It's hard to say what grabbed my attention on  
On this platform we perform on
You say you don't perform
Don't kid yourself
We all need to present our
Best side to the camera
It's just we don't always succeed
I give to you
The wishes I give myself
To look in that Mirror
And see ourselves
As we really are

Am I manipulative?
At times
Those times when only manipulation
Could have saved me
So very very hard
I tried
To make sense of the world
As much sense as it was due
The dogs
Of my particular war fought long and hard
As my feline stretched contentedly at times.

Wherever you are
However alone
There is always
A hand somewhere to help
The hardest hardest move to make
Is the first step towards that hand
Please allow the kindness inside
I know I've been there

Its been one of those days
Your Mother warned you about.
Not frustrating
Not annoying
Just
Long
and
An exercise for
For patience.
Like an old boss who
Wanted everything done
12 hours ago
But cheap.
The job was interesting,
And sharing with
"The morning Lady"
Had its problems and its fun.
Trying to decipher instructions
From the four letter words had its moments
But was still the best of the jobs on a long
CV
Pruned to "perfection"
As we all did in those days.
I don't look back often,
And then  with a fondness
That even I  did not appreciate those
Good times until past.
Now even if not so far away
I smile at the memories of working with the majority
Of those men.
Artisans but skilled to  the "nth" degree that
I really envied them Their opportunity to perform
The jobs they did with evident enjoyment,
And with an ease
That didn't need frowns,
And
The irregular turning off of the alarm, to get them through
Their need to turn over and pull bedclothes around them
Like a windproof collar,
Protecting them from the frosts of even a
Summers day.
On this Summers days' end
I'm so glad
The frosts seem warmer, and the drizzle
Softer
Unlike those even
Older and sharper days I seem to remember
Am I the only one who looks back fondly to the future?

I look at my home
At my furry friends in pictures
Who have shared my life
At different times
In different places
The feisty moggy who lived until twenty years
To annoy and perplex
But most of all to beguile
And my dusky shy little feline girl
Who left too soon with just her place in my heart
My dogs who lived with from youth too old age
And left me together unable to survive without each other
My own years are measured in these pictures
From sadness to smiles
And back again
What new friends of a soft and pet-like persuasion
Will share my hope and sorrows next
For surely the next is in sight.

i know your heart
then
and now
i wish your smile would fill me my vision
as todays empathies
fill my thoughts
i can't promise you my yesterdays
but my todays' are as full of you
my tomorrows are As full of light
as this Moon shining strongly
as i peep softly
and smilingly
at a fear that has flown like these
Graceful guttural
and swiftly soaring birds
that surround the you
And  me; soaring with  such a
Freedom; i don;t mind that this may not last now
For it will return as surely as
My breath mists the eyes I
Remember.

Why
Why, why
Why
Are these memories so hard to pin down?
Why are the images of the you
Gazing at the red rose memorial sadly,
Sadly merged and smudged
On a canvas, I not only don't possess
Or Own
But can't see either.
Do you really want to" mess with my head"?
Are you the wannabe?
Or a different whoerbe?
Are you many different people?
All of whom I admit puzzle me,
In this world where puzzles are many and diverse.
For red roses to me, mean a
A long ago funeral of a long lost parent
From a partner left bereft and lost
In a world not understood alone.
No long ago  red and rosy posy
Sent from a special person to me;
Or reciprocated,
In my many varied past.
I could be speaking to anyone
Because anyone always has An identity
That is smudged and merged also.
So...
We all stumble and roll
In the fog of a faceless and a
Beaurocratic
Mess
Even they have lost themselves in,
Leaving the rest of us
In seas too
Deep and wide to navigate safely it seems.
Prove us wrong.

I wish... ?
I wish could lie to you
And pretend I don't care
Lieing is easy ?
Don't be daft
It's harder than  quantum physics
Not that I'd  know
Caring is so **** hard when I think about it
And so **** easy in the soft darkness of night
As I wish I could stop wishing
And really convince this "you"
That this is about all of us
We all at times can feel old and sad and
Very very untalented
And what are talents anyway
But some currency I don't have
I send my thoughts to
The you
I see so
Little of
In all the senses God gave us

The child I was
Was the child I became
Sad, silent eyes that I don't remember
Showing
To myself Or
The world
My world was small and narrow
And surrounded by people that that I liked and even loved
However
Puzzling they seemed
Lots of friends as puzzled as I at this strange
World populated by those large, tall and passionless adults, calling the Many words of friendship
Not only I mistrusted.
We grew together and apart
And mourned those we lost in whatever ways,
The next generation children of the
Generations before
And before them.
We didn't think to complain
No one did then.
And now?
We finally find,  and I hope its not only I,
That the freedom
We've sought In so many
Inappropriate and self- destructive
Solutions, began
With one small journey
That stretches into some far off horizon
None of us can see.

A moment in my time
May be more than a moment in others.

Who am I smiling to?
Who am I Talking to?
To me.
The me I should really
Take more notice of.
More than the me
Who can't see wood and trees
Without
Mixing unfathomable metaphors.

I once saw myself
And was surprised at what I was
My face was heavy  with darkness
Although the sun was shining brightly
I stepped purposely into the sunlight
As darkness I left behind
I don't how long this will last
But it's enough
It is enough

I saw a voice
So warm and free
And felt a cut
I couldn't see
Sound and vision
Could have been
So far apart
Until, were paused
To begin again
In Unity.

I wonder a lot who is the
"You"
I refer to so much.
And the truth is
There as many answers
As there are "Yous".

I didn't know
When I arrived on this earth
What the rules were
And I found they seemed
Unexpectedly to change
Why my God
Didn't you  provide
At least a basic manual
You know
" Me idiot
How does
All this living work"?
There's no one
To blame I feel
But why God
Give me more fear than
I needed
And certainly could deal with
At times
It seems so far
I'm not exactly winning
But at least competing
So...how about it
Lets call a peace
You don't give me more than I can cope with
And I won't expect more of you
Than is reasonable

I had the bad news today
You had gone from
Us all
Your wife and family
Hardest hit
And friends, so many friends
Left to mourn
The " You " we all remembered
The joy in yourself at the times
You were fuelled by the black stuff
And the Irish you loved so much
When I saw your paper face And read the last words
My shock was paramount
You were immortal weren't you?
I thought so at least
There to show
Me
The sunny side of life
And you said one day I was your extra daughter
And I guess you could have been that age
But to me
You were that brother that never was
And now you're with
The God
We all have to answer to
Just remember John
Somewhere the best really could be yet to come.