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

dangerous curves

happiness can be
found by avoiding
candlelight
and florists
sunsets
and warm empty beaches
autumn forests cut by sunlight
and red wine devoured
on shrinking sofas
poorly written poetry
and cotton dresses
held up by a simple bow
restaurants on valentine's night
and blind dates arranged
by careless friends
soft voices in moonlight
and goodnight kisses
on slender necks
but lastly
and most importantly
you must avoid
her curves
her dangerous curves

desperately seeking me

I have seen war

but only the wounds of others
have left their scars
and I have seen sacrifice
and an unwillingness to yield
to love
to death
and to a thousand vices
I have bled love
and lost a lover’s heart
I have hated and spoken
falsehoods of others
I have told the truth
and damned my soul for it
I have created life
and in that birth found my father's heart
I have laughed with friends
so hard I cried
I have seen friends die
and watched many just fade away

I have been called husband
dad
lover
friend
brother
son
uncle
enemy
bastard
and sir
I have caused pain to others
yet gave everything
when I had nothing left to give
I have made bad decisions
and good ones that could
have been better
I have misjudged others
and given many too much trust
I have refused to listen
yet screamed and kicked
when I could not be heard

I have betrayed love with my heart
but never my body
I have defended the weak more times
than I have walked away
I have given the illusion of defeat
but known none in my heart
and yet still I would go into battle
knowing that I could never win
I have stood within the hatred of others
and stained my pride for life
and in my ignorance
I have mocked race and religion
yet I would defend anyone
from bigotry
injustice
or harm

I have moved through life
with the momentum
from fear
anger
love
pain
joy
and disbelief
I have cried in the rain
and screamed in a storm
I have faced death
and felt both fear and relief
in its shadow
I have lived alone
and with a lover
I have seen a sunset
that burnt the heavens
and a night that felt
like the end of the world
I have witnessed so many
moments
yet so many more are
forgotten
relegated
lost
discarded
or burnt to ash

I have learnt
that love is intermittent
and that we are not faultless
but amazingly flawed
I have been my own contradiction
and a paradox of virtue to others
I have been the hypocrite
and the fool
I have been the romantic
and still the fool
I have fallen from the grace
of too many gods
and studied the wisdom
of those who tried to make sense
of this chaos
and in doing so
found only that all that I know
is that I know nothing

like Dorian's picture
I rot with age
yet still I feel the echo of my youth
I have danced in the rain
like a madman
to the music of Jagger and Richards
I have drunk with beery strangers
and savoured a fine wine alone
I have smoked cannabis
and laughed as I choked
I have prayed for things
no god would grant
and been given things
that I did not want
and some I never realised
I needed

I have closets filled with bones
and moments
that I wish I could rewrite
or erase
I have been haunted by unrequited love
and inspired by new
I have let go and lost
I have held on and lost
I have been asked to change
to lie
to steal
to break hearts
and immobilise souls
yet still I held true
to a creed
built on the ruins of my sins
that we are indeed in the end
the sum of the good we create
and the kindness we gift

(a work and life in progress...)

the hogan

white paper

pinned at an uneasy pace

with unworkable words

the strokes form nonsense

and line after line
dissolve before me

dropping the haste

of my running thoughts

like litter on bitterly cold streets

for no word or words

can capture

the warmth that fills

my heart

when I merely think

of your name

(sometimes you can not write what needs to be said.... )