I became a girl he didn't recognize
With a voice he had never heard
And I stopped walking on water

I outgrew being his easy girl
His ever understanding wife
And suddenly,  I could do plenty wrong

I learned things
A whole new vocabulary
Ethical non monogamy
Agency
Autonomy
Egalitarian

Words and definitions that felt like home to me
But perhaps they felt like rough, rocky terrain to him

I discovered a love of things long lain dormant in my soul
Poetry
Words
Art
Music
Culture

I filled my life with people who loved the same

I became inspired

Fell in love with the life I thought we might create

And my life became more my own and less a support of his

I started becoming more of all of me
Less just his wife
Less just the kids' mother

I found a girl I didn't know I had lost
Who I think, maybe, he doesn't like too much
Or
Maybe
He just doesn't know what to do with that girl or how the hell to love her.

{2018.02.19}

There will be  pictures I want to see.
Pictures of your life-line growing,
In a background with Christmas Trees,
School days, soccer matches,
Recitals and dinner blessings,
Parties, proms and outright laughing,
When all who matter are present.
I'm not taking the picture.
I'm not in the picture.
So, Remember Me.
Don't release me.
Sit with your children's children,
Open and tell a story
About a picture in the book;
They may laugh with bewildered looks
At the old Irishman,
The Da da, Daddy, Dad, and Faja,
The one who's loved you
From conception on,
Your old man.

Amidst the smoke and light and laughter
Along the smiles and cheers thereafter

A sound is bled, wrung free from strings
It bounds and treads and wholly sings
Inside each song, a secret’s moved
Not right nor wrong or frequent proved
The message dances from bow to ear;
A coded trance of love and fear
From left to right the story rings
Of death and light the Cello brings
The covert tale engulfs the room
It vibrates truth to those who loom
The Cello knows for why it’s played
Its secret lost, both gone and stayed

In the smoke and light and laughter
Music lies and cries thereafter

On a rain battered hillside that looks out to sea
Clings an edifice, sullen and damp
The vacuum of night seems to suckle the light
From a singular, sickly lamp
The sign at the gate is of sun splintered oak
And the letters erased by the rain
‘The Slowcombe Asylum ’ they’d long ago spelt
‘For the Brainsick, Disturbed and Insane’

The cold of the air tangles up in your hair
Like a lingering tendril of panic
And the door to your skin as you venture within
Is unnervingly warm and organic
There’s a hole in the window that lets in the rain
And it’s rotted the carpet beneath
The rattle of wind through the weather-worn blinds
Hides the sound of your chattering teeth

There’s a whisper that nibbles the edge of your ear
And a shudder that skips up your sleeves
But the cry that had clung to the tip of your tongue
Is accosted before it can leave
There are pools of neglect where the shadows collect
‘Til the sunlight has faded from view
The security door is of iron and steel
But it’s broken and hanging askew..

Valentines
If read with your ear
On their breast
Beat loud
Enough to make
You sigh

I work all day and sleep all night
I barely find the time to write
when time is found to fill my need
I have a cup of tea and read
the words you write upon this site
but still my muse has taken flight.

While life it swells within my belly
ankles lifted, watching telly
6 weeks to go till baby Beau
Will swell my heart and steal the show
With toothless smiles and sleepless nights
My muse to bring such special writes!

Many strange things in my time I have seen
What I see now may seem extreme
I sit in the garden by a small bungalow
They both stand together, a cat and a crow.
What I see is an unbelievable sight
The cat walks away, the crow takes flight
I return again the very next day
Together they stand in the very same way.
The cat is at peace and so is the crow
They are both too old, and very slow
The crow it stays in the same oak tree
And the cat can no longer run easily.
So within this garden they both now reside
Weak and feeble, yet still alive.
Maybe they've lost the will to ****
Or simply they both have had their fill.
But there is a lesson that is clear to see
If they can live in peace, so can we.

little trout upon my plate
bet your wishing that fly you ate
was not attached to fishing line

little trout in my mouth
like a bird you should've flown south
but now you are destined for my mouth

little trout in my tummy
you are so incredibly yummy


little trout I thank you
for feeding me and my crew