3am. It’s alive.
a faster beating heart
It’s the whir of the air conditioning
Removing the heat and leaving the sticky sludge over the soul
deep breaths to calm
blades to sever thick ship lines to the past.
It’s the drip of the cat fountain.
3am it’s a brutal hour, it’s a painful hour,
It’s a dead hour.

Ripples riddle the mirror,
Below, faint shapes shift
Elegant forms float here and there,
Little legs thunder, leaving a gentle wake
in lieu of turmoil.

The air is thick, the sun falling,
Already lost behind billowing storm clouds
Etched chaotically on the horizon.
Invisible but for the ubiquitous light.

It is the dragonflies time,
A darting zip and an effortless flutter.
From surfacing **** to towering Reed,
Searching for something we can only pretend to know.

Determined housewives, faces set,
Arms pumping and hips swaying
Their Anatidean waddle so fitting
Their quacks, a wall of stereo.

A lone rusted sign warns of gators,
but of signs, there is that one alone.
No rogue bubbles or beady eyes,
no ticking of swallowed clocks,
no suspicious splashes.
nothing.

My battery is now as low as the sun,
and my pen is as empty.
A not so subtle poke in the ribs
from a universe in protest of the
bad poetry being inked.

c'est la vie
or as we say in English
**** it

I knew a old dude from Du Preez
Who tried to **** over a tree
The tree was so high he ****** in his eye
And now the poor ******* can’t see.

I’d like to say thank you
For showing me how
To pick out the Big Dipper
In a strangely starred sky.

I took that train again
The one that doesn’t stop
This time it took me to a land of blondes
A veritable tree.
With many things that a gentleman
Should not write about.
I’d like to think that’s me
Though I’ve proven myself wrong in the past
It’s quite the opposite.
None the less. The train was boarded
And the riders were comfortable,
Smiling and laughing right into the collision.

here I sit
Under thatched gazebo.
Gin, Tonic and Marlboro to keep me company.
The warm air broken by cool breezes blowing off the Bahamian sea.
The sweet smell of bug spray permeating the otherwise pristine natural beauty.
It adds to the charm, like sun cream stinks of beach days.
Gently the sea makes out with the shore below me. I’d feel like I was intruding had it been any other.
Peace pervades.
All woes and doubt settle into my feet.
A far cry from where they stir unwanted feelings in my belly and heart.
I could sit here all night.
I think I will.

Nassau
Warm smiles under rusted hulls,
mailboats smoking,
lobster red cruise ship tourists,
back to the islands they go

Highborn Cay
White cloth walled gazebos,
bikinis and tan.
Loungers on pearl beaches,
lovers, the sea and sand

Compass Cay
A pirates place.
Rustic docks in crystal blue.
A meeting place, restless souls
Pathways and secrets on a tropical island.
Oh, frolicking sharks? In cuddle piles.

Staniel Cay
Rural and lovely,
Pink and blue shops, take your pick.
Haggling fishermen in front of a quaint little pub.  
far from home, further from troubles.
Locals tell me god blesses me a lot.
The church has the best plot of land.

The skies were grey
The rain fell fat
Her smile was wide
Sheets, covered that.

The Bougainvillea cares not for the needs of its guests.
It throws its pink shade regardless,
over rock and sand and weary travellers.

I haven't penned a thing
I've been as busy as hell
The sun is rising

It was hot before
Then spring came flaring with heat
I need to go swim

She’s adventure,
She’s Spirit,
A fighter  
No limit

Her Smile, a sunset.
Her laugh, a chorus.
Like a Rose of Noisette.
She blooms right before us.

Hair, country morning gold
Eyes, cotton candy blue.
A fighter, courage extolled
A warrior, her struggle is through

It’s not Settled
It’s not there
The heart isn’t a willing disciple.
Judas turning his head
Every which way but that way
comforting love is a strange Companion
Is it real if it isn’t painful?
Or wrong?
Probably. But I can’t see.
my prescription Expired last year
so who knows.

It’s a fickle thing that moves us to this
A miss said word here and a cut there
It’s barbs and fangs and sharp things that stab
It’s an unpleasant time for all.
A crucible to temper the soul and harden the heart
When it’s done is it impenetrable?
Is there an alloy that does not become brittle in its strength.
Too many times in the fire and everything breaks
Too much fire and we all are changed
I cannot be soft. It doesn’t suit me

Morning mood was bleak
Spiced with some Jazz, a poached egg and Appreciation.

Noon was carnival!
BBQ on the dock sprinkled with tropical house and a heavy dose of ***.

Night was narcissism
Sinful Bourbon and banana desserts, cigarettes aplenty, blue lights and bad habits

Those moments in life
That staccato heart beat
An anxious mind and the release of sleep
The tightness of a chest bound by woe
Picks up the phone one last time

The warmth fills you up
The burn scrapes your throat
You’d like to hiccough
And your brain is afloat

The Bourbon is hot
The ice is not
The ginger is sweet
But my heart prefers it neat.

This old fashioned simpers in my hand
Sweet and sharp, Bitter and Blight
it calms my everything
to a point
where I cannot
Deal

A sea of buttery happiness
Is home to the roundest of islets
Side by side they wallow.

Quite naturally, the islands,
Are covered in ham.
Ham? Ham!
And lazily perched
On the hams highest point
Sits an avian sphere
Perfectly poached.

Straining against its
White little straight jacket.
Pop.

Sickeningly empty. Surrounded by silence
Its unerring and it aches. A single fruit on a monstrous tree
A car without gears a pilot without a stick
Biologically nonsensical, emotionally dead
And I slept

Establishing hierarchical roles
Nicaean council for food stuffs
The meal that breaks ones fast
A culinary czar
His Rasputin, not another repast
His downfall not so obvious
A cuisine coup d’état,
Caffeinated beverages.
‘Twas coffee that stormed the breakfast Bastille

Tacos, pulled pork and quesadillas
Garish and gaudy being the clarion call
for the food truck battalion
An armoury of captivating aromas
Savoury propaganda mastered.
The war is won.

I don’t write about you.
I daren’t, for my anger and resent
Could only portray you in the worst
Possible manner.
So I’d rather not.
I’d rather not indulge the bitter acid inside
I’d rather remember you before the
Heartache and pain, a flashing smile
And a twinkling eye. A glow and presence.

I do not miss you, not anymore.
I count our parting as one of the great blessings
One of the bullets dodged.
And rightfully so.
Duality in destruction
Can never come to any good

I do not hate you. I Never did
Surprising, I know.
Such feeling is reserved for enemies
And even then sparsely.
I hate things because of you.
But not you. I pity you.

Nonetheless I write this that one day
Whether it’s read or not
You will know. That I hope you are ok
That your zebra comes home
That your lion doesn’t eat you
I’d wish you happiness

Au revoir, bon voyage, goodbye

Sincerely your “no longer a friend”
Me

A cackle of hens
A parliament of baboons
They giggle and guffaw
Ladylike buffoons

The alcohol flows
The snow falls deep
The dads watch through squinted eye
The Bahamas vibe, new age sheep

They waltz to their yachts
New dresses flowing
Their saunter falters
Their confidence still growing

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

I heard a man once say.
“A good soldier can go from having a cup of tea to mind bending violence in the blink of an eye”
As action movie cool as this sounds
I found it weirdly troubling.

They whirl and swirl and dive
But do they?
The no see ‘ems, You can’t see ‘em
but you can feel them there
Cavorting and frolicking, invisible in the air
A dinner time dance, gluttonous splurge
You’ll know all about their evening soirée
When you discover the main course is
… You.

The bird songs ring out harmonious
Their calls for some wanton *******,
The best type.
Reciprocated across the landscape
Which is not the right word
There’s more sea here than land.
an orange hangs low in the lonely sky
Perfectly ripe,
Dripping wet with honeyed shades of gold,
Coating palm trees and my knees.
Also my cigarette box and my coffee mug. A slow swell pitching and yawing,  
a side to side appreciated only by those trying to sleep.
A breeze lazier than I licks my cheeks and fondles my thighs.
It’s time, to go.

It is, I tell you, I promise.
It sits on my right, open and barely touched.
Pure condensation glittering on the outside
Chemical intoxication squatting on the in.

Charmingly Silver and a splash of red
the colour of an impulsive clown.
"Diet" it says, Im not on one.
"Coke" it says, Im not on that either.

why are you even here?

Its been a while since we sat and talked,
My friends of faceless fame.
Its been a while since I lost my friend,
My treasured brat, little one.
I found a path that killed the pain,
A path not walked for reasons.
I spent two weeks on its twisted curves,
And a fortune in green backed dollars.
The world sparkled for a while,
Crystalline lights and marble castles.
But now its over and my process done,
Back onto gravel work strewn passes.
Lets not wait so long my friend,
To talk of loved ones lost to life.
Lets spend more time with each others words,
Where we can cry and laugh and love.

The first odyssey is a difficult one
To step out into the blue and hope not to fall
But fall you will. Usually fast and quite hard
The next time you walk out yonder
It’s with more care, but the result is inevitable

Sometimes you leap off the cliff.
Sometime you inch off of it
Sometimes you don’t even see the edge

Eventually the landings become easier.
Your knees cushion you.
Your arms splayed for balance.
Is it getting easier?
No!

Sometimes you hit every outcrop on the way down
And land in a broken heap on the shore
But you know what
You’ll do it again, we all do.

The baroque grandeur of
Warm seas on velvety spring evenings
Is in stark contrast to the ache
In my hands from the aircon being
Just too ******* cold.

And

Who do these stars think they are?
This heavenly phosphorescence
Placed so precisely on the lapel of
The night sky.
A supernova pocket square?

And

What is the story with this ***?
Wheedling it’s way down my throat
To try and melt the tremors in
The pit of my belly.
It’s ****** well working.

A shiny loose tooth
Is something people can lose
Vice Versa? NO!

Let’s go, you and I.
And sweat beneath the African sky
Watch the lions lazing
And the wild dogs playing.  
We can sip Amarula
And listen to the hyenas laugh and cry
As the mythical sunset
Silhouettes giraffes and Acacia trees.

Let’s go, you and I
And walk the streets of old town Barcelona.
Find old timey cafe and luxuriate
In sangria and itty bitty tapas
Stroll by Sagrada and gawp
At Gaudi’s home.
Maybe we’ll stop for some ice cream
Maybe we’ll just go back to the hotel

Let’s go, you and I
And swim the blue blue seas of the Bahamas
Nervously Play with the nurse sharks
Hoping they’re not the other sharks
Take those long walks on those beaches
That everyone likes.
We’ll sit on Jankanoo and drink sky juice
Until we can truly reach the heavens

Let’s go, you and I
And ski the Slopes of the Swiss alps
We can stop at small cabins and drink
heartwarming schnapps
Take trains that slink around mountains
And sprint through white capped forests
We can put snow down the backs
Of each others jackets and
Squeal in furious delight.

Let’s go, you and I.
And squish our way through the streets of New York
Relieved when we can pop into a shop
To escape the crowds.
Necks sore from looking up
Small town people in the Big Apple City
Central Park for pretzels and Snapple
Times Square later, neon addiction sated.
And a boat ride to see lady liberty

Let’s go, you and I
And bare our feet in Balinese temples
Speak to the monks in broken English
And then retire to our curtained gazebo
To indulge in the sins they can’t
We’ll get massages and champagne
Then ride our bikes along pothole
Ridden dirt roads.

Let’s go, you and I
And get Nuevo Chic in London’s west end
We can catch a show in tux and evening gown
Then head to the pub and catch a pint
We can walk the trail, hunt Jack the Ripper
And visit The Tower.
Cross the Thames and maybe
No definitely
Another pint in some quaint little place.

Let’s go, you and I
And lie in bed late on lazy Sunday mornings
I’ll poach the eggs and make the hollandaise
You can put some upbeat daytime jazz on
Then we can go sit in the garden
Under the oak tree and read
Each other poetry
Until it’s much much later
...

I’d love to write something clever and witty
To capture the essence of Dr Suess in a ditty
But try as I might, the words don’t take flight
And the whole thing just sounds kind of ******

Peppered walls, pocked and pink
Stand proud.
Little thing, shutters agape and haggard
Stand proud.
Someone calls you a home, a house, mine
Stand proud.
You’re a shelter, a solace, a sanctuary
Stand proud.
Though beside you rise glass and steel
Stand proud.
You dominate, unique, one
Stand proud.
You’re loved, you leak, you’re you
Stand proud.

Conspiracy nuts
Say lizards rule the whole world
I'm going with no

My story of us
Of a clock blonde ticking
Counting the sheep until apocalypse
A simple verse would not suffice
Nor would a complexity borne of years.

A deluge of elocution,
Remembrance drowned.
The fickle combination of
Llamas and lambs grazing
In my backyard alongside other
Metaphors.

The llamas wear glasses sometimes

Anguished intellectuals
Locked up in bedrooms
Chained to porches.
Their advice is good
Their words wise and thoughtful
Themselves, ****** up.

Ink stained tomes littering desks.
Nail bitten fingers clinging to pens.
Red veined eyes squinting at parchment
Words given life. But to follow ones own advice?

Rare is the joyous bespectacled llama
Bestowing wisdom onto the sheep
Watching them frolicking on the lawn
Trying to find rhythm in gangly legs
Urgently, awkwardly alone.

The night is old
And my eyes are heavy
Heavy, a puppy held too long.
You’d think I’d sleep. But the door lies open
Staring at me,
The threshold slathered in anxious thoughts
Responsibility, a feather, a mountain
The reminder is onerous and incessant
Inescapable, tied to the wall
Must sleep. Please!

You killed the child in me.
A brutal ****** it was,
no mercy for his gentle soul.
His wide eyed wonder gone.

He was doused in gasoline,
and swiftly set alight
turned from happy kid,
to raging inferno, lit the night

His ashes did not have time to cool
before a stirring in their midst.
A cynical angry man did rise,
Not a phoenix borne of myth.

For now it hurts, just to smile
there's no mirth in my eye.
My laughter lines are obsolete
Just extensions of my frown.