She was a twenty something
art student with just enough
cleavage to allure my attention,
she spoke with an elegant whisper,
her hair resembled a roosters ****
although her red framed glasses
complimented the style brilliantly.
I have read all your poetry she said,
you are so openly honest about
prostitution, drunkards in ******
strip clubs, washed up poets in
drug infused jazz joints, the cruelty
of bull fighting and oh my god
*******!. You must be confusing
me with someone else I said. I went
back to my lonely room and wrote
this down …
Clay.M

I was on a train from
Paris to Amsterdam
and with an empty page
a sad smile and a pen
she was looking out
the window across
the apple green fields and
into the valleys of cobbled
villages and ****** churches
and as the dead air of Paris
was leaving my mind
I began to read the reflection
of questions in her eyes
I wanted to tell her what
she already knew
that the answers are in
the rhythm of the rails
and to only underline
the words that matter ...
Clay.M

I never realized we were a thing
My guess is it wasn't clear
Till what we had up and left
On that fateful day you disappeared

There's not a thing that's worth repeating
Out here now on my own
And if you don't mind me telling you something
I don't much like being all alone

Everything thing we had together
Now doesn't mean a thing to me
What really seems to matter
Is in how we used to be

There are things in life you can't control
Still, you do your best to make it through
I only wish at the time that I had known
I had a thing or two for you

...and apparently still do

I cannot afford to pay
the ferryman shrugged
so the POOR bard
who so wanted to go
all the same had to remain.

The sky is a stormy
kind of strange indigo
daffodils are reaching
out for attention
the mountains
crumble with a
matter of urgency
my dreams are a
puddle of mud and
sullen reflection
tears spill into an open
field of wild orchids
the gods are drunk
with the thunder  
of excitement
I drift in and out of
dark dreaming I am
just a passenger in this
strange and awful place
sometimes when the
lights are low I often
wonder why do colours
fade away when you
need them the most …
Clay.M

I haven't seen her in years.

Maybe she's still there
when the tide rises
foraging in the river
dreaming in half moon
they meet their fate
floating into her net.

With the tide ebbing
maybe she's still hugging the shore
praying for a little more
till the stars blink weary
waiting for her to go home.

Is she still there
her skin smeared with mud
stalking like a night heron
silhouetted against the skylight
her feet kissing the riverbed
her bed lonely and cold.

I wonder why for me
she's so mysterious
a predator in the river
a foresaker of life
for the life of her
brewing a love
deeper than I've ever known.

In my eye's river
she's still there.

Age cannot catch up with her.

Would you
yourself recognise
in a distant time
when life's landscape
has changed
and your mind
has altered
being cast
in the crucible
of  experience
and trial?

Would you hold
to that self
that made
and shaped you
since you were
a child?

This is the battle
within yourself:
to decide
what would shape
your life
in that moment
of distant time