If you would be so kind, that is.

Written by Pat Marshall and illustrated by me, myself and I and out now!

Suitable from age 10 plus - an enchanting ghost story and trip down memory lane for the author, set in good old Yorkshire, based on real life people with a little fantasy thrown in x

£6.99 including postage from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlie-Baker-Seeker-Pat-Marshall/dp/0957096704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322427371&sr=8-1

Thank you xx

Ugly swooped down

and found me

 on the underground lift.

Subtle shift in light

My eyes draw water and fight

Rancid threat stole through my portal

My weakness, my devout sense of alien

My dirty corner, holster for thought

unclean I was always ashamed.

Death, I dream of

death daily

daily whilst looking for life

I sleep

sleep too often  

too often I sleep

I wear the blur between the worlds as my lens.

I can’t stop seeing,

I see outwards, inwards and in between

even when the skin rests on my windows.

I fight, I fight, fight.

Feet stand concrete cold

 tube station vacuum- train sucks fast coming.

I see you smile darkly

cut angles through shared human air

Heady, heavy with too much living

It grips tight with maudlin fingers

employs mouths to carry whispers

Mouths without faces,

faces without bodies,

bodies without places,

places without history

Whispers that poke.

Whispers that  rape through curtained hair

Access Without ticket

Stealing space in aural highway

Deep within cavities and side roads.

drum, drum, drum my ear drum

you returned

you nudge my chemistry

the evil is in the subtlety

Low, low sulky swing of mortician’s wing

Hears me sing

Dusts me.

I can feel it and watch the vapour sigh.

I sit prone

Glazed under eye like taxidermist lump

Peel back skin and begin.

Draw out the parts that grieve

Decant Soul to the left spirit to the right

And throw the rest in the bin.

Treat my fragile skin with leather maker

Make it tougher, stronger, visible

Stitch me up tight and give me mantle

Let the light shine with favour

Make me visible

Visible

Visible.

Colleen Allen

Past My ‘Sell By’ Date

I am so past my sell by date

don’t want to be sold

don’t want to be borrowed

I don’t want to be owned

I don’t want to be put on the shelf for display

Brought out on weekends to fondle and play

I am different to many I think, I do

But never, not ever do I ever ‘I do’

I hide at the back where I mix with rejected

Broken, and missing the crushed and dejected

And every time I am pawed and selected

I miss my shelf that secured and protected

I sab-o-tage and pine and panic

I can’t be normal; I am feral and manic

I prefer to write poetry into the moon

Than see love and respect

Become violence and gloom

Dark turned from light creating S. A. D

I am a rolling stone I want love but I flee

I have skeletons many, they sit on the fence

Wagging their fingers and making me tense

“Hey Look there an eligible bachelor, my sister”

Fuck sexism brother, he’s a wanky male spinster

“Come over here” say the bones on their perch

They are looking all wistful, they want me to purge

Oh no, not again please go to my closet

With every revelation, a chalky deposit

I feel NO shame for the life that I hold

Depression is the heaviest it’s dark and its cold

But just to be clear that I am proud of my, me

Here is a list of the things that make me free…

Colleen Allen

You are ambiguous a hybrid of three

A metaphor a reality a me

I watch you as you watch me

in your own place,

sitting

with what

I imagine to be

numb

under sweat

under skin

under muscle

under bone

Under thumb

alone

Sat upright, not manly

arrogant throne,

thrown arms

Back Swagger

Black dagger

white skin

Red, see it seep,

see it moan

see it wind

see it drip

see it weep

begin butching up slim limbs with

the mobility of the brittle boned,

twice owned, thrice rejected

suck bad air to tired lung  

drawn through ugly lip angles to bare teeth

eyes point like fingers – urgent

like a farmer assessing his poor yield

no rain

you

like a mortician, ironing out damage, looking for life, looking at death

assessing

crook:

of arm

of thigh

of groin

of neck

palpating each vein

your baby, your hope, your salvation, escape

feverish

a tenderness reserved for one thing

only one thing

these days

 urgent

channelling radar - tiny living pupil pin point

defy the backdrop the absolute blanket of dark

behind sockets

                    tourniquet, tourniquet,

                    tourniquet tight

strangled blush under skin

rear up vein trail to meet opaque

with a hint of blue hue

to yield upwards and craven

lust gasp to open

this vent

this door

this window

this pore

blood letting, almost poetic….      it bursts like fireworks,

   fans out fountain of cells,

    seduce light, 

      each red tear drip-ready to hold fast-secrets

they fall pretty, crimson to black on the white walls

a pattern, your pattern,

and you sit,

always in the same chair

cigarette glued to lip edge

dangerous angle

ashy tail wagging with each laboured breath

from fag end to lap, fag end to lap

and comatose drool loosens the tip,

we lived in fear of the fire

the fire.

Colleen Allen

I cry for this lonely,

not because I am

but because

I do not know

how not to be

I expend pain

with each shift in pace

I exhaust

and extend pain

To all I touch or

Feel or send

brain rain

I sip dust,

kiss dry lust

From bleached lip

Bitten deep

 to tempt blood salt

But tease only

Like tongue tip to

Flesh erection

I yield siren

Throat projection

song of hope

lost

in chastity

 lost

chains

chainsaw dashed

aside 

and smashed

to

slide inside

your ride,

your steed gently grazing

patient waiting

for the un hero spent

in his ice breaking

bow’s low and toast making

tips hat but fucks waiting

he trips in retreat and she vomits relief

quickly repackages face

I bleed ugly

I cry ugly

This is neither the time nor the place

To die ugly

So graffiti my

hues

black & blue

black & blue

to white

white

to highlight the absolute

landscape of nothing

spraypaint it ivory bone

over porcelain

skin over coffin

and numb

nothing in numb

dull ‘zzzz’ and low hum

I binge on the four things

I know will hurt me best

I inhale and ingest and forget meds and don’t rest

Don’t sleep

Cracks form

mad’ creeps

see the

bad sheep

counting

wolf teeth

on the spines

where they

stole re-lief

and the lambs bleat

and the cows weep

and the grim sows

so he can reap

and so you sleep

and slow the sheep

it swallows deep

and spits you neat

Back

Colleen Allen

Dedicated to my old good friend and band member Patrick Simons RIP xxx

There is a taste, acrid

A tingle, a touch

That fingers dirty..

 your soft palate

Extends each digit length to

Cradle throat

Tight to choke

As life flickers - adrenalin

Licks salaciously

Down jelloid spine

To hip

 Grip

My heart in time with

Tremble lip

Upon that note of death

I wish to plug my ears and eyes

And mouth

So not one morsel of this vile

Meal information

Can enter my skin

And make it real.

I feel its dark note plummet

Offensive drip, drip

Loaded viral substance

To throat back

Spit or swallow

Neither

Repairs or endears

Poison news unwanted

UNWANTED

But fact

Repairs not

The dead.

Or those

With every torn nerve

Bleating beak open to life

Screaming out so loud its binds the silence

My head space staccato

Hysterical blind - I see with touch

Your skin is like parchment

Open wound

Bleeds nothing but empty spaces

Nothing

Nothing

psychic pain so deep it weeps

through parallel lines-blotting on numb

 with each gasp I try to

lasso you back

humming pain ebbs out from inside this throb

Gap weeps from hollow orbs.

Salty track to map the line of change

Over bone of cheek to philtral dimple

A thousand drops to you

To you my friend

But a timeless fluid landscape

for the grieving

Colleen Allen

Don’t like sunshine

Stealing my eye

Illuminating abyss

Streaking nakedly

pointing forth

Dipping, burning

arrow pure

Waking shadows.

Walking brick

Creaking, growling, moaning

Making sick

Twisting gargoyles

towards and away

Shielding old skin

from

laughing shards

Away, away, away

Unbleach me

 strip off your glare

One milk arm, sluggish

Forced action

such distaste

Flex wasted muscle to halt

Raping song

sweet laughter

Tearing,

“off with her skin”

“Off with her bones”

“Off with her sin.”

Warm up blood boil

Chroma-tographic pecking

Suck and spit

Pure from

unpalatable

collapse the shroud

Skin of snake

Waxen

fragile as shell

dissipate

 powder puff magic

organic

obliteration

mounding ant hill

agitate like restless legs

Crown me and un-dig me

Crown me something beautiful

Let me reign

In something more

Valid than pity

Let me be pretty

Uncob web me

Wipe me down

Unpick me with razor sharp

Douse me in charcoal

Draw out poison

Piss on me

Make me equitable

Evangelical

Passionate

make me feel

Euthanize

Sanitise

Reconstruct

re-energise

wear me

colostomy

tear me

paper

bind me with liquid and mould me to parchment

special

like quill to biro

payslip to giro

something for the weekend sir

place me on your fireplace neat

shine me twice a week

I promise you so verily

I will not move or bleat

Oh Sunshine…….

Picked inside

Broke me laser

Spangled molecules

Angry yellow wasps

net you back

reform damn you

give me back

my shadow.

Colleen Allen

Scratching the scar

with a spoon

Was different.

Not satisfying

But pleasant.

New.

Acquisition of

fresh

sensation

and knowledge..

my heart

still beats.

Tearing that dress

Hurt

But healed

Knowing

Such things

Matter not

In the whole

Scheme of things

When the tongue

Catches

Salt water

Chasing skin path

Over lip jutt

Into

Blood stream.

And fleshy circuit board lightening

Tells me

Yes

Possibly

Probably

you

are

still

Alive.

Colleen Allen

When you touched

me

You passed

Queen headed notes

Slipped

in brown paper

sheath

offering

small tributes

to dignify

hands

that thereafter

would meet

mine

sullied red

with blood

-willed-

adrenal pump

-filled-

places

shaped to fit

.me.

against my principles

but not

against my

need.

My need

Need

Need to feel

Life

From pocket

To thought wave.

I thought

I could

Manage

This

But

I damaged

That

Sentence

From capital

‘I’

To lower case

‘me’

I thought

To buy freedom

With

Skin

And saliva

And sin

And sleep

I didn’t

I couldn’t

Rest

Stroke, calm

Sooth

Reassemble

My crumpled

Gesture to gestation

‘Mock up’ and stage scripted

Procreation

The lurid dress of contractual

temptation

stamped on

Flat

By

Salutations.

“Hello”

How are you?

Fuck you?

Thank you.

Kisses?

Wank you!

Relieve and

Bank you 

And yet

I despair

Not for the

Lonely veins of

Vice

But of

Life.

And perceptions

Of heaven and hell

By those who know

NOTHING of both

But question the souls

that know well

what it is to have foot

in the stirrup of both

staddled hard between

vacuum and hope

so we seek

comfort.

Comfort.

a deal

transaction

egalitarian

cloak and dagger

painful

satisfaction

Colleen Allen

Whilst fingering

The mess

That is memory

I tripped on a knot

Uncurled it

Looked.

Saw something vague

Like looking through

Glass

Not pretty like Alice

But with skin of gob

Mapped thinly

With ‘dot to dot’

blob.

Each time

It slips

I chase it

In grey

Squeeze my eyes tight

To encase it tight

between crown

and

Two ears

With no light.

Just above

crows feet

and

twitching frown.

but it foxed me

and fell

and ran for the

hills

and kissed and

told

everyone

but

me

I can’t

grasp it

Or grip it

Or coax it

Or nip it

Or hold it

Or blast it

Or fold it

Or slip it

Into

a neat

little drawer

Because

My memory..

 (sorry?)

It is

(who?)

So

poor

Colleen Allen

our fucked up tools

Used to prod and poke

I yawned behind your skull

Whilst tracing out circle

Within circle

Target practice

for later

Thread my finger nail

Down your spineless

Back

Filling in gaps

Where marrow should be

Kneading you

not needing you

I would never do that

To me

My steel is my house

There is one door

Invisible to

Many

like you

You say

I never let you

in

Strategic

I turned myself

inside out

And back to front

And upside down

In hopes

You were not flat

Like a banner

Strong words

No substance

To

drip

breath

 drip

Into my vacuum packed

senses

And re-ventilate

me

Colleen Allen

 am robust like a mongrel

No ped - i - gree

In me

Tiny cells

filled mainly

with water

The rest

 Imperfection

Perfect imperfection

You see

There is nothing quite parallel

Or indeed matching

Forever recycling

bits that need patching

up

from

a sows ear to cows rear

I step into this tailored membrane

skin

zip it  up by 7.30 and

step within

the world

on repeat from Lloyds

Pharmaceutical

Purveyor of tools

for the mind

and the cuticle

typical consumer

and so I decant a

plethora of nonsense

To protesting rant    (*1)

Seroxat and lipstick and novelty ring

A blood pressure gadget and pad without wing

A book on Alzheimer’s and omega 3 

A hair dye and tweezers and spray with tea tree

And then

On the way

 home

With my last

five pounds

Burning

a hole

in my

Arse

I found

Something to convince myself I need/I need/I really need and if i don’t have..

my heart will surely stop

A pair of 80’s boots

from

the

Sue

Ryder

charity

shop.

Hyper

Hyper

Mania

Maniac 

fever

Nothing in my pocket

So

I reach out

For

the

Visa

Colleen Allen

No hand in my hand

No hand in my hand

And they smile

that fascist

.EXCLUSION.

White smile  

<-RICOCHET ->

Rogue saccharine

-> BULLET <-

Carried ‘pon

endorphin

riddled

^ HIGH ^

shy . pink.  Glow

Eyes glittering,

Obscene to us

You know

THE

 UN-LOVED

Your loud love

invading

Our ghost town

.   SPACE   .

tattooed

on the air

that we share

I SPIT IT OUT ->  %”:{.<.<…,

I do not want YOUR

blistering

happiness

soiling

my moment

or  blurring

the

bitter taste

Of grief

Nor Share

thrift shop

euphoria

what is NOT mine

I WANT to suffer

This piece

This segment

of my time

In peace

Make me blind

To such happiness

Such display

of

careless adoration

I am sorry

That I hate you

I don’t know you

But I hate you

Not you

But the love

You breath

out

And

in

Punctuated only

By kisses

And kisses

Kisses

It

Pisses

Me off

You know

yes we know

Why you flaunt your success

You are loved

and perhaps

you are

blessed

While I ghost walk

the mould of your feet

stamping and grinding my toe

in the hopes that my sole will absorb

from the earth 

a fragment

a dusty potion

a dip

a blot

a bit

(when I am not looking)

up

to my soul

and why not

me

this ghost

perhaps

 I am

simply

less

loveable

than

.most.

Colleen Allen

‘Tommy’ wore his clothes in layers

He had a penchant for green

and his skin was partial

to particular fabrics

like raw cotton and metal

every tuesday

Tommy couldn’t stand the pain

Of a crowded room

and a thousand voices,

colours, patterns

fly like numbers

must consume them

Tommy liked to carry marbles

Every comb-i-nation of blue

They had to twist between his fingers

Twenty leftwise

twenty right wise 

double on ‘S’ days

Tommy had a friend of one

His name was Simon

He found him friendly

His mother cried for

His lack of many

She thought he needed

To make him same-y

Tommy was a fool to none

He captured

A - levels –

at fifteen

He didn’t

Mix with

Ne-an-derthals

Or seek solace

in the mainstream

Tommy is a friend of mine

He comes in many

Different sizes

Different places

Different houses

Different ob-ses-sions

and trousers

And I like ‘him’

He is honest

and sometimes

‘Tommy’

is

a

girl

Colleen Allen

I wore tight knicker elastic

Under and over

. tights .

thrice reinforced

.crotch.

to be sure

I was safe and secure

From ‘space’ invaders

 -

I wore eye curtain tresses

To hide from and intercept

.Boys.

Lest they approach

.Me.

With their words of

“cock tease”

And all that bollocks

Colleen Allen