joy in misread adverts

Just misread a dating advert in FaceBook.. thought it said "Find Logical Women"... for a moment I was really interested...

the poet

he will cut open his feelings

and bleed them across

fields of paper

he will drag them
claw at them

erase them

and then bind them

around his empty heart

a heart that waits for a spark

and then the words

will write his love

upon another's heart

I will forgive me

so we are here
it is time to end
this is our final moment
all your sins and smiles
miscounted or not
don't matter anymore
you still judge yourself
you still hold too many regrets
let go
it never mattered to me

your mind holds the echo
of our youth
and though our mind holds on
our flesh has already let it go
our heart is tired now
it has raced us across fields
through love
through laughter
and pain
now it says enough
rest easy
stop running
look up and see the sun

I do not hold your crimes
above your name
I just hold the hand of a man who lived
and loved
and tried to find a peace
that was never his to find
so rest easy now

your legacy may be lost
but none are kept true
your words will be forgotten
but will be repeated unknowingly
by others who follow us
for this experience
is not unique
it is shared by all mankind

we have lived my friend
and in some days we soared
so let us rest easy now
let us close our eyes
savour that last breath
and smile together
as one
for now it ends for us both





(I once wondered what I would say to myself if I could be there when I was dying.)

the irish uppercut

she jabbed me with a smile
it glanced off my jaw
but then came her laugh
square on my chin
two quick jabs with her eyes
sent a sucker punch to my heart
I was down
all was black and stars
and all I could hear was the count
higher the numbers rose
my corner screamed
two
three
four
get up
five
fight back you fool
six
but I had no strength
seven
I had no fight left in me
eight
for in truth
nine
I was happy to finally lose
ten

you're out



Written on the 4th March 2016
Inspired on the 3rd March 2016

(For SBMH)

you I asleep

curled
snug
close
within
tucked
hungry
devoured
one

driving

Hours ahead of me. Hours behind me. I grip the wheel tightly as if it was the only thing pulling me forward. I think about letting go and letting my car pull away. But there is nothing metaphysical in the steel and glass that wraps me within. If I let go I will just kill myself. The miles count down in decimals on a device that tracks my exact position in this world. Ironically even though I know where I am, I don't know where I am. Roads narrow and widen. Traffic roars into emptiness and then I am stillness. I am within a journey. My track may be linear but the pace is governed by a dice roll, weather and idiots with poor spatial awareness. My day ends long after the sun sets and my day often begins before the sun rises. I am momentum. I am a point between the distance between two points. I am nowhere. I am somewhere.

stone and steel

my flesh is my prison
my bones
are my bars
my regret
the prison cell
and my sins
are my jailers
no keys turn here
there is no escape
life is my sentence
and my years
are now merely a credit
to stone and steel

waxy thoughts

five red candles

dimly lit the paper

as I wrote to you

my tears

their waxy rivulets

melted together

the dying thoughts

as we slowly burnt down

to our beginnings

eventually

finally

both went out

only to be read

by the darkness

that swallowed them

(started on the 4th June 1993 - when I used to write by candlelight)

ask them to leave

loneliness and sadness

have to be called out

and cursed

not diluted

or ignored

not mistaken for something else

or imagined away

as you cannot ask them to leave

unless you know their names

another's warmth

when I close my eyes

when a face becomes

just flesh

that is when

I replace the silence

with your voice

nakedness is my need

but your voice

is my lover

this human hunger

that leads me to these arms

never fills me

and never touches

what I once found in you

only in the mornings

in the uncomfortable silence

of a cold dying heart

do I face my self-loathing

for betraying your love

and as I close these doors

I realise that leaving you

will be all I will ever know