tried to wash away the memory
as the weeks into months they blurred
unfulfilled dreams now forever lost
weigh heavy on the lips of words

a steeled veneer to protect the soul
self-made iron of unfiltered grace
shattered like a pane of glass;
the rubble that is laid to waste
fills countless endless self-dug holes

to accept the fate of solace
to descend the fires with no sound
to caress the blonde wisps of hair remaining
before being buried in the ground;
this was yours to bear alone

chances are a fates divide
in the dark the demon drink is dwelling
deep lies the dragons breath inside
for a stolen heart
left to mourn its own swelling

so much to forget
a simple gentle touch
a kiss is but a whisper now
who has forgotten how to weep
still remembered
as if it were only yesterday;
the memory will never fade
and was never yours to keep

Fall from grace
That which was never given
Clash with the Titan
Riding the eyes of the storm
Resplendent in ridicule
and washed in wasted rage.

Wrapped in rabid loneliness
Comforted by faithless poison
Purchased from a concrete German shell
Foaming at the mouth of contention
A stooping mottled scar for a face
and crumpled by a decade of abuse.

Such is the light that shines for some
Casting long deep shadows for others
Flickering in a wind licked alleyway
Caked in ***** and discarded toiletries
Shifting vision between dusk and dawn.

The hidden spectres just a heartbeat away
The gloss of a French pastry and the smell
of freshly ground coffee a fingers tip away
Searching for a random act of kindness
or some spare coin to buy the river man a liquid confession so that for a moment,
just a moment, to be human again
soak up the passing laughter and 1st world problems of the cities streets
Ignorant to the roads that lead to nowhere.

Your parents are....

The Most Awesome
people you have ever
actually ever known
right now
In your world

on the Earth
as we know it -

Parents hung on,
made do,
but hung on

Kept up hope,
The living
The one-time
They out lived

1000s of years of evolution,

war
and
resolution

The lineage
of
The Earth

if they're still going;
Why aren't you?

Breed or be Bred
Automatons
Animations

the forgotten spark

You are
what
You are

Just...

don't forget
where you came from

My brain can't
compute haiku's.
There. No. ******.

*sigh

There is no place that memory will not follow,
no feast now to sate thy appetite
no long embrace to give voice to feeling.

What remains is lifeless and hollow
the scant skeletons of desire.

The demons left to wander
reeling in the crimson night
lost in thy aimless gaze.

Do not pity me my friend
time is not on your side,
I shall endeavour to recall your face,
fight the fires of hazy change.

Left nothing but forgotten dreams
and the darkening of lost days.

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.

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 lied.
I didn't need filters.
I wanted a pint.

We swapped;
meanings
emotions
connections
and
words

Sliding Doors:
the what-could-have-been
replaced with the here-and-now

inter
connectivity
singularity
similarity
solution
ist
idealist
ic
pes­simist
ic
realist
ic
evolution
ary
ist
ic

In part
In truth

I wanted a pint;
there, I said it
plain and simple

Enter
the Other

Could've
Should've

being around strangers
I found my calm

You know
what I mean

just dose up
on more Amitriptyline
keep the Other at bay

just say,
i'm not home tonight

Thanks
for

You know

Being
You

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.

when the walls comes crashing down
and every brick feels like
the weight of the world
don't give up

when the darkness swallows you
and the moonlight vanishes
behind those clouds
don't give up

when you feel all is lost
and you are lost in it
whatever 'it' is
don't give up

when the people round you
hold out their arms, embrace it
they are not your enemy
don't give up

when no-one hears your tears
or your silent midnight screams
don't assume you are alone
don't give up

when the love has run dry
and it seems like a barren ocean
you are not alone, reach out
don't give up

you are strong, stay strong, be strong
if not for them, the kids or anything else
then for you
don't give up

you are a shinning star in this world
I know, I am there right now
and like you Im fighting
don't give up

be the voice, be the action,
make it happen, it is in you
and you will survive
don't give up

I am but a voice in the darkness
you don't know me but I say this
with all my soul and being
don't give up

Please, for the love of God
or whatever you want to call it

Don't give up.

I would see words forged into action
by these hands of broken memory,
memory that still haunts the darkest nights.

The barren tongue of sparse reaction
concealed in cocoons of silenced delight
decorated in jeopardy and lethargy.

The ramblings of an assumed madman
spent wandering these unforgotten years
comforted only by the monastic echoes of ashram
left to deliver his final illuminated message
unto the radiance of waiting ears.

The days have been long,
hastened by the majesty of moonlight
perishing in cirrus cloud formation.

Like the nightmares of crippled machination
and sheathed divinity more man than hallow.

Caressed by warmth of the morning sun
and in it a song for every fleeting shadow.

And this was the message:

Like all beautiful things:

We.
Must.
Fade.

There was a time
when people
were simply
people
before they understood
the sensation
of belonging
and speech
was wrapped
in neon

Fear of wonder
the lost
reflection in
the frosted glass
peering out
across the world

He embraced
the harmony
She resonated

From thigh to eye        
the wind whistles your name
The echoes collide,        
Inside.

I think I feel       
the same again,
a distant voice,         
A broken wheel;
sharp glass gloves and a clenched hand holds nothing
For you to know me.
Still.

The urge to tame       
That which is seldom glimpsed
by what right
is that by man alone by night;
a quivering pulse         
Untainted since
a moment when
I too,
held someone tight.

Too late to stall           
An hourglass bears the name
grain by grain
its fleeting
Too slow to move,           
To re-direct
a moment’s peace;           
I call your name
each time
I’m breathing.

Some secret place           
A shelter from the storm
a place unknown to me
Beyond this haven;     
a miniature maelstrom
Return (again)             
to reflect on what could have been.

Now
I Am               
Slowly dying;
These moments               
maybe lost forever.

A whispers tears               
in stealth marks a sullen face.
In memory,               
drifting aimless, still,
I call out your name;       
the space the echo fills
is left speechless and misplaced.

What spurns you on?         
What last reward?
Enlighten me                 
My Queen!
Upwardly fast         
slice through old paths;
this bramble bush
of broken dreams.

From head to knee                   
unbeknown, I chase thee
For these fragments                  
lost and stolen

Till then,
My Love
I shall remain
and
I will always be
meaningless
and
swollen

the sad thing is
when I've written this poem
there is a chance
it will become a eulogy:

the passing
of sliding doors
from which
there is no return

only tinted windows
reflecting memories

and My Love

left wandering
somewhere in the gloom
waiting
to be found again

Fingers quenching absent form
Let us share drink and bond wounded pride

Gorge on the liquid gold and this elixir of life
Embrace your brother and revel in its warmth

Lips pursed for libation
and all which was sworn lest now it not hide

In the shadows of forgiven moments
left to wilt in the summers embers

Like an iceberg melting
in the passing of the dying sun.

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 can see the future
The incidental future;

The splash of a coffee cup

The over oxygenated pint
foaming at the mouth

The random nose bleed
in prestigious company

The black coffin
carried by six sturdy men

the grave stone says
'Here lies The Beard'

Sometimes dreams
Can speak the future

if we care to listen

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.

your arms are the rivers
that channel my waters
awash in blush and quiver

trace the contours of skin
back to the ****** source
and where this all begins

sheltered from the morning light
her heart beat races
changing faces
storms rising
from strange places

some would say:
seek out change
emotion re-arranged
introspection born from sorrow
holding onto the memory
of yesterday
cupped in breath
of tomorrow.

These ten
word poems
seem
all the rage
these
days

you
are
broken

just
like
me

search
ing
for

that
place

the
wander
er
with
in
has
awoken

and

echoes
every
face
we
see

I have too many memories of you.
I wish to God
if only I could just
let go of a few.

Only,
images recreate images
as memories distort
in time honored reluctance
I forget all that is taught.

Not the fundamentals
how to read or write
or speak
or eat
or toss
and turn at night

But the little things
that help to keep you sane
sadly lost to the quagmire
that is the brain.

And if asked
I will freely tell
though honesty
at what cost

Left with too many
memories of you
but too little light lost.