new draft

Prayer

Our Mother who art in oceans
Hallowed be thy scales
Thy seabed come
I will be done
On earth
As I was in water.
Give us our fishnets
And forgive us our dresses
As we forgive those
Who dress against us
And lead us not into starvation
But deliver us from diets
And shopping and surgery
Deliver us from Primark
And Cosmo and purgery
For ours is the longing
Of all generations
Ours is the wanting
and trying
and hoping.
Forever and forever
Our daughters of Hades
Forever and ever
Ours children of pages
Forever and ever
Our lady
Our ladies
Our men.
Amen.

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Prayer

I’ve been working on the Venus Papers – a sequence of poems that take Venus, the Roman Goddess of love and beauty as their main protaganist. The poems when finished will hopefully make up the show I’ve been funded to write by Arts Council England. Eeek. This, I think, is the final poem in the sequence…

Prayer

Our Mother who art in oceans
Hallowed be thy scales
Thy seabed come
I will be done
On earth
As I was in water
Forgive us our dresses
As we forgive those
Who dress against us
And lead us not into starvation
But deliver us from diets
And shopping and surgery
Deliver us from Primark
And Cosmo and purgery
For thine is the fuck up
Of all generations
Thine is the wanting
To be a celebrity
Forever and forever
Our daughters of Hades
Forever and ever
Our lady
Our ladies
Our sisters
Our cousins
Our mothers
Amen.

Foot in Hand

As the violin breathes

I have never seen

so much beauty

This man is sitting in a silver chair

This woman is sat on it’s wheel like a stair

This woman is dancing on knees.

As the violin breathes

I have never seen

so much beauty.

And nothing is said

They explain through their arms

Their bodies are movements

They move like they’re stars.

This man is a windmill

This woman a clock

This man is a preacher

This woman undone.

As the violin breathes.

There are eight of them.

They are running like prayers

They are wheeling through curtains

of silken black air.

There is ballet here

I have never seen

There is ballet here

shaking me clean.

As the violin breathes.

And if life was a dance

It would look like these people

pulling apart then melting like treacle.

And the music is saying

there isn’t much time

The music is saying

we’ve got to rewind.

This woman is dancing

she is dancing on knees

she is collapsing and rising

her fingers like leaves

As violin breathes

I have never seen

there is ballet here

there is such beauty

The Looking Glass

Some people hear words.

Some people hear sounds.

Someone speaks, an orchestra plays.

A dust cart sweeps, a choir raves.

Some people hear music

in sentences, music

in recipes, 
music
in prayers.

And he is sitting in a bar

in the middle of the night

hunched over a keyboard,

knuckles white.

And words are keys on a pianos face.

Words are there in the falling rain.

Words are just sounds.

A women walking, is a saxophone

A piano playing is a tiny home

with the moon like a bone

and the sky like lingerie.

A nine bar blues

is a word like sex

repeated,
 insistantly

And a riff is a dream

you can pack in a chest.

A score is sheet

pulled over a bed.

And the music has words.

A congo is chanting a name.

A trumpet is scatting a phrase.

A cello’s describing the shape of a neck

A saxophone’s saying it feels like a wreck

He’s describing the sound of a gin

describing the sound

of a women who’s watching.

Some people hear words.

Some people hear sounds.
And they hang in the dark.

And the night sings alone.