THE PHLEBOTOMIST

The phlebotomist is bored

With taking blood. It’s all he does.

He has no vampire aspirations

And no promotion prospects either.

OFFICE NIGHTS

After the last straggler has fastened

her coat, switched off the lights

and much later the cleaner has roared

and crashed round the desks and poured

bleach down the bowls in the unisex loos,

the computers catch their breath,

the phones relax their throats

and the photocopier closes an exhausted eye.

Pens stand like soldiers in boxes

or lie where they fell, and shut into drawers,

sandwiches fester. Rows of blank screens

reflect. In the store room

(where Eva swore Mr Payne touched her,

though he denied it,)

sheets of white paper dream trees

and silences ripen.

OUTPATIENT APPOINTMENT 11.40 AM

He leans deep over me; his breath, cool

as an anaesthetic, blankets my dread.

He does not speak. I sense his rule

of silence and my questions fade.

His warm palms touch my neck,

palpate my glands. His eyes,

half-closed, conceal what is at stake.

His hands draw down towards my thighs.

‘May I?’ His fingers check my groin.

Against my will my body starts to tense.

He moves away, leaves me alone,

the coldness of the couch is all I sense.

He's scribbling in a file. I'm in a chair.

He turns a page. I float my mind.

The unsaid saturates the air.

The pen is black. I watch his hand.                  

THE TIME A VAMPIRE CAME TO HAVE HIS TEETH FIXED

He was particularly polite. Paused

at the door and waited to be invited

inside. I have to confess

until he opened his mouth

(that's when I fainted)

I was extremely impressed

with his sleek black hair, very expensive suit

and powerful handshake.

I thought he was really cutting edge.

NOT ME

Outside the greengrocer's the other day

a stranger holding a single red rose

smiled and advanced in my direction.

It was like that advertisement for specs, 

where the girl running towards her lover stops

and kisses the old guy just in front of him.

The man with the flower wasn’t good-looking,

in fact he was rather dumpy. But when he marched right past

I was surprised to feel my solar plexus plummet.

Suddenly, there I was, thirteen years old again,

pale blue Alice band thrust through back-combed hair

being chatted up by a boy at my new youth club.

The next week I went back, he waved across the room

and I responded, heart hammering.

You already know what happened.

VIEW FROM AN ENGLISH WINTER

I had a friend, clear skinned, pink cheeked,

a science teacher.

She met a man on holiday in Turkey

on a beach; he smiled, she blushed.

She spoke no Turkish.

He didn’t speak a word of English.

He was a carpenter.

I warned her that it wouldn’t last.

I stayed with them four months ago, in August

Their villa overlooks the sea and in their garden

jasmine twines around juniper.

He has erected shelves where they display

photographs of their two cats

three daughters

and five grandchildren.

THE PEA

Dear Mum,

I don't know how it happened -

I made the bed

the way you taught me,

meticulous to the point of perfect symmetry,

smoothed the silk sheets

calmed the wrinkles with my palm

honed hospital corners straight as glass -

a treat for the tenderest arse.

No one's ever complained before.

So how did it happen?

I say that so-called princess, lady la de da

must have invented it, lock, stock and leguminous barrel.

Marriage was on her agenda

and that's what I told my employer,

but he took offence

and now I'll never get a decent reference.

Love Brenda

Dear B,

Am so sorry, but don't worry,

I've got you a job!

The seven dwarves next door,

tell me they're desperately short of a cleaner

since their last one ran off

with some toff.

Love

Mum

RED CROSS INSPECTION OF THERESIENSTADT CONCENTRATION CAMP JUNE 23^rd 1944

What were their thoughts, those musicians

scaling the heights of Beethoven, Wagner?

Concealed so near them, friends and families,

thousands crammed into buildings, sick and starving,

dying like vermin.

Did they play like angels in the hope that each

singing string would keep them alive

one more day? Perhaps, in spite of themselves

they made their violins weep to the dark pulse

of Death and the Maiden.

All those years of passion and discipline,

honing their skills, come to this: to be forced

on this day of deception to fool the inspectors,

perform among garlands, masking

the smell of the dead.

TERRACED HOUSE PERFORMER

Come watch this woman who dances like silk -

how she lifts her arms high and entrances,

look at her man whose belly just burns

when he sees all those shadow men lurking.

He knows when her curtains are open they see her,

the light shining down on the twist of her hips.

She knows that they're drooling like dogs when they stare

and she laughs when her man says, 'Stop.

I can't take this.'

Nothing will stop her, she thinks in her glory

nothing can stop her enjoying the game

nothing can stop her whirl through the kitchen

not even the smell of the roast turned to ashes

not even the sight of the blade.

THE VEIL

I don’t flatter myself;

she only picked me because I'm short.

Her husband's funeral and she doesn’t want me to reach

all that unblushing flesh.

Though I stretch and stretch I can't conceal

those insistent breasts. She should be ashamed.

If I had eyes I'd cover them.

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 3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY

THE PHLEBOMIST – Published in South Bank Poetry 2014

OFFICE NIGHTS – Published in South Bank Poetry 2014 and in The Keystone Anthology 2015

OUTPATIENT APPOINTMENT 11.40AM Commended in the Hippocrates Prize Competition 2015 and published in The Hippocrates Prize Anthology 2015

THE TIME A VAMPIRE CAME TO HAVE HIS TEETH FIXED – Published in The Interpreter’s House 2011

NOT ME – Published in South 2014

          Published in Pop Up Anthology 2014

VIEW FROM AN ENGLISH WINTER – Published in The Interpreter’s House 2012 and in The Keystone Anthology 2015

THE PEA – Published in The Interpreter’s House 2012

           Published in Pop Up Anthology 2014

RED CROSS INSPECTION OF THERESIENSTADT CONCENTRATION CAMP JUNE 23^rd 1944 – Published in

            Second Generation Voices 2014            

TERRACED HOUSE PERFORMER – Published in South Bank Poetry 2013

THE VEIL – Winner of North London Literature Festival iPoem competition 2015 (in a slightly shorter version

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