Regrets, they come in waves and break around his feet
And he begins to wonder who he might have been
Had roads diverged in different woods and fields
Not yellow or yet any colour still unseen
But clearer now by day than windless nights
Still nearer than the objects of his dreams

It'd rained late into the evening, and when the lights were shaded
Around the pool outside and with the windows shuttered
He'd thrown on loose clothes, flicked open an umbrella
While high outside the stars the lightning flashes muttered
Pulled open doors that led to the veranda
And moved outside once more with all his thoughts unuttered

The smoke, from fires on Java lies heavy on his senses
An omen of the time of year and of the past condition
He shrugs, ***** in the acidic nighttime odors
Reviving lives not lived but revealing his admission
That time beyond the present that mirrors every movement
Within, without, and yet again, the flicker of suspicion.

The pistol in his pocket, illegal not unloaded
A symbol of his state of mind and by  his sole discretion
He kneels beside the water, deep-set and in the shadows
Lips forming wordlessly around the last confession
Images of where and what and who and why and whether
A portent of that final action, sensing and impression

The smoke from fires on Java lies heavy on the water
The reek of cordite mixing with the smell of burning grasses
Indignant birds protest the crack of one small set expulsion
The echo round the swimming pool reverberates and passes
Nothing more and nothing less and time and space and matter
Slick red upon the treacherous tiles, the shattered bloodied glasses.

I.
I spent the night trying
to stare god in the face
with a bottle of ***** and
a pack of cigarettes.
Michael laughed because
he says I keep looking for things
that can't be found.
I'm constantly setting myself up
for disappointment.

II.
The sky wore a starry face
and inviting as it may be
it was a reminder that the sun
will consume our planet one day  
and my son will be the only one that will
think of me for short periods of time,
at random moments, throughout some days.

...I guess that nothing else really matters.

III.
I have too many questions, Mother;
none which I really want answers for.
the truth is heavy and
I'm lifting my limit.
So will you just tell me it will be okay.

IV.
A drunken embrace has
left me with blues.
He said "I've never kissed a stranger."
and I asked him if he'd like to try.
Lips holding each other like hands;
It felt like EVERYTHING
to not be so alone for one moment.

V.
In your car,
a song playing on the radio,
every note caressed my memory
like a finger ran softly down my naked spine
and I felt for the first time in a long time
not afraid of everything.

I could lay you down
and breathe your hands.
I could brush the dust
from your eyes.
And I could hold your moon in my palm;
A junkies palm,
the scarred hand of Judas.

But that would not make you happy.
You wish to hold me
within your glass house gaze
and to touch my soul
where hands have never dared.

The game will not be played
by your rules,
once the pawn is a queen.

In your palm you held the ace of Spades
but it was a losing hand
to your filthy heart.

And the dealer delt away
Whilst the jokers laughed and joked.
And they held their stigmata out
for the babes to see.
But they only saw flesh.

With a needle dipped in ink
she wrote me a stigma in italics.
I can still see it;
In the moving daylight,
In the roving daylight,
In the shadows of light
on a palm.

I avoid Marble Arch like I do the armed police men,
And happily walk an extra two streets
Just to reach a place I don't recognise.
Like the bar we went to,
Now changed as a lot of things do,
Or the underground station
Where we unknowingly said goodbye the last time,
Kissed,
And saw each other,
Not via pictures, writings, or pixels
But through rods and cones,
For the last time for a what will probably be long time.

But I will walk through Paddington,
Past the hostel you stayed in, the pub you took me to,
I still get my bus at that frosty corner,
And wear my floral dress, my hoodie, my fishtail hair braid.
And more importantly
My bold blue dress
That you zipped up,
Drunkenly spilled beer on, my uncle bought you ten,
And I told you that I felt the same.

Now I'm not that shade of blue,
But colour me naive,
After all the times I asked you to not say what you don't mean
I did just that -
I don't think it was the same
Because it should have cut deeper than it did.

And after seeing how sorry I feel
For the new her and you
Because one or both of you have to realise something soon,
I feel I should be there for you.
But I won't hold your hand at the bank
Get your favourite band to sign your birthday card,
I won't take your beer off you when you can't stop,
Get on another plane,
Or stop writing poetry because I know you will see it.

I won't walk through Marble Arch for you.

***, cranberries, sunflower seeds:
Wasn’t it you who slipped through the door?
The floor creaking beneath your socks, you ignore the sounds.
That besmeared smirk on your face tells me you’re leaving but not soon enough,
as you slip into bed and tell me I’m lovely, you’re lonely.
Undress my shoulders and turn on the lights.

Like a woman, Sea gathered her skirt

The waves moved away from the shore

And I thought she will fly


Some followed her on the open sea bed

Lured as she tentatively revealed her naked thighs

and then she unleashed her fury


A big wall of rage swept across her naked terror

A few survived the surge but then many died inside

Engulfed in her passionate cries


Few days later, I found a little girl curled up on the beach

Small hands holding some sea shells

as waves lapped her dead smile....
________
The villagers told us that before the waves hit, the sea receded almost 100 mts into the sea self and then came up....

At this moment we are trying poetry again
When the Gurkha guard paces up and down
Hitting the night with his rhythmic stick
As his shrill whistle pierces its silence and
A distant dog protests its snout at the dark sky.

We use it as a pain balm on our temples
Of low self-worth and high aggrandizement
When we refuse to take our glances away
From the short term low walls interrupting
Our blue skies with painter stroke birds frozen
Above the rocks that rose from sleeping shrubs.

be afraid
vibrantly staid
in despair
beyond repair
shambles of a life
still, she is my wife
despite the petty games
we play