the bus driver who reads Emily Dickinson
on all the same streets   in all the same bars
how do you wake up dressed
next to a woman this beautiful and naked

how do you   or would you rather be a fish
in his secret notebook and in that of the young
girl also-poet who has the mouth of PJ Harvey
the Dorset eyes and mouth of Polly Jean

and so the water falls   and you must be in love
or at least have known love’s warmth
like a sun red brick or dog’s soft pelt   under your hand
you have to feel this film   or it is nothing

all that repetition and all that doubling
the rhyme and the rhythm   the internal logic that acknowledges
that sometimes the blank page is the greatest opportunity
cupcake me no cupcakes   just call me Harlequin

I need to piss   must be that beer on the way in
so I need to piss but I just have to write this
one day I will find the right words and they will be simple
sometimes the blank page is the greatest opportunity

Nick gets most of his sustenance from double espressos and malt whisky, and after a lifetime of denial is finally willing to admit his poetry habit in public. First published through the Leads to Leeds project run by Helen Mort, his poems have also appeared in The Cunningham Amendment, Pennine Platform, Poetry Salzburg and the Waterworks Anthology, and online at New Boots and Pantisocracies 

the only reason to come to London is to get lost
to spin in the teeming anonymity

stand still for a minute
stand still for half an hour

and watch nothing happen but furious movement
all with a stare fixed off into the middle distance

Bermondsey    perhaps
this could never be home

Nick gets most of his sustenance from double espressos and malt whisky, and after a lifetime of denial is finally willing to admit his poetry habit in public. First published through the Leads to Leeds project run by Helen Mort, his poems have also appeared in The Cunningham Amendment, Pennine Platform and the Waterworks Anthology, and online at New Boots and Pantisocracies and In Between Hangovers.

…and sometimes on these nights
as Spring cusps into Summer
and the air is potent with
the perfume of all that is promised
and blossoming and heavy
with intent   then you stand
beneath the laburnum tree and
inhale the decadent scent while
gazing at the moon   young and silver
and slim   through the great yellow
grape flowers   thick drops of sunlight
collecting on branches like water
queuing to fall   getting dew wet
toes because you forgot your
shoes   and you call the cat in….

Nick gets most of his sustenance from double espressos and malt whisky, and after a lifetime of denial is finally willing to admit his poetry habit in public. First published through the Leads to Leeds project run by Helen Mort, his poems have also appeared in The Cunningham Amendment, Pennine Platform and the Waterworks Anthology, and online at New Boots and Pantisocracies and In Between Hangovers.

people without shadows

in the mid-winter   easterly lying   northern fjord
of Seydisfjordur   the sun never scratches the rim
of the mountains and the people must walk
without shadows   alone under the milkwater sky

shadows without people

in the not so long that people don’t recall
a man made sun blasted shadows from people
leaving them abandoned on the walls and steps
of Hiroshima town   mute in the silence of horror

Nick gets most of his sustenance from double espressos and malt whisky, and after a lifetime of denial is finally willing to admit his poetry habit in public. First published through the Leads to Leeds project run by Helen Mort, his poems have also appeared in The Cunningham Amendment, Pennine Platform and the Waterworks Anthology, and online at New Boots and Pantisocracies and In Between Hangovers.