Poems
My poetry has been widely published and anthologised and has won prizes in many different competitions. My collection House of water, published in May 2019, features 25 pairings of my poems and images.
Catching fire You said from behind your book of shapes If a fire got in that would be it whoosh and I nodded abstractedly not thinking it through the patient touch paper the incendiary itch the virgin tongue that licks along the heartlines on each palm twists in through an undefended edge and then the blood orange bristle of indoor fire my fingers burning holes in everything curtains soft furnishings pelts the bone dry roses of that bouquet that bunch of old pursed mouths gone whoosh in a tangerine flash the tendons in their carping throats turned sparks that fountain up to singe the cooling skin of last night’s moon rain down to feed a fire that eats the parquet floor for breakfast blows open doors with a BOOMBOOMBOOM makes every window sing a cracked tune houses without chimneys should not huff and puff fetches us out of our little cold stoves to fill us with a roman candle rush that boils my blood like jubilee jam and I am in love with the act of making fire my cape of smoke this newborn burn the tinder and flint of each next word Published in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual 2018 Reconsecrated A taste of you slipped into me like moonlight in a locked church. The flesh at first left me cold: respectful fingers, diffident lips spilling awkward mumbles in The Angel’s fug. We hunted down politeness with iced vodka and flew outside, where the night took your tongue and gave it to mine, igniting a flame that swallowed Soho’s oxygen whole to shape the way I kissed you back: adoration of seventeen again, ablaze with the lost conviction that this can be a state of grace, this immaculate need to fuck in the street. Published in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual 2017 Micro found poem, 'Dirt Sprite', exhibited at the world's first ever Instragram poetry exhibition
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Mapping Hi-Zex Island On the first day we viewed the island from above: a lightning flower flung across the skin of the sea under the burning eye of the sun. On the second day, we approached it from the water, observing aspects of permanence – three years and four months an island now, its shape shifting between evening and morning. On the third day we walked it, measured its synthetic drumlins, its rope beaches, its tightly woven coves, weighed the miles of clouded water beneath our feet. Earth of a kind. Sea of a kind. On the fourth day we went down to meet this land mass in its own twilight. Ghost nets reached out to finger our hair, calling us to the mausoleum of the island’s rusted underbelly. On the fifth day, we saw the ocean swarm – angelfish and rainbow runners twisting through drifts of polymer confetti that playact as food, feeding the very body of our island. The sixth day we spent logging life. A shore crab. Clams. An albatross in flight off the western peninsular. We collected old eel traps, scraps like pastel coloured sharks’ teeth with which to make a necklace for the children. We bowed our heads under the weight of that night’s stars. And when the seventh dawn came, we saw our work was done. Discovered by Charles Moore, Hi-Zex Island is made up of fishing debris, plastics and other trash Third prize winner, Bristol International Poetry Prize 2016 Space junk ‘And do you think people are talking about you on the TV?’ I croak ‘No’, throat stripped by the grey snake they sent down to suck the deathwish out of me. He could be a newsreader, this ironic doctor shielded by a desk; frost moustache aligned with postbox mouth. Red when shut, black when open. Reflecting my spectrum. A gnarled part of me wants to ram something too big in that black hole and watch it fill with red. But more of me is carried on Valium contrails, ghosted out against a veil of dead stars that still shine. ‘And do you think the washing machine is a spaceship?’ I wish I did think that. I think I could be one myself – a metal vessel spun across the universe, burning up on this re-entry. Published in the 2015 Templar anthology Last night we were undressed by the wind It took our shoes first; we watched them rise like odd dense birds into the indigo sky. It undid buttons, habits, words; twirled away the shadows on your face, the lines engraved on mine. It freed the magpie in your ribcage, unzipped each one of my muttering scars, opened our heads to the blazing dark. And then there was only bright skin. And then we were just air Last night we were undressed by the wind. This morning we woke in our clothes. Published in the Milestones Anthology, selected by Brian Patten |