I

it roars fierce yellow
through the cracks –

acts ruderal, its inner
bracts: erect, intact

till pollinated, then
dies the beautiful death;

the Dandy Lion.

II

copious on fields that are
crossed to find drugs and
sex, the buttercup:
hold it close beneath the chin
should you find yourself
in-shake and yellowing, a stuttered
lover, an afternoon gin.

III

spined-caged-headless trunks
are protected from themselves
should they take root and blossom,
then make love to the neighbourhood.

---

Listen

Tame-haired yet
Doc-Martened
you’ve an anarchic
footwear habit.

Suited yet booted
half-raging-half-tragic
your Exploited LPS
stacked neat in the attic.

Of late, there have been rumours of fish,
of local evolution, of regeneration.
They say rusted cans have transformed;
grown fins, heroin holes for gills.

I’ve heard the pram, once prominent
as a fountain, is now spurting forth
at regular intervals, blowing its top
like a drunken whale, emerging at night

as the willows lean in to listen – such
learned trees. Murmurs of mattresses
shifting like sandbanks, carrying dead
dogs to the edge, clearing its depths.

All rumours of course; today strolling
past the bandstand with no band, I see
the willows idle, strumming the surface;
a lone fisherman with a net-full of beer.

---

Listen

Some nights don’t end,
they just flatten—
like light stretched too thin
across fluorescence and glass.

Inside, a man in a suit
sips something lukewarm,
his posture squared
against thought.
Across from him, a woman
holds a cigarette
like the last flicker
of a conversation.

Nothing touches.

The counter curves
but offers no embrace;
the server watches the air
where someone once stood.

Outside: no doors, no way in.
On the street—an American werewolf
a silence
you can’t quite name.

And yet,
the light stays on.
Not warmly,
but insistently—
like someone still hoping
to be seen
through the glass

---

Listen

Clifftops. Bridges. Train platforms. Hotel balconies. Open windows on high floors. Ferry decks at night. The space between saying “I could” and “I will.”

I’ve visited them all.

Most offered a perfectly pleasant view – A few offered something more.

Nothing serious. Just a suggestion. A reminder that every boundary is, technically, crossable. That the body can be interrupted. That a life is held together by an astonishing number of decisions nobody notices making.

I suspect this is normal?

The thought arrives. You acknowledge it. It moves on:

Like hearing the phone ring at midnight and knowing your life may divide into a before and an after.
Like understanding that every city is full of people who once left somewhere else.
Like realizing you could tell the truth.
Like realizing you could lie.
Like wondering whether the person you’ve become was inevitable.
The thought that your entire life could have unfolded differently from a single conversation.

Like standing near an edge and learning, once again,
that you prefer the ground.

---

Listen

I should like to abandon myself
upon a craggy rock. Turn down the
light, take stock.

Scan harsh seas, at breakfast, lunch
and tea, adjust my Sou’wester, yellow
in its circumstance, as yellow as can be.

I’d take quite seriously the lone man’s
approach to being. Perhaps keep a dog
to polish off corned beef hash, a parrot

To laugh with, or at. Perhaps I’d go mad
with the responsibility of mezzanine flooring,
of gearless pedestal turnings and of photo electric

cells sensing the daylight arriving, perhaps!
I’d leave just once that year, to collect fuel
from gnarled fingered fishermen, wise to

the capacity of break tanks and the like.
More to the point I’d maybe save some lives,
whilst reading endlessly.

---

Listen