Blossom Falls

The blossom falls,

the people walk

through canopies of pink rain,

soft-touching against skin,

down cheeks, across blind eyes;

brick on brick on earth,

asphyxiating slabs of stone, a hard sheet

for the duvet of colour above it,

as their soles stamp upon the nothingness of it;

like the truth

of our evolution from that hairy unclothed ape,

like the tails of beach-wind

from off the adjacent sea whispering to your spine;

the grassy runners

stapled down in aesthetic squares dark-

light that could grow long to tease

their skin as they lie and roll unclothed absorbing

sun, that Vitamin D, preferably

miles from urbanity to better health,

but cotton and wool covers them,

the petals stick in pockets.

And they stare as I had stared at them,

looking with shame upon my naturalness,

but they don’t feel that pink rain,

soft-winded and swept against

my hairless skin.

Six Weeks

     No ‘and a half’ for us,

and three weeks short,

     the calendar of May and June

a black hole condensed under

our mutual weight, of sweat on skin,

sweet kiss sorties lost in light;

I cannot see from this event horizon

     how time got lost;

proof of it is memorised in balls of clothing,

the plaid bag and vinyl art we made together;

     what charity-shop finds couldn’t fit home,

a robe left behind in a wardrobe.

     Starfished in my bed,

planked on the sofa, thrusting in the kitchen;

here air you have parted, air we have shared,

     and if the glimpses of scent turn inwards,

I will still discern in places our six weeks,

and remember there will be more.

Pt 3: City with late lights for the kids

Crashing

eyes to the pavement

where I want to rest my inner ear

from the drumming tarmacadam chorus

and be blind to shop-lit concrete, porous

to the rainbow lasers in the beer,

bare feet on cement

dancing.

Yet

even as I try to sleep,

as those in sleeping bags succeed,

I see both of you amongst the other kids,

holding on as though I somehow undid

the slab-cracks and tore the weeds,

tied them round feet

and neck.

On one side,

droplets of your blood

in a descending trail to basements,

impulses of light pierce releasing head-colours,

eyelids stammer and eyelashes flick each others,

unfocussed with fake contentment

and confusion stood

inside.

On the other,

in neon you found food

in my bins, and a bed on my bench.

Tonight you saw how I could lead you astray;

Huddled , you slept, so I hustled a doorway

of my own to sleep and change,

from one daily feud

to another.

Pt 2: A distant town, distant from everything

Your feet pound my roads and pavement

running through the night and underpasses,

in convex mirrors you can see around the corners

roadblocks of drugged carcasses.

Hands held and held high like children,

you swing from my arms past stop signs,

past eyes asking where can you be going

and can we come with you this time.

On the outskirts of town the shadows start

to wring your feet dry of pace,

they stumble in my underarms where things

start to grow and the blue lights lose the race.

More than small, you’re fading,

a distant darkness in this distant town.

It is so much quieter now that you have gone,

in the canal are the whispers of the drowned.

Pt 1: Town with a canal and nothing else

This morning I watched you watch your reflection

in the canal and the one with long hair join you.

It was dry but cool and the seats of your trousers

got damp, but you didn’t care – just stared at the view.

All morning you sat as the dog-walkers passed by

with the dogs’ noses barely sniffing for your scent.

You held each other and sometimes tossed stones

causing the surface to ripple its dissent.

By noon the sun had burned the clouds and the sky

was the colour of your eyes, reflecting in the water.

I saw what it was in her’s that made her sorry

she was here, a ghost of her parents’ daughter.

I listened to you talk of birds and rain, nothing

in particular, talk like dandelions caught in the hand;

words afloat invisible to your eyes, wrapping around

clutched fingers, squeezing, trying to understand.

I have seen you both before around here and there

and sometimes you’ve been in groups or alone,

in town, resting on shop windows or

waiting to be asked what it is you have stole.

Sometimes to stay dry, in the Rowland Hill centre,

you kiss to pass the time away as others stare

but pretend they do not see you, pretend

it’s this illusion meant to make them care.

You roll now onto stomachs with your heads turned

inwards. Parts of me shuffle by unheard, unseen,

wearing coats, grey or black; there two footsteps

and the round indentation from a cane in-between.

All day you lie and no-one says a word,

the phone in the canal and you two strangers,

who can speak without speaking and know how to look

behind the other’s shoulders for oncoming dangers.

I hear your names spoken in whispers in secret,

with all the town looking for some time to kill;

in cars and in doorways, street corners and shops,

I hear the blue bells ringing down Bewdley Hill.

So you stand to run away, and in standing see

you can see a little further and rise a little taller;

ankles and wrists exposed where cloth can’t reach,

you feel the air around them as I watch you get smaller.

Ghosts

Of all these years we stayed
up late with dreams of false futures,
drinking last drinks by dim glows
from television sets, telling us what to do.

Of our courses have collided.
Are the once-imagined lives still alive,
budding on another tree?
Bearing fruit like ours?
Or were they mirrors of insanity?

Of glass words from lovers' mouths and ours.

Of fake foundations in hearts and homes,
existing only in our heads and easily slung.

Of all those years asleep in darkened rooms,
hedgerows, park benches and the backs of cars;
awake in offices and wards and corridors,
seeing ghosts that were never there.

Film Review: X-Men: First Class

Synopsis: The touching portrayal of young love between a magnetic man and a telekenetic egghead.

For the latest X-Men installment we venture into the past to explore the origins of Professor X (McAvoy), Magneto (Fassbender) and a selection of mutants. Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) this film does indeed kick ass, blending action, storyline and characterisation, with standout performances from Fassbender, and particularly, McAvoy. His Professor X is confident without being cocky, possibly because of McAvoy's innate charm, but also the touching finale where he suffers the paralysis-inducing accident, "I can't feel my legs... I can't feel my legs..."

Fassbender broils as Magneto, one time friend then enemy of Professor X, who helps temper his friend's anger towards out-and-out baddie Sebastien Shaw (Bacon) - Magento's 'mentor' in the Nazi camp (a flashback to the metal gates being pulled apart harks back to the original). And Bacon is Bacon, and proves to be enough of a badass before his predictable demise.

The central plot revolves around Prof. X, Magneto and Shaw, but the secondary plot is also an interesting one, showing the birth of humankind's hot-and-cold relationship with the mutants in spectacular fashion, the two arcs coming satisfyingly to an explosive conclusion.

Fans will enjoy seeing the character arcs of the younger mutants, notably Mystique and the Beast, who both go through more than just their physical transformation. The other supporting mutants do a decent enough job, though Emma Frost's icy transformation always looks too CG. Wolverine makes a momentary appearance sure to raise a smile.

Matthew Vaughn is proving himself to be a talented director, combining action, drama and comedy elements into tightly drawn scripts with pitch perfect tone and tempo. For me, this was more enjoyable than the previous X-Men films, so fans will not be disappointed.

8/10

still

a hole in my eye and you spill in,
all your hair and teeth within,
nothing but strands being blinked away,
me falling in to the hole in your eye.

still, a whole decade of time, thrown words,
a canvas of scrunched paper behind you,
still, my eyes exhale and still, I intake,
you have become this moment's breath.
still - in all rivers of definitions
and with regatta at backs, seconds into years,
still, and glasses filling, molten lava,
our anonymous history above our heads,
still in the clouds, waiting to fall or pass
to hillsides distant, where this heart would stall.

still, it passes, as it will always go,
it rains until the eyes are full, ripples in the river,
so we empty ourselves and I wonder still,
how many years until...?

Americana

Hot on the heels of the monster trucks
and innumerable fucks; slices of Americana
in the stasis of minor deaths, blackout curtains drawn
against English summer storms of UV dreams;
I can still taste the States of love from scenes
played out, Miss America, Aprillene-
and dramas seem cloaked the size of Atlantic,
these last days frantic as we abstain from ache.
We are children living in a grown up world;
we whirl our pelvis, dervishes of bath-bomb glitter,
a hurricane littering skin and cloth and then,
when all out of something, something more is found,
in the territory of crossed borders, we cross each other,
bound by our mothers' internationalities,
together in a mutual insanity of words,
we are children living in a grown up world.

Central Worcester

Roads loop through the centre
with buses surging on the back
of blood, and feet step from pavements into
shops, knocked over by the businessmen
taking legs, lassos latched to ankles

off rails in windows, on mannequins
of muscle and slim lines.
Achilles tendons are taught;
on the back of blood bleeding from heels,
still the buses bring, engines singing.

The Church

The church filled up slowly with lies.
The stained glass windows were the first to go;
they became as night, though the sun still shone,
halos turned blood red and ran with sweat on stone,
dripped and tumbled into choir-boys' mouths as they sang.
Airborne, it spread, a dense desire
dancing on tongues; salt that popped like candy,
ascending ejaculates of amen spittling the air,
forming a fog that flagellated eyes to tears.
Humidity heightened, tightening collars and causing
clothes to cling to skin; people shrunk to fit them.
The stars and moon circled for two millennia above,
and still the lies flowed down walls and pews undammed,
a Great Flood rising to knees, to waists and necks,
siphoning through the cracks between the doors
to fill the outside world.
But on the 39th day there was a miracle;
the church doors opened and the lies flowed out,
bodies of the drowned floating on the tsunami,
children sputtering for air with their hair
plastered to their ears; inside, so much damage
had rotted the walls, the pews, the cross and crown of thorns.