I want to lie on my floor
With you.
I want to talk to you
About Kings and Queens,
The castles they live in
The places they have seen.
I want suddenly to see in your eyes
The love that disappeared long ago
The love we no longer know.
I want you to want me to kiss your hips
To lick your lips
To sing you a song from a famous musical
And to confuse it all
With happiness.
Where does love go after it has been lost?
Does it squeeze between the books on a shelf
Is it lifted into the branches of a tree
Where it waits by itself
To drop on to a passer-by
Or does it disappear for ever
Like the beggar you no longer meet.
No.
It stays in your heart,
Standing in line
Waiting for the time
When we shall love again
Please spare me the pain
Let me die before you commit ******
I would have preferred a
More peaceful end
My friend
The moon, a river
A feather,
A pillow,
You,
And me.

A rich carpet of blue silk
Stretches out before me.
It licks the shore like a lazy insistent lover.
I look down at my feet;
Their shape distorted by one ripple, then another.
I run my hand over my lumpen skull
Backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards
Until the thoughts settle and lie,
Until my heartbeat slows,
Until men in black pass by.
I look up into white clouds,
Kissed by the hidden sun.
A spider's web bounces in the breeze.
What madness we bring into this world!
What misguided passion!
Who cares? I do.
I smile whilst I can.
I am thinking,
Thinking, only of you.

Cold.
Wet.
We struggle a few yards.
We both want it to happen
And happen it does.
I cling to the grey rock
And arch my back
I turn around and grasp it again.
The wind blows
As you come in closer
You ask me to look around.
And then it is finished.
It is over.
But then the blue.
The simple, stately blue of my body and the rocks.
Arrives later, much later.
It has a majesty that is unsurpassed,

A painful blow to the head
Brought me to my senses
About how I should write
These words and these verses.

Her voluminous purple skirt
Brushed gently over the grass,
Still crisp and dry in the night,
Still visible under its mask.

She looked through the window
And marvelled at the laughter
Then bent her head to the sky,
To consider the hereafter.

It sent a small shiver
Through that elegant frame;
Little did she suspect
That she would walk this way again.

Resurrection in name only;
Not so very odd.
She wrote the letter in pencil
And put her trust in God.

Not that our dear father
In heaven and all hallowed
Could have created such a man
With a soul so shallow.

Her sister said he had no heart
But when he broke down and cried
He showed some emotion
That she thought within him had died.

We are all found out,
Either by ourselves or by others;
Our minor misdemeanours
Or our secret lovers.

And when that hour arrives,
Either we shall be dying in bed
Or grateful that we suffered
A painful blow to the head.

There is a part of him in you,
There is a part of him in me;
One wanted to live,
The other to be free.

Tell them all about me he asked
But I could never understand
This man who loved her,
Until I had spoken to the hand.

He told you what he was to do,
But he did not understand,
This man who loved you,
What lay in his hand.

If only they had waited
For each of us to grow;
If only they had waited
For each of us to know.

Both died by his own hand,
One held a cigarette, the other a gun,
She said lift your cap,
If you ever meet a nun.

And here we are the children,
I never smoked, you never fired a shot
Yet there is a part of him in us,
Which part? The part we knew not.

You have revisited his past;
Where he has stood, you stand.
I have written words;
Now we understand.

The tale of two fathers,
A tale of a girl and a boy,
A tale of friendship,
A tale of loss and joy.

There is a part of me in you,
There is a part of you in me.
Our fathers who art in heaven,
Hallowed be.

Swim
and
Dream,
Swim and dream….
My eyes, they are open but cannot see;
Yours are open like the petals of a rose.
You see clearly but why not I ?
You guide me,
Through the rushes which bend
Like Russian dancers,
This way, that way,
Over the rocks which seem to move
In the shifting sand;
Up to the light where naked limbs kick and struggle.
I blink in the sun;
I glance left and right,
I twist and turn,
You are gone.
I swim,
I dream,
Swim and dream….
And there you are,
Asleep on the sea bed.
Through a stream of bubbles I dive down
And you wake,
You smile,
I lean forward,
You laugh,
As the sun ***** you to the surface.
Your toes brush my fingers
As you climb past;
I follow,
We swim,
We dream,
Swim and dream….
Dream of the sound of shadows
To come .
What is that sound ?
It is nothing,
Nothing at all.

The feast was over.
I struggled to my feet,
Feeling strangely satisfied
With how little I had said at the table.
I had watched my children
Represent me, not with my knowledge
But with their own,
Gleaned from their experiences, not mine.
It was comforting to realise
How well they shall cope without me.
I sunk into the armchair,
The leather one by the fire,
I dreamed of knights in armour,
Fighting in a foreign wood.
I awoke to silence in my house;
No warriors here -
Only a mute stillness
Which demanded to be broken.
Slowly, I made my way
Into every room in my heart
And discovered each of them in turn,
Concerned in some important trivia.
They smiled as they were disturbed
And yet still no sound.
As I asked the question,
A soft call from a distant point
Grew louder, gently, gently.
I felt a hand on my shoulder;
I opened my eyes.
You.
It was you.