104 Poems

The 2×52 project developed in April 2013 when I committed to posting two poems a week for a year. I completed my self-made creative challenge this April when I revealed the 104th poem. Next month (June 2014), all the poems will be available in a book at my Blurb bookstore. In the meantime, here are the 104=2×52 poems listed in all their glory! And for your convenience, so

Ordinary

Our eyes cannot see through the polished cufflinks and clean underwear put on that morning; over the same legs that walk past you and sway in the train when it breaks; the same arms that hold groceries and hand them over at the till; the usual pleasantries made with the cashier whose body is later

Absorbed

Evening issues an amber skein. It trails a flock in departure. In tumblers, it reflects as liquid. From the road into one’s ear, whorls the skein. When Friday dusk descends, often you will hear sirens. — “Lots of sirens. People have been drinking,” noted a friend of mine one balmy summer’s afternoon in sleepy North

Appropriate Recompense

I want an ugly pink carnation with all those serrated petals overlapping. The flower must be slightly droopy and the stem a little slimy from waiting in a bucket at the corner convenience store for those awkward evenings after a morning fight when you know, if you don’t bring home a carnation as ungraceful as

At the moment: £2

Oh, good. For now sultanas are back at 84p. (Bizarrely, they were 92p for a while.) Coffee, my favourite blend, now ONLY £2! That’s a 28p saving but coffee’s not on my list for today… Kiwi fruit – Enjoying those at the moment (since “basic apples” – I know they’re the windfall ones – have

Another Tube Poem: Tunnel Days

They who serve the suction of daybreak, beneath the earth, beneath the dew, beneath the kitchens where there’s burning toast and grapefruit, bury, with the morning light, their hope of hearing birdsong. — My commuting is less than a tenth of many who live and work in London. But when I am on the move,

Tube sketch (one of a few)

The man with the notebook draws attention. The woman alongside hum drops her Evening Standard to glance. Left-handed he is writing with a ballpoint in a Moleskine, A5-sized. Two page turners across from each other. — The poems this week centre around London and the ordinary, daily observations living in this metropolis offers. Our first

She’d read it in books

“His father beat him around the head. Only a little bit on Wednesdays, after pay day, or on Friday late, after the races. Clean up your mess, boy!” The teachers preferred her creative writing to include such notable topics. So mature for her age! — In the accompanying essay to yesterday’s posted poem, I wrote

London’s Molten Hour

Bye, bye, people. I’ll call you later. Are you going home now? To all the dusty rented rooms, nasty pine furniture with walls on other people’s flushing toilets, Skype calls and rhythmic thuds they try to obscure with loud beats of an album on repeat. Another aeroplane. A train. We reside near transport under a

Would you ever live in Heather Green?

Would you ever live in Heather Green with a lamp missing a tassle from its shade? Lit tealights in the glass holders on the rented windowsill occasionally Assam from loose leaves in a pot. Would that be a life to live? Where there’s no need to mow lawns on a Saturday because you own no