Looking back
At your black and white photograph
You were sweet
Like candy
Young and innocent
Funny, with hope left,
A half smile cracked on your face,
Always teasing,
Trying to fit in

It wrenches my heart
To see you that way
Because I miss him,
The boy you were then

It's painful to think what I'd
See in your face today,
Goonish smile,
Like a grotesque clown,
Eyes half-opened,
Mind half-awake,
Not quite enough anymore

Looking now
At your far-away eyes
I would see only half
Of the boy that used to be

You with the sad eyes,
isn't that a song?
It flitted fast across your face, the pain
you hide from everyone
and especially from
me.
Guarding me from it
shielding me, you stand in front of me,
block my
vision
it is too terrible,
won't let me see the
damage.
Uncover my eyes please -
let me look.
Does it hurt when I press here?
Right here,
over your heart?
You're only going to stare on straight ahead,
No,
Please,
I'm quite alright.
And walk on by, quickly now, flash a smile, then hold her tight
Maybe she won't ask questions.
But she wants to.

Running, run after you and I'll probably
trip over my own feet
trying to keep up with you because you move
so quick, snap your fingers and
everything changes.
Caught you.
Reaching out to grab your hand
to make you turn and face me, grasp your face with both my hands
Look at me.
Angry eyes now, so cold, fire would be better,
I touched you once and you pulled away, now I'm
petrified in place.
Pure hot anger is better, you feel
something that way
like love maybe, you feel
love
and you feel
alive.
Cold anger, frozen anger is the worst
kind, the kind you
can't talk about, the kind you
can't feel, nothing can touch you
nothing can make you warm.
Let me touch you, touch you again
I'm warm from trying so **** hard.
I could make you feel okay again,
good again,
wonderful maybe, if you would let me?
No,
Stop,
Stop trying to do that
Words like ice and I'm stuck in this spot I can't even dodge
the frozen shards, sinking into, tearing
my skin, my
eyes freeze wide open, as the
tears turn to icy trails on my cheeks.
Don't touch her, don't go too close with the
ice cold fury because you might
freeze her
but you've done it anyways when you wouldn't tell her,
when you turned
away
so touch her,
touch me.

In the midst of this frigid cold comes your
breath, warm on my cheeks.
Whisper, whisper.  
With the sweetest tongue, the softest mouth and
you love me.
Again and again you love me.  
I love you.  
I love you.
The tune fits so flawlessly, slips
from your tongue to mine
and back again,
again please?  Kiss me, harder
longer,
slower every time, show me
please, how you love me,
need me.  
Sing to me, play
for me, sing the song of how
you love me.
I'll beg if I have to,
please God please.

What do they call it?
Love, I mean.
A rollercoaster
well that is much too slow
the incline not steep enough
the falls not hard enough
but I suppose it will do for a metaphor.
You don't like heights but if you hold my
hand, maybe we could stay up here
a while?  No chance
we drop and hit the ground
then we're tossed back up
skywards, flailing for one another
for a hand for a heartbeat.
With a roller coaster at least you know,
you're never going to hit the ground.  
Please wait until the train has come to a complete
stop before exiting the ride
but I don't want to leave
don't want to let go
I can't, I won't
Promise, okay?
Because I would rather hit the ground in your
arms on this ride
than be anywhere else
I'm safest with you.
I guess it's not so much like a roller coaster after all
but I like what I've written there
so I'm letting you read it.

I never wanted to make anyone
smile, as much as I want to make you.
Your smile, sometimes rare,
occasionally common
is the most wonderful thing
I can think of.
So smile please?
Laugh for me, when you're not
happy I hurt, I want to
curl my body so tight around yours, wrap you up
inside of me
until you stop hurting, and then I'll feel
alright again.
I'll **** it out through your nose, through your mouth,
take the sadness right out of your lungs, see
how I made that sound poetic, when
it's only an inside joke?
Smile please?  
There you go.  
It's not so hard, is it?  Just
do what I do, follow me.
Your smile is so
enchanting
infectious
perfect.  
How could I not
smile
when you are happy?  Because all I ever
want, all that I
need, is for you to
smile.  
And not a fake smile, not so forced -
try again,
a real, genuine smile because you are
happy
to be alive, to be
with me, to be
the most wonderful person in my life, to be
the only one that can make me
smile, really
smile.

And I see that smile,
surfacing from behind that glare that is
'just your face' (it's not your face)
and when it happens, when it
splits open, and you look so happy (that is your face)
I smile and I want to be
close to you,
closer.
Let me touch you, run my
fingers over your
face, and through your
hair and down your body let me
touch you,
touch me?
Touch my face, with your
fingers, with your
lips, tell me how you cannot let me
go
because you need me like I need
you, I can't stay
away from you, can't keep my hands off of
you, sink my fingers hard into the
soft skin of your back because I won't let you
leave, I could not live if you
left.
If you let go of me I will never
make it, not
alone, not without you,
you cannot let go.
Hold me, close to you
next to your heart and never
let me move from there, it is where
I am happiest.

The universe
Plays a sick game with
Its occupants.
Dumping salubrious suffering
In droves
And igniting climactic pleasures
In the same breath.
Through death we are
Reborn
In life how we
Decay.
The interweaved oblivion
Of our united souls
dwells fierce.
with a touch we are destroyed.
In losing friends one makes
Them too.
Even if its just yourself.
your horrible worthless
Digested detestable selves
Always there for me.
Livid diatribes.
Loveins and loveless.
That sinking feeling
when you're born.
What a life its been.
there are those in your
World
That would do great things for you.
People are the blood in
the universe
It doesn't torture us
It bleeds its crazed idiot blood
When we bleed.
it merely takes solace in the fact that
Fear and courage are not so different.
It relies on the fact that
You
Exist.
Peace, my brothers,
I live a life of losing friends
I do this with tenacity.
Whats my score?

I pray thee sun thou should set,
or take thy leave better yet,
wouldst at last my thirst be gone,
But alas thee linger, and linger on.

There be no flower not yet dead,
no water flows in yonder river bed.
'Tis a heat where nought doth grow,
nor doth thee ever mercy show.

Dry of skin and parch of throat,
a man doth need no overcoat.
Thy rays doth burn mine eyes,
they do not hear mine mercy cries.

If there be a place where chill be found,
'Tis there it be that I be bound,
A place where there be no burning sun,
show it to me, so to it I shall run.

(c) 26th January 2010
with apoligies to all you Shakespeare freaks

Dear Angry,

I know you're not happy,
but there's nothing I can do,
I can't help it you're upset,
how you feel is up to you

I know that hurting others,
is something you do for fun,
but right at this moment, Angry,
I've got to get this ironing done.

With you it's, let's take someones,
sunshine, and turn it into rain.
Let's take away lifes joyfulness,
and replace it with some pain.

You turn up at accidents,
just to add a bit of rage,
Look here, Angry, why don't you,
just go off and find another stage.

(c) 4th November 2010

Dear Death,
I'm sorry I could not meet you yesterday,
I was busy, things got in the way.
It was looking promissing then, well,
the heart attack didn't happen
then things just sort of went to hell.
The neighbours cat got stuck up a tree,
I know it sounds like I'm making excuses,
but the truth is there was only me.
And there were other things, not just that.
I would not have been able to ring an ambulance
****** mobile phone, the battery was flat.
I stood you up, Death, but I can't be there,
at everybodies beck and ****** call,
the wife needed me to drive her to the mall.
Look Death why don't we try again next year,
I'm not going anywhere, I mean I'll still be here.

4th November 2010

You came to me at three in the morning,
you are a figment in my weary mind.
Your gnawled hand with it's broken nails,
reaching through the ether pleadingly.

Dressed in a drab grey dress and bonnet,
moth eaten shawl covering your shoulders.
An over powering sense of sadness prevails,
for I feel that you are not lost, but stranded.

I hear you whisper, a hoarse mournful whisper,
your breath so cold it chills my soul, - I shiver.
"Please, Sir, can ye spare me a mere two coppers?"
"So's I can catch the ferry to be with Jimmy."

I found two old pennies in my cupboard,
I took them and buried them in my garden,
I pray a ghost from Mr. Dickens found them,
and is now on her way  to join her Jimmy.

(c)09/03/2010

The old man sat, his legs crossed,
opposite the young boy, in the dirt.
"See dat fella?" he said pointing at a tree,
"Dat fella's yer brother, yer big brother."
The boy turned and looked at the tree.
"He's a livin' fella just like you are,
I remember when he was a little fella,
just like you're a little fella now."
The old man smiled, "He's a good fella."
he continued "he'll give ya his bark,
fer yer to make shelter and his branches,
fer yer to make fire when it's cold."

"Dat one dare! Can ya see da bush?"
he asked "Dat bush, dat one your aunty,
when you're hungry she will give ya berries.
See dem little ones?" pointing at the flowers,
"Dem ones they are ya sisters." He announced,
"Dem one's bring you beauty and brightness,
dem ones are de girls dat make us all happy."
The old man laughed showing the gaps in his teeth.
Pointing up he said "Look at dat fella up dare!
Dat fella he carries the sun around ter keep us warm,
an' when dat fella cries he fills our water holes,
dat fella he's our friend he lights candles at night,
so us fellas can find our way back to our womin."

"And what about you grandfather? What are you?"
The boy asked as he looked up at the old man.
"Me!" replied the grandfather "I guess I am da bringer.
I'm dat fella that brings these stories to yer,
so yer can understand that the country is our family,
it is alive like we are and that joins us together."
The old man tapped a twig, he was holding, on his foot.
"When the wind has blown my skin off and I am,
only a white stick laying in the desert sand,
yer will be the one who will look after dis family."
he said. "Then yer will become da bringer."

(c) 31/03/2010

A Corpse amongst the corpses
in this God forsaken place.
No love to come and hold me,
no lips to kiss my face.

With rigid grasp I hold
the gun my country gave me.
Frozen on my lips the prayer,
I had hoped would save me.

Both a brightly coloured parrot,
that sqawks the coming dawn
and the wondeous scent of eucalypt
are from me ever gone.

Here between the limbless soldiers
in a land that widows dread.
Here I'll dwell forever,
with all the unknown dead.

Until the battlefields are covered,
with a gown of emerald green,
to hide away the image
of the horrors they have seen.

Until war's thunder ceases.
until man's hatred is all gone,
no brightly coloured parrot
shall sqawk the coming of the dawn.

(c) 23/08/2009

Hey you! Yes you!
You with the pen in your hand.
You, who has always been so kind,
Yes, you with the poem in your mind!

Thank you for your passion,
the loving friendship you give,
for the ways you've supported me,
without it, I don't know where I'd be.

Hey you! Yes you,
You have enriched my life,
You there struggling to find a rhymn,
Thank you for sharing your life with mine.


(c) 24th September 2010

I just read the email you sent me. The one in
which you called me a **** and told me that my dad was right
all along.
.
.
I'm scared of tonight's nightmares.

This is a story about Harry,
as told to me by his daughter.

Dad and I had spent the day in the park,
we had picniced and were packing our things up,
twilight had arrived and soon it would be dark,
Dad bent down and picked up his coat and hat,
he looked up at me and said "Look at that!"

I looked about but saw nothing strange,
"Poor blighter!" said Dad, in a quiet sort of way,
and the look in his eye, I saw Dad change.
A grubby old derilect was stummbling our way,
a life gone to waste, a soul gone astray.

Dad smiled at me, as the man stopped to seach in a bin,
"Have yer got any smokes?" He asked, with a grin.
"Why yes I have a full pack, bar one." I replied.
He took my full pack and emptied them out,
he repacked them, so there was only a dozen inside.

Dad took that packet of smokes and threw it into a bin.
We picked up our things and went on our way.
I glanced back and saw that derilect get his lottery win,
Saying to Dad "Why did you leave him the full pack?"
Dad said "Oh,  he would have known it was a 'set up'.
and I didn't want to embarrass him."

(c) 26th October 2010