Pricklish Allsorts
By JupiterMoon
A collection of poems and shorts - some new, some old, some lost, some found again...
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- 2395 reads
bottle blue
bottle blue we’re all just so many vessels, clinking together on Sunday buses. entirely at the mercy of brakes; we rock forward, we rock backward. later… before…
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- 728 reads
a long time since i have seen an unspooled tape on the floor
a long time since I have seen an unspooled tape on the floor growing up, my gingerbread kingdom, would often be riddled with the metallic brown linguine, of a dismembered cassette.
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- 949 reads
a pause that isn't a pause
a pause that isn’t a pause a man throws five coins into the wishing well. there is little grace, each throw an agitated arc. in silence, he makes five quick wishes,
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- 442 reads
a strand
a strand i need a coastline, need to be able to hullabaloo, from the green land, to where the lapping fold of the water comes, hurrying ashore like a wild eyed refugee. lingering,
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- 567 reads
a trophy, gold
a trophy, gold a mid-October sun, catches on the plastic bag held night-tight in your hand. the gold, of six litres of cider shines out, as you come first. upstairs cold water flat
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- 626 reads
an equator of traffic jammed
an equator of traffic jam back east, a low showing ramp stuck out like a tongue, pokes from a delivery suite. shackled in traction, automated birthing partners breathe out
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- 1019 reads
at night they play music to the plants
at night they play music to the plants strung from the curved wooden sky, strange metallic shapes, like badly drawn megaphones in dolphin grey. in the early light
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- 1087 reads
baby capers
baby capers i knew a girl once, who kept a spunk jar. one that she filled from cold morning condoms, or spat leisurely from her hot mouth. originally, it had contained tartare sauce
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- 842 reads
bran tub
bran tub i am sat beside a large tub. it is filled with light brown soil, supporting a shrub that is unknown to me. perhaps it has origins in Japan. it reminds me of a bran tub
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- 466 reads
can dead technology produce flowers?
can dead technology produce flowers? i get through laptops like cars: cheap, acquired secondhand, routes to places known and unknown. both tend to die when i least expect it.
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- 448 reads
cat street
cat street these are the guards of my weekday mornings: soft hill beacons, paws neatly at rest. together like lips that have ceased speaking. arranged around my walk,
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- 1488 reads
christmas crows
Christmas crows quick black shadows pass by the skylight; hints of yesterday peeling away, to a pale grey sky beneath, left wanting, heavy with the promise of questions.
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- 697 reads
cigarettes at dawn for the poetry group
cigarettes at dawn for the poetry group the problem with writers, is that they are not as interested in each other’s work, as they claim to be. for beneath the polite
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- 10 comments
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- 2120 reads
clueless
clueless she looked at me and said: "I want you to do rude things to me". so i let the door go in her face, cut her up in traffic, criticised her food with a slow, slow fork,
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- 1144 reads
ladies and gentlemen, the Trafford Centre is now open...
Ladies & Gentleman, the Trafford Centre is Now Open the snaking lines of German automation simmer in the baking weekend sun, resentment clogging the interiors like a drowning gruel.
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- 429 reads
my fallen owl
my fallen owl thrown to the gutter, in a spluttered thunderstorm of progress, my owl lies cold in an open grave. an ill fitting shroud, patched together from sodden litter.
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- 1172 reads
flowers fell
flowers fell there can’t be many chances left. like wildflowers in a meadow choked by roads tangling and constricting old memories grown calloused and unyielding.
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- 807 reads
lines
lines once upon a time people, were people, and machines were machines. now, looking out across a tempest of cabling, there are so many vessels – empty and drifting,
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- 439 reads
the artefact that should never have become such
the artefact that should never have become such i just put it on my table, beside the coffee, and a crowd formed. at first, it was just one man,
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- 588 reads
the first crack
the first crack cradling the final one, four hands fumble for the ailing pulse, as the coffee convoy leaves town. the occasional dropped bean crushed under ten tonne wheels.
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- 719 reads
the sea hog at noon
the sea hog at noon cool blue, revealed in waves asunder. grey beard shingle weeps toward an embrace, the shifting water rolls abroad; the gentlest of marauders.
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- 682 reads
man with broom for head
man with broom for head at first, as i boarded the bus in a confusion of sunlight, i thought it was a large moustache, bristles trimmed neat and tight, like the might of the military.
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- 618 reads
with the lights out avocado
with the lights out avocado i love avocado enough, to get married to it. here comes the bride, short, brown and wide, and beneath that shy, goosebump skin, a creamy, green yellow
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- 648 reads
how the sun brings the mad out
how the sun brings the mad out the heat hits like a tyre iron to the back of my neck. i sag early. people who have not washed their hair before, talk to their hands. around me,
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- 639 reads
father, son and white lightning
father, son and white lightning a summer evening, time spent together in the front garden, as the sun slips down the back of the settee. together you rifle through a bin bag.
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- 627 reads
i know it's stupid, but i fell for a mannequin
i know it’s stupid, but I fell for a mannequin there was something in the way you held yourself: your delicate hands on those immovable hips. it gave you a window impudence
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- 1729 reads
the same deep water as me
the same deep water as me I am struggling to find my mermaid in a city locked out far from the sea. I have prised open long legged lakes, pooled deep in ponds and puddles,
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- 855 reads
foolproof
foolproof the bar has closed. and three drinks wait to be finished. they have left the lights on just for me. and they burn brighter than i can take. illuminating
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- 955 reads
you know, whatshisname who had the desk by the watercooler
you know, whatshisname who had the desk by the watercooler 'stop being careful' was the last thing he wrote. as a note, to himself, on the blank back page of a diary.
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- 637 reads
the birds know everything we've forgotten
the birds know everything we’ve forgotten they wake each morning, every morning with joyous song, the whole day ahead of them. they do not queue in sad, exhausted lines,
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- 1104 reads
the fountain
the fountain trapped through the night, the water rattles in the pipes sobbing for release. the moon glimpsed on high, from deep in the belly of the earth. sun up,
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- 670 reads
reasons why it's unsafe to run for a bus
reasons why it’s unsafe to run for a bus running, pits you bumper to bumper with the snarl and snap of traffic. running, brings trousers from their hip home, down to the ankles.
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- 887 reads
why people in Range Rovers always look terrified
why people in Range Rovers always look terrified sweltering in your metal hell, white knuckles cling to the wheel like a dirty uncle fingering clothes on a washing line.
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- 1159 reads
the wedding list
the wedding list you have a crate of vodka, you plan to hide in the bridal suite, ‘just for the family’. Dad’s been to France, and filled a Vauxhall estate
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- 2143 reads
lesson of the birds (part ii)
lesson of the birds (part ii) i watch two sparrows, sparring over the dog end of a pasty, grabbing with heads bent low. flapping over ground, the victor makes it to the safety,
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- 517 reads
overbite
overbite they sent you out on the bus, to fetch a fluorescent tube. they’d paid for it over the phone, so they didn’t have to trust you with petty cash. they didn’t know
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- 477 reads
stir-fry
stir-fry i am more alive sat on a bench listening to two girls, talking about survival and stir fry, than i ever will be inside an office.
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- 505 reads
what would Biggins do?
what would Biggins do? when I find myself in times of trouble… it isn’t actually Mother Mary that comes to me, for in the horns of a dilemma, or brought up sharp at a crossroads,
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- 809 reads
memory bisque
memory bisque the hot glow of metal, running loose beyond the window, brings back holidays: a kaleidoscopic L.A. freeway, glinting sun gold and teeth white. mine to visit,
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- 913 reads
the 71 Haight-Noriega brings a simple truth home
the 71 Haight-Noriega brings a simple truth home today, there is singing on the bus. it seems like an imagination, but it is very real. and beautiful in its innocence.
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- 507 reads
nightfall over Whitby
nightfall over Whitby night strung in shining jet, the outline of extinguished boats glimmering, in the moment, where the tide, graceful necked and headless, pours out into the more.
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- 3 comments
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- 1047 reads
the nine ladies
the nine ladies you are sleeping now. slumbering stones warmed by the sun, your mossed flanks tickled by the kiss of a fragile breeze. late with the dance of purpled night,
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- 913 reads
faces in the felled tree
faces in the felled tree what was once a mighty oak, is now no more, than a mighty sadness, slashed and bleeding on the woodland floor. some weeks ago, a man in overalls
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- 741 reads
how Richard Brautigan gave us the words for all the artificial voices in the world
how Richard Brautigan gave us the words for all the artificial voices in the world 1969 wrapped up as sounds. a last will and testament fifteen years too soon. smiling words,
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- 573 reads
owl for the morning
owl for the morning whilst the twilight still sleeps in shivering dreams, the beat of wings flutters through the cold trees, branches at slumber. and you call from just beneath
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- 502 reads
how spiders make the most of our world
how spiders make the most of our world as a strawberry red sky pours into one of the seven hills, the air is strung with the ghost wail of a bus at daybreak. lit with the white
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- 517 reads
kyi po tang
kyi po tang sometimes, all you need is a roaring river sunset, and a new Neil Young & Crazy Horse album.
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- 679 reads
sleeping lines
sleeping lines the track lines of recent dreaming, are etched into your skin like yesterday’s fossils. speaking silent of the inconvenience of mornings, plucked from our own,
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- 462 reads
fade
fade every early morning, i scrape down the last light from the constellations; stars, i feel suit my demands. sifting, rinsing them through shivering hands; sky wishes too hot to hold.
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- 806 reads
if this life is a library, we're sure quiet now
is this life is a library, we’re sure quiet now lives passing by have started to remind me, of borrowed people i no longer see. like a spill of yesterdays, leaking from a walled-up
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- 893 reads
is this thing on?
is this thing on? in the inexorable time it takes, for late night crumpets to toast, i’d all but expired. little more than a practice ghost
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- 749 reads
strangers sailing through a breakfast sea
strangers sailing through a breakfast sea the pale rooms are no doubt identical, the crisped breakfasts are served, identical. each coffee, poured from the same secret urn
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- 916 reads
the dying of the £1 wasp
the dying of the £1 wasp trapped within a cheap card shop, closed tight, for the night, a wasp nudges the window over, and over, and over, straining for first light. struggling
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- 1081 reads
mantras
mantras i have so many mantras for the morning, i’m having to get up earlier, and earlier. it’s all about positive thinking. i’m positive i am thinking too much.
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- 402 reads
flutter
flutter sitting here, my memory unpacks your smile. bright eyed i push an invite in light, to the cold glass of my window. their paper arrival is softer than i can hear;
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- 990 reads
unhalf
unhalf magpies pair for life. this means, if you see one – they’ve lost one. a whole sky to lose themselves in, blue for the tumbling. until the cry of night’s door,
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- 691 reads
portrait of the artist as a small man
portrait of the artist as a small man a weather bleached bench gapes onto a pale blue sky, fallen leaves, spilled over the ground as a copper blood-letting. here, is a Sunday place;
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- 919 reads
early sun over Hope Valley
early sun over Hope Valley head back, the sleeping sun pours her storm black hair over the tooth broken shale, river aglint, in the pebbled flint, spilling down in the trackside gale.
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- 1351 reads
flapjack pigeons
flapjack pigeons a thin, grey lunch break inside a great, glass greenhouse: my numb fingers, break a Bakewell tart flavoured flapjack, into beak-sized bites,
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- 461 reads
not in service
not in service the time now, in my heart, is half past done. you drummed my beat irregular, from across the street. now, stacked up high with leaving intentions, i am moving,
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- 387 reads
two is such a lonely number
two is such a lonely number expectation, is like a butterfly sunning kaleidoscope wings in a sunlit woodland on the first day of spring. reality, is like waking alone
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- 402 reads
i know why the caged bird smokes
i know why the caged bird smokes a perfect square, backlit, framed in rouged, back alley neon. you exhale, from your small, open window, smoke winding itself around the shoulders,
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- 449 reads
Elvis may not have loved the Trafford Centre
Elvis may not have loved the Trafford Centre although it has countless places to buy burgers and fried chicken, and a fortune teller, pushed into an opulent box like a delicate paperweight,
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- 991 reads
care
care the liveried care worker smokes on the threshold, furiously spitting her own drama, into the face of an old woman who peeps fearful from...
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- 592 reads
olivia ♥ jesus
olivia ♥ jesus you approach shyly, in a pleated skirt too sensible for summer; too sensible for what crosses my mind. your perfect teeth and sky blue...
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- 402 reads
39 1/2
39 ½ i have touched the wall of the hospital where i was born – since being back here again – the unfamiliar red brick wall, cold and worn. i felt a...
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- 453 reads
when waiting was sweet
when waiting was sweet i remember when waiting was sweet; when it was about the passing of time ribboned with excitement, gilded with promise. when...
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- 424 reads
three forks
three forks summon up the boxes, it’s moving time again. i hinge my cutlery from a shared drawer, like loose teeth, i never imagined needing anymore...
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- 739 reads
blackberries
blackberries too soon, trapped in the burn of a late summer there is nothing to fruit, just yet. too soon, the heat, holding autumn back, impatient...
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- 4 comments
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- 914 reads
'HIGHLY FRAGILE'
‘HIGHLY FRAGILE’ It started as a joke; just something I said that made me smile. Then you came back with the :D face. But then I got to thinking...
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- 935 reads
season's beatings
season’s beatings ‘tis the loneliest time of the year, and it’s three-for-one on Christmas cheer, so roll up, and drink and drink and drink and drink...
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- 904 reads
the leaf birds of Longford
the leaf birds of Longford slow through russet diamond walkways. fringed in amber, the park, before me lolling like a mossy tongue. the leaf birds...
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- 684 reads
bruise berry
bruise berry sipping wine through bruised berry lips, teeth bared moon yellow in wincing appreciation, he exhales slow grape. the amount in the glass...
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- 628 reads
skitty kittens
skitty kittens both of us similarly alone; adrift in the ready-meal aisle. avoiding home, as we sigh out the scent of early evening cider. we could...
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- 815 reads
an open apology to Greg Cartwright
an open apology to Greg Cartwright recently, i bought your latest Reigning Sound album, Shattered; and, it’s fast become, something that really...
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- 412 reads
make the lightning believe
make the lightning believe the bright strike, crumbled my night, as i looked to your curtains, and saw, no light. and now, as you slither from sleep...
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- 445 reads
angel feathers & leak spotters
angel feathers & leak spotters single, white, and diving, willingly into a fall. tufted revolutions from broken clouds, soft fluttered shower,...
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- 601 reads
smile
smile it’s a smile i’m giving you. not a knife, not a secluded woodland rape, not an attempt to steal from you, or cheat, or deceive. just a smile...
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- 551 reads
I’m Anxious, pleased to meet you…wanna get married?
I’m Anxious, pleased to meet you…wanna get married? i have an anxious attachment style. the result of inconsistent care-giving. apparently. i did a...
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- 1190 reads
you've been to Bali, but you've never put out a cigarette on your arm
you’ve been to Bali , but you’ve never put out a cigarette on your arm your brown belt, matches your brown shoes. just like on the website. this...
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- 2 comments
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- 865 reads
first date
first date your glasses are large, and bingo smeared, despite a vigorous duster; you need to see your way home. you've gone for soft blusher and a...
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- 5 comments
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- 1072 reads
and again secret
and again secret for the second time this year, i am loved, in secret. as turbines melted never made snow angels, leaving our sky sad and serrated,...
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- 370 reads
police tape
police tape the park, private cornered with the flicker tape of Monday morning murder. felled by cold hands, I see no police stood as rocks. only the...
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- 358 reads
onionskin
onionskin everything is paper. delicate, and easily torn to shreds. i catch myself on the sharp edges of other people, and tear. there are rips...
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- 3 comments
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- 777 reads
black dwarf
black dwarf a fitful, fretful, dying ember of a once brilliant, radiance; a fallen universe. here is the last gasp of an entirety. a lone light...
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- 4 comments
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- 1039 reads
an armful of hopes
an armful of hopes words, have coop-flown scarce this year. i catch sight of them, clustering; a sweeping murmur for the blue hour. oftentimes, a...
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- 667 reads
more wink than worn
more wink than worn it’s a good one – all polished leather and clasps, aglint in the 8am sunrise. few scuffs, only creasing, light at the corners;...
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- 784 reads
lap
lap your gaze softens into the gym dropped ceiling as you beetle-back the lurid green stepper platform legs parted night black polyester cups you...
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- 432 reads
nomenclature
nomenclature gone are the days of paper money equating to a share of gold tucked away in dusty chambers be happy for now it is all just numbers on a...
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- 427 reads
dispenser in blonde
dispenser in blonde the way you swing your car across the drive in a bellow of gravel, shows you’re not staying
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- 337 reads
november
november upon returning there was uploading: photographs of concrete autumn leaves communism river water coffee in a conical flask bridges were...
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- 370 reads
jeer and loathing in london
jeer and loathing in London london makes me want to drink to fill my body my mind with drugs become as vapid and as numb as the hipsters the moneyed...
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- 524 reads
plenty more dead fish in the sea
here we are our best smiles over-exercised our appealing angles over-photographed the isolation reflected in our eyes
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- 4 comments
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- 1125 reads
rose quartz snake oil
they arrive as a rainbow of vulnerability trembling tumbles from taxis
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- 446 reads
never had sex with dylan
never had sex with dylan
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- 3 comments
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- 868 reads
1984 was more than just orwell
1984 was more than just orwell richard brautigan shot himself in 1984, during the rising tide of the commodore 64, lost within a wood walled world...
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- 7 comments
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- 2007 reads
in guano
in guano arriving aromas of all the world paint travel onto wistful winds human nostalgia chargrilled on hot coals as tiny skyward fingers follow...
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- 316 reads
waltz with me dressed in christmas lights
waltz with me dressed in christmas lights a soft sentiment found on a screen the clever words of another immediately it formed as a wish prised out...
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- 1 comment
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- 646 reads
doolittle
doolittle sometimes i need the comfort of so many yesterdays chords that can bright a monday with time travel abandoned to the scrawl of strawberry...
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- 251 reads
nothing more than saltwater
nothing more than saltwater at school i was told, with cudgel control by those claiming to educate all the things that make britain great: a common-...
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- 3 comments
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- 435 reads
speed-dating for the vanished
speed-dating for the vanished light streams from warm bars, smiles recoil from chandeliers i watch, hooded and rained on too close to the glass,...
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- 3 comments
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- 546 reads
hog plum and lobster
hog plum and lobster as the sun gears itself up for another day, young lives teeter toward ending bedrooms lit by greedy screens desperation, silent...
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- 3 comments
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- 940 reads