Flowers, Chairs and Bedsprings

Dusting adagio from
These guitar strings,
Strayed verbs strum
Colours from Weltschmerz.

Evening falls like vinyl into jukebox
Blue moon, you saw me standing alone,
By murknight, red-shred arc of naked prose
Is ready to haemorrhage my body.

House is a space of fingerprint and breath;
Words reside in empty bottles, cupboards,
Under floorboards & the kitchen sink.
We become orphanage for stanzas never written.

My washing line folds the edges of afternoon nap;
Shirts billow like forgotten ship sails,
A dead poet arrives in a dream:
“Write yourself to the beginning,
Margin walk, midnight drift towards the blood.”


Italicised lyrics. Blue Moon. Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart. 1934