Empty Words

They whip and dive and bite Like gnats. No weight, but flap Like bats in panicked flight.

Ethereal, of nil, they fill Each inch of land and air With unremitting shrill.

The warp and weft of thought, Discombobulated, Stretched, then slack, then snapped taught.

Weft warps to twist and thrash, Warp snaps in fraying scythes To etch and carve and slash.

And Care unnoticed slips Into the dark'ning storm, A child from little ships.

The Poem

The poem writes itself Fragments, snatched Clotting, dividing, conjoining Tripping over crippling timidity Two themes blindly fumbling Slowly winding words together Cords behind the cadence Dragging taut the tension Falling into youthful passion Painfully erecting lines, stanzas, verses Picking gently about failure Fracturing with loss and healing each other Life living, love giving The metre more measured and profound now The words keep coming

She Nestles

She nestles In her threadbare gown In a greasy-armed chair Carpet swirly-smelly On a wet dark winter's night. He sits Astride a motorbike Slick fish and chips Burning his belly Through wet dark city streets.

She sees him Dirty leather-clad Too tired to chat Locked out of home Blocking the telly

He turns And sits elsewhere Pulls up a different chair Feels vaguely silly Eats his chips

She sees He knows not what He knows Just what he sees The telly chitter-chatters

Tracy blows in through the door The silent spell is broken Who let this dirty bloke in? Wet trousers dripping on the floor She wouldn't give two flying flips But Michael's lost her flipping pay Eight wash & drys, a perm and only tips Ooo lovely, starving! Fish and chips!

His chips are gone. His housemate's home. He leaves. But not for long.