Bus note 60

        She takes a good swig
        of the methadone.
Bleached jeans cling.
        Sunlight. Slate
        coloured clouds too.
We go the longer way into town
        to a birthday party
        with ghosts.

Charms

One grey card
         for a world
    to show off
  the colouring in

A doll's lipped head
        sucking off
     the memory crust

Busted hands
        paperweighting
   the fluttering will

Bus note 59

This little boy
in suit and tie
23 years old
and talking at me.
        The feel in the guts:
        a wrung turn; burning.
The feel in the head:
a vice; a wiry line.
        Woman there:
        her badge
        with deaf 
        penned on
        like shouting.
My poor and blunted tongue.

Seaweed

Bus notes 58

        Face like that Lady 
        with an Ermine,
a daft black knot
of hair on top.
        There's rust stains
        and damp creep
        along the white balcony edges.
The tiered brick and dust wastes,
the cement flats going down
to the hidden canal
are nobody's.
        Today the muggy rain
        wants to be
        beneath
this failing skin,
this shit disguise.

Portrait 3

    counting the beads you
                         couldn't ever stop

                wooden      colours

                                 her blesséd (sometimes) way

                    her clenched heart

         She sings, full on
                     Where's your mother gone? 

               hurt kindnesses
                                                blinking

        her gathered necklaces
                                  disarming

Bus note 57

Folded up white cane
with fat rounded tip.
Black refusing sunglasses.
This is a younger man.
        The friend comes
        with her care showing.
The thought: (this is my head)
that there's some pretending going on,
        that I'll catch a furtive glance.
Alight here now.
        Blue's bled down
        to tops of trees
        and made hot roofs.
Arch Sun above
corner house on Abbey Cresent,
the garden's Union Flag
all gone now.
       Wasteland in front
       a long time empty.
The blinding Sun.

Match Day, 26th of May

Black liquid slips
             down the red inside

           Even here, there's British shapes
                                  some itching strains

What are the rules then
                     
                    the remaining
                           still, a waiting hand

                  a rest     a minim rest

Talking is somebody's house

        raw laughter by unlit fire

  heavy men     and thinned men

         We'll be drinking
                           holy water from the cup

Chair skins swell
                   and a table breathes

            Hibs, blue painted
     ghost about the pitch    

       out of hiding corners stare

                What's the face you get round abouts

Bus note 56

Sour laugh for phone.
        "You get me?"
         again and again.
Can't look through
the misted up windows.
        Blindness.
Misanthropy spasm.
        Traffic's relentless
        shut world
        poison music
won't make an outside
gather up and show.