The Phrenology of Painting

	I have been trailing light fingers
	over the surface of oils;

	Following the landscape of uneven ridges.
	Absent of colour these strokes

	need to be art through other devices.
	I am splaying my palms over textures

	trying to detect the ripple of matter.
	The brain that made this,

	The creator identified in the created,
	The smudged index of God

	encoded in bone.
	Here are my epiphanies;

	Absence of vision is not darkness.
	Absence of god is not emptiness.

	I open my eyes
	And take for granted.



	Phil and Don
	(for Chris Storey)

	Brothers under our skinful,
	cheerfully downing schnapps and cheap lager.
	hurtling headlong into our gig
	on porcelain french horns.
	
	Us twin Dylan Thomasi,
	arrogant Gemini,
	Pissed as Romulus and Remus
	wolfing magic mushrooms.
	Too far starry
	in dandelion days.

	Me and you and George,
	busking Beatles songs
	outside of the 'Gamecock'
	after I'd been thrown
	out of the Conservative club
	for kissing a woman
	and pouring lager
	over a union jack.

	and you a failed lightweight
	pinned by that fat committee man
	making your own canned laughter
	as he tried to punch your head off.

	Those days are gone.
	The Wind has dispersed our seed at fall
	Our heads bobbing above the alcohol
	that has flowed over our bridgework.
	Two reprobates
	with kids and debt.
	but once we were
	the Everly Brothers
	of vomit.



	Coffee and the corners of the heavens.

	You must be careful what you say, 
	The strangest of seeds will take root, 
	
	You must be careful what you touch, 
	Some pieces of her are fragile. 
	
	I watch the way she moves, assured 
	Of her place under this heaven. 
	
	The way she stirs coffee, holds the spoon
	Between indelicate fingers.
	
	Surprising, considering her 
	Songs both strange and soul unfulfilled,
	
	Yet rising like love in the heart
	And moving me to her defence,
	
	That all these creatures at her light
	Do not notice these corners of night.



	At Some Point in Time We Fractured

	at some point in time fractured,
	uncertain of which bones to break
	we broke them all.
	climbed walls
	without fear
	of falling.
	at some point in time we fractured.
	uncertain of which promises to break
	we broke them all
	and being unable to keep broken promises,
	we made new ones.

	Not all the king’s horses
	nor all the king’s men
	have our vanity.



	Deborah Rah Rah Rah

	When Debbie became Deborah
	and traded in the low life for the high
	the girls that weren’t invited to
	her wedding stood on the quayside
	and cried.
	
	To wed a pop star is unlikely
	to wed one of such magnitude
	deserved applause
	the wedding dress in ‘Hello’
	just couldn’t be ignored.

	When Debbie became Deborah
	‘Cosmo’ did a feature on her car, 
	a gift from her dutiful husband
	a far cry from the Bigg Market
	for Deborah rah rah rah.