The first game I've seen
where I knew who's Ghana win
sorry must be nerves

At Lower Shaw Farm Writers Cafe last night I was inspired by an award winning sestina by Andrew Barber. My sestina combines two events in 2009, my hour on Antony Gormley's 4th plinth project in Trafalgar Square and my ten years sober.

One clear bottle

On my plinth a bottle,

full of last month’s London air,

bunged with cork, ships sails inside,

in the shadow of Nelson’s sandstone back,

batik billows, bulges, through imagined wind

caught in a moment

For an hour long, fifteen minutes moment

shovel handed Antony gave me the bottle

to stand alone, facing the square, battling the wind

an inverted artist in mid air

tourists snapping at my back

baffled by the one, the other, that won’t let them inside

Exposed on the surface, I escaped inside

grappling, restraining my public, private moment

retracing years wed to the bottle

that stumbling stagger four sheets to the wind

this past present thought jars like cold air

reviving memories of a life won back

Travelling forwards to make my way back

stormy moods, tsunami inside

waved farewell, just for the moment

as an empty vessel became the final bottle

on the road I now wind

with changing tack and following air

A life strengthening, pushing, wishing air

a spine nailed to my sagging back

strengthening brakes that smoke inside

catching this off guard moment

as I stare at this giant tiny bottle

vivid sails swallowing London wind

A special, passionate, stale wind

of bottle locked English air

trapped on deck when the bung thumped back

wax seal to keep the outside inside

saving the gasp of completion’s moment

to weave round Yinka’s ship in a bottle

I stand inside the wind

on a voyage of reflection, gulping back air

from an empty bottle, ten years aged, my victory moment

There's not always a welcome in the hillsides of Peru, even if you're Peruvian.

Andean Astrology

The cordillera enchantress

prescribed

guinea pig

to unravel your future

she raised it

like some sacrifice

and called it jaca

the Inca CT scanner

skating your face in close up

yak pelt hanging, enamel tusks chattering

a rodent dowser, turning blood clear

divining you

sniffing your strange Pacific smell

of a world away, down mountains,

through deserts to people who bleed

a cocktail of invasion

throat slit, viscera spread

as a giblet yarn

the split creature spills secrets

to his voice on Earth

the remedy arrived at dawn

a shaven cavy

slug in your doorway

flies drawing from it's pink well of death

clove breath claws, stings the air

she appears at your shoulder

her tongue flapping your one way ticket

back to the coast.

A little journey I went on in 1999/2000

Water resistant to a depth

of 1000 tears

Insane

clinical fact

not word

you and the white coated girl said

on my birthday

when you gave me the watch

that marked my madhouse minutes

surgical silver surrounded

a nervous wrist tick

covering cuts, not wounds

my mental giblets bulging

at each twenty five hour

tock throb of a locked ward day

punctuated only by the medicine cart

and its punctual pill push

escape came, long wrists later

to another place, with an unlocked door

but no way out

I took your timepiece

and hung it from the ceiling

thinking maybe it was time I joined it

but never did

ripping it triumphantly from the artex

on my final day there

dried out and free, I clocked out

without you

and went to Paris

where, hunched on a bridge

round the back of Notre Dame

I launched your watch into the river

dark droplets pitched back

as ripples pulsed along

a dying wave

below the surface

a stopped surface dulls

and second hand

tremors tremble unseen

deeply

in Seine

My Dad is recovering from major heart surgery.

We might not want to but we do

Please don’t cry

Dad’s don’t cry

like the Queen cursing

or the Pope

shopping

a child molestor

some things don’t fit

so please don’t cry

I know you’re crying

Dad

I walk past your bedroom

hearing you sob, letting it go

I imagine her bathroom

hearing her shout, fuck me Phillip

you’ve left the lid up again

The little silver train

(Potosi Bolivia July 2000)

Lent against a wooden truck

grubby face covered in muck

waiting to leave in the little train

precious grin flashing again

a toot and a puff

and the engine takes off

belching smoke from tiny funnel

rattling into dingy tunnel

I see you next two hours later

stone faced, dead eyed, crouched in a crater

cowed by heat, sapped by dust

coughing phlegm, snot red rust

under ground a mile or more

picking, hacking at Earth’s core

gelignite bangs, a strange smell lingers

as you mine silver with pitted fingers

I ask your age and fear the answer

twelve senor and condemned to cancer

During my six months single in 2000, I managed to find myself in a nightclub in Swindon, sober.

Twins

Angelica, she said, what’s yours?

her sister

was gorgeous

with a skirt split that

arrowed the way

to the not yet promised land

they tailed me around the churning club

sucking my

money from jangling pockets

like students scraping

the crumb spotted bottom

of a margarine tub

criss, cross, criss, cross, criss,

back and forth

give us a fag

get us a drink

future sex paid by instalments

when the cash would spread

no further

they were gone and I was toast

weaving home alone

down vomitburst pavements

this single life

I can’t believe it’s not better

I wrote this at an excellent workshop run by Daljit Nagra as part of the Swindon Festival of Literature. His theme was controversial contexts.

My neighbour speaks in Daily Mail headlines

‘Them addicts choose it don’t they?’

I told him it was a great day

to wash his car

‘We pay them benefits, they buy Heroin!’

I asked what sort

of wax he used

‘And then they take it in prison’

I said I could tell he used

a chamois leather

‘Or we pay for their rehab’

I admired his car but

thought of Carla

‘Don’t give them nothing’

Carla sat next to me

full of smack

‘Let them die’

Carla on Bournemouth beach

cuddling her dead friend

‘Why don’t they understand?’

Carla at home

waiting for Dad’s sweaty palms

‘It makes me mad it does’

I told him, I told him

he’d missed a bit

Strange World Cup moment

Chile get the support of

a Peruvian

Very sad to see

the Italian champions

are such bad losers