If you feel imprisoned today,
In factory, office, school,
With woman, parent, child,
Just the groundhog day of life.

These words can set you free
From your private prison cell –

You can walk along the shore,
With sand between your toes,
And salt-caked cracking lips.

You can fly a million miles,
With sea below and stars above,
And wind-watered streaming eyes.

You can be your inner self,
With dreams and touch of love,
And razor-sharp passions edge.

Let the inspiration of my words be
Like the rumble of a small earthquake,
Or the flash of lightning thunder,
In the whirlwind of your future.

You can ....

Trees whisper with a lazy-leafed murmur,
Starlight strange in this shadow-land stark,
At night window-watching, wanting, wishing,
Empty black winding road, without you.

Wind moans soft and branches knock,
Ceiling alive with my shadow nightmare,
An acre of bed, listless, lonely, longing,
Soft white sheets unruffled, without you.

Rain rattles like a rasping smoker’s cough,
Spot-lit droplets make snail shadowed walls
Staring solo awake, alone, alert, alas,
Boredom-struck insomniac, without you.

Narrow single fall-out bedroom fear,
Four poster dreaming fantasy love,
King size suite is playing-field empty,
Twin queens wondering if just for queens.

Hard or soft, big or small, no fun alone.

These sleepless thoughts caused,
By ever increasing jetlagged jetlag,
Which now feels more like hangover,
But incurable with a walk or hair of the dog.

Sympathyless disbelief when I complain again,
Delays are the balance for the glamour of flying.
Nine hours in Sao Paulo while the ATC strike,
Eight hours in Vienna while new wheel flies in,
Seven sins would be justified by this purgatory,
Six times six hours from CBB to DUB last week,
Five hours sweating in Port au Prince plastic chair,
Four hours for rain in Miami seems not so bad,
Three hours in Shannon for bomb threat search,
Two hours sitting in Seattle with mad dash in Kennedy.
One would be happier walking, swimming or driving.

Woke up this morning feeling empty,
Faster than fire, slower than standing,
So far from home on this endless road.
Blue horizon slices this workday dawn,
Vapour vortex trails my hellish journey,
Living in very long seconds on this plane.
Hours to go before I sleep with you again.

Coffee and texts Happy Birthday
Snow outside makes it a brrrrday

Slip sliding to colleagues’ bonjours
Your fixed smile will be de rigueur

Tonight your turn to buy the drinks
Friends will all be there methinks

You hoping that their thoughtful gift
Will give you a twenty nine candles lift.

Depressed and bored but not paranoid at all
Marvin had all the solutions for the Universe
But he was sad, with a billion years of boredom
Waiting tables nightly at the End of the Universe
While awaiting the arrival of his Heart of Gold.

We meet our paranoid Marvins every day
Friendless beings fearing mortal threats
From us, the great unwashed human herd
Suspecting everyone, enemies everywhere
Unconscious of their need for a real hug today.