Car Trouble

There’s an anxiety
Within me
When I’m driving my old car
As I change gear, I fear
That it won’t get me far
That through engine procrastination
My destination
Will not be reached
My optimism, breached
And the temperature gauge raised.

I once praised
Her reliability
Until she overheated.

I felt cheated.

I could almost taste the battery acid
I was flaccid
And no longer placid.

I filled her up
Like two girls, one cup
Right to the brim.

It was win-win
Until she died again
And I got a new head gasket.

Cheesy Love Poem

I rated
The things you did with cheese
When you grated
Over lasagne for your guests
And your breasts, for me.

I made goals
Elaborate plans that my hands
Tried to clutch.
But I fumbled
And Danish Blue, like you
I crumbled.

Parmesan is hard
Like your heart
And from the start I knew this
But still I remember a softness
More like brie
To me.

I may have been addicted
But then you predicted I would be.
I indulged in a Red Leicester’s delights
But it festers
This feeling within me
And with dread I now tread
Caerphilly.

I know these lines might seem cheesy
And you’ll think that it’s easy, and there’s better I can do
But as my tongue slinks around a feta
I thinks
Define ‘better’
Cheese is just a meta_phor
And I’m better for
Tasting all that life has to offer.

Well not all.
Some bits take the biscuit
And when you feel beaten
Are better left
Uneaten.

Body Language

(poem about body dysmorphia for mental health charity's advertising competition)

A sad little piggy
I sit in my pen
I’m nothing like Barbie
(But you’re nothing like Ken)
I nose you seen me
I felt you looking
I’m dieting again
So there’s no point cooking.
It’s funny
I spoke to a bloke by the Tyne

I said I feel ugly
He said I look fine.

Clean Living

(poem about OCD for mental health charity's advertising competition)

I implore
You don’t keep score
Of the times I wash my hands.
No-one understands
That it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Because recklessness kills
Like the wheels of a lorry
It causes infection
And on reflection
Even after fifteen times
On bleach-scrubbed fingers
Society’s stigma
Still lingers.

The Leaf That Knows It Will Fall

I am the dust on a sandy beach
The tear that drips in a rolling wave
The gentle voice by a nuclear bomb
And the kiss in a storm that shakes while you sleep.

I am the Polaroid that fades
The flower that wilts and the ear that bends
I am the tree you lean against
I am the floor of the Sistine Chapel.

I am the sky beyond the fireworks
The thirteenth brick in the seventeenth wall
The match that’s damp, a car with no petrol
I am the leaf that knows it will fall.

Resting In Pieces

Lying in this hammock gives me time to think
That living with you is what drove me to drink.

The butterfly knows when he goes to his trunk
That you and your ways are what made me a drunk.

Asleep on the side, take a leaf from his book
But don’t judge the cover, my lover, my crook.

The shade in your shadow and green round the gills
With ringside seats as my body distils.

Down the ravine where our hope used to flicker
You didn’t like cars but you drove me to liquor.

The house, it stands empty. Well you got your wish
Your eating was plenty; I drank like a fish.

The cowbells that follow me down to the borders
They used to sound sweet, now they call for last orders.

In a field of sunlight between two pines
I swing here and sample South African wines.

The droppings of horses are calling my bluff
When one is too many and ten’s not enough.

They’re so last year, these blazing stones
Like our love that was golden, now I’m soaked to my bones.

Leaning back as the dark comes on
With the droop of my eyelids, soon I’ll be gone.

The evening is pleading my spirit to stay
But it’s all your fault at the end of the day.

A chicken hawk floats too close to the gun
A shot in the darkness, down in one.

A tipple, a triple, I’ll drink to his life
Now wasted, I tasted, the edge of a knife.

The pain and the sorrow, she finally ceases
I drink ‘til I’m drunk and I’m resting in pieces.

Cheese At Bedtime

I'm eating cheese though it's just before bed
For experimentation, to mess with my head
I wonder if cream can cause you to dream?

I'll just have a biscuit instead.