf-swathed lamplights
and dusted bulbs.
I am not here,
my breadcrumb trail
of notebook leaves
and ticket stubs
makes barest clues
so sit awhile
on silken sheets of greenest moss.
Coat-hanger branches
muddle and knot,
bend the metal
to find your way back.
The half-drawn blind
suggests a sunset
and I promised you I would be home.
A clock lies on its side,
time stood still,
and you hold it in your hand
and you wait for me
and you wait for morning,
because I promised you I would be home.

Wallpaper

2010-03-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

http://thepygmygiant.wordpress.com/

Jacqueline

2010-02-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

Jacqueline can’t bear it
when people call her Jackie.
She wants you to remember
that her name looks and sounds
like lacquer,
like the very lacquer
which coats and crusts her golden hair,
a protective guard.
An irksome grandchild
once clambered up her
navy
sculpted
Roland Mouret
and tapped a grubby fist
on the rock-hard helmet hair.
Jacqueline grimaced.
He knew nothing about manners,
but then she knew nothing about children.
Her own had been raised
by soft-spoken
soft-haired nannies,
with Irish lilting tones
and a firm grip on nutrition.
Jacqueline was too busy
and streaked in front of them always
in a glossy blur,
their glamorous mother
who shouted at people of lower rank,
the under-10s included.
She didn’t feel the need to tell them
what she did for a living;
a firm ‘Mummy’s busy’
was enough to keep their curiosity at bay,
not knowing that eventually
that would push them away.
Jacqueline networks,
and always is adored.
She glides through rooms
and waves her hands
telling people what to do.
Her scent is thick, cloying,
an ageing smell
of tea-roses and something darker,
and she lives in constant fear
that someone will uncover
the history of madness in her family.
It lives behind her eyes
and the men whom she snared as lovers
are the only beings
who braved that icy grip
and know what it truly is
to be close to her.
This is something her children
gratefully never learned,
and now Jacqueline lives alone
ignoring letters from her lovers
and not answering the door
to her alienated grandchildren
and sips rosehip tea
and will always live to spurn.

Sweets

2010-02-24T06:16:00.000-08:00

I want Rainbow Drops,
sticks of Juicy Fruit,
Wham bars, Irn Bru bars,
and chalk-lolly lipsticks.
We are wearing your Mum's shoes,
her navy sling-back shoes
and clopping to the shops.
I'm not allowed to go
to the shops
on my own
so this is Really Exciting.
We've got handfuls of pennies,
and are doing impressions of
Victor Meldrew,
thinking we are hilarious.
It's sunny
but there's cold wind stinging our legs
bared in school summer dresses
and our feet in too-big shoes.
Mine have elastic straps
which are flapping round my ankles,
yours have one big leather buckle
which is clanking on the ground.
We are sporting plastic sunglasses
and spying from behind them,
laughing inexplicably at old ladies
who tut at us in return.
We really don't need the sugar rush
but here we go,
we are choosing,
20ps worth of fizzy cola bottles
making our mouths water,
stinging our lips with sugar like salt,
and you think you might have wrenched a filling out
with a penny apple chew.
The man in the shop is getting annoyed as we eat while we shop,
putting the wrappers in the cardboard bowl
so he knows what we've had:
stealing really isn't our thing,
it's what the tarty girls do
to make the boys like them
but all we really want
is just the sweets.
My mum comes to pick me up
and I don't want any dinner,
she asks me why and I say
"Oh I had some biscuits round at Jessie's house"
and hide the Wham bar wrapper
in my school dress pocket
in a sticky, sugary palm.

Us

2010-02-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

I am thinking
about all the things that I like
about you,
about us;
Like how you don't go on the Tube
so we get buses
or walk
and find weird pubs
and Dickensian street names
and see random celebrities
who would never have got on the Tube either.
I like remembering how excited you got
when you bought that Spiderman sleeping bag,
never mind that your legs were too long for it
so sleeping in it meant you were freezing cold,
but you loved the matching pillow that came with it
even though you thought the label on it
was a moth in the night.
Or how you get really competitive
when map-reading
'cause you know your way around a city street-finder
better than anyone I know.
I like thinking about
how you call yourself a slow reader
but what you do read
you take in and pore over,
and get really enthusiastic about
and read whole passages out to me.
I like how you adore the Saturday paper,
and read out every item you find interesting,
whizzing through the supplements
while I am still digesting my first article.
I like how happy films make you,
and how you know all about the directors
and what they worked on in the past,
how you guess the Bafta and Oscar winners
and are almost always right.
I like how we can have involved discussions
about the characters on Coronation Street
as though we live there too
and know them all intimately.
I like how you love classy older women
like Lauren Bacall, Meryl Streep, Eileen Atkins.
I like how good you are at accents
and that we can have a whole phone conversation
in pseudo-Russian.
I like how you hate Valentine's
and that you would prefer to be romantic
on any other day.
I like how you always, always laugh
at the way tiny dogs' legs walk
and that I can see it coming
when a terrier approaches.
I like that you are unique,
a one-off.
And
I like that you like me too.

Ode to Ms. W.

2010-02-18T05:23:00.000-08:00

Denounce my faith,
forget everything.
Give up
on what we fought for.
Embrace my pastel-coloured, italic-font
paperback stereotype,
become that weakling heroine
who waits by the phone
and dots her ‘i’s with little hearts.
I will buy into tummy-slimming pants
and pinch my feet in heels
I will FORGET
about ordering a beer.
Make ‘his’ dinner every night,
assume every ‘she’ has a ‘he’.
Give up on nagging, girls,
give up on nagging him to pick up his dirty socks
AND PICK THE FUCKERS UP YOURSELVES.
This is my doctrine,
These are the new ‘Rules’,
This is how we are going to roll.
Men across the nation
hurl their dirty left and right socks down
hollering
It finally happened!
Do this, fellas, and she will pick them up
every
single
time.
Top marks, Ms. W. Top marks.
Thank you for all you have done.
You walked into my office.

I wish I had thrown socks on the floor.

Commendation

2010-02-09T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Just a quick note to say that one of my poems has been commended in a 'Tiny Weeny Writing and Drawing' competition by Leaf Books.

The competition was to write a poem small enough to fit on a postage stamp and my haiku 'Stones' made the shortlist.

http://www.leafbooks.co.uk/New/For%20Writers/Previous%20Competitions.html#Tiny

Many thanks to Leaf Books!

Ray x

A note on being bored working in a seaside gift shop in 1999.

2010-02-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

Pick the lacy cobwebs
from the ‘Please ring for customer service’ bell.
Re-arrange the sympathy cards in colour order,
from blue through grey.
Raid the stockroom fridge;
Make cup-a-soups to fool
your growling stomach.
Suck Nutella fingers
straight from the jar.
Try on the wigs.
Re-stack the plastic champagne flutes
filled with yellow-ish wax gel
to make Millennium Champagne Candles,
£3.99, or 3 for £10.
Re-discover your obsessive
compulsion for alphabetical order.
Arrange the seaside sticks of rock
into pink,
striped,
pink-striped,
fruit,
peppermint,
bagged,
dummy-shaped.
Knock over a stand
of personalised Winnie the Pooh key rings
and put them all back.
Start with Abbie,
end with Zach.
Adjust the silver star ‘sprinkles’
on the black tablecloth
on the millennium table display
and add more party poppers.
Create a Subbuteo-style game
using glass nuggets (remember them?)
and packets of silica gel.
Display the mermaid figurines
in height order,
like marine suspects.
Shake all snow globes,
tap each captain’s bell with a fingernail,
straighten every fisherman book-end,
watch the lifebuoy clock.

Snow at 7am.

2010-01-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

The streetlight casts its amber eyes
over the Kendal mint cake snow,
compacted and snoozing under the glittered frost.
Fox footprints run away from me,
in dashing arcs and lines
telling me he had fun in the snow too.

I crunch towards the beach
where white chocolate buttons
are mindfully looking towards Kent.
The world is still sleeping,
breathing quiet mist
and singing a silent song.

The station is calling.
A train skims by,
untrustingly soft and hushed.
I walk underneath the streetlight
where it buzzes and clicks off,
as though solemnly obeying my cold mind.

A note.

2009-12-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I've never done a proper post on here before; I've always just popped my poems up without much else but I thought I'd just write a note to say thank you to everyone who has been reading my blog this year. I feel like it's been a very productive year for me and feel proud of my efforts. Considering this has been the first full year of my life working full-time I'm glad that I have found time to write 25 poems, run 13 Sundown events, performed my first ever paid gigs supporting Salena Godden and Jude Simpson, and started writing a novel! Ok the novel might only have a few hundred words written on occasional trains but it's a start.
2010 looks to be another exciting year (creatively): Il'l be running some poetry workshops between January and March for Women's Aid with fellow Sundown stalwart Jo Overfield, and we will be curating some spoken word and music events for the Union Chapel and The Tabernacle venues in London. So watch this space, or follow us at www.twitter.com/sundowntweets for more information!

So thanks again to those who are reading this: it's nice to put my poems out there.

Happy Christmas, readers.

Love,

Ray xXx

The P.E. GCSE That Never Was

2009-11-27T03:30:00.000-08:00

The punishment
for my
physical education
incapability
was to ban me from taking
my GCSE.
“Rachel it says here,”
Miss Hitch says with a flurry of papers,
“That you got UNGRADED
in your mock P.E. exam.
Would you like to tell me
just why that is?”
I kick my Doctor Marten shoes around
on the dusty floor.
“Erm,” I try,
searching the inner recesses of my brain.
She glares,
I go red.
“Go back to your classroom.”
She says it with such a bitter bite,
like I’ve been found doing something
utterly shameful in the locker room.

My classmates are brandishing As, Bs, Cs.
I slope about, pretending I don’t give a shit.
When, hang on a minute,
in reality,
actually,
I don’t give a shit.

My hairy-eared BFG form tutor takes me aside,
breathing sour coffee breath
we used to think was whisky,
and says
“We need to talk about your PE grade.”
So solemn,
so despaired.
What they decided
was that they didn’t want a fail
on their league tables,
so asked me if I wouldn’t mind
just
not taking the GCSE.

For two terms,
two hours a week,
when my friends donned their
scratchy PE knickers
with names sewn in red cotton,
I roamed the library
in search of new adventures.
“You will use this time
to complete your English coursework,”
they sternly chirped,
unaware I had already finished it.
(I was a bit of a goody two shoes, then.
Um, I am now as well.)

I scoured the shelves
for Nancy Mitford
and her sister Jessica,
tales of upper classes,
mad Uncle Matthew
and poor old Linda
in Love In a Cold Climate.
I fed on strange new terms like
“Balling the jack” from
Jack Kerouac,
ached to go on the road
and explore the unknown.
I found Holden Caulfield deeply irritating
and wished I knew what the fuss was all about.
I dived into the Dewey Decimal System,
filing my schoolfriend’s outside glares
away from view.
I devoured Jane Austen’s heroines,
tried Jane Eyre on for size,
wished that I knew someone as great
as Rob from High Fidelity.
I disappeared into Kate Atkinson’s
strange and hostile pet shop,
in Behind The Scenes At The Museum
and felt a burning desire to write.

This wasn't the staid and structured reading
of SATs papers and coursework,
the lack of choice on what we read
in class,
this was freedom at last.
I couldn’t have been more pleased
to shelve those hours of netball,
cold knees,
the shame at forgetting to shave your legs,
the out-of-breath heaving
and tennis racket bruises,
the sporty girls laughing,
me edging to the back
of the High Jump line.
Instead
I kept the reputation of
the school’s P.E. examinations intact
and found my own world
on the library mezzanine;
between the pages
I had come home.

Station Life.

2009-11-25T06:04:00.000-08:00

Based on Fenchurch Street Station.

The once-golden sheen
of hopeful charity collectors
shaking buckets
of dirty coppers,
invisible,
pulling on the strings
of hurried consciences.
The loneliness of
food concession workers,
one by one,
selling solo
Chat magazines,
pasties,
fruit Polos,
£2.95 disgraces of sandwiches.
The hostility one can feel
towards a so-called
tuna 'salad' sandwich
is remarkable,
eyes narrowing
at the three limp lettuce leaves
bruised and saddening.
The power play
of ticket barrier men,
who let through the mums
and buggies,
but tut and sigh
at those with a really big bag.
They wink at scraped-back city girls
in city heels
and cast frustrated eyes
over anyone over sixty.
Never has 'seek assistance'
been met with such dismay.
Stairs are carpeted
with Evening Standards,
Metros, Suns,
move up the steps
in swarms
don't look back,
don't fight the tide.
Crowds move
like those flocks of birds
that instinctively follow one another;
Fly towards Platform 3,
The train at this platform
Will call at Limehouse,
Benfleet,
and all stations to Shoeburyness.

Overheard

2009-11-17T05:14:00.000-08:00

One girl,
big gob,
One man,
fat tie
strike up chat
just like that
outside of West Ham.
"Where you gaan New Year?"
"Ah, mate, gaan up London."
"Nah!"
"Yeah mate. I know. What. a. touché ."
He drags out the words,
diction clicking,
tripping off his tongue.
She nods
sagely,
Sauvignon Blanc-addled brain thinking,
"Yeah,
New Year up London is well touché."
Touché, really?
Call me an
English lit, post-grad twat
but do you mean
a fucking cliché?
What exactly do you mean?
Small exchanges
between two strangers,
their bond
the London commute.
Alight at Benfleet:
Please mind the gap.
This station is Benfleet,
change here for bus links
to Canvey Island.

Mist

2009-11-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

I love it when there are
folded blankets of mist
hanging two feet from the dewy
ground,
moored and bobbing like
starched underblankets,
a child's chalk line in the air.
Spiked grasses fail to puncture it
and saturated moss
has never been so protected,
sleeping underneath.
A burnished sun fights for attention,
touching the cold morning
with gold, forgiving fingers
reflected in the hungry eyes
of twenty-six reeling gulls,
spinning their way
towards Pitsea landfill site.

Cockleshells.

2009-10-23T04:49:00.000-07:00

A burnt white sun,
two piles of cockleshells,
your hand in mine.
The crunch and burst
of shells under feet
under the wheeling gulls.
Gloves,
two pairs,
The sting of cold
making beetroots of our cheeks,
our glossy eyes watering.
Mirror mudflats,
like pools of silver cloth
and a gurgling tide,
seeping in.
We made faces
at the thought of cockles
and began the long walk home.

Drum'n'bass Night

2009-09-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

The sick thump of bass
is seeping up through the ceiling,
creeping into my eardrums
to the thud of my heart.
My own blood pounding,
boiling with rage,
becomes in sync with the thick,
heavy,
booting bass.
A bleary eye searches
for the time on the clock
and winces at the sight
of 3am.
A hand scrabbles for a phone
flicks open the screen
and waits to confirm the time and
yes, it really is 3am.
Peals of arrogant laughter
rise up through the floorboards
filling my head with hate,
eyelids stung with tired.
Hot eyeballs seethe
with the pain of no sleep,
and the drumming keeps on
until finally,
at 6am,
my alarm goes off.

Morning in Westcliff-on-Sea

2009-09-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

The truck full of tyres
like a roll of muscles,
glistening with the dew of 7am.
The pile of tar left by the roadside
when they were going through their
'resurfacing phase'
now moulded to the ground
like fossilized dinosaur shit.
The race of snails
ebbing their way
from gutter to railway line
to the promise of damp,
more damp.
A tale told by a split dustbin bag
picked over by foxes,
a party paper chase of the night before:
sausage rolls
Special Brew
Tesco Value vodka,
a Kerry Katona trail.
The token abandoned car
windows put through
five party balloons curiously bobbing
on the passenger seat.
A Tilbury train skims past,
pocked with a few passengers
going the Lakeside way.
I start my day.

Do The Bunk

2009-09-23T06:04:00.001-07:00

Three halves of shandy
at the Leigh-on-Sea Regatta
after a month of no alcohol
felt a little bit fun:
Fizzy-headed,
muzzy-minded,
afternoon drinking
in the warm September sun.
Quick look at the watch
it’s an hour til X-Factor,
we’ll never make it
if we walk back home,
Got to get the train
so I down the last mouthful;
London Pride and lemonade
reduced to a foam.
Crunch along the cockle shells
holding my breath
past the sheds;
Past the teenage lovers in a seaside embrace,
Hear the click on the railway line
of a train approaching fast,
a leisurely stroll
becomes a sweaty race.
We run to the ticket hall
and the barriers are open:
a golden opportunity
for a spot of train bunking.
Twenty minutes til Simon Cowell
and Cheryl Cole,
no time for ticket-buying
no time for flunking…
We’re giggling in the carriage
as we fly towards Westcliff-on-Sea
triumphant in our twenties
that we Bunked The Train.
This makes up for the times
I never nicked sweets with my friends
Or had Topshop skirts stuffed under shirts,
I never was to blame.
I paid for every pick and mix,
my conscience always kicked in,
A fear of what my Mum would say
I never stole a thing.

We get off at the next stop,
and I feel in my pocket as we sail through the barriers,
And I realise with crushing defeat:
I’m not rebellious at all,
I had a valid ticket in my pocket all along.
Not so rock and roll.

Thumbs

2009-09-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

Two ley-lines,
two contours,
both facing each other.
Two undulations,
two callouses -
one for each thumb.
A scratch aged eleven
and a habit for biting,
turned a simple score
into a life of its own.
A habit for even numbers,
multiples of two,
symmetry,
made me carve another
to match left to right.
Self-awareness hit:
an adolescent train wreck,
jumper sleeves
were pulled over my thumbs in shame.
I thanked the universe
that we had grown out of
‘heads down, thumbs up’
for surely
I would be exposed in that game.
An eternity of teenage years
spent hiding my thumbs away
where a handshake
brought on a fit of anxiety.
I changed the way
I held a pen;
the way I held
a knife and fork.
Winter was a blessing;
mittens!
gloves!
Time went on,
twenties came,
and I settled into my skin.
I met you,
and my thumbs became bashful again –
but you looked at them
curiously
and said you liked them.
You liked that they were different;
you could tell that they were mine.

Scrabble

2009-09-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

Lay me down
across your Scrabble board
and I’ll shuffle my tiles -
I will challenge your rack
until you beg for mercy.
Explore with reaching hands
for those remaining letters;
and I will open up
my triple word score
if you play by my rules.
Count up for me
my score,
and cover your letters
from my curious gaze.
We slide the tiles
across the clean sheet
of the board,
your mouth curls
as you spell out the words.
I surrender all my letters
for a fifty-point bonus;
you are left, red-faced
with blanks.

Why I hated summer as a child.

2009-09-02T08:20:00.001-07:00

“Summer’s coming,”
Mum says.
“Let’s put this duvet away.”
I watch her,
stuffing the winter duvet
into the wardrobe.
“That’s better,”
she says.
“You’ll be much better off
with just a sheet.”
I stop.
I panic.
A sheet?
A SHEET?
Oh no.
No, no no.
What Mum doesn’t realise
is that my winter duvet
as stuffy and heavy as it is,
is my only protection.
Protection from monsters.
Do you see how easily a leg can be grabbed
under the flimsy veil of a SHEET?
How exposed a back can be
to a creeping intruder
under the thin, bareness of a SHEET?
Night comes.
I’m lying,
tense,
beneath the sheet.
She tried to tuck it in
but I wriggled free,
not wanting to be trapped.
I’m awake.
I look around in the darkness.
Shadows are morphing.
My mind is racing.
I try to hold my breath
in case I miss a noise;
a noise from a monster.
It all becomes too much,
I can’t bear it any longer.
I turn on the light.
I slide out of bed,
and shove the rejected sheet
on my untidy floor.
I haul the winter duvet
out from the wardrobe,
embracing it like an old friend.
I’m happy now.
Too hot;
swelteringly hot in fact,
but happy.
Take that, monsters.
And mum.

c2c

2009-08-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

Pale highlights are waning,
fading in the morning sun.
Your GHD-straightened hair
flyaway and limp
stares at mine through the train window.
My waves are pressed up
cold against the glass
still wet from the half-hearted blow dry
half-asleep.
Your Rimmel foundation
is not best matched to a skin tone
such as yours,
and your downcast eyes seem to know it too.
I see you coming towards me,
sliding your way down the carriage,
looking me up and down;
Don’t look at my shoes that way,
my £4
Ebay
vintage doctor martens that way.
Just because I’m not in strappy
fuck-me heels,
don’t look at me in that way.
I see you looking at my tattoo
with a fucking Boots-own lipstick smirk,
just because it’s not
Winnie the Pooh
doesn’t make it not alright.
How can someone be this full of judgement
so early in the morning?
I could be smirking at your copy of
Inside Soap
wedged into your New Look carrier,
but I don’t,
I’ve got better things to look at,
like the way the cold light is bouncing off the cold water
in sci-fi rays,
or the boat called THE LONE RANGER
bobbing away from the anchored others.
I’m looking at the graffiti that says
EAT THE RICH
and the jumper caught
on the railway sidings
one arm waving in the rain.
I’m looking at the woman at Barking
dressed all in pink
looking happy as Larry,
whoever Larry was.
I’m looking at my own face
in the reflection
in the window,
and I see yours looking too.

To London.

2009-06-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

I try my hardest
to make you break up with me.
I have grown tired
of your self-importance,
and the way you make
me feel.
We are in the centre of you.
You push me onto
sweating underground trains
and expect me to not mind,
when someone else’s body
is clammy, pressed up to mine.
We go south-west.
You make me walk
down upturned roads
full of nannies,
builders,
face-lifts,
dog-walkers,
roads thinly disguised as representing affluence.
We go south-east.
You make me feel unsafe
going home on my own
in those areas I do not belong in,
and do not think to protect me.
I dream of escaping
to a creamy, country housewife
with dimpled elbows
who will welcome me
with baked goods and smiles,
and we will sit
with an uninterrupted lack of noise.
You try to make me jealous
with your scores of streetwise schoolgirl fans
but this pale attempt
does nothing to warm me.
I cannot commit to you
when you make me feel so cold
even in the middle of July.
I have grown to hate your touch,
and shrink away
when you suggest a weekend together;
I see enough of you in the week.
I think this is the end of us,
and I am sorry
that I entertained this for so long.
I think we knew it was doomed from the start.
I know that you will survive;
you can thrive on rebuilding yourself
after destruction
better than any lover I know.
But I am leaving you
for someone who takes the time,
and gets to know me,
someone by the sea, or looking out on fields.

Sunday, teatime.

2009-06-23T04:03:00.000-07:00

My knees were an arm rest
as I sat cross legged
on the brown carpet floor.
My palms were a chin rest
as I gazed at the television
in our Sunday routine.
The Chronicles of Narnia,
wincing at the White Witch,
heart warmed back again by Mr. Tumnus.
I was not in my living room,
surrounded by my mother’s legs
and my grandmother’s hand-lotion scent,
I was in Narnia,
slippered feet on snowy ground,
a cross between Susan and Lucy.
It was post-roast dinner,
an afternoon spent whining and impatient,
wondering why adults have to sleep
after heavy meals.
My dad washing up,
I would look out into the garden
all brackish and wintered,
and long for some snow.
In came the tray:
cheese and pickle sandwiches,
tomatoes and cucumber
to soften the crusts left on the plates,
a pot of tea.
A bowl of my other grandmother’s pickled onions.
Why are my memories of Sundays always in winter?
We ate and escaped.
I longed for Turkish Delight.

Water bottles

2009-06-22T02:31:00.001-07:00

You leave your bottles of water
still wet with cold,
emptied and spent
on tables
in rooms
like a calling card.

Your safety device
is fifty centilitres
of nature’s finest,
screw topped, sports capped,
never flavoured
always favoured.

If you ever went missing,
(a thought that makes
me shrink and wince inside)
we would all know how
to follow
and find you.

Look for the Highland Spring.
The Volvic.
The hollowed blue plastic full,
of the magic substance
that gives your skin that glow.
I follow your trail.

Take me by the hand

2009-06-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

Take me by the hand
and I will show you

the creases and fine lines
that frame my eyes.

We barter;
your dimples reveal themselves,

in exchange for my smile
and smile-lines.

My hand in yours,
you tell me it is small,

I shrink in self-consciousness
until reassurance.

We exist
in a secret world,

where no-one else is heard
over the clashing din of heartbeats.

Between my back and yours
we can breathe easier,

say what we are scared to say
and realise this is it.

No doubters here,
they exist only on the outside,

unable to see in
through the frosted glass.

If they could only see,
we could be without prejudice

but for now we only worry
about who is going to make the tea.

16:05 to Penzance

2009-05-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

We sear through the countryside
like a sharp blade through suckling pig
This high speed rail service
will call at Reading, Taunton, Totnes…
Smooth West country burrs
as creamy as cream teas
fill the carriage
“Olright mayte, what’s happening gay boy?
Owe, laast noight was properr mentall.”
Seats 17B to 26A prickle
as he peppers his phone chat
with fucks and shits.
“There’s little kids on this train,”
a bulbous mother says,
trying to be loud
but not loud enough.
“Daddy,” one boyish girl says,
“I can’t remember what a marsupial is.”
Half term doesn’t exist
for inquisitive minds.
Two pre-teen tarts
hop on in skinny jeans
and New Look pumps,
holding their iPhones.
“My mam likes Taylor Sweft”
“Mine loikes the clubby stuff we’re into.”
A skinny back sinks into a seat
withered with the jealousy of a Cool Mum.
Hot tea slops on fold-down tabletops
and the rolling hills
and sparkling water
go unnoticed.
Time would rather be passed
staring into a device
plugged in a sweaty palm.
A baby cries,
a bottle of water rolls down the aisle
followed by a hasty pair of flip-flopped-feet.
We speed on,
forgetting in which carriage
the buffet car was,
drifting into a newborn sleep,
rocking gently,
until
“Owe mate, you were fucking WAnkered last noight.”

Rocket lament

2009-04-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

There is a leaf
of curling Rocket
dying on the stairs.

Unflapping,
like those fortune-teller fish
you could get for 10p
in the toy section
of a newsagents.

I must have walked past it
at least three times today;
but nobody, not even me, picks it up
or throws it away.

7pm in the Warm Months

2009-04-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

There was something about that time of day;
that honey light,
shadows making giraffes of us all.
Something about the sweet
closing of a day,
the warm copper and bronze
that takes me to my memories;
A day by the sea,
skin tight with salt and sun.
The day ending,
searching for a jumper
pulled over sand-smoothed skin,
And those long shadows
ghosts on cobbled seafronts
peppered with dropped chips.
The smell of that last,
vinegar-soaked chip
squashed at the bottom of the cone,
sodden and tart.
The swell of water on picnic tables;
old condensation from sweating chilled glasses
washing the beer mats clean.
I would beg for a taste
of the lager my father had ordered,
and clutch the pint glass
with small, tanned hands.
Pretending I loved it.
My sister and I salt-crusted,
Mum would swipe our faces with
oil of evening primrose,
as we squirmed and squirmed.
Coastal sleep comes easy;
legs tired from swimming,
clambering,
heart healthy from the
hot, hazy endlessness of it all.
I see that time of day
and the long last hours
bathed in spun gold,
and it takes me there;
evenings by the sea.

Humanity.

2009-03-09T15:31:00.001-07:00

They're giving out
free Cadbury's Caramel
at Fenchurch Street station.

Spent wrappers
fly and tumble the platforms
in the brisk 5.30 breeze.

I'm Your Office Angel

2009-01-12T05:30:00.000-08:00

My name's Julie, and I'm your Office Angel,
Did the pink suit give it away?
I'm not bothered by the credit crunch,
Temping recruitment is here to stay.
I provide you with office and temp jobs
But I talk them up in the job spec
It gives me a sense of accomplishment
Even though my nerves are a wreck.
I think that appearance is vital,
So I have a manicure every week
I've been Angel of the Month for six months now,
I thrive on this winning streak.
The clients come in with shit CVs
And I farm them out one by one,
To call centres and restaurant kitchens
It really is so fun.
If I was a colour I think I'd be pink
And I'm a girl so that's about right
My soundtrack in life is Capital FM
And I read the Metro every night.
I didn't complete my GCSEs
But my background in admin was solid
I thought that recruitment was the way to go
As being out of work is horrid.
I really do feel for my clients
As they come in and their CVs I read
I ask them what work they're after
And how good's their typing speed.
I think about the company ethos
Which I originally thought was a flask
That pink is the best, and offices rule,
And there is no such thing as a menial task.
My name's Julie, and I'm your Office Angel,
And I can't wait for the weekend
A big night out wearing angel wings,
And a glass of chardonnay, my best friend.

All I Want for Christmas is...3 for 2

2008-12-18T02:32:00.000-08:00

(This is a poem about the real meaning of Christmas.
The Boots 3 for 2 offer.)

I don't want too much for Christmas
There are just some things I need
I don't care about the turkey
The poor sods should be just set free
I just want the 3 for 2
Boots, without you what would I do?
Make up and shampoo...
All I want for Christmas is...
You

I don't want too much for Christmas
I won't even wish for snow,
I don't care about baby Jesus
Ho ho ho to hell I go,
I don't need to hang my stocking
It's really just not big enough
I want a mango shower smoothie
And some almond body buff
I just want the whole of Boots,
More than figs and candied fruits,
Make up and shampoo...
All I want for Christmas is you.

The shop in the high street is shining
So brightly everywhere
And the sound of Kate Moss's perfume
Spraying fills the air
And everyone is singing
I hear those cash desks ringing
Santa won't you bring me the one I really need
Won't you please bring my GHDs...

Oh I don't want too much for Christmas
Boots is all I'm asking for
I just want my Homer Simpson toothbrush
Standing outside the bathroom door
Oh I just want the whole catalogue,
A sponge that's in the shape of a frog,
Make up and shampoo,
Baby all I want for Christmas is...
3 for 2.

Hotel Breakfast Room

2008-11-11T08:49:00.001-08:00

It is a bad idea
to look into a hotel breakfast room
in winter, on an empty stomach,
because no matter how content you are,
it will instil only
the deepest longing.
Silver flip-top hot-water pots
gurn your face back at you in aluminium,
cheeks pink like a baby,
but without the softness.
Your eye meets a man
with over-scrambled scrambled egg
swinging from his lower lip.
He scrapes it off
without breaking eye contact,
and the egg falls onto the plate;
you can imagine the wet slap it makes
without actually having to hear it.
Your hands are thrust deep in your pockets,
while theirs clutch ceramic cups,
coffee steam steaming up their glasses,
palms clammy with condensation
while yours crack and creak with cold.
Your collar is turned up,
but their coats are lined in some cloakroom
like tweed and woollen soldiers
with gloves stowed in inside pockets.
You forgot your gloves today.

PSP Man

2008-11-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

PSP Man, you are ruining my life.
Wait, no.
That's too dramatic.
You're ruining my life between the hour of 7 and 8,
On the daily commute to London.

You're 40-plus
But you've got the gadgets,
The iPod, the Blackberry...the PSP.
Everything you could possibly want,
Tucked into your shiny suit pockets.

With Lara Croft in the palm of your hand
And the earphones plugged deep in your ears,
You're furiously playing
In the Quiet Zone,
And the clicking of buttons is driving
me
insane.

Click-click-click, click-click-click.
You may have all the gadgets
But your manners have gone for a burton.
And you chew your gum, your Orbit Whitening gum
So the clicks are accompanied by chomps.
Click click click,Chomp chomp chomp.

I'd block it out with my own music,
But the cheap mp3 player I bought is dead,
And no amount of staring into the back gardens of Upminster
Is going to block you out.
PSP Man, you are ruining my life.
Between the hour of 7 and 8,
If you could keep it down,
That really would be great.

Secrets

2008-08-31T08:16:00.001-07:00

I told my secrets down a well.
The words fell, diluted
and strange
by the dank water that soaked
moss into sponge.
Down, they
tumbled, disappearing, to lonely safety.
The rope ran through my fingers,
lowering the tales,
burning my skin,
lowering them down
into deep,
green,
echoed space.
The words dropped with the pail;
it clunked and rang
and I walked away without a care,
breathing the freedom in
and blowing it out into the cold dark air.
I wrote my secrets down on paper.
The pen scratched as fire tore my heart,
emptying my conscience
as the light dipped,
and fluttered and fell.
I folded the paper to a tiny square,
six times for each regret,
the seams and creases set in stone
the ink smudged scores
of lay line-fingerprints,
the paper's edges frayed in the
damp palm of my hand.
I wedged it underneath a table leg,
pushing the catharsis
deep and hardened,
under wood, my fable,
and took my seat
at some other table.
I scored my secrets in the sand
With care I dragged those letters out.
Past seaweed
and salted rocks,
over cockleshells
and broken bone,
There was string
and tin
and a rusted key
that peppered my lines of woe.
The words ran deep
and made themselves up
of hundreds of years worth of stones,
each so weathered,
each so small they could balance
on an eyelash.
I waited for the tide to come,
but the sea couldn't reach what I had done;
my misjudged moon tide
left my secrets ingrained and bared
still as newborn
as they day they were made.
The tales made their way back to me,
even though sodden in the well,
even though breathed out into the air,
even though udner their wood protector;
I found my table, without its lilt,
and unplugged my folded words of guilt,
the only method now for concealing
was to strike a match
and drag its black-headed carbon fate
over those secrets
until they were nothing but a pile of
sorry and forgotten ash, buried deep in the earth.
The well is empty;
the table now rocks;
the sea knows not of my secrets now.

The Wave

2008-08-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

I walk the sound.
Heels sink
into the sand
making deep and
temporary impressions.
It lays like sugar, soft
and warmed,
looking up at the sky,
pebbles on their backs
looking up at it too.
The tide rolls in;
egg white foam
blurts onto the sugar.
Seconds pass,
the sand can't breathe,
obscured by the salt,
a confusion of colours
and tastes
and sounds.
The wave turns away.
The sand is
no longer frothy powder;
compacted now
into something else.
Once that wave has rocked in
You can never go back.

I, You

2008-06-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

I am the past,
But you are the memories.
I am the cold snap,
But you are the falling snow.
I am the deep sleep,
But you are the dreaming.

Hard Up

2008-06-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

I fell out with the Royal Mint
No cash for me,
No more,
I'm skint,
I'm not a slave to monthly pay
'The best things are free'
As the short of cash say,
I seem to spend hours
Scrabbling around
For any lost treasure,
A penny,
A pound.
Who needs it anyway?
What will it buy?
If these theories fail
I'll give scratchcards a try.

The Inner Pensioner Tuts

2008-06-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

I lean my elbow on the bar
And my cardigan soaks up
Someone else's spillage,
And from afar,
I hear the c-word.
The inner pensioner tuts.
Schoolkids snogging on the bus,
Someone throws a Quaver my way
And I have to shout for my ticket
Over the 3.30 din.
The inner pensioner tuts.
I go out for a paper,
Treat myself to a Twirl,
And splashed on the pavement
In a white paint tattoo reads PILL HEAD.
The inner pensioner tuts.
I'm only 23,
And I'm sighing during half term,
At kids wheeling on the pavement,
And I try to stop it,
But it just takes over,
And the inner pensioner tuts.

I Gave a Shirt to Oxfam

2008-06-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

I gave a shirt to Oxfam;
It was peach with blue polka dots
But had started to cut under the arms
Due to a newfound penchant
For toasted cheese sandwiches.

I saw it in the shop window one day,
But the next day it was gone.
I never saw how much it went for,
Or who idly touched it while browsing,
Let alone who bought it.

It might have gone somewhere exciting
Or to the road next to mine,
I might see a girl wearing it
If I do, I might tell her.
But I might not. She might think I'm weird.
I just hope the shirt
Hasn't been talking about me.

Hair Consultants

2008-06-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

I'm booking a haircut,
But I lost the phone number
From the time my phone got ill
And had to go to Vodafone rehab.
Can't be arsed to haul out the Yellow Pages,
So here I go, tap tap tap, on Yell.com
Any number you want, it says,
Any business, it'll find.
I type in the name,
Press the yellow Search button.
Nothing.
Come on, it's a bloody hairdressers called Hair,
Is it that difficult?
I try again.
Nothing.
I 'refine' my search,
Something that always amuses me,
I'll refine my search, take it up a social class,
Give it a cigar and hope for the best.
Ok now here we go, I've got it now.
The reason I couldn't find it in the first place
Was that it's not a hairdresser's at all.
It's a hair consultants.
Well excuse me for getting that wrong,
They don't dress your hair these days,
The CONSULT it.
"Raymond's hair," they'll ask, "is a fringe ok?
How do you feel about layering, Raymond's follicles?"
Hair consultants, I ask you,
Whatever happened to a simple cut and blow dry?

Ithaca

2008-05-16T04:34:00.000-07:00

The roads were slick
With oil and tedium.
We wandered in and out
Of cool white rooms,
Where bowing palms grazed chequered floors.
We were the chess pieces,
Easing our feet on the smooth black and white board.
A girl in blue sat at a piano,
And played and faltered and played.
She was neither good nor bad,
And someone said
"It's like Casablanca."
Brilliant canopies blew
Like ruptured feathers,
And the ice in our drinks
Melted on contact.
I drank mine through a straw,
And traced a star in the soil with my toes.
The buildings were crumbling
The ghostly living remains of other people's lives,
With clothing on washing lines
And black cats eating red geraniums on white steps.
I bought a linen shirt to cool my skin,
And sat under the biggest umbrella we could find
Until we were moved on,
It was siesta time
And the bubbles of drinks ran dry
With the shutting down of the day.

Pub Quiz

2008-05-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

You've got the ones who go every week,
Who thought about getting badges made,
Who never come anything less than third.
You've got the ones who go for a laugh,
Who talk through the questions,
And go for a fag in the Science round.
You've got the ones who think they're the shit,
Who have puns in their team-names,
Like 'Quiz-team Aguilera'.
You've got the ones who wait for 'Entertainment'
Because of their Heat subscription,
Hoping for one about Geri Halliwell's baby.
Then you've got the bar staff,
Sick of the quiz-caller's voice,
Sick of the competitive heat in the air,
And sick of
"Can you repeat number seven mate?"

The Jumble Circuit

2008-05-16T04:28:00.001-07:00

The jumble sale book table.
It's like a slice
Of unwanted society.
Dog-eared Rupert annuals feel mothered
By the Barbara Taylor-Bradfords.
Many a pastel-coloured saga novel
Lie hoping, wishing
That someone might just once
Keep them:
Then they could escape
The jumble circuit.
Two copies of Much Ado compete,
Both scarred with GCSE-note scrawl,
While the only hardback is
How To Pass Your Driving Test circa 1994
But no-one wants to know.
Then, like a coin in the sand,
Like a good colouring pencil
In a sea of browns:
Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea.
Alone, almost aristocratic.
The other books seethe with envy;
She'll definitely go for 75p.

Summer 1991

2008-04-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

I learnt that if I sat alone
Cross-legged in my gingham dress
And sanded my palm on the hot,
Silver playground floor,
My hands would smooth
And smell of outside.

Bare knees with barely hair,
It was summer
And we were dreaming
Of ice-cream
While suncream smells
Drifted off those with fairer skin.

The roads were being tarred,
Hot air heavy with the deep
Nostril-filling scent
As marbles were lost and won,
Bouncing the sun back up to our eyes
Which were marbles in return.

Ode to the Nanford Guest House

2008-04-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

The stairs creak,
The smell's bleak,
This textured wallpaper
Has seen better days.
The grease-thick scent
Of forty quid spent
Underhand, overpriced,
Seedy for sordid's sake.
The lightbulbs blown
A frown deep-sown
As he asks only "how many nights?"
A rusted key
And cracked TV
Fade with the carpet
In unflattering lights.
The bathroom is dank
The grouting is rank
And a spring's loose in one of the beds
Don't look in the drawers
Or under the floors
For it smells just like
Something's long dead.
The knackered old chair
Is matted with hair
The curtains are clearly
Unravelling;
Breakfast avoided
And a swift exit made,
We should have just stayed
In a Travel Inn.

March.

2008-03-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

It was heat then -
Pressing through the seams of my jeans,
Filtered to pure liquid warmth
Poured through the bus window.
Each fibre
Curling and heating,
Fictional ants,
My leg roasting like those tiny
Subjected insect bodies
Of someone else's pointless science experiment.
I knew winter was over.
No more the crease of frost
On morning grass verges.
No more the itchy wrap of scarves.
Soon, the bloom of blossom,
Breathed down to carpet the streets.
Then come the bare arms,
Or the hope of that at least.
Bathed in banana yellows
And iris blues,
Feeding the minds
And quenching the eyes
So we'll forget what we were complaining about
For so long.
The bus rolled on,
The sun making tiny droplets of moisture
In the corners of my eyes
Which were born again,

And the bus rolled on.

Inspiration

2008-02-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

It comes and goes;
Sometimes early in the morning
When the sky looks frosted
With its new light,
Sometimes halfway through a song
And it all suddenly
Just makes sense,
Sometimes when you’re talking
And you nod
But your mind’s on what to note down,
Sometimes if you’re feeling doubtful
And someone says something
And there it is again,
Sometimes in the middle of the night
When the stars are in bed, and you should be too
And you scrabble for a pen,
Sometimes staring out of windows
Or looking out of doors
It arrives,
And sometimes,
You don’t even know when it happened,
You just know it’s there.

So...something.

2008-02-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

I feel so... something.
Not bad,
But too unsettling to be good.
Something coursing
Running
Unfaltering electricity
Running in my veins
Running like a deep need.
Scratch my skin,
Pucker the smooth
The goosebumped,
And it would burst out
In streamers
Or screams
I'm not sure which,
Yet.

What You Love

2008-02-14T05:51:00.001-08:00

Count up for me please
The things that you love.
Is it the smell of other people's houses,
Or the smell of your own
When you go back home?
Is it the whispers that swim out
Of a second-hand book?
The shine of an LP
Scores of frost,
A first-hand look,
The taste of granulated sugar
Or someone else,
Playing cards,
Polaroids,
Pin badges, buttons, bells.
Is it new carpet?
Victoria sponge,
New pictures hung
Old pictures found,
The crush of ice cubes,
Old territory, new ground.
Getting lost,
Only to be found.
Is it a compliment
Making blooms of a blush,
A bustle of backpacks
Or a library hush.
A bowlful of marbles,
Paper stars,
Paper anything,
Light on glass.
A turn of phrase,
A typewriter clank
The perfume or headline,
That gin that we drank.
Count up for me please
The things that you love,
And we'll make them into a list,
Just like this.

Window

2008-02-14T05:50:00.002-08:00

Sometimes sitting staring
Thinking out of windows,
And wishing out of doors.
Push up that sash window
And just
Look.
Just take it in –
There’s a city over there,
Rippled with heat.
Just breathe it in
And look
Where no-one else can see
Where no-one else notices.
It’s yours,
Just for a moment;
Just take it all in.

Nameless

2008-02-14T05:50:00.001-08:00

What do you call
A day without a soul?
I won’t weaken
And call it overcast,
Or romanticise
And call it balmy.
I feel like I’m trying to choose
My favourite brick from the wall
That my splintered window looks out on.

Time

2008-02-14T05:49:00.001-08:00

Thumbprints in dust
Hinges on a wall, bleeding rust
A lightbulb blown,
Crisp packet thrown.

A lock stuck,
Clock stopped,
Flat tyre,
Chalk-dust of ash in the fire.

The quick-slow pass
As smooth as glass,
The endless chime,
Then, now, is time.