the soul

a soul is silent

it is the flesh that is loud

a soul is bright

it is the world that is dark

what lies ahead

if I could map my heart
I would navigate around the pain
that you have yet to give me
I would plot a course between your first smile
and your final goodbye
I would raise sail and blind my eyes
from the man who replaces me
and I would steer towards
the darkest storm
and the sharpest rocks
oblivious
of what awaits

in dublin

if I had not returned
not remembered a promise
not walked back
not turned right

not turned left

if I waited one moment less
or one moment more

I would not have seen

your smile
I would have not heard
your voice
I would not have learnt
your name

and my life would have been
colder for it

how to forget

delete every text
delete every email
tear up your poems
erase the unfinished letters
save nothing
pour water on your heart
steady the pulse
dream her out of your nights
remove her name from your lips
cover her face with darkness
drown her voice with silence

and then forget how to smile

the valentine

unrequited love
returned
unwrapped
but the rose is still sent
and the words still written
brave
futile
gestures
have always been my thing
and I like to think
they always will

room 487

there's a knack to the key cards
green and I am in
red and I'm just an idiot
in a hallway
it's a different hotel
but the room is the same
I unpack nothing
I switch on the TV
but I don't listen
it's just background noise
for the emptiness
through the glass
I see another city
and as darkness falls
the same noisy lights rise
nothing is new
nothing surprises me
I smile at my reflection
caught between
a room and a skyline
stay there I tell myself
for neither side
has anything to offer you

mornings should be

to awake

within a woman's arms

to breath and inhale

her fragrance

her sex

to turn and by a single touch

arouse the longing

that has so long been mine

to taste

to consume

and be consumed

then to lay spent in each other's arms

content within the symmetry of love

the lost valentine

falling in love with the promise
of someone like you
my Dulcinea
but I am no knight
I have no quest
maybe a little "nut loose"
but I see wind turbines
not monsters
now I realise that life
occasionally keeps her promises
but age is like bars of steel
tempered with irony
and the cruellest jailors of our hearts
are the broken hopes we cling to
so maybe just maybe
life is teaching me
that the best loves are the ones we carry
secretly
tucked and folded in our hearts
for none to see
for more often than not
they last a lifetime
so never search for me
for the man who writes these words
just know that there is someone
who from time to time
holds up your heart to the light
and sees no flaws





(Some of these words were for an unsent Valentine. But it was not fear that held me back but a truth. The measure of any heart is found when we examine the inventory and see what is missing and what was let go. I chose to let go.)

waiting to board

silent lovers holding hands
and exchanging knowing smiles
university students cutting the air
with coarse laughter about sex
and binge drinking
the businessman adjust his posture
to hear more detail
or less
I don't know
the brunette in the beanie is reading Kafka
he's not my favourite
an old couple fumble with passports
and euros
he smiles at her
and she kisses his forehead
years of love compressed
into one simple act
I sink back and think about today
about tomorrow
I think about my place in this world
and my purpose
I look at everyone around me
as if they were alternate lives
in alternate worlds
I marvel at the diversity
of this human condition
and for the first time in my life
I realise that we are all passengers
heading to different destinations

painting his endings

another ending has begun
but still he pledges allegiance
to his favourite lie
and as he holds Occam's razor
against his wrist
refusing to take the simplest explanation
unwilling in even the dying seconds
to untangle his heart
with the hands that refuse
to let go of her name
choosing instead
to open a fresher wound
for this is now his passion
his art
he'll take the blows
and he'll bleed out a little more
for this is his ink
and he still believes
that within it
she still breathes

his final masterpiece