Rainy days

Hazel eyes raining
Soft love, unspoken, untouched
Lightening strikes my heart.

Unmoving lips call
“Stay with me”, Heartstrings pulling
Me, You, Together.

Fingers tentative
Reaching out for mine, flutter
Lovely butterflies.

Ifs and chances

There is a joyous jolt

of certain recognition

followed by a sudden

desperate sense of loss

when you realise

the stranger

who you passed on the street

or saw in a bar

or watched depart

on a distant bound plane

could have been

the rest of your life.

Extraordinary

If I was a grand architect of design.

If I was the master of texture, colour, shape, style and beauty.

If I could mould and fashion and forge personality, intelligence, sensitivity, sensuality, generosity and strength.

If I possessed the perfect, potent power of pure magic

If I was a wild-eyed cosmic genius with a boundless, endless, limitless imagination.

If my creativity dwarfed and humbled every artist, scientist, writer, sculptor and mathematician who had ever graced the planet.

Even if I had dominion over all things

I still could never create a creature

as unique

and as extraordinary

as woman.

Lies

I tell her I am fine

That everything is good.

That my writing is going well. A thousand words a day, and not one of them sad.

That I am going out in the evenings. To the PUB in town. The noisy one with the live music and the dealers and the tarts. I know the bartender by name. We have a laugh.

I tell her I can listen to the radio without blinking back tears. I can watch movies without reliving us.

I tell her I am happy

That I’ve met a girl.

That she is pretty and petite and likes to laugh. And to please me. In lots of ways.

That she dances and sings and really cares about the planet. And that kind of stuff.

I tell her I am content

That I sleep soundly at night.

Well… most nights.

I tell her I am glad she has found someone special..

That I am delighted. Honestly. Truly.

For her.

I tell her I am glad.

I just lie

about everything.

Days like today

Left home a little too early today, the darkness and memories inspired this


When the days are like today

January in August,

The bleak, grey sky choked with clouds. Pavements empty. Cold, defeated holiday children huddled at bus stops. Mist running in relentless torrents of breath, Deserted, long abandoned al fresco tables.

Headlights on in the morning.

 Dismal dogs trailing on their leads. Mothers with covered babies and gritted teeth. The constant sad swish of weary yawns.

When the days are like today

I need you

to reach out and touch me

I need you

to share my coat

I need you

to be my summer.

Tiny

Despite the shadows

the dark clouds

the sometimes sad and sorry

state of things

it is a source of deepest joy

and endless wonder

that you

are in my world.

Not this time

All the sharp edges must be blunted.

Allow no memory that will cut you deep.

It is the first rule of failed relationship survival.

Do not let anything that can wound you come close. Delete every photograph, every video, every message, every mocking page of social media. All of those things that cause you to remember. Shut them down, block them out. Excommunicate, banish, excoriate, evict, scrub, cleanse, discard. Never dwell on what was done, what was said, the happiness, the joy, the hopes. Do not allow those sacred, lost moments to run like a loop in your mind. Do not visit the places you once shared.

Do not remember her scent, her touch, her skin, her laughter. Most of all, do not recall how she loved you once.

Blot her out.

Erase her.

There is no value in suffering. No point in allowing the hurt to mark you, damage you, blacken your days.

There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on the times when you were happy. Nor for blaming yourself for when they were not. You cannot bring back the past. And even if by some strange magic you could, it would never be the same. Time, events and distance change everything from the moment her fingers and lips leave you for the last time. She is not yours anymore. If indeed she ever was.

I have repeated all this to myself over and over again like a mantra. I know it all by heart. I know what to do and how to do it.

I know it better than anyone.

But I just can’t do it.

Not this time.

Slave to my words

I learned the hard way that I am a prisoner of my words and thoughts and their punishment when I do not pay attention to them when they want me to, is to disappear, with no clear indication on when they will return

Conversations with Clouds

As I lie here in this tall, green grass, I court the company of cotton bears and cosmic bunnies. Therefore, petitioning heaven for peace of mind, that dare I die tomorrow it would feel good to live today, and so I share my thoughts with the sky—

Rolling white caps of stratus and quo
awash in rhapsody blue,
Tall and proud for to be a cloud
is to be a rogue it is true.

Wanderers, drifters, coasters of cumulus,
of what places have you seen?
It is not so much of where you are going,
but of where you have already been.

And though I have traveled many a mile,
there is knowledge that I require.
Would now you impart your wisdom true
for this I do so desire.

For I have seen the end of my days,
would it be too little too late?
That I court regret and am thus beset
to only tempt that fate.

As it is not so much the things I’ve done
but the things I wanted to do,
And it is not so much the loves I’ve won
but the love I wanted true.

Bridges I’ve burned are lessons learned
and wisdoms by which to live.
Yet the hardest coin ever I earned
was the knowledge of how to forgive.

The resolution I have come to conclusion
I have lived life as like a cloud,
And the only solution is the restitution
for what sins I have endowed.

This burden of guilt that I bear to grave
be my only heart once broken,
And that is the love for you that I spake
but yet have never spoken.

As my thoughts grasp the sky wondering why
I let go of a love that should be,
I know now a cloud has a soul as a soul ‘tis a cloud
and a cloud ‘tis a soul to be free.

And closing my eyes—I listen for her heart.

Moments

When I am with you
I am alone
And Together
In that moment
With you.

You are the touch
That induces multitudes
Of emotions,
I know for the first time
And the last time.

You are that warmth
That makes its way
Inside places,
I visit for the first time
And the last time.

You are the light
That help me see
The spaces
That exist, for the first time
And the last time.

Knowing you,
Has made me
So much more
Than I was before,
In that moment.

You and I are,
Movement In Moment.

Today

Today is all I have

To make or break my life

Love, more or less

Laugh, with those I love

Spill warmth around

So, those around me feeling it

Are never too cold.

The Corner of Me & You

I don't know if you felt it or not
but it felt like two people kissing
after hours of thinking about it.


It felt like two people talking
after nights of silence.

It felt like two people touching

after weeks of numbness.

It felt like two people facing each other

after months of looking away.

It felt like two people in love 

after years of being alone.

And it felt like two people knowing each other

after a lifetime of meeting each other.

Happy Birthday

"Ever happy never sad" his tombstone read

in crimson and tears I etched 

"Own life taken, mask broken too late"

Happy Birthday Kay

It begins

Light is just beginning to seep into my room

It gives shape to furniture, Illuminates calendars on the walls, and faintly smears a trace of gold onto the brass of my bed.

Outside stirring birds are beginning to sing themselves awake with liquid voices.

I glance at the time on my phone. I do not check for mail although I desperately want to. But it is early. And anyway, messages will keep me awake.

I hope that you have written.

I feel my body stir and my heart yearn and I bury my head into the pillows with a sigh.

I begin to slide back into sleep. You are not there, but I feel you next to me. The heat of you. The scent of you. Your skin soft against my mine. I feel your back against my chest. 

You whisper something soft and beautiful but I hardly catch the words.

I feel you dissolving into me.

We are floating away,

My alarm sounds urgently.

My day begins.

Incediary

How can one define attraction?

I look at you and I am entranced.

A beautiful face. A gorgeous body.

A clever, creative, independent mind.

A generous heart. A beautiful soul.

I do not know if the rest of the world sees you as I see you.

I do not care.

To me you are so incendiary

you could burn your way

out of Hell

If

If I was a poet

I would craft such lines for you.

I would weigh every word carefully. Examine it. Measure it. Carefully determine its suitability. Its intention. Its light and shade. Its truth.

I would test it carefully in its relationship with other words. I would study their harmony, their balance, their humour, their wisdom, their meaning.

I would lay each sentence tenderly with the rest. Matching. Contrasting. Comparing. Trying them in my mind, beneath my fingers, in my mouth. On my tongue.

I would hold them up to you. Lay them over you. Place them side by side with you. Meticulously ensuring they capture your beauty, your elegance, your warmth, your intelligence, your grace. Making sure they fit you perfectly. Striving to make them do you justice.

If I was a poet.

And if you belonged to me.

Let you go

I am watching the afternoon dissolve.

The light is fading. The trees and shrubs, the borders and paths, the fences and lawns are merging softly into one another. The last, muted. copper rays of the sun are reflected back briefly and wistfully in the leaded windows of the house.

I am in my quiet room.The melancholy music recently playing has stopped. The absence of piano, violin and guitar has left an almost holy stillness.

Like a church hushed for prayer.

Despite myself, despite my promises to me, I am thinking of you. I have let your presence slide gently into the gathering gloom. I hear the faintest echo of your laughter. I catch your scent lingering like a sigh.

Both, of course, are impossible.

I feel a need to write something for you. A poem to send. Words to make you remember. And perhaps to regret.

But I know I won’t.

I will simply sigh and switch on the desk lamp. I will banish the ghosts and shadows and pale dancers to the sudden darkness that will press at my window.

Yet just for a moment I will sit here.

Hanging on.

Until I can bear to let you go.

Before everything

I wish you had known me then.
Before the years.
Before the suit, the business, the money.
Before the ex, the cars, the friends.
Before the affairs, the half-truths, the lies, the compromise.
Before the lines, the shadows, the hollows, the grey.
Before the words came so much harder to write.
I wish you had known me then
Before the her

Back

It has taken me at least a hundred lifetimes to get you out of my system.

I have known you forever. Adored you forever. Wanted you forever.

Different names. Different places. Different times.

A dozen centuries or more. Always you.

Your beauty, your body, your soul,

Winning you, Owning you,

Then losing you.

And now

you are back

What never was

I knew her name

And I knew what it meant in her mother tongue.

I knew her beauty. The eloquent eyes, the exquisite lips, the purity of her skin, the rich, lustrous black hair. The rise of her cheekbones and proud set of her nose

I knew her shape. The body of a goddess, a model, a girl. A walking fantasy to turn heads.

I knew a little of her mind. I knew some of her hopes and fears. And I knew the dark fantasies she never shared with anyone.

I knew too there was a gulf between us that would never be bridged.

I knew when I had lost her. Before she had even found the words.

Yet it is not what was lost that leaves my heart so bruised and bare.

It is what might have been

and never was.

Winter

Winter has set on me
Its chill on the deepest parts of me
but she may have the power
to keep this fire burning in my veins beyond the ice