Below the line, the temperate editor lurks

words in edgeways that never confine

the theme to direct for us, conversation

needs to be sublime, before subtexts can

emerge from a twist of that random lemon

bitter zest, acerbic, pillow scratching, backbone

against backbone, watching for subversion.

Heat from the mattress sheets seeps into my hip bone

Prolonged weight transmits pleasure of the electric

blanket, below a duvet. One sided, unsatisfactory tropical

heat in a cold airy bedroom. Feet swim in top cold

exploration of polar reaches, of the other’s off half’s half.

Cold arches rub, move and warm toes as towards

sleep slips a muse, watching for subversion.

Shadows of tossled hair on a blank page

disguise an earlobe in a newly read verse.

Horizontal composition of vertical lines

of edgeways letters that nicely rhyme.

The hazards of a back lit, blank page.

Oberon wolf dreams, backbone against backbone,

in the night light, watching for subversion.

Oberon whistles by my shoulder nasally, pillow

bound puppy, some months accustomed to a

comfortable bed. Dog smells waft through nose

inhalations, elbowed as the cold hand writes

in pencil on a folded A4, ooh, an overheated hip.

Time to turn it off, and turn in. Unsatisfactory,

un-tropical subversion for the real Antillean heat.

 

Read at Charleville Castle at the ‘the night before christmas eve’ concert – Wednesday 23 December 2015