Poems

Pothole pilgrim
mumbled over and over in '25

Pothole pilgrim,
how fares the rain?

Make way for my 
bigger car!

Physical injuries I remember
June, '26

Campsite got Starlink WiFi
toilet ceramic
bowl too;
loo with view
zipline into camp
I cut my finger
on the wire
learnt to never touch the wire

Feet are managing
fin-chop surfing cut on big toe & 
tetanus metal cut
acquired 
on
back-inner heel
through callous & all

no serious concussions
drowned a few times proper
swept up
swallowed up @
Jump Rock
under the rock we
simply called
“Cunt”

pressed in
cave
underwater cave
pressed against a growing tide
knowing to claw at sharp
oysters 
& earn a breath

everyone laughed
I woulda too
I had before
Simo saw me, didn’t laugh this 
time
saw terror jumped in 
swam me all the 
way back

he grew different but I always knew 
him for the hero

stretching sore left hip in childs
pose 
so keen to get home use Ball of 
Death 
get it all up in my groin
groan

sitting
cross-legged
on sleeping mat
watching Avatar the Last
Airbender

on sleeping mat
not pad
pad deflate
mat don’t deflate 
use mat for yoga too

no clue on origin of sore hip no clue 
so sore
so sore for months strictly no 
backbends 
make me feel so normal

backbend anyway
can’t quiet my thunder

maybe sore ‘cos of old ankle fracture
on growth plate? 

wedged left shinbone into
brick wall
after failed playground parkour
Year 5 maybe

slipped over heavy into
concrete electrical box
playing Av tip
Year 5 maybe
mum dad say not broken but it hurt
much more than
years later when I
broke an ankle
broken ankle 
one broken ankle
two ankle broken
same ankle, twice

once:
footy
cracked like when 
you stomp down heavy on campfire 
wood

burnt my crotch on campfire wood
(cadet camp)

burnt my baby palms on oven (back in 
Yorkshire) — here too I slipped up 
mossy stairs
sliced myself against glass bottles 
of milk
fresh delivery from the
milkman
split my head so bloody
using paper towels for intended
purpose

miss the milkman
miss milk less
split my head again on a bike
off a bike technically
same 
scar you see it if I 
squint

is lactose intolerance a physical 
injury? add it to tally hundred 
times & more I digress

twice:
ran outta money for physio
‘cos spent it on family dog
day before my birthday
naked, taps running, prepped for
showering soon
wouldn’t it be funny if I scurried on
out & jumped over the couch 
jumped over
brother
gave him a fright and a chuckle
shame 
my ankle snaps again
hear it snap
naked on ground rolling
groan
call mum call mum
fog of depression settling in quick 
waited for mental rain to clear the
mug
like humid early Autumn
stayed foggy so long
recovery nigh
muggy for so long
sigh

ran out of money on family 
dog & physio
physio for knee I twisted against 
that tree in Japan
last run of the day
steep traverse; ilchay 
spinning out and down and ever so 
sore
skiing one leg lame & lifted
high
left calf is forever smaller
flanked by high-school support
“go this way
go there
tell the bus to wait
love you too”
etc.

watched two
seasons of something waiting
for an all-expense paid insurance 
business class ticket
jiggling in bed thinking this
construction so quiet

it was not construction
it was gentle Japanese earthquake
Patrick had to foot that 
bill
what’s new
need
a leg up
not that one, don’t touch that one

all of this on left
leg btw

swung hard off front-yard rope-
swing tangled
falling neck-first
paralysed from the neck down 
must’ve been previously naughty 
dad
having a go
can’t remember what I did
couldn’t say words couldn’t
tell him help
couldn’t feel legs I think
he carried me to bed I woke
up fine
put brothers head through dry wall
had to pretend the roles reversed 
watched his terror slung
over shoulder ‘bout to
take my spanking

Agues Calientes butterfly sanctuary
@ the foot of Machu Picchu, just after Christmas '25

How far beneath
tender soil must I
bury the stench of 
my loss?

How many times
must compost be 
my oldest friend?

Is fortune not a box
of butterflies
stuck
beneath Incan sights?

Incan dreams on
mountain tops
are only dreams for me.

Is it meant to
take this long
between a 
state of mind?

Flapping wings I
grew myself
vestigial
in the box
of butterflies.

Beneath sky and stone
temple, tourist, touch of guilt:

Box of butterflies.
  
Medicine or mummy
written in an air-conned Amazonian sanctuary, late '25

Are they lost or settled?
am I lost or settled?

How to phrase the
language gap
when neither seems
inclined to speak on yesteryear
on yesterday
on 25 or 46
on glazy eyes
on poncho rain
on dreaded locks
on patchy teeth
on medicine in this & that
on anything but liquor

No, thanks is universal
a smile too

Groan,
a Western nicety that warns of
glaciers melting 
in the mouths of travelling jesters
each a story larger than last

Each a family waiting for a 
Christmas cracker
to crack the lonely sight of the 
empty chair

‘Next year’
they fib
‘Next year’
they beg

Empty chair
or fireworks
the choice was
made before
the medicine
releases grip

Tristan! Time
for more!
Meditate the medicine
find the rivers pull
pray the current’s tender
touch
leaves bloodstains 
leaves pools

Contemplate further thoughts
yell sod it
in a hundred tongues
filtered 
through the wax of
unwashed ears
glazy eyes
medicine & more
medicine
grabbing above the cot
medicine
murmur it to a bare breast
medicine

Drink from the 
desire
to crawl in
reverse step

Slipping beneath that
bloody flow of medicine
and time

In medicine
and medicine

Until the empty chair
is full 
and you gurgle and cry and jest and 
clap your mucky
baby hands on your
hand-washed baby bib and preach
out for medicine
and for mummy.

Ought we turn?
read a few times on the balcony of a party, May ’25

I am mad certain
we have gone the
wrong way!

I simply do not possess the
wits & whatnots to 
appropriately express
the message so instead
here I go, I spit forward 
onto familiar
recipients which is frustrating — in its own
way — for all involved
parties.

& now friends
having listened so
politely
are bifurcated; split down two;
chopped wood;
weighing the momentary
contemplations for I
look a little boy in
a passing bought of stage fright 
which is frankly 
wrong for right now I am
King!

& then a beat more
pushes on
Lime bike rattles by &
this
sweat stained copper crown
rusts into
bark & blood

& now I am mad certain
it’ll rot &
pool in the corner
of an unkempt bedroom
near other hindsight &
regret & an open drawer.