Rape Carriage

The end of the line

misfit carriage brought out of the sidings

off-peak hour to travel

for personal reasons.

My carriage, doors slam, whistle,

you've missed the train now.

I drop my bag on the seat

sagging under invisible weight

dust glamour on the air.

One long seat facing another

door left and right, no corridor.

My carriage with a word of mouth

warning – rape carriage.

Seven stops before my station,

seven chances to get out and get in again.

Core, pips and skin smells

out of reach of

the long handle broom

are disturbed.

Picking up, faster, faster

electrical lightning on overhead lines,

I couldn't be more alone

if I was using the toilet.

Maybe someone is back to back with me

in the compartment in front,

leaning back to go to sleep.

Sure I heard some people singing

The Ace of Spades,

I sing Lisa Says all to myself.

Till a station approaching, slow

platform standing,

ticket holding faces, opening doors,

will anyone, would anyone

get in here with me,

Pussy Willow blending with the brillo seat.

Blue denim turning the handle,

see right through and out the window,

no, turning away,

and we're moving again

re-arranging myself.

It's not like it's night time.

It's not like I'm hitch-hiking.

It's not like I'm wearing a short skirt.

I'm wearing boots for running away,

if there was an away.

Sharp objects in my possession

it could be me, the predator

in flower buckle, matelot under velvet.

Wheels going motorik.

Just a partition but no communication

between me and

I don't know if I'd hear them shouting.

Windows open.

Tendrils come loose.

Rape of the lock.

Yellow fields

oil seed rape, crop rotation

over said and again, bored with the word.

Stubble scratch seating prickles me

through my tassel skirt.

I could get out next station

if?

If I opened the door

Levi blue didn't or couldn't

open the door, jammed one side,

if the platform's that side,

I'll try if the platform's that side

if I can get out I'll go.

Tracks cross before a station.

Platform slope, this side,

ready at the door,

blazer, bike jacket, hair in ribbons.

If someone comes to get in

I might wait and see,

non-stopping train

meet with eyes, till we're moving too fast.

My compartment for ten people

I count one.

Accelerating.

Two doors out to electrocution

and wrapped round the wheels.

Sun following me

caught on the overhead racks,

rolling down and over me

down and again, flash on the rack,

overtaking myself

with whoever they are

if he gets in,

and who he'll be

to easy meat,

some are already dead

when a uniform opens the cage.

Another station,

nothing, no one.

The next stop is mine.

Window shivers the door,

I close it then my eyes

I try to remember what

the carriage remembers,

can't even remember me, it's too old.

Thirteen minutes,

that's what it was last week.

Someone in here, pin stripe.

Didn't look at me tying my shoe lace,

looked out of the window all the time,

for thirteen minutes.

Roulette, dragging, slowing, breaking.

My station.

All my personal possessions

to the door.

No one coming.

I stay on.

Thirty minutes just the carriage

and me fast to the city.

 

 

 

 

Repairs and Diversions

Leaving the pressure of clouds

over Essex

two strangers are trapped

in a dead end.

Unable to join the train

of people

onto my fear

the escalator.

All alternatives padlocked.

A songwriter and Sky,

his elfin hound,

who when I think back

didn't look long at me,

afraid of catching my fear,

she was wise,

until someone came with keys

to the steps

then she leapt by my side.

While her songwriter

made a difficult climb

just to stay with me

until I felt safe over ground,

nothing more.

I said the things people say like

thank-you,

with a feeling like

6 o'clock sadness

that his kindness was worth more than

a handshake.

And on my way home to the coast wondered

if that was a rook or a crow,

and if you could tell me which?

Rook or crow what's the difference,

I asked anyway,

if he should fly to Wales

to salute you from me,

as I imagine Sky and you walking

away from track repairs

and diversions,

mown sunshine in your shade.

Wanted

Wanted

a drone generator

sounds for you to hear,

please don't go away

when there's nothing left to say.

The Costume

 Queenie began the lesson with one, two, three taps of her walking cane. 'Raise your arm, let the audience see your face.' And with a scarlet pointed finger would straighten the line of a girlish arabesque.
  Now I flatter myself to go dancing in a costume in the style of my first ballet leotard. Made not of nylon but another synthetic, like the smoothest, strictest skin, made a fraction smaller than my own. A sterile garment as I balance at the edge of this basement box, where movement is essential and conversation impossible.
  Performing for my shadow, I'm no longer something that floats and is blown wherever a stronger force will carry and drop her, but someone complete. My awareness rising with a sheen on my flesh as the room fills with the bodies of dancers on wires lifting and letting them fall. The music turns to a raining haze of colours and the temperatures of a pulse.
  Under my costume my skin is sealed beyond heat, breathless, singing and crying, while I'm only a function obeying the curve of the earth and flint clash, nettle sting and the feather that scratches your eyelid through the pillow. My hand has contact with the costume, and it feels not my own touching this perfect skin, made to a shape I fashioned myself to fit.
  As I move the costume feels like it's shrinking to my contours, not sharply clenching, but dry sucking my skin through muscle to an arrangement of bones, clothed and instructed to dance. The only friction I feel is when my thighs brush together, or my wrists cross behind my back.
  I'm detached from a touch to my bare skin. A mistake made by someone else with nerve endings that flock beneath their own body bag. Somehow the dancers rarely touch, we're almost a design, a composition of moving bodies, with only sight to feel tense back lacing, the breeze of silk and the bite of leather on another.
  In a lucid dream the night stretches as far as the costume will take me. Butterfly wings pounding at the door, keys bunched in a knot, each one trying the skin under a broken finger nail. Nailed open and held together by a rubber band.
  In the washroom I realise my skin has swollen slightly and I can't pull down the costume. In 60 watt silence I lean with my cheek against the tiles, slow locked in moments and press delicately raised bruises. A reminder of elastic burns left by the ballet leotard, a fascination to my pretty little fingers, as I dressed to go home.
  I return to the basement box where the last dance is waiting. Queenie would clap one, two, three when the lesson was over. Curtsy. Day light has blown open the door and a stark neon sign stutters exit. The reality switch, we avoid eye contact and leave.
  In my room, before I can sleep, I have to take off the costume. I run the scissor blade from my knee to my hip and start to cut.
  
 

100% Cotton

T-shirt
and maxi-knickers
you didn't expect this?
A smell
had it on three days
my favourite
Sidewalking
a ladder down the back
and blood that didn't
wash out.
Yes
with the sleeves cut off.
Default dance?
Loose
Can you see?
Brushing against me
wet patches
and pointy
more free will than
a liberty bodice.
Feels like sponge bubbles.
Will you fray
and paint my sunburn
with a dry brush?
Peppery, lick
slips off one shoulder
but up to the waist.
Zipless f…….
She's so out.
How boys wear it,
like 1989
the boys are wearing
dirty.



 

Footsteps

Footsteps

a frosty shimmer

on the townscape

through the empty night

like jumping off a cliff

or falling asleep

with no thought

of waking up.

 

2012

Untitled # 1

If it rains tomorrow

I'll have to stay in

and write another poem,

make love to my reflection,

tear the photograph

and bleed while I

stitch a new dress

for improvement.

Can I strip down

in the dark

as if you are watching.

Untitled late night.

Drink this to lose control

swallow this to relax.

If I were on stage

I'd be able to scream.

Emotion check.

Delete.

 

2012