So many lovely, young girls
brimming with despair and despondency.

Makes an old man sad.

You are like buds that can't blossom.

Casual ***, attempted suicide,
drugs, alcohol, broken hearts:
all accrue to the self-aware.

Self-awareness is a great gift,
but acutely painful
to the very young.

Never use a man to define yourself.
Only disappointment lives there.
Men aren't all that smart
or valuable, you know,
and can be easily replaced.
In 40 years, you won't remember
his name.

None of this is new.

The trick is to find
your way to survive
and do it no matter what.

On the other side of suffering
is life, and perhaps more suffering.

You don't need bunnies and rainbows,
you only need yourselves and time
and toughness and belief.

Go ahead and blossom.

Make an old geezer smile.

There's something odd about it.

How I know their names, their personalities, the jokes they tell.

How I know the plans you guys have made and the fun activities you'll all do as a team.

How I even know the costumes they'll wear and the conventions you will all go to.

And I know what I'd say in conversation with them,

How I'd get to know them better,

How I would put my best foot forward,

How I've longed to actually hear their voices so I can match them with their persona.

But that's not in the cards.
It's okay, I'm okay.

But sometimes I realize how disconnected I am from your world.

How far away and far removed I am.
And I remember that no one knows me.

None of them know my name, or my personality.

They don't know the plans we have made or activities we are planning.

They don't think about what they'd say to me in conversation, or how they'd "get to know me better".

They wouldn't need to put their best foot forward or hear my voice to match me to the rest of my persona....

Because to all of them I don't exist. I'm a distant acquaintance from a long time ago.

I am a passing name in very loose conversation every couple of months.

I am the one who knows but isn't known.

I am a ghost.

And no one in your life can see me,

Except for a very special person,

And that's you.

(i. r.)

Oh oh can you take me to the store
And can you put on Pantera
And blast it real loud
And then we could chat
And I'll tell you about my day
And you could sit there and listen
Oh oh can you put on a DVD
The one about the green oger
And the fairy tale creatures
We could watch it together
Doesn't that sound fun?

"Yes Dad that sounds great"'

Nestled
in a gyroscope
of allotment, haybail and heath
is the scenery of
my solemn country.
The skyrise, hollows. the
dripping
fat of the land.

The cities have boomed
and they're beautiful.
Like open roses they're
garlands of wire,
pylons and street-lights.
A thorny crown
on a girl in a nightclub. They're
blistering
they drink, kiss and drink.

And all the while
we live with whispers
splashed like
blood in a gutter.
As murmurs
pumped
through the strip-lit veins
of an office block.
Its a life where
prayers
are mist on train windows.

When we walk
we check our
reflection in car windows
and we're beautiful
we run
our hands
through our hair
knowing
we were babies born with
horns for this.

When we ride
its over
railroad boneyards,
the sleepers are
metal teeth locked in
asymmetrical laughter
at everything
at everyone
at nothing.

The skies are a
psychosis of sunlight, clouds,
vapour trails,
it's heaven
and
we're bent at the alter,
our shadow on
the crypt
has horns.

Our youth was seasoned
With greens and blues
When your skin scorched me.
Still burns.

Could we but flip
Pages like clock hands;
We need only agree,
And nocturnal waves
Would lap again,
And all the world
Would fall in time
Upon itself.

Elements, such as we,
Cannot.
Your present calendar
Has days X-ed off,
Days checked on.
Times have changed
Peoples and places.

I remain yours.