I searched for the bench,
On Stephen's Green,
Where we sat.
Our touch was so intense then,
Full of future.

I found it today.
So many decades later,
Tried to recapture that memory.
All there is now,
Is the smell of fast food restaurants,
Serving takeaway moments,
And squabbling seagulls.

You asked me to stay then,
To make love.
But I was in a rush,
Had a train to catch,
To the past.
Funny how that even catches up on you.

These could be the best days,
I wouldn’t know.
There are no signs,
Written across our tiny universe to tell.

Even if there were signs,
Would I believe them?
Our lives are doomed to imperfection.
There is nothing that we think could not be better.

There is no wind that fills a sail,
That could not be better from a different quarter.
There is no taste of a luscious orange plucked from a tree,
That we have decided could not be better.

There is no gentle evening perfumed breeze,
That caresses a cheek that could not smell better.
Because of our own imperfections,
We abhor perfection.

Things never last forever.
Things are never fully complete.
Things are never as we experience them.
But the perfection lies in things as there are.

Nothing was ever meant to be perfect.
But we can dream,
And in our dreams,
We can make everything intimately and entirely our own.

Old Navigators,
Where they go or dream,  
Doesn’t matter.
As long as there is still,
Somewhere to go.

Meanwhile I'll just sit on the edge,
Well ahead of the crowd,
Waiting for the train to eternity.
Where it goes does anybody know?

While I wait,
I’ll sit on this deck,
I’ll dangle my feet in the warm sea,
Look at the sights.

And I’ll enjoy it all,
With the spirit I was given.
Perhaps I’ll whistle a tune while I wait,
Even if it is bad luck,
It hardly matters.

Maybe I’ll write in the log book.
And if someone after me reads the entry,
That’s fine.
And if they don’t,
That’s fine too.

I sleep less on vacation,
In case I waste time.
Everything must be in excess.
Even when she reins me in.
I have to make up for,
Every mundane working Monday,
And Tuesday,
And Wednesday,
And Thursday,
Even Friday.
For the average person their work is their life.
They believe it is fatal to be idle.
And yet the average person,
Can’t even prove they not just that,
Mediocre.

The memory of my Father
Is wrapped within me
Like a schoolboys lunch
Covered in greaseproof paper
Waiting to be unfolded.
And then like a sailor's voyage
It seeks out that beloved port
That has been left behind.

The secret drinker stays up at night,
Watching those dark programs,
On a blank screen of a turned off television.

The secret drinker listens,
To the ticking of the mantle clock,
As it times life away.  

The secret drinker measures the numbness of the pain,
By the counting of the bottles,gills , half ones,
Until it all seems sane.

The secret drinker,
Lifts the last drink.
Holds the liquid to the light,
And dies in life the same way of many a cocktail.

The greed in me buys a ticket,
Only when it’s over 50 million.
I wouldn’t know what to do with 1 million.
All that week I avoid the news,
Just to prolong the illusion.
Lost to imaginary purchases of Islands,
Yachts, houses, parties, paintings,
I can’t make up my mind.
I check the Sunday Times Property supplement,
What can I afford?
Then there is the property tax.
The security, insurance, indigestion.
What if the new car gets scratched?  
Everything I don’t need.

Eventually I check the ticket.
Relieved to avoid all that work,
And thankful I haven’t won.
But the greed will still get the better of me next time,
A Dark powerful magic.