Woman born with a
Hope filled soul
Openly emotional and

Individually complex

Atypically childless yet,
M**other to man.

I can't forget you, where are you?
Memories are haunting me, are you with someone?
Are you happy?
I'm with someone, he knows about you.
Do you think of me?
No, that's crazy, why would you?
I can't hear your name, without being pulled back.
Is it good where you are?
It's good where I am.
It took a long time to get over you.
It took a long time to realise that you were unable to break conventions.
So, you broke my heart instead.
You made me stronger, made me realise that you are in the past for a reason.
A man who cannot be true to himself is no man, so I ask again,
Where are you?

My core, my essence is bruised
My happy smile is a ruse
So many have fallen for my light
It's time to return to my core
My Centre though bruised is dark
I see no brightness in this world
This world is pain.
Why feign happiness when sadness is stronger?
We enter the world screaming and kicking
We leave whimpering and docile
Agreeable to our fate, our time is up.
Happiness is a construct to convince you that life,
is worth having.
Pain is the truth, darkness is the enveloping comfort,
sleep is the "petit mort" that we succumb to each night.

Time spent with you I find precious.
Delicious seconds turn to minutes, turn to hours.
Ours.
I know not what powers brought us together,
only that I'm happy, content and true with you.

Time is fleeting, it's always moving forward,
constantly flowing, and towering between us.
Us.
One plus one, still equals one with us. We are one.
We empower each other, and lift ourselves to the stars.

We find completeness with each other.
Never needing anyone else, others may suffocate
We
Are two halves of one whole.
We devour each other daily, only to return whole.

Twenty four hours later.

When I close my eyes,
I picture your lies.
Vivid colour, bursts from your mouth,
lies painted by your tongue.
'Work kept you late'
'Traffic was a state'
'You had a headache'
When I open my eyes,
I see you mixing a drink,
I've had time to think
'Do you want one?' you casually ask
I shake my head no, plaster a smile on my face,
lace my fingers together and feign interest.
You suddenly jolt, grasp at your throat,
I sit and wait like a dutiful wife
as you gasp and try to keep your life.
You're out of time my 'darling'
Thallium has been quietly seeping into you,
growing and building inside.
Just like my baby, growing in me, one you'll never see.
Our girl with sapphire eyes

We are born, with nowhere to go but into death's arms.
Milestones lay ahead to meet us as we get older.
Sweet sixteen, the key to the door, getting blind drunk,
and ending up on the floor.
Marriage, divorce, a kid or three, slowly you fill up the ancestry tree.
Not understanding that as we get older, we begin to get colder.
Colder and closer to the grave.
The grave awaits, if lucky to live a span of time.
But spare a thought for those that are caught
by the reaper early.
The murdered, the suicides, the accidents, the ill,
all have been called to return to him.
All have been, Born to die.

You can philosophise all day long,
this world contains more than we know.
More than we see, and in some cases
some things we've already seen.
That strong sensation of having been somewhere,
of knowing what a place had once been.
Never getting lost in new places, of remembering old faces.

This precognition scares science, they label it
'Schizophrenic', 'anxiety' and my personal favourite;
the 'dissociative identity disorder'.
Here's a straight jacket for you!
I prefer déjà vu,
such an elegant French description,
even better, they don't hand out a prescription to 'cure' it!

Déjà entendu, "already heard",
the experience of feeling sure that one has already heard something,
ever thought your name was being called?
That you heard whispers in the night,
Only to be told it's the 'house settling'?
How many of us have shook our heads,
and said 'I'm getting old, I'm hearing things!'

These phenomena don't come and go
they stay, they are older than time,
they've always been, just never seen.
Platitudes placate your puzzled mind,
but what if these things are just rips in time?
A leak from the past, occasionally a glimpse of the future?
Or maybe it's all just history's forgotten soft sighs*.

I float on gin soaked nightmares
Yoked to the liquor like a babe to a bottle
Coaxed to sleep slowly, dosed on 70% proof
and with it the night's terror starts.

Gin addled, lying in sweat soaked sheets
Memories raise their heads above the parapet
These memories coaxed from their corners
Coerced by addiction.

My addiction I saw as a benediction
A positive to all the negative.
But my submission was not conviction,
it was hell and condemnation.

Now, my nightmares torment me,
like purgatory, no rest for the wicked,
the fallen, the flotsam and detritus of life.
Stricken I can only question....

What's it like to drift off quietly?
Not to wake with a scream trapped in your throat?
To count sheep instead of the faces of the long dead?
To slumber in peace, cloaked in love?

If you can answer these questions,
please let me know.
Pop a note in bottle and give it a throw.
If it washes up I'll let you know.

I was shocked when I heard the key lock.
My heart dropped,
I was left to rot.
Forgot, mocked, and blocked from outside.
No where to run, no one to turn to.
The key had turned, my fate was sealed.
Robbed of life yet still alive,
pleading silently, "please let me out"
Would they treat my plea with dignity?
I couldn't shout, would they hear me?
Not above the hiss of the respirator, of that I have no doubt.

We are broken, were broke,
barely whole when we started.
We, became one, thought as one,
we were whole for the first time.
We gave and received love,
we gave and received our bodies,
we made a religious act from our one-ness.

I should have been aware that into all happiness,
a snake entwines around a heart.
Envy, caused it.
Into our sanctum it slid, and never left.
All by myself in what was once our haven,
I made plans. Cut the head off the snake and it dies.
But my heart still bleeds, you cannot un break a heart.

I cloistered away feelings, allowed you your freedom,
martyred my sanity in the name of our withered love.
Anchored my memories to our sanctum,
took refuge in the knowledge that I strongly held
the belief that we were still one.
And, we are my darling, still in our inner sanctum together.
I in the many rooms, you in the basement.

Fitting I thought, since 'base' desires took you.
Took you away from our sanctum.
But now your back.
The snake is now headless, actually she's more quartered,
and placed on four parts of the compass.
You see darling we are stronger as one, we are whole,
even if you are in the hole in the basement*.

What do you do when all you want is to be elsewhere?
Not, another town, another job, another life,
but elsewhere.
What do you do when a child's scream of enjoyment
makes you start to cry, cry for that child's future disappointment,
your current disappointment?
What do you do when you feel envy at a bird in the sky?
Wanting to float on the thermal, up, up and then away.
But, you and that child who's enjoyment sent you spiralling,
have to remember, Icarus.
He soared away into the sun, that baleful, always watching,
globe of fire.
Purified by death.

I have an itch.
It needs soothing.
I can't scratch it, I won't stop.
I'll scratch until the crimson petals appear.
Watch the vermillion bloom against the white.
Then pick and scratch some more.
Feel relief as I watch the red run in rivulets down into a deep pool.
Hitching myself to an already aching itch was a mistake.
A mistake and itch scratched away with a meat fork*.

Intricately laid by a master mason centuries ago,
the cobbles have become shiny and worn through use.
If we listen closely at the  echoes contained within,
what would we hear? The din of old, the clatter of hooves,
the patois of tradesmen, the fisher wives bellows?
Or, just life as it was, moving along at a pace we today find slow?
The sun beats down on the Spanish stone, firing them hot and
languid, pace has slowed, need has slowed, greed has slowed.

Dusty cobbles leading to cool houses, siesta has called and all obey.
The midday sun beats down, only tourists looking for quaint shops
remain, decrying the heat, ready to swoon.
Sweat drips onto the dusty cobbles, and is soon boiled away.
Blood has dripped on these cobbles, human and beasts.
Only to be scrubbed by the crow black crones that sit and watch the day.
Afternoon lull, boats bobbing slowly up and down,
babies rocked by a quiet lullaby.

The sun lowers bathing the cobbles in a pink, orange glow,
quiet now, Spain is sleeping, forgetting her past, the Moors are long gone,
the Armada been and gone, bullfights are frowned upon,
their Kings and Dictator laid to rest, only foolish tourists throng the
dusty cobbles, oblivious to their history, looking for that awful gift.
Spain's pain is echoed in her cobbles, few hear it, but know this,
if you listen you'll hear the heat, the pain, civil war,
pride and flamenco feet*.

How nice it would be
to walk into the sea
warm waters lapping my knees.
To go further into the surf
the warm sea of this earth
deeper still, until submerged
down deep until purged,
with the drowned of this world
floating and bloating in purgatory.

Moonlight lit the room casting shadows that stayed.
I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise into midnight's hour.
Nine hours to go.
Nine hours to wait.

Nine hours to remember,
remember the night,
that Easter Sunday.
That pub in Hampstead.

Why did you tell me that you loved me?
When clearly it was untrue.
Why did I love you so intensely?
When a single punch from you, took the life growing inside me away.

The clock has struck 3am
No mice have run down.
Just me, a table, cigarettes and the moon.
I'm not mad, that is true, just too passionate for you.

5am and a weak dawn is breaking
Just 4 cigarettes left, one an hour, if I'm lucky.
I called your name that fateful day, twice.
You ignored me, carried on looking for your keys.

Keys to a car that would not be needed.
You can't drive to where I sent you.
A .38 calibre Smith & Wesson Victory model revolver's
bullets were your last ride.

On 20 June 1955, Number One Court at the Old Bailey, London,
before Mr Justice Havers, I said;
"It's obvious when I shot him I intended to **** him."
I'd shot you dead.

Now it's my time to go meet our maker
Nearly nine, and a drop of 8ft 4 awaits.
As I told the Bishop of Stepney
"It is quite clear to me that I was not the person who shot him. When I saw myself with the revolver I knew I was another person."

8:59, with 30 seconds to go I take my glasses off
Won't be needing those anymore.
I know what a drop looks like.
15 seconds is all it took, my feet dangling toward the floor.

Sunrise, and with it the heat of the day,
I lay beside you watching your eyelashes flutter
your eyes roaming under their lids.
What are you searching for in this sleep so deep?
I'm here if you're looking for me.
Open your eyes and gaze at me, see me, want me.
Sweat rests on your exposed skin, tiny pools of salty water,
like seawater I want to dive into you.
Disappear under your thrusting waves.
The east has woken me, yet still you dream.
Hurry, wake up soon, I want to melt into you and this sunrise.

Take a spoonful of hate
a dusting of jealousy
a cup of bile
and stir.

Set on a high heat
add a family member or two,
cook until tender.
Serve with respect.

Life isn't about sugar and spice
and all things nice, it's about balance.
Balancing the good with the bad.
Love with hate.

Kindness and anger, all
basic human emotions.
Poverty and riches.
Jealousy and forgiveness.

All of us alive, need to remember,
remember, what came before,
and ask one simple question;
"What am I living for?"

A coldness creeps through my body,
enters and, seeps with its icy fingers
down, down into my core.
Clasps my heart and takes hold,
glacially traversing my mind, body and soul.

I feel, wait, no, nothing. I'm in a dream.
Induced by drugs that calm and hold you down.
I'm Alice chasing the rabbit, but the rabbit is bold,
and I am cold, behold your cold frigid Alice!
Frozen, addled brain, makes no sense of the dream.

I'll stay awhile in this winter wonderland,
this, emotionless, frosty, heartless land,
and dream of sun, and hope and gold.
Upon waking the dream will dissipate,
leaving a shivering, controlled me.

Cigarette smoke curls upwards,
spiralling into the ether and downwards into my lungs.
I sit looking at the cigarette packet
reading the warning:
Smoking seriously harms you and others around you
How true.
Except, it isn't the cigarettes that have harmed me, it's your lies.
Did you think you'd be able to keep me in the dark?
Did you think me that stupid?
Tut tut, lending me your car, not emptying the ashtray,
didn't think you wore lipstick whilst driving, just sunglasses.
The colour wasn't mine, too brash.
I take the last drag, watch the tip flame orange, and feel the nicotine calm
I pick the Marlboro's up flip the box over, and smile at the irony,
there in bold reads Choose freedom, we'll help you
if I rang the free phone number will they help me dispose of your body?
Your staining my kitchen floor, the nicotine is staining my fingers.

Now, today has been a **** day in every single way.
Today was the start of my holiday in Spain, until French strikes,
caused me pain. We were not flying.
Now, I did not weep, wail or flail my skin, instead, I said c'est la vie.
They are so very French.
Reminded myself that the French are cheese eating surrender monkeys,
awful at football (soccer) dreadful at tennis, middling in rugby,
and tend to suffer delusions of grandeur (**** a French word!)
They lost at Agincourt, Waterloo, WW2, think snails are a delicacy,and  allowed Mr. ****** in to rub their bellies.
But, I am H.A.P.P.Y.
Home
Alive
Prompt
Proud
Y?
Because­ I'm eating strawberries and cream, whilst watching Wimbledon.
How very British!

H.P. Lovecraft's most famous quotes about the horror genre is that: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S.Eliot I. The Burial of the Dead


As a child I was never fearful.
Not of the dark, spiders or ghosts.
In fact I was wilful.
Hard hearted, cold.
I liked that about me, it was a barrier to the outside world.
I was the loner, the malcontent, the strange spooky one.
I loved it more as a teen, embraced the Gothic, elevated the bizarre.
I smoked, it was cool, I drank, it was cool, I was nihilistic, it was cool.
Popular meant conforming, how that repulsed me.
Why? Because conformity meant no individuality, no soul.
My Grandmother said once "be careful what you read, it becomes you"
Yeah right, look I'm Pennywise the clown!
But she was right in a way.
I became repulsed by myself.
I had no compassion.
No true love to call my own.
I was alone with my fear, my fear of loneliness. Irony.
I had no true identity, I hid in horror, then became horrified.
I didn't know what was coming, where I was going, who I was.
I was afraid. Truly afraid for the first time.
Afraid of my shadow, of not knowing, of returning to the grave.
Fear is a loathsome creature, devouring love and hope.
Yet, know this, we are born to die, the clock runs down, no appeals.
So fill up on love, fill up on warmth, for Hell maybe hot, but alone,
it's cold*.

Naïveté played its part, when you almost took my heart.
I was flattered that an older man found something in me.
I heard the gossip, heard the remarks, but, our friendship was to last.
I so naively thought.
The fact that you were married, and I was just 18, meant nothing.
The fact that you were an authoritative figure, also meant little.
We were friends.
But, married men soon need to make a decision
Family or friends?
I loved talking to you, I loved your uniform, I loved our secret.
The way we'd talk all night, your car parked outside my home.
The way I'd come to the old Victorian station, and share a cup of tea.
The way you told me things that you said you couldn't share with her.
The tour of the old holding cells. Eyes lingering on the mattresses.
The kiss you gave me whilst on duty, the blush we shared.
Less than 10 years stood in our way, and a wife.
Then, the crushing blow that she was pregnant, due that snow.
Was I a distraction? From coming to terms with fatherhood?
One last fling, before that ring bit deep on your finger?
I told you no. You transferred. I alone endured the village gossip.
Secrets like ours are doomed before they start,
you were another's.
The ring on your finger played a part in my never giving you my heart

You lie next me
I smell your scent
You drift into sleep
I watch you breathe slow and deep
You mumble words that I strain to hear
I lean closer, feel your body's heat
You drape an arm over me
I start to drift away on the sleepy tide
You mumble once more
I hear the words now
You say her name, you nuzzle my hair
I fade into the darkness of sleep
I fade into obscurity by your side
You've forgotten me.

Watching the day pass
Waiting for the night to come
Wanting the anonymity of dark
Wishing that the day wasn't so bright

No place to hide in the light
Sparkling sun reveals all
Reveals truth and lies
Stargazing is what I want, what I need

Watching the people of the day
Going about their daytime duties
Leaves me cold. They're just consumer cattle.
At night the watching differs.

Night watching is quiet
Night people are quiet
Night duties are quiet
Night is peace, night is my quietude.

Lie back, look up, see the stars all burnt out.
Degenerate matter. They are dead.
What we see in the night sky is death.
Bright death.

Anybody literate can read and write.
But do they understand?
Can they see and feel the deeper meaning?
Do they hear the poets words?
Emote along with the writer?
Find a chord striking them within?
Gasp at the beauty in the imagery?
Hold their breath as the poet weaves magic?
Inhale the scent of sweat the poet gave?
Jump at the twists and turns?
Keen to learn the ending?
Laugh and cry along with the poet's words?
Mope at the end?
Not wanting to let the words go?
Opining their views, not the poet's.
Positing assumptions not the poet's.
Querying imagery, syntax, metaphors and similes.
Robbing the joy from the poet by making grand assumptions.
Seeking to emulate the greats, and join the canon.
Taking what they need from the words written down.
Utilising the poem as a learning tool.
Venerating  the poet and their work.
Words speaking to them from afar.
Xanthic coloured complexions, as they read into the night.
Yanking at the pages of the book.
Z**ealously impassioned by the poet's conclusion.

We fight delicately, sniping, taking and giving verbal punches.
Our skin doesn't bruise, maybe our egos our minds,
but our bodies no.
Our velvet arguing is seamless, flawless.
Anyone listening would hear witty repartee.
A couple playfully bantering, no more.
Polite meritorious armament of words.
Primed to fire a salvo of cruelty.
Cruelty, covered and handled with crushed velvet gloves.
Textured, cultured, arguing.
Polite parrying, pleasant resentment.
A bottle of wine, remnants of a meal, wounds needing to heal.
Less or more cruel than a punch? This seamless linguistic pain.
Bruises fade, pain subsides, mental cruelty resides.

They'll ask the question again
again, I'll reply the same
we treat this Q&A; as a game
well I do, Amen.

"Why do you think you're constantly angry?"
Hell, no, not that probing question,
don't they train you better than that?
They watch and wait for the answer.....

Here we go again, down the rabbit hole
Deep breath, and...
Silence, the same reply.
It frustrates them, they fidget, still expecting words.

Silence screams in places where volume just consumes.
I will not engage, I will not debate, I will not facilitate
their assumptions.
I'm not angry, I'm passionate, I think, but remain silent.

I rage, I do not engage.
I rage within. If I let the djinn out, he won't go back in.
I'd hate for you to feel the blade and blaze of my fury.
I'll leave my sanity for the jury to decide.

Just know this, I was mad when I closed the door.
I was crazy as I stabbed my mate.
But now I'm calm once more
And I refuse to communicate.

Meandering like its canals
Venetian streets sing underfoot.
Who wore away the stone cobbled streets?
Who walked down to the shore?
Who gazed out at the Adriatic?
Who's dreams were lost in Venice's stream of streets?

Licentious lovers loved in Venice's streets, kissed on her bridges,
Crossed under by gondola and over by foot.
Proposed at the piazza San Marco.
Kissed, while the Grand Canal wound her way down.
Down into the sea,
where the menace that is the world, Venice shuns.

Rialto, Doge, Basilica, St. Marks, pigeons!
All evoke that lagoon city of streets.
Originally refugees, incolae lacunae ("lagoon dwellers")
Venetians, gave not only a place for the dispossessed,
but a place for the world to see, feel and taste.
Art, war, politics, commerce, spice and silk.

Venice with her ribbon of streets, alleyways and bridges
saw the Renaissance, the crusades, and the Black Death.
Glassware, paintings, sculptures, religion, refugees all
synonymous with that floating city.
A city returning to the water she arose from.
Subsiding with grief as she drowns in elegant decay.

Emotion, is like a ship caught in a squall.
Battling the elements, one minute up, one minute down.
Quick, sudden changes crash through you, like wind in a sail.
Pity, is an emotion perceived of misfortune,
Rage, like the tempestuous thunderstorm has it's calm moments.
Tenderness, that rocking motion of a boat on the ocean
The rocking of a babe in arms.
Joy versus sadness.
Anger versus fear.

Love, comes on a beautiful calm blue sea.
Comes from you to me.
Hate, comes on a storm far out to sea.
Slowly gathering pressure, like a weather front, imploding,
destroying, corroding landscapes and souls.
Love versus hate.
The story of time immemorial.
Humankind, 60/65% water, tied forevermore with the tides.
Compassion, comes at the price of surviving all other emotions.
And let's not forget, both humans and the weather suffer depressions.

To use a quote that encapsulates my feelings right now,
“I'm tired of this back-slappin' "isn't humanity neat" *******. We're a virus with shoes.”
― Bill Hicks

The Poem

Originally I thought I suffered from irritability,
irritability of the human race.
Then I realised whilst looking at my face, it was hate.
I told the Doctor I'd thought of suicide, then realised
I wanted to commit mass homicide.
Become a hermit.
Mankind, womankind I hate you, people think me nice, fair,
and kind, I know the truth, I am a *******, so you must be too.
We as a race need a cull.
Do I like the human race? No. What's to like?
I even dislike people that purport to be friends.
I intricately step my way through this world of vermin.
We defile what is beautiful and true, hate because we
are taught to. Ruin, start wars, cause pain, then moan about the rain!
We as a race are quite crudely put, a pile of ****,
but even **** has purpose, a role.
What role do we have? To hate one another?
If so please make it equal and adhere to political correctness,
by that I mean, Hate Everyone equally.