Looking to snooze on AA922 to Miami today
Little monsters scream all the way for fun
Seat kicking for exercise and expression
****** in mind as red wine spills on shirt
Wishing it was little darlings’ blood instead
Open the door and take them wing walking
Angry parents complain for some reason
Perhaps because I did not bring them back
Now sleeping, no apologies, dreaming that
Business Class minimum age the best policy.

Sometimes it’s hard to be apart

Sometimes it’s hard to be brave
Sometimes it’s hard to be cold
Sometimes it’s hard to be daring
Sometimes it’s hard to be early
Sometimes it’s hard to be friends
Sometimes it’s hard to be good
Sometimes it’s hard to be happy
Sometimes it’s hard to be in-love
Sometimes it’s hard to be just
Sometimes it’s hard to be kind
Sometimes it’s hard to be lovely
Sometimes it’s hard to be mellow
Sometimes it’s hard to be nasty
Sometimes it’s hard to be out
Sometimes it’s hard to be poor
Sometimes it’s hard to be quiet
Sometimes it’s hard to be ready
Sometimes it’s hard to be simple

Sometimes it’s hard to be together

There was never any objection or obligation or any-big-thing in this,

There was never any problem or procrastination or pride in this,

There was never drama or doubt or decision in this,

Only love.


There was never any concern or confusion or conundrum in this,

There was never any plan or principle or project in this,

There was never any struggle or soul-searching or sorrow in this,

Only love.

I stand
I see
I am
I think

I should
I know
I can
I think

I sigh
I love
I will
I think

A slow death, in eons of unremembered moments,
Like a dark star, she collapses into herself every day,
Fragments of her past memories intrude sometimes,
Incomprehensible now, like they are all in Russian.

This existence she hates more than life itself,
Flowing like an unending river, towards a sea,
Days of sleep, interrupted by family strangers,
Wearing her precious necklace and others’ clothes.

At times I am "Who?", until her son is introduced,
Which produces a "Happy to see you" smile, and
Complaints that no one ever comes to visit now,
She is living in a nightmare of empty spaces.

Her now ungraspable tranquillity, her living hell,
Punished for imagined sin, she now doubts God,
But wants to go home to Him, to ask "Why?”.
She believed the childhood promise of heaven.

On occasions,
I think about sad things,
A pathos that touches my soul,
Like a cat half-drowned after swimming,
Or the empty feeling when your dog dies,
Or an old horse standing in the rain,
Or a man waiting in a dole queue,
Or a child lost in a supermarket,
Or seeing your parents cry,
Or never being in-love,
Or unrequited love,
Or being alone,
Completely,
Empty.

This girl came to my party,
And petted my tortoise,
In nineteen sixty four,
When I was eight, and
No-one noticed, not even me.

She still complains today
That she missed out on
Her jelly and ice-cream,
When she was seven, and
No one noticed, not even me.

I think when ten years later this
Beautiful blonde said yes, she
Would be mine, and is today, this
Tortoise slow was still around, and
No one noticed, not even me.

I tell our children now grown-up,
That I have found a tortoise is
The perfect way to find the girl,
Who will be yours forever, when
You are eight and she is seven.