Zugzwang (Performance poem)

He lays his queen down,
unaware - a feared or scared - that he just lost his
crown.
Tea-tree wafts from shingles quaffed
as he lays his queen down.
The queen I took, yet I feel like a rook
being pulled and picked, a frown; stay down.
Cause I can only go forward.

My sweet Lord sings in hoards of 70's mists and
sociological twists when I took his queen up.
Fucked up.
The 5 stages skip, denial no - a drip in my arm; the human in harm,
try to be calm as the papers get scribbled signatures. Alarm!
He lays his queen down.
Kind is surrounded, drowning, confounded. But mum she went
bounding,
a needle in hand with one-man brass band.

I don't blame you

You laid it down because you had no choice
but I had no voice! No shoulder to scream to, no advice or mere coos.
Just a frozen waffle. The ice wasn't there, it was trapped in mum's hair. The both left me bare.
   So you go to her and she'll go to him,
no birds broken wings cause I fell from the nest with no pudgy-faced protest.

I'll pack the board away.

Unchanged Host (Rondeau) (Place stimulus)

Hues waltz in Buttercup Meadow,
both paws and boots alike leave sultry shadows
upon carved, oak benches which 'belong to
Edith'. Sweet repose of laburnum's coos,
pods struck through with gold, with cricket's bellows.

Jason, all taut skin and jutting elbows;
small sweet clutched in pudgy grasp, rough lego
brick cascades curdled with buttercup dew.
Hues waltz in Buttercup Meadow.

I see Jason no longer, no echoes
of his laugh, the drip leached to his arm. Ahead,
puppies sprint in blind bliss, a bomber crew.
But now grey speckles temples, last walk through.
The meadow sees all change of breath; lost/mellow.
Hues waltz in Buttercup Meadow.

Mushrooms (Object Stimulus)

Louche pearls beading above the
blades, clinging to the
tiny
minarets above the grass.
Such myriads of bejeweled ghosts
reflected in their curving caps,
do beetles rest their weary shells upon these
turrets? Or metallic moths mope below the shade?

Twilight trickles in

and their trunks recede,
dissolving into umbrous
pools; disease running rife.
       His fingers upon my cheek,
pressure marks.
Grass tangled masses in my hair.
A disheveled foliage upon my scalp:
"You asked me to"
bitter pellets of malice on the tongue
as he leaves me in the undergrowth
with the despondent

corpses beside me.

Drink Me In, Sweeter Than Breaths... (Childhood stimulus)

Waves sleep in tepid murmurs,

planting a kiss of inconsequence on the shore.

With meek, spindly limbs I hobble

to the vast pool; ebb-tides gracefully claw,

idly gurgling their call to me. The sand straps

jesses onto my chubby calves

but still I go

tepid water grins, I grin back with innocent whims

through brumous skies.

See me bumble further into the spume; into

sultry,

serpentine

treacle.

But

the waves grow taller

behemoth

beasts squawking, intertwining with

the oozing sun -

Oxygen forgotten and salted reminders,

liquid as thin as air

yet no air is there.

My breaths dance into new, accipitrine

forms; shrieking and screaming in their

mini-revolution.

When my thoughts drip into nothing but

puddles

                     - arms find me -

Tug.

Iron-weights around my chest. Air scampers

down

my

scarred

throat.

Breath again

and life remains, with

my pudgy moon-pie cheeks

and half-lunar grin. Give

me reasons, please – So sad to say that the breadth of one day

saw my innards dissolve.

When I realised

the water

was sweeter than the shore