Good Morning

The sun was burning off the dashboard, just as it was yawning its way over yet another morning. His feet were cold and bent up against the foot pedals, poking out from his work suit trousers, bound by stiff leather and shoelace. Fidgeting or maybe shaking, he wasn’t too sure. He’d be dozing under his blazer since he pulled up at about 4 in the morning, and when he wasn’t dozing he stared into the doorway of a block of flats. Just this one block of flats. Just one doorway for all those flats. There’s, say, sixteen flats in there, so that’s a minimum of sixteen people who could walk through that one doorway, but he’s only waiting for one of them.

It’s turning out to be an icy sort of morning where the grass seems to shimmer, but there’s still definite promise of a warm day to follow. It’s a good day to wake up on when it’s like this, it’s like the day is getting up with you, and you can feel like you didn’t sleep alone.

The door opens, and the only one he’s been waiting for steps out, burying her eyes from the sun, and looking slightly up like she’s breathing in the day. And then someone he’s not waiting for follows.

The frost is staring to melt.

They kiss, they smile, they hug, they smile again and he turns to leave and then he does.

He wasn’t waiting for this, though maybe he should have been.

She reaches her hand out for the door again, takes another breath of the day and stops. She’s looking at the car, and she’s staring at it ‘cause she knew one just like that, and this one’s got the same fucking dent in the drivers door and the trim’s coming off the body in the same fucking place and she’s walking towards the car and now she’s running and her mouth is open and she’s screaming and her fists are hitting the window and the door and the bonnet and her boyfriend has run back and he’s holding her he’s holding her her boyfriend’s holding her ‘cause that’s what they do.

And the engine is starting, the car is pulling away, and he’s driving.

He reaches the split in the road and turns off left towards the museum.

More fucking dents.

Copyright Dexter Selboy 2011 (c)

15:48 to Brixton

first piece of a series of collaborations i'm doing for creaturemag.com, with the amazing Bob Shaw.

O hark, tis national poetry day...

... and therefore the lovely fellow Matt Witt at http://www.creaturemag.com/ has compile a three part series of poetry from various poets to celebrate. This is a lovely website, constantly updated, which gives a whole host of quirky and inventive artists the platform to show of their wares.

so delve in

http://www.creaturemag.com/creaturemag-poetry-part-1/#more-1620

http://www.creaturemag.com/creaturemag-poetry-part-2/#more-1640

and find me and a bunch of other chaps scribblings.

more tomorrow.

xx

just 'cause you made a sandcastle, doesn't mean you're some kind of king

and when I get there

still

token of a present that isn’t yet on the first steps

the thought up ahead

waiting to catch up with dreams and meaning of beings, beens

and or

or and

and has beens

syncopated frames colliding to meet

the maker of scenes side reel

and I feels to I feel to I feels

and to find real

I asked the mirror if my eyes could pluck from me

and the words fell to nothing else

and my screams went unheard to those ears

that face was just lines

that chin was just a shape

and movement was mimic

we saw through two eyes; not four

and spoke with one mouth

heard with two ears; and the other two deaf

breathed just one fresh air

and when the question sought answers

none came

the legs remained lame

the arms couldn’t lift themselves

and I could see the strings

my friend could never be as much as I saw him

and the words he said could never mean as much as I heard them

my company was never much as I gave

and my words were never as much as their worth

I bowed down for no curtsey

shook hands

p’d and q’d for no courtesy

my body spoke the wrong language

eyes can only see what they understand

the mind can only construct the pattern

my green is your blue

my hate is your glue

and our norths can’t meet

I grew from something else

and your earth is my death

your exhale is my breath

and as you stand

my right is my left

together we chased our own rainbow

found the pot was empty

and so sold the pot

climbed mountains with no view

ran marathons with no finish line

thought equally of ourselves as murderers and geniuses

learned to hate out obsessions instead of embrace them

and did the same to our relatives

I learnt not to hold your hand while you held mine

it didn’t matter if I lied if you believed me

so I just said that was how I smiled when I was happy

and you did it too

how can it be love

when it’s like this?

does hate end up loving all the time

no one ever answers these questions

so

bashing this wall for as long as I’ve been

looking so far forward that I missed the door right beside me

eventually broke through stone and concrete

reached through to pull the inside out

and found

just the same

and the wall suddenly seemed more beautiful

its reason was just to be; not to block

and I’d turned the wall into a hole

that opened to show that nothing had changed

so I picked up the bricks

began to build

one by one

stone by stone

and as the last piece was placed

I hammered in a nail

hung a mirror

and I looked at each other

(c) Dave Selby 2010

22/12/09

it was what i had been dreading

the phone too

it trembled and glowed

its blue light

at the shock of what it had received

she hates to see me chipper

because i was the one

and i don't understand

how hard it is for her

i reply

some bullshit

because i can't say

one of the many things

i would like to say:

i miss you

i hate you

i'm trying not to rub salt in the wounds

i've hurt you

i've hurt me

i still love you

so i say

i know, i'm sorry

and she says

no, you really, really

don't know

just keep on with your chipper

fucking mornings and gigs

and forget about me

well

i can't

i want to

i hate you

i miss you

i've hurt you

i hate me, and

i still love you

(c) Dave Selby 2010

nightly woe

lady of the night

get inside

for

it is cold

although, admittedly

it has been rather temperate

and

the weather recently

has more than made up

for the bitter winter months

still

your clothes are few

and you tremble

like a puppy

a cute one

who is cold

or maybe

(even)

scared

lady of the night

get inside

(c) Dave Selby 2010

Review

he ran his

small

fat

hands across the hair of her outer thigh

and looked into her

good eye

leaned in

and brushed his mid-life crises

against the rim of her glasses

by mistake

they didn't need words;

she didn't know many

and he

had a speech impediment

some people are meant to be alone

(c) Dave Selby 2010