I want

I want to lose the sadness
from my memories
I want to erase the heartaches
and take back every sin
I want to see my Father again
and talk about poetry with Burt
I want to savour all those moments
that were really endings
and soak in a love
that I never realised was mine
but most of all I want to sleep
like I did when I was a boy
and dream
and dream
and dream

sparks in the dark

lowering myself into words
reminds me of baths
that are nearly too hot
and puddles
with muddy hidden depths
but still I ease myself beneath
a soft verb
or step into
an accusatory pronoun
once in
I'll swim through adjectives
and scrub my thoughts

with abrasive adverbs

until my brain becomes a prune

and then I'll soak there for hours

trying to match words to moods

and memories

whilst desperately trying to find a spark
in this dark

you were never worthy of her

she's between nevada
and colorado now
married to another
and content
but there was a time
I waited
until early hours
to say goodnight
and once even her name
sounded like a prayer
but when you love someone
really love someone
when your longing is
overtaken by your own worthlessness
and all that is left
within your dying conscience
is the desire
to see her happy
with someone else
with anyone else
then you must let go of the ledge
and fall deeper
into a loneliness
where love cannot breathe
and where truth speaks cruelly

blossom on bridges

blossom on bridges

can hide cracks

that reveals the

rocky water beneath

blossom on bridges

can hide the smell

of rotted timber

that will not

support my weight

and blossom on bridges

can blind me

as I fall

why do it?

I tell myself
that I write to heal
but that's not true
it's just
that the suffering I endure
is slightly less
than filling my wounds with salt
and watching
daytime soaps

a fan

I found your blog by accident
you write beautifully
but you are such a tortured soul

cool
thanks
yup

the home

she is tuneless
but still beautiful
yet he will remove his trousers and willy
without warning
she can't stop walking
and he will tell you to fuck off
with a smile and a wave
but this is where they all gather
with their blurred minds
the slowly forgetting relatives
who offer nothing to this day
but the odour of urine
or a gravy covered chin
their memories are caught
like needles in grooves
endlessly repeating
as their lives slowly
count backwards
to their mother's womb

imperfect

drunk dancing in a kitchen
and cold honesty as I drove
it wasn't a perfect love
but I remembered how to care
and even when my heart
was dropped in a green mug
and the silence
fell between the distance
I still remember her
with a truly english smile

you still make me smile

our first meeting
that first meal
our first kiss
your naked shoreline
your late calls
and my early morning texts
still make me smile
like a loon
in crowded rooms

culluloid lives

cine films
re-paints a childhood
where innocence
still exists
and where we can watch
the dead
mimic life
and wonder
who will watch us
when we join them

the everlasting love note

caught within a book
neglected
forgotten
a small card
carrying words I have read
a thousand times
I read it now like it was yesterday
I hold it close
as if it is some magical bridge to your world
and our past
but I will lose it again tomorrow
and it will be forgotten
like our love

my soulguard

with feet in the clouds

she marks my final years

and sighs

she waits for me up there

my solitary angel

for my silent prayer

for my moment of self doubt

or for a darkness to consume me

but I have no prayer for her

no scream

no shout

for there is no fear of hell in me

so she sits there

bored and restless

whilst her wings twitch
and her feathers fall

redundant

unwanted

with a slipping halo
that will lose its lustre
long before

she will hear my pleas

smile you fucker

I was weighted
chained
weary
and always at odds
but always a dreamer
now there are no more secrets to keep
for all is known
I have no time left to serve
or life to shape
there is no hunger in me to satiate
or points to make
so smile you fucker
you made it to the other side

slowly forgetting

as my memory fades
names of lovers will be forgotten
and those intimate moments
where I felt complete
will fragment and dissolve
but my heart will remember the taste
and like an echo
it will remind me
from time to time
of the electricity found in a touch
and the warmth found in encircling arms

whoops genesis

in that dark night

before the explosion
lit by a spark
that came from nowhere
or somewhere

but which still managed to ignite
something
or possibly nothing
which belched worlds

across an edge-less universe
there was I am reliably assured
by someone I can not name
two words screamed
before the atoms smashed

"oh fuck!"

pioneer 11

in 95 they lost you
as you tripped
over the edge of space

we threw you out there in 73

with a calling card
and directions
second star on the right

and all that
but my advice dear pioneer
is to stay lost
keep searching
with that sketchy male
and his genitalless mate

for a smarter world than ours

because if one day
we catch up with you
we will forget the hope
that fuelled you
and simply drag you home
to sit and decay
in a polished case
with a polished plaque
on a very very very dull world

365,242 days from now

there is a piece of me
in you
there is a piece of you
in me
within the genetics
of our souls
there is a common voice
that sings within us both
it is our father's father
it is our mother's mother
it is the distance between
this moment
and the time
when all things began
it is the echo
within our laughter
it is the light
behind our eyes
and one day
in a thousand years
our lives too
will dance in the pages
of the hearts carried
by our children's children

old loves

I recall the ones I won

I recall the ones I lost

I recall the ones I fucking hurt

and the ones who fucking hurt me

I recall the first beery kisses
followed by the beautiful but clumsy lust

they are all old loves now

yet still I remember the one
just the one
who no longer wants to remember me

c'est la fucking vie

sadly writing about happy things

some days
I am selfish pretentious musings
tinged with dark empty screams
I tell myself that I write to heal my wounds
yet all I do is find buckets of fresher pain
bad memories should live in tombs
secured with silver chains
and warning signs
not flaunting themselves like painted whores
in wild moonlight
yet still I drag the ink across the page
to hearts that will not buy
or even taste
but some words I trade for magic beans
to unravelling souls caught in my wake
but like small prayers they are never heard
they just resonate in silence
yet still this sad and purposeless writer writes
about dreams
and better days

truly irish

once upon a time
a truly english man
met a truly irish girl
they wandered through halls of art
marvelling at michelangelo and vermeer
whilst mocking the selfie takers
who grinned like cultureless lunatics
in front of sunflowers
painted with pain
he stole his first kiss from her lips
as nelson looked down dismayed
he told her about his life
and the pieces that still didn't fit
they drank white wine
they kissed
they laughed
and he stayed with her
until he missed his train

sleep a little

hours slide
minutes are lost
and days join days
mornings become meaningless
and afternoons are just a prelude
to a darkness
in which I sleep a little

the empty grave

I will bury this past
I will let go of these salty regrets
and take nothing from this exhausted life
I will stand over my grave
and give it a half-crooked smile
then I will lay down
leaving all that I have touched
and seen above me
I will close my eyes
and forget you
and as the earth falls upon me
so will a restful silence
then I will whisper
goodbye cold cold world
and then wait patiently
for that fiery pitchfork
to pierce my lily white ass

what remains

so much lost
so much taken without my consent
so much unpromised pain endured
too much
but still you claw at what remains
my wife
my children
my friends
my lovers
my wealth
my possessions
my home
but there is something you can't take
or cut away from my bones
you will scratch at it
you will dig your knife in it and twist
you will scream at it
but it will still just stare back

and beat

I don't like to boogie

after the music stops
I watch the people leave
staggering like fools
arm in arm
mouth to mouth
drowning the poorly lit streets
with unwanted screams and song
home they go
to clumsy sex
or toilet bowls
or maybe both
who knows?

that bloody book

the sinner is in his church
bathed in the colours of saints
and washed in the passion of sinful admissions
empowered by stories of bread and fish
we exonerate ourselves on bended knee
to the pain and suffering we inflict
idyllic ideology puts creases in minds
and ridicules the suffering of a world
where prayer is abstinence from action
and where dead fiction is re-written
to fit the laws of the state

the night falls

untie the night
and let it fall from your shoulders
then come lay next to me
spoil me with your kisses
intoxicate me with your voice
and then drown me in your heat

too old for this shit

she steals the dull beats from my heart
and casually discards them
as if I have more to spare
she crowds my day
and lies awkwardly within me as I sleep
she is the reason I smile without warning
and the prayer that I don't want answering
she is the unattainable moment
and the empty space between my arms
but I am ok with that
as this man has lived a thousand lives
and with far less in each

and besides
I am just too old for this shit

my son sleeps

darkness
silence
soft breathing
mumbling
his mind is racing to where
strange creatures talk
and stories unfold like waves
he is dreaming of a thousand worlds
where wars are fought but nobody dies
he stirs
he smiles
he knows I am here
father

son
one

(started on 15th March 2008)

the dutchman and I

I'm sitting in a hotel restaurant waiting for the waiter to bring a club sandwich. It's February and I have just flown to Monaco. I'm tired and restless. My life is at an impasse. On my right four very loud people discuss the weather in French. It is cold. It will get warmer. Who cares? I am seated in front of a large window overlooking an even larger stone patio filled with black tables spiked with pastel coloured umbrellas. An old man in a black coat sits outside at one of the tables sipping his drink and looking out to sea.

The waiter returns with my food and smiles. He speaks in French. I answer him in French. He smiles again and walks away. I silently thank my French teacher for her determination to get me fluent. She died a few years ago. I read it in my old school blog. She would have liked that I had remembered her. She would have liked even more my ability to compose complex foody French sentences about club sandwiches and Perrier. For a moment I am back in her classroom. I can hear her voice. I can see her face and that wonderful smile. You are missed dear lady and you are still loved.

The waiter returns and asks if everything is ok. I nod and my eyes go back to the old man. His gaze has never left the ocean. But I can see nothing on the horizon. For me the ocean is as empty as my thoughts. The waves offer nothing. The sunlight is weak and the wind hardly stirs the umbrellas. Maybe like me he waits for life to lay down its hand and show him something new. Maybe we're both just waiting for a ship to carry us to a new world and a new dawn.

The waiter has returned. My plate is lifted and taken away with the sleight of hand that would make a magician jealous. But when I look up it is the old man who has vanished. How did I miss him? I sit there for a while with my wild imaginings. Maybe he was the Dutchman. Maybe his tenure to the land had expired and he was called back to sea, reclaimed by his curse. I then recall an old film. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. One of my favourite actors, James Mason played the lead. His character would come ashore every seven years for six months. In that time, if he could find a woman that was prepared to die for him, then he would be released from his eternal curse.

I think about love for a moment. I wonder if it exists anymore. To love someone so much that you would die for them? There is a nobility to that. I think about my own curse and I wonder what will set me free. Then I remember that moment in the film when the Dutchman hears her confess that she loves him so much, that she would die for him without any hesitation. She then asks him, "and what would you give up for me?" He pauses for just a moment and then replies, "My salvation." In the end she swims to his boat and they both perish. He is released from his tormented life whilst her body is found on the shore the following morning. Here endeth their love and the movie.

We all have demons to fight and curses to carry. We all experience love, albeit to varying degrees. But in the end, life has taught me that it is only true love that condemns or releases us. The other types of love are fleeting and often shallow. Love is now a branded commodity that is sold through a social platform or app. It has been re-built with paper towers and cardboard walls. It is also meaningless and often cruel. As I get up to leave I suddenly feel a longing for this love that stands apart. A love that has walls of stone and towers that reach above the clouds. But like the Dutchman I am forced to sail alone with my own curse. I pay for my meal and thank the waiter. I then pick up my own black coat and walk out, hand in hand with my fate.

fighting for peace

longing for a life that fell
within a hail of lies and tears
now my old scars etch my sins
across a life that could have been
I'm getting old now
but my regrets are weightless
and my fears are beaten
for I stand taller than the mediocre man
who made no mistakes
who was the star player in their game
convention was not my road
nor will it be my end
I am in the final battle now
the odds are high
but as I fight upon their ground
and within their terms
I will yield nothing
and one thing is certain
some of these bastards
are coming with me

love as a formula

some of us look for love
some of us don't
sometimes love finds us
sometimes it don't
beyond that..

I got nothing

in this moment

my present is nothing
without my past
my tomorrows are empty

without what I have learnt today

my yesterday is the foundation

without which I would fall

yet my future is still nothing 

without you

let me be clear

it was you babe
well I thought it was
but the chips fell over there
not here
you were the morphine I needed
I was ready to unhook
but in the end
it was someone else that caught your heart
there is no next time
no second chances
but let me be clear
though you can't hear me anymore

it was you babe

alea iacta est

I walked the cold days
I walked the warm
but from the moment they put that label
on my ankle
and until the day they fix that label
to my toe
I will not mourn my dying light
for these lavender dreams
will make me fall
soundly
deeply
but upon the bottom
I will arise within the sun's promise
and as its shadow chases my life
I will keep carving out this dream
that wraps itself within my heart
and even in the loneliest of my smiles
I will keep the warmth
for those that suffer more
"alea iacta est" the defeatists say
but no mould cast me
I have no nature
or course to steer
and now as I hurtle towards my end
I know with utmost certainty
I was born without fear

fuck it

a man who falls easily
this is not me
a man who laments love
this is not me
a man who hangs his head
this is not me
a man who has something to prove
this is definitely not me
a man who just smiles, shrugs and says "fuck it"
now that's me

breaking apart

everything I have done
everything I have seen
and now know to be true
is sometimes too much
for my heart to contain
so I search for someone
to be honest with
to share what I feel
and what I have learnt
to finally unload this weight
and find once again
the courage to live
in a world that does not care

the wrong one

there is no soul
just a mind inhabited by fractured thoughts
replaying days
replaying words
until longing meets madness
but age tempers wisdom
until finally in the dark
pressed against a pillow
we admit to ourselves
without reservation
that there is no truth but this
light will fold into our eyes
and our desire will whisper defeat
then in the hands of time
her face will dry and crumble beneath my feet
like autumn leaves