You made me soft;
A Marshmallow drop that melted sweetness,
and tasted like nostalgia on your tongue
In that place where camps fires smoked and we smouldered,
Orange with a glow
that crackled envy,
I saw forever in those flames.
Just a little tiny taste of eternity
Reaching for me, as I reached for you.
I curled and crisped,
Dribbled into that abyss
and bubbled up in the heat.

Eyes open into newness
And find a smile
Dimpled giddy
With the happiness
That took only one look to awaken
And one little life to nurture.
Nine months worth of waiting
Melt into a promise of forever.
My love for you is an endless
Beautiful thing.
Bigger than the both of us
Loud and bellowing.
But I whisper it
because I want to let you sleep.

High were the hills
That will climbed
But
My love, 
how spectacular the view.

The wrong, as always, was the right for us,
tainted trust stained with the blood
of our previous victims;
those whims of wondering what loving touch could feel like.
It burnt us, softened us to smoke,
that floated quiet out the door before dawn could break the news
and break the illusion.

We were loners,
Devoted to laying the stones of our own path,
Never held back tangles of commitment.
Without them we were untethered dreams
that broke into reality and made ourselves the monarchs
of our lowley, lonely kingdoms.

Look what those whims
have done to our crowns;
Rusty and bent they fall hapless
on our heads as we stand before
crowds of shadows cast by our egos.

There are no romances, no capes,
Princes or heroes in this land of the leftovers.
Only us
The wrong adorned as right
The deniers of the light of love
(That weakness of giving in and giving all).
How cold it all becomes when our dreams are big
but hearts are empty.

Last light on the bay,
The sky stained red
By a butchered day,
Dying with the grace
Of a sinking star.
All of its charm
Chastened by the waves
To its grave.

Because their sharp rebuke
Would be swift
And angered outburst be sound
'That thou should not sail
Where the sky meets the sea
If thou dost not wish
To be drowned'


Out there on the unsound
Ground of a different galaxy,
Where aliens have no right
To be,
And salt bleeches bones
Right down to the grain
Leaving lost,
unfortunate stowaways
Scattered like shells on a beach.

Her heart could heal
the heather,
Even in the colder weather's grip -
snapping the bony, brittle twigs
And sparkling sharply on abandoned leaves -
She could find her ease
On the downy carpet of the diseased,
Gather their lost limbs
Like a forgiveness-
That warm welcome of forget.
She could rest her head,
And bloom,
Bright blossom gazing up at the moon
More often than the sun,
Her fire blazing on -
A little hearth, among the heather
Warming roots in the
Colder months.

"You look different,"
He said.
"Oh that,"
Knowing smile,
Taunting tip of head,
"It's because I'm happy."

She wanted to travel
Unravel the world
Like famous explorers
Who's wandering was all the will to ask
If there was anything beyond the horizon
That they could see.

Now shes everywhere -

Frozen stare, pigtails and grey red uniform,
Tie needling south with the straightness of a compass
And shes lost.

Where is she?
Everywhere anyone turns
Trapped in the undergrowth
Where cans and cat **** go to pasture
Her wrinkled smile
Is caked onto the branches
Paper machet - ed and as brittle
As an old map.
She breaks apart like bread crumbs
That will never lead her home.

Have you seen her?
Not tumble weeding her news
Across the m2
Or pinned to a lamppost
Weeping her ink into the missing
like a watercolour.

Have you spied her?
Not tied with weak ribbon
to brown stalks who's little
Notes speak of hope
And other things, like Angel's and innocence,
The innocence shes frozen in.

Can you find her?
Not hopefully
Flying her flag of the forgotten
On the tv
Budget crew
Remaking her last seen
With shaking cameras
And discount queens of the smaller screen
Hoping for Hollywood.

Is there a tangible
Left to her name
Thrown as it has been across
State lines, and small places
That only the locals know.
She has Columbus - ed the globe
And she only left home
Walked down her drive
And disappeared.

I miss you
In the way lovers used to love
- Urgent, daring,
Desiring more than
Just touch.

I see the ones
who don't see anyone.
Their skin is as fragile as the pages in an old book
and they look at me with eyes that have read it all,
seen it all
and are still scared.
I know their loved ones;
the worried fingers
that lace and unlace
as they stare a hole in the space between their shoes,
unused to the barriers,
fighting every instinct just to keep dear ones safe.
When I grace their bedside,
adjust the pillows behind their heads, I think;
every touch is their touch -
the ones that can't be close -
reaching through closed doors.
Every look is their look.
Every word of comfort are words those loved ones would say.
I hope they know,
and I pray they are
no longer alone.

She was the moonlight
Pewter sprite that tiptoed the world
And never made an impression.
Lunar and light,
Dappling, dreamily across the surface
Never sinking, always glittering and glorious.
Though the sea roared
Monstrous and mean, jaggedly reaching
Greedily for her feet,
She was out of reach,
Lovingly lifted to where
she was always meant to be.

Are we broken babe?
Unmade
By all that remains
Of what made us.

It's a bittersweet thing
That makes me out of moments
I only half remember.
All those moments are you,
Tuned to the melody
Of how we used to meet,
Twirling together like syncrinosity
Was our name
And every other defining feature
Had died in the face of our love.
It wasnt enough,
Life takes as often as it gives
And we just had to live with it,
Disjointed and jarred,
Stepping on toes as we tripped away.
All the mistakes are
Sharp stones clutched my palm
As I make a fist
Revisiting every step and dip
Every wondrous lift and fall.
You are all
And the ache,
The sweet, profound pain
That makes up the whole of me,
Now that you're gone.

In every sense I'm a spirit
Slipped of human substance,
Settled like dust
On all this that must
Have once given me life.

She could blow away,
Burnt to blurry ashen pieces
Of limbs cindered to smoke,
Bespoke pain for a
Place of her own making.

She could sink behind the skyline,
Bleeding death to
A time when she was solid,
And she and the sky
Were definitively separate.
That time when she could cry
And clouds could rain.

But now their tears fall the same
And she is blown away.

Im quixsotically sick
Pining for my pick of the nostalgic.
Ruined stone upon ruined stone
With their merest mutterings
hold more splendour
Than the present,
So absent I become,
Distracted and whimsical
In my love for all I will never see

Honestly, I was paralysed
Quick breathed, chest choking kind
That numbs to the tips of fingers
And the bottom of the heart,
Feet spread wide apart as if I ever stood a chance of taking the blow.
Its stings,
bleary eyed I'm blinking and rubbing at the skin, massage the redness away;
All that nasty shame and the ridiculous burn of guilt
That has me wilting round my shadow.
I think I might have seen something,
Hints bleeding into the beauty of blissfull ignorance and dulling the gleam,
Blinkers just a little skew-wiff
To let the light in and shine on your bare ***
Going to town between someone else's legs.
You dont look half as nice now,
Your flesh is pale and hair curls darkly
And its gross, like those meaty moans
That make you sound like a boar.
I can't call her a *****, not really,
But shes enjoying herself with the lie of one
Screaming obscenities to God
As if hed take time out of his
Busy schedule to fulfil her voyeristic fantasies,
Deity bowing his head to watch
You smash into her and smash us to pieces.
You're shuddering and shes faking those screams
There"s no glee in her eyes, just the simpering emptiness of making you feel like a man.
But your not, you're a coward
Who's **** is fond of flattery,
chases it like a puppy, perking up hopefully to be petted.
I dont think I'm upset anymore.
I'm out the door and rain falls cool on the ground
I'm crunching down the gravel,
shedding my committment,
It's has a satisfying sound that dies
Beaneath my boot as you stumble after me.
'It's not what you think'
It's funny because I honestly
Hadn't thought anything except
I'd never never seem you like that before;
Not so raw and pasty
And ugly.
Maybe you'll meander back into my mind
As divine as you have been before
But right now I deplore the memory.
I dont love you
Because I dont know who you are.

My epiphanies never last
Rising and popping like bubbles in a glass
Frequently falling flat
No real form for all their fizz.

Forgive me.
The world is busy,
stormed with shards of uncertainty
that razor at the ropes of sanity,
till only frays remain, stumped at my thumb,
light in my grip.
Its times like these that I sink;
Kind faces become blurry blobs of expectation,
Waiting hands are impatient in their skin,
Opening and closing with the clasping closeness that feels choking.
I am smothered by the too much
and bury my head beneath the deluge.
The quagmire blots my ears,
Muffles the movements
All the sounds of all the somethings
going about the day.
In the ignorance I remain saved,
Every thought just about intelligible
Every feeling a negligible waver on this frequency.
Forgive me, hold me accountable for the hurt that I cause.
But the world is busy
And all I crave is quiet.

Bless you, beautiful
How can you not
know your namesake?
Shaken by throw away words
From those
Who do not know your worth.

It all lay in amber
Frozen in its golden heart
lingering lost in the garden -
Sentinel that had stood for all the good
And all the bad of knowing.
He hissed his holy hopes for her
As red and rosy and sweet to taste
As she remembered, sticky on her fingers
And as naked as the day that she was born
From breath.
Tempter and temptress looked one last time
Eyes in line, he among the deadened leaves
Of a deitys dream, she at the gates
Wondered at each others mistakes,
All encased in amber.

The tang tastes of fright
Coppery like the penny-worth
Of thoughts from those that spy us
Leering long looks
At the guts and gleeful guzzling
Of poor beast that was beating
The earth with free hoofs
And eyes large, white-ringed brown;
That sight that had us
hunkering and chuckling.

Beneath the ****** rueful moon
We must look a site,
High and dizzy with that leaking
Lifeforce that warms the cold away.
Blue with the rays
And red with the crime,
Caught shame faced as it dribbles
Down our chin and into the dirt.

How the earth forgets;
Muddy trench bled to green,
Blood bloomed to blossoms
Fragrant with dreams,
Deaf to screams and unaccustomed
To the sudden end -
Theirs is the slow droopy sleep
Of going away,
Settling on graves of bedded leaves
And mossy softness,
No scars or sharpness,
No squeals and sirens and sadness.
Their grief bittersweet, as lovely as willows weep.

How the earth forgets
Turns wincingly from the messy madness
That dug with gnarly fingers
And crushed with heavy blows.
All exposed and bleeding
Roots cut like tendons and teeming life
Extinguished
How it let's it leak away,
a slow tomorrow always softening the soil,
Always knitting at the wounds
Till the abused and beaten
Rises in the aftermath
And no trace remains,
No stain
Only the beautiful shaking off of yesterday
And all of its mistakes

Silly that my heart should
Be a secret,
That my love should whisper wishes
Than wear them wilfully
On his sleeve.
But my soul only sours
In silent sharing -
The eyes meeting in mischief
Across a room busy and unassuming,
Of the quick lift of lips,
The stifled snicker, the cheeky wink
That makes something wonderful
Flicker in my chest,
Caught breath at the beauty
In the boon
Of being the only two
Who know -
Without obvious touch
Or flamboyant show -
The all of each other.


Silly that my heart
Should be a secret,
Given in confidential agreement,
But I only give all
For those who would take silently
The big and the small,
And shelter those morsels
Like a treasure,
Never measuring their worth
By grand shows of splendour,
But by the tender
certainty of together
In the quiet.

Could we convince our scars
That the world isn't sharp,
That it means no harm?

When we wished
Wells rippled with the
Echo of their insistance
To be real.
When we dreamed
Days were seamless
Endless in their possibilities
Boundless in their magic.

Words sear a trails down my spine
Wet lipped, rose buds ready to bloom
With the shivering reality
Of how much I want her.
One sweet kiss and I'm gone
Head tipped back
Her name rasps through my throat
A chorus of adoration,
A raw of exultation that commands
Her not to stop.
But shes cheeky smiled
And glint eyed.
Gazes meeting across my body
And I'm flushed with feeling
Too exquisite to explain.
My thighs quiver
And she sinks between them,
And spells I love you
With her tongue.
I'm gone
Screaming yes
Because I could never say no
To her.

We are here
Whiskey addled
And full of quiet
Smokily cigaretted in the after.
Every touch
Taps a nerve
That shivers across
Our pillowed universe
And meets in our gaze

Puckered lips
Kiss eyelids to close
All our fervour
Now to sleep
On bed sheets and skin
Tangled toe to toe
And palm
To heart.

It doesnt fit
Theres an itch,
like a wrong suit and I'm pulling at the sleeves
To relieve the wrong ness,
Because it shouldn't hurt this much.
It shouldn't look like hand me downs and disaster,
like patches and a picked at lack-lustre lie
But it is, and I sit in it like the youngest.
Not my style, not my choice
Not my face or how I feel
This unrealness is someone else's.
The pattern is loud, proud of its garish
Flambouyance, as it shows off the ache
The geometric shape of my sharpness
Against the soft of sad
How it frames the sag around my shoulders.
If only I were older,
And time could take in the waist
Sew the hems and make
Me fit
Somehow this is my skin
How am I supposed to wear it?

I know all about oblivion
Have weaved it into my soul
Made myself whole
With all of its holes

It was a hell of a day
Sun and shade
Chequered your face chess board
And I was checked,
Heady between sips of beer and silent
like the smoke rising from your cigarette.
It burnt ruby, and I thought of jewels
And all the beautiful foolish things
I would buy you,
If we weren't here on a tuesday -
Mid-morning.
The awning weeps weary drops
From the drain that hasn't been cleaned since the place opened.
It has the colour of dark ale,
I stare at the pale in my pint glass,
think of the half a dozen things
responsibilities and togetherness
That could be part of us -
But are sadly too vast for these shoulders.

You hold out the yellowed filter tip
Lined red with the colour on your lips
Messily smeared - like it was done
The night before -
But I'd watch you adorn that ****
With shaking fingers,
Wobbly with all the worries of nothing
And everything.
You shift restless, pale arms stretched
Across flaking bits of bench,
drenched a weak grey by years and years of rain.
I rearrange the ashtray
And you smile at me, gap toothed and tired
Vacant as the breeze just dancing through.

'I'm bored' your voice slurs,
Like the thin trail of wine down your glass,
The redness settles and colours the stem
Colours your teeth.
It'll taste sour if I kiss you,
But I won't. I smoke.
Exhale the burn, blast it to
The clouds that creep across the sky
Lazy like each blink.
The world fades,
Black then bright.
Black the bright.
I think there might be an epiphany in my lungs
That song of something exciting.
It dances with possibility and makes
Me fidget in my seat
Maybe
Might be
Could be
Possibly.
Expectation makes me shrink into my sweater all holes and broken stitches, that itch as I pass you the last bit.
You smoke it, flick it
And all the potential goes with it
'Do you want another drink?'

Clay baked, brown, red and white
In white hot heat
Points to sky, raincloud free
And sinking off into the hills
It goes on and high.
Weak legs on strong lines
Chalked toes and dry mouths,
Breaking their belief
Shattering the smitherins into the atmosphere
In hope the gods will weep.

The air always smelled like cigarettes
And burnt denim,
Ripped and frayed
sitting on sharp hips
Tipped with attitude.

Our palms, always the color of dirt
Pressed against green glass
As we tipped,
laughed throatily at
The burn in our chests.

Our smiles always shined
Glossed lips turned up
With naive knowing
Sure shoulder shrugs
To hide the blush
Of falling behind.

Our voices were always loud
Looong syllables
Sang with solemn vows
Of seeing all our promises
Through to the end
Never bending
Against the break of the world.

Our sight was always far
Squinting at the sun-soaked unseen
Flicking cigarette butts
With perfect aim,
Watching the red smoulder
Flippant with the thought
That we would be the same,
never going out.

The sun shower you special,
speak sparkles
Into your soul
Till you are whole
With all the hope
Of new growth.

What line can
I draw
Where I dont want
You anymore
Let me stand behind it
Because missing you
Is too painful
To endure.

I fear the finality
Of everything.
So nothing
Ever begins.

Perfumed bedsheets,
Canvas the colour of her smile;
They'd become a cliche,
But he found
Even that
Was a masterpiece.

'But I can't fly'
Said the
Buttetfly-to-be.
'Oh my dear,
One day you will
And you'll do it
Beautifully'.

I love those lines that whisper happiness
That speak of dimpled cheeks
And all the time you've passed
Loving and laughing
With me.

Weep for me willow
Loose and low
With aged tales
Of travellers
Tuned to the melodies
Of song birds
And sleepy streams
That sigh their way
Through the centuries.

Wave willow
With the winds of change
Root yourself
In soil as aged
As your dreams

If we were never here
left no mark
And disappeared
How could they ever say
That we were wrong?
But are we songbirds
Whose tune will echo on
Heavy with the hope
That all we are
And all we were
Is never done?

Assume what you will of me
Stooped readily to clear your debris
Palms redly scoured of identity
Dipped in and out of buckets
Craggy with pervasive patterns
That spell the same words
Uninteresting,
Invisible
No more than the sum of a bubble
Popped into nothingness.
Wiped off, wiped away from thought
As easy as I remove stains.

See what you will in me;
Waste of ability,
All paralysed potential
Settling lazily
Into that dreary pit of existance.
There will be no insistance for judgement
On my part.
My essence remains in my chest,
Treasured yet and shone
For those who care to value it.
For their delicate hands it will always open
Because it has never been locked.

Every hurt has its hopes;
Drops of sun
That soak
Through the raindrops.

I may have loved you
In another life
Known eyes bedfellow blue
Vibrant against white sheets
Sapphire
Sparkling
With the afterglow

I may have known you
At another time
Weary hands wrapped
In comfort round
Your cup
As you supped steam
And casual
Dreams that tasted
Like coffee beans
And sugar cubes

I may have lost you
At another place
The lace of our lives
Untying as we pulled apart
No longer heart
To heart
And soul to soul
Two wholes, alone
That once were the full
Of each other

I may have had you
In another life
Let you lightly love me
As I lightly love
The thought
Of us across the past
Whimsical
Wonderful
And always too fragile
To ever last
Forever.

Eventually,
It all comes down to pieces,
Bits of people pottery
Left behind in flowerbeds
And dug up
When rough fingers
Work the soil.
Pastly and willowed
Water and war marked
How did you come to break?
What rough egdes met
To wear you to point the blame
Cut and quick to judge,
Vessel that filled with hate
And quickly spent its uselessness
Upon the slabs.

Or did aged shakes
Dislodge you from
Weakened fingers
And bitter tears wash you away
With all the memories
Centuries from the sky?

Perhaps, playfully
You were pinched
Sticky fingers
Stealing childish treaures
Carried from domestic shores
To mystic lands
Of imagination.
Were you blamefully broken
Innocence ending
For the journey back
Indoors?
Press ear to shard
And I can still hear the call

Eventually it all
Comes down to pieces.

Have you ever heard
Burnt words
Blown away?
Those merry syllables
Smoke the air
And they're everywhere.

Those, those are the truths
Heaven bound and unused
Settling in the clouds
Just to bleed
Out and drown
All the fools
That were deaf to
Their sound.

Every miniscule molecule
I make mine
Meanders from,
Mightily moving mountains,
To meekly maintaining mounds.
From harmlessly heeding horizons,
To heroically holding off hounds.

Every jumble of parts that fell together,
all puzzled at their place, are us;
the infintismal small stuff
of dreams and nightmares,
repeated till they've driven us mad
and had us searching for the impossible,
the drifty philosophical queries
of life living and existing.

Ribbons of rainbows tie us in knots,
connect our dots to the gold within us,
mined and shined to shimmer the normality
of community,
as we live and love it with little homes,
picketed and known only to us.
Those green manicured lawns
Where we raise our young and aspire
To be the corner stone or corner piece
The bit that makes up their sky,
So we can do down in history
Without going dusty in a box
Forgotten or lost
As most puzzle pieces are.

Would anybody
Want me
With these wounds
Would they
Find proof of
Life
From the quiet
Beat of my
Blood?

I see the world horizontally,
Soft sheets all stuffy
With potential hardly realised.
My eyes, heavy and unhappy,
Are blinded by the muted sunshine
Mocking me through the blinds.
The hum of life,
Doing fine just outside the window,
I feel its energy,
Almost laugh at its impossibility.

Because I bear the world brutally,
Confined and coffin-ed
In an ache that leaves no stain.
Lady Macbeth,
My crime is wept on evidence of
unliving,
Those shrines of *******
Laid to rest around the head
Of this tomb effigy,
Chronically enshrined in invisible agony
While the world just carries on.