Between volumes and syllables.
From a piece of paper
Folded with smitten hands and
Hidden between

Books of lesser interest to a
Young heart in first love,
To the isles and isles of scrolled
Knowledge lost in the blasphemous

Fires of Alexandria, my story
Remains only for as long as I
Do. Punctuations and dreams
That will forever matter less to

Another than their own. My
Story is my doing. My being.
My loves and dislikes.
My failures and successes weigh

Exactly as little as names of
Kings and gods long forgotten,
When printed with other drops
Of the same ink as theirs.

I love my girlfriend's answer
To questions of an afterlife:
*"I hope it all ends when it ends.
I have been given enough.

Give my space to other souls.
All I am; all I have,  
I am comforted to think I only
Borrow."

a creative entity,
kept far too busy,
unraveling the enigma,
unwrapping the riddle,
of the mystery novel,
that is living life....
euphorically, emphatically,
whilst furiously rowing,
in ever dwindling circles,
a slow-leaking dinghy,
on life's
idiosyncrasea....

that kind sir
just about sums up
the story of me....

I cast my mind back to my formative years
the simple life of a child, no real dangers or fears

No play stations or TV we made our own fun
Our playgrounds the fields and the forests under the sun

I often think back to those halcyon days
When we had unwritten rules about the way that we played

Eleven years old and wasps in a cloud
fourty eight stings later and boy did I howl

Now aged fourteen and a change for the best
Two years of training as a professional chef

At sixteen years old and a big change had begun
because I decided to make the army my home

Two brothers before me had taken up arms
and if needed would fight to keep our country from harm

Nineteen and still innocent in a strange foreign land
a place of death and destruction,  sharp rocks,  burning sand

I still have the dreams about what I did, things I saw
I guess such things happen when teenagers go to war

Twenty two and another change in my life
because I'm no longer single,  I now have a wife

On valentines day in 74
the midwife delivered a son to my door

A miracle of nature this beautiful boy
the first time I held him my heart filled with joy

And so long years passed, the good and the bad
at fourty from the army I parted, neither happy nor sad

I had travelled to lands I would never have seen
if I hadn't chosen to wear khaki and green

So at forty I made another life change
and decided to enter the security game

Several years later I decided to teach
to pass on the knowledge that others did seek

Well now approaching my sixty seventh year
its time to embark on another career

It's time to relax and grow gracefully old
a time to take up my pen so my story gets told