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