I'm

Somehow still alive.

I'm flumoxed

I’ve realised again that I can’t tell the difference between writing and reading, the punctuation of silence. I pause, with head cocked to one side, discerning, from whence comes a sound indistinct, who authors? I stumbled, flirting, crying, still listening, yet absent, flummoxed, writing.

Ah, could this be the moment the reader writes, or the moment the author dies?

I'm absent

Without words there is no text; without meaning we find absence; without punctuation where is rhythm? Yet as these emerging words, rested for so many months, jostle as they slip across your screen, they seem to murmur to each other, with uplifted glance, in a language we shall never learn.

I'm listening

This morning the radio plays piano, McCoy Tyner, accompanied on vibes by Bobby Hutchinson. It occurs to me that the piano is a muddy, ranging sludge which only takes form when the oscillating bars of the vibraphone sound their resonant vibrato call, and like a limitless line of type without comma, ellipsis or stop, the vibraphone offers a kind of punctuation that adds rhythm to text and thus meaning.

I'm crying

It seemed, for a moment, that I was to reach out and touch, assembled, all the joys the world had ever known. To feel your sweet and tender breath skimming my lips, to hear your blessed words nourish and sustain me; but as the pain grew worse through listening, I realised that I was deaf.

I'm dallying

Having flirted with so many; not having had a dream for a long time; having slumped off and left you for what seemed the riches, haut and affectations of the demimonde, I return in sweet humility.

I'm stumbling

I stumbled into flummeryblog; a day or two ago, a week ago, a month ago. I thought it was a lonely place. The pretty type all set in pink and grey, the entries unfolding, with vigour for a time, had concluded in an uncertain concoction of reflexive verse.

prick

When you returned from Prick, the tattooist
With that massive carp inked across your soft bicep
Wrapped in damp clingfilm like sweaty hung meat,
I could smell a whiff of your BO.

During four hours of pain
You'd dripped sweat half grimace half grin
As you gained a new emblem,
And when I touched you—a sexy wince.

come prima

Was it possible to guess
The carnival of calls
And many reciprocated texts
Who’s subjects ranged through
Memory, love, sentiment, remorse, regret
(the common themes articulating affection)

Was it possible to guess
The above would soon dissolve quite literally into thin air
With all the visual distortion associated with convection,
Or the wiggly TV dissolve utilised to denote a mystery,
That I'd I willingly melt in your embrace
Whilst rewriting history?

dolcissimo

Whatever tranquility you craved
Stumbling through April days
Whatever it was you couldn’t find here
I’ll not hinder you with unkind dear
But seal in a lover’s kiss
All the innocence and bliss.