I
The Boy
A child of broken whiskey bottles
and stained old carpet
built hastily, with scraps of stolen innocence
Porcelain in overalls,
with full harvest moon eyes.

II
Father
He had distant star eyes,
always looking for things far away
and when he found them,
doused them in *****
and set them ablaze, watching as they burned
in his saw mill hands.

III
Aunt
She was a war of a woman.
Embraced him with her entrenching arms,
a cloud of mustard gas perfume
rising from her breastworks,
into her flaming hair.

IV
Mother
Mother was a whispered name in grey stone,
a grey photograph on the brown mantel,
with perfect skin and dull eyes,
he'd seen her ghost at the piano one night.

V
Uncle
He had ****** hands
that he shoved into his pockets
when he put his cleaver down for the night.
He always offered crimson quarters
that bought red striped candies.

1) October is a month for leaving
even the copper leaves
leave the embrace of the trees

2)Your ghost still haunts my bed.
If I made love to a priest
would that exorcise you
from my sheets?

3)Because I think we all have thought
about stepping on the gas
when we should have hit the brake.

I have always loved you.

I imagine us 30 years down the road.
I am massaging your shoulders,
relieving knots.
Life gets me in knots too.

I've put the kettle on
I have my own key now so I come and go as I please
like the old friend I've become.
I feed your cat when you go away at weekends.

Smelling your pillow
Remembering you at 40.
Your dressing table
as I pictured it.

I have my own family now
but I met you 10 years before I met my wife.
I rode the wave of your smile,
came crashing down
the day you announced you'd met someone,
holding out for the real thing.

For; I was just a boy,
what could I deliver apart from newspapers
and the odd dodgy innuendos? you laughed at
tossing your hair.
Humouring me
but,
Never letting on that you cared.

I slip away every second night
when the second hand rests between the 8 and the 9
and it is quarter to 10.
I am on my way to see you.
We play cards and toast a drink into midnight.
Sometimes I reach for your delicately aged hand
twiddling with your rings,
knowing mine would have been the sparkly one.
But not a patch on you.

We lock eyes for around a minute,
My throat is dry.
Telepathically I tell you
I have always loved you.
Whether you are 45 or 75
I will always love you.

Time is slow enough to seem invisible.
Yet quick enough to slap you across the face.

Don't let it show what was visible.
But be there to enjoy more than a race.

I am made of something malleable
A painted earthen sort of softness
And I can push my pulses
With the warmth and pressure of my thumb
You'll see me differently than I choose to be
For someone else but in this small way
I'll revel in knowing beyond all else
I remain the very best at allowing you
To keep the memory of a mystery
Hidden in the sun-shattered way
I've chosen to let you see me

Copy you this, and properly that
Under a tow o'prudent MeOrKat
Fate maybe or Folly, makes deeply enticing. I cannot commit, I'll take the time. It's ripe to spin into oblivion the numbers phase outly In, a swirling feeling is Beginning Again, a rush, On Us I must be going back Inly out.
And vaguely so~So please forget or just don't Know - what matters now if we never do Go?