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