I scramble around a petrol token mug
purporting to be an ash tray stained in neglect
needling between ash and cigarette butts
looking for some spent tobacco to recycle
and breathe in the cancerous smoke of belonging.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I am strong when you are feeble", he said.

The doctor twiddles his fountain pen
a parting gift from his late father
held with the poise of grace
and wielded like a lance
the pen can do many things for he and I
prescribe or chastise
the freedom with solitude
and the four white walls
of limiting restraint.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"We are symbiotic you and I", he said.

I wonder though is it:
Mutualistic
Commensalism
Parasitism or
Neutralism -
Who benefits who?

Do we bathe in each others glory
holding hands in the lost age of reason
comfort in the loneliness of winter
or just a dream of the endless
a figment of the imagination
and the passing of time
looking out of frosted windows.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I lead you in the dark, I am your light", he said.

I sometimes step back into the gloom
He fills my capillaries
clogging up my arteries
with his dark and mischievous veins
calling out to faceless strangers
walking past in the haze
the ones the others do not see
just out of line of sight
mottled and disfigured and blurred.

"Have another drink on me", he said.

I am distracted by the minute
leading this shabby existence
and the opening of unpaid bills
and the carnage of last weeks washing
and the bottles of empty beer discarded
like a tramps ***** in the drying sun
monuments to a day before when we were younger
and wrestled in the long grass of salvation
and the long summer days of liberal libation.

"I am the one and only constant you will ever have", he said.

Without him I will be hollow
like a rotten tree trunk
gashed in initials of love letters
with a pen knife
saturated in the remains
of fortified wine bottles
and leaf litter molding
in the dying frost of spring.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
Just don't ever talk about us, is what he meant.

you are a ray of light
in a world bathed in shadow
the double rainbow
of luminescent colour
as the moments of memory
fade into distant shallows.

you are the uncoiled mind
the evaporation of tears
the shades of opulent grey
and the world I leave behind.

still.
bent.
but not broken

the torments of youth
of love lost
and the quickening
of years
left to ponder
the unspoken.

Lady karma
shine your light on me
here I am
down here
way down here

robed in tattered clothes
bleeding hands
a broken nose
stumbling
stuttering
muttering
mumbling
shine your light on me

Lady karma
shine your light on me

Near to bursting
seam-less
ream-less
close to losing everything

my job
my friends
my mind as yet
radically
un-cleansed
just a step away
from the edge
balancing
on the precipice
of the wedge

lost in the darkest recess
the corridors of the mind
drunk on thorns
the horns of plenty
that you find
left empty
and bereft
I failed the test
lady karma
shine your light

Lady karma
shine your light on me

I was re-assessed
more likely
just depressed
than a danger
to any stranger
and the homelessness I faced
with quickening pace
seemed at the time
like ill gotten gain
and luckless fate
combined

and yet it faded gracefully
in the shadow cast
by the midday sun
it would have to wait
and I go back
to where
this all began

I felt your warmth
around me
wrap around me
shine your light on me
lady karma
shine your light
on me.

I have learned to wield the morning.
Rise in the razors light and her ambient glow
Champion of the spinal stretch
and the sensuous yield of the Muse below.

The past moments and the aches and the arches
left behind like the bramble bush of broken dreams
Now the chastity of yesterday's youth is laid to waste
and the dominance of her screams and thy pagan tastes.

My ***** stir for breakfast.
The Muse of the morning awakens
and sates the demons bathed in sin

Leaving but the residues
of her bitter sweet fruits upon my beard
to later grace the air
and the wafting breeze
that only other passing women
can sense,
and then rejoice within.

Cross cultural chatter
with Jeremiah ****
and Jack D
and Gary Moore blues
in the earworm;

Good company
comes in all shapes and sizes.

Reprises memories
of forgotten friends
we lost in yesterday's haze;

Such is life
in the gentle ageing
of these days.

Bring me the amber nectar
and the dissonance of reason
awash in the Jazz and Blues
and the warmth
of a welcome handshake;

All friends start life as strangers
ambling lips for all seasons
and the hues of lost souls.

That found each other wandering
in the frozen cascades
leading to the hot coals
of belonging.

I saw it coming

And

then it was right there;
in touching distance.

The

could've been
would've been
should've been

But

she faded
like a photograph
left to curl in the sun

The moment passed...

and then
she was gone

I do not know your tongue
Nor have the time to learn it now.

I will test the depths of
your vindictive vicious vessel.

In the dark places
That hide in the hearts of such men
and the sliding doors of lust
and the vengeance that scars
upon thy face.

You will be forgotten
Like a distant memory
that leaves a bitter taste
and a pungent trail
leading to your lonely doom
in the haunted chasms of your mind
and frozen heart of any room
you enter.

How I mourned for you
The dry tears evaporate
and the delicate flower
that could have so easily bloomed
replaced by prickly thorns
now wrapped in the futures
of your twisted gloom.