She makes him sit and unbuttons his shirt
Makes him lie back and wets his hair, then
Her hands massage shampoo into his scalp
She is irresistible, every moment etched on
His brain, her sensuous touch, an incredibly
Close feeling, as she washes his hair, this is
More beautiful than breath, more loving than
***, more electric than near, more perfect
Than curling up, more intimate than naked.

Is
For
Skiing in
Winter and
Hillwalking in
Summer, but for
Having fun anytime
  Like a nearly impossible
Challenge on the six minute
Planpratz ski-lift requiring you
And your best friend to shed your
Gear and join the mile high club while
Claiming she had the best 30 seconds of
Her life
Or so
I am
Reliably informed.

I was fifty-three this morning,
But I feel so much older now,
Having lived a lifetime in a day.

It started like a thousand others,
Time suddenly skipped a track,
Everyone I know is dead and gone-

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I never knew that time was precious,
This morning was a hundred years ago.

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.

In my mind I see you clothed
A beautiful vision of anticipation

In my mind I see you waiting
A beautiful vision of desire

In my mind I see you wanting
A beautiful vision of lust

In my mind is see you naked
A beautiful vision of promise

In my mind I see you with me
A beautiful vision of lovers

In my mind I see you come
A beautiful vision of closeness

In my mind I see you sleeping
A beautiful vision of passion

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.

Love is so easy, forgetting is so hard.
I remember every moment I am alone
With you in the companionship of silence.
What do you think, where will I go now?
Staring into the blue ocean of your eyes.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
I remember every inch of you in my dreams
Without you in my empty room tonight.
What do you dream, where do you go now?
Staring at two ceilings across two oceans.

Love is so full, forgetting is so empty.
I remember your every electric touch,
Without you my world could not turn.
What do you feel, where do we go now?
Staring at the deep ocean of our love.

Table for one sir, a book my companion for a one-sided conversation
Restaurant conversations buzz around me with intimacies and angst
Pre-movie girlfriends split the bill for a bowl of gelato delightful chat
Spooning in the Italian atmosphere for the price of a McDonalds.


The repro man on my right boasts of dietary prowess to his fat date
On the rack for his gluttony assuaged by the second rack of lamb
Talking at each other I can feel the anguish of ugly gay loneliness
Italian waiters providing comfort in the form of tiramisu temptations.


Life the entertainment on Saturday night alone with ten pages read
A drink talking boy will sleep alone without his now cold girlfriend
Broadcasting life's loves and lies, everyone hears and nobody listens
The opera of living more tragic than Tosca and as brutal as Butterfly.


Rain soaked spirits sink on a trudge home to a lonely king-sized bed
Goodnight loved one Skyped intimacies a warming blanket of comfort
Sleep sweet dreams before the limousine blacked streets of tomorrow
Nearer to honey sweet kisses and close in my love’s warm bed “hello”.

Perfected spending ideal day off
Prepared a hot breakfast in bed
Procrastinated Java or Columbia
Perused the paper cover to cover
Perplexed prayer over crossword
Pampered by bath-time bubbles
Phoned almost forgotten friends
Purchased Murakami on Amazon
Polished off a lunchtime martini
Postponed exercise with siesta
Perambulated the beach slowly
Pushed the boat out for dinner
Preferred Barolo to Barbaresco
Panicked - work again tomorrow.

I see the green grass with autumn leaves
The season of change and naked trees arrives
Again – without thinking we see the continuity
Knowing Christmas is around the corner
The birth New Year starts the cycle
After the death of the old year
And some of our past friends
Whose passing was real
Too real for
Comfort.
How
Do
We
“Know”
What is real
When everything
From movies to magic
Is just imagery of imagination?
The TV a parade of our new enemies.
1984 “Big Brother” is now a reality show
And CNN is our reality of disasters and wars
Until we visit the place and see that we are told
What our “Big Brother” wants us to know.

Two blocks up , I am in a different country
Land Rover solves the dodgy directions
The movie bar in Calacoto feels like home
Wood fire outside smoky smoking area
Drink fuels the inside outside conversation
An almost Irish pub mix of entrepreneur and
Adventurer and lawyer and endless talk
Between pizza and passion is the fire of love
Four hours to wake up call ends the night
As midnight curfew calls the others home.

Alta cocina in Cochabamba for eight,
It’s llama for lunch accompanied by
An Andean black rice which I find
Is quinola, which is easy to like if
You are already committed to llama.

This llama for lunch in Paprika, is good
I wonder if gauchos lasso them from two
Meters, at least, to ensure, they don’t spit
This is why Blazing Saddles used cows,
Makes the movie more macho methinks.

Sitting here in this heat, thinking slow,
Your last night loving thaws my icy soul,
This silly snowman loves the feeling as,
My cold-cold heart is melting to you love.

Like a still small voice in an empty room,
The quiet nightmare of my lonely bed intrudes,
Remembering our togethers, now so far away,
Staring into the darkness at a hungry mosquito,
My endless hunger that only you can assuage,
His endless hunger a ****** angry morning itch
Absence makes the heart grow fonder methinks.

We are told that
Nothing trumps Trump's
Misogyny but truth will out
When his sexist shtick is a
Gift that keeps giving for
His Republican rivals,
Whose
Lips are sealed, but by
Their deeds their hands are unclean.
We know that Bush did not beat about the bush
When he said of women on welfare that “They should
Be able to get their life Together and find a husband"
We know that Walker repealed Wisconsin's only
Equal pay law and supported anti-choice
Invasive intrusion of a woman's right
To choose.  We know that Mike H
Has mused that he thinks women
Who cannot control their “Libido"  
Should not “curse” and Jay Z is really
A “****" seems to be exploiting Beyoncé.
We know that Rubio opposed re-authorizing the
Violence against Women Act, even though he knew
What it meant when he opposed the Paycheck Fairness
Act. We know Rand P was rightly Republican in similarly
Voting against the Paycheck Act, and in his college secret
Society promoted Anita B's views that oral *** was a sin.
Perhaps they all need to look in the mirror and adhere to
The Biblical adage that "He       who is without sin should
Cast the first stone" But              what is sin anyway?

Crisp white waiters serve you smiles in Haitian time
Going native on Saturday night with Lambi Creole
Ti Coca rhythm band beats the music of tonight
Running fast will be a heart attack in this old town

Red neck cops dine with plain Jane UN girls
Touch in weekend lust and hopeful smiling eyes
Local white eyes shine in contrast colourful love
Slow down chill out and move to the music now

Pétionville to Paris seems a million miles away
A tense post-carnival gloom sets into Cité Soleil
As naked kidnap victim runs free in desperation
Different worlds in this blinkered rain-soaked town

When you close your eyes and remember,
The time we never knew this future, where
You are my other half, you make me whole,

The time when you were ten and I was twelve,
Together but apart, in oil and water schooldays,
We never knew, in our separate lives, that
Cupid’s arrows would strike, so that now
You are my other half, you make me whole

I know it’s not a dream, but it sometimes
Feels unreal, our perfect life together, but
Today, we know that we are going to keep,
That feeling of first love madness, always,
You are my other half, you make me whole.

Our love, our life, our road, our reason to be,
In the moment, on our wedding day, now
You are my other half, you make me whole.

Is a million memories ...

Like your favourite Beatles track,
Like breakfast coffee in a Turin bar,
Like the old friends that never grow old,
Like your favourite Italian pasta in Rome,
Like summer swims in warm sea with cold rain,
Like the aria which sends shivers down your spine,
Like the magical taste of Gaja Barberesco for lunch,
Like coming home to a smiling face after a long trip,
Like your child buying you dinner for the first time,
Like how beautiful she was on your wedding day,
Like your first date movie being on TV again,
Like capturing a moment in a photograph,
Like rereading your favourite book,
Like watching Casablanca again,
Like publishing your first book,
Like living every moment...

... And a million more to come.

Love not absence makes the heart grow fonder
Today we have no doubt that this distant closeness
Between a Southside girl and a Northside boy, though
Scattered by the winds in our banking crisis, that
Brought them closer, though far away showed
Us all that they were made for each other.

Love not distance in those three thousand miles
Brought us together in the city that never sleeps
You my Southside girl and I your Northside boy
Together our challenge is an opportunity for life
That shows nothing will ever do us any harm
And that we were made for each other.

Love not closeness won my candlelight bid
For your hand in marriage today as our hearts
Were the willing victims of bold Cupid’s arrows
So I am proud to say we stand as one, proclaiming
What our families and friends already know that
You were made for me and I was made for you.

We are connected to this life by many threads
Which we only notice when they are broken
Whether family, friends, work or welfare, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in time.

You are connected to me by small pleasures
Which we only notice when we stop giving
Whether interest, intent, wish or wisdom, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in space.

We are connected to each other for ever now
Which we only notice when we are apart again
Whether travel, trust, freedom or failure, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in love.

Kid
Kidney
Necessary
Not a problem
Quite surprising
Question priorities
Think I am overthinking
Thanks for using it wisely
Want to say something but
Wish it was simpler than telling

I am proud of you

Butterflies before you sit the final exam,
Butterflies before you go for a job interview,
Butterflies before you ask her out on a date,
Butterflies before you kiss her for the first time,
Butterflies before you propose two will be one,
Butterflies before you meet her family,
Butterflies before you see her all in white,
Butterflies before you make that big speech,
Butterflies before you see that your baby is OK,
Butterflies before you get news from the doctor,
Butterflies before you lose your job again,
Butterflies before you face any little crisis,

But -                                          

No butterflies for breakfast.

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend
But at the cost my dear, at the cost
Of never boring them, you are their
Entertainment, they are your love.

Diamonds if they could talk would tell
A causatory tale of distance and dirt
You, a perfect diamond, a pure light
In the compressed dirt of their lives.

Diamonds reflect the compression
Which is the brevity of our lives
What remains forever of a passing
Love that would be forever distant.

Reflections of Saturday night by the pool bar
Fans cannot cool the Christmas sticky heat
South Pacific beers in Port Moresby cool
Raskols in the streets and Indian in the Palazzo
Friendly staffs serve apartheid ex-patriots
Sunday diving in the deep blue sea
America is almost always yesterday
Europe is night and sometimes day
Home seems very far away today.

Dinner, Dafney hot, courtyard cool and civilized,
Fettuccini fabulous, guest glamorous and glowing,
Eyes starlike smiling, pulpo carpaccio savoured.

Reality will bite in next week’s  jungle game.
Imagination runs riot, perfect picture of dinner
For ants, ambling in forbidden places, ouch.

Coiffeurless, bad-hair-day, dishevelled demon,
Boredom, book, arachnophobia perhaps, escape.
Red carpet missed, pampering needed, tranquilo.

The annual cycle of friends and family, meeting
An oil and water duty of circumstance, intersecting
At Christmases and global conferences, occasioning
Probable murders at Christmas in the families, mixing
Their duty to drink but live distant lives apart, loving
The comfortable satisfaction of the distance, living
Their lives with social media connections, liking
The comfort of ignoring without unfriending
Their oil and water friends and family.

So

I have supplanted this duty with desire, allowing
Me to unfriend these occasional friends, becoming
Myself at last with a vicarious pleasure of, enjoying
Being a stereotypical “Grumpy Old Man”, relaxing.

Woe is the man who revels in romance
He must hide his revelling from the world.
Never on a bus or plane or train, have you
Seen a man reading a romance novel, the
Lurid cover compelling the reader to delve
Into the protagonists embarrassment of
Embraces, between the satin sheets.

Sunday-empty Auckland my pre-breakfast escape,
Sheep-spotted mountains in early morning mist,
Whangarei marina for a cauldron of cappuccino.
Shop of metal sheep starts a day of Kiwi weirdness,
Of customer requesting glassblowing lessons, and
“All Blacks” silk boxers, unworn by players I hope.

Driving to Dargaville for Mr. M. Ujdur museum treat,
That late gum-digging, Esperanto teaching, vintner.
Beside a colossal collection of accordions with muzak,
Playing an instrument-impossible Whiter Shade of Pale,
Plus coins and buttons and stamps and Scotsmen,
Left feeling stunned, like I was tripping on acid.

The possum cull with prizes seemed almost normal.

Your eyes are like a window to a cave
Containing all the precious jewels in the world
The jewels are the reflection of our life together
Diamonds sparkle in bright light of an ice-cold day
Topazes glow with honeycomb fire in the evening
Rubies lust for love in a dark hour before dawn
Emeralds release a relaxing sleepy smile
Pearls display the heart of our loving.

A spiral galaxy of cream in my coffee dream
The dark caffeine universe my sunrise today
A bridge between waking and sleeping again
And the morning paper’s sadistic nightmare fun.

A milky way of latte mixes with banking binge
The espresso speed of the incredulous ****-up
Front-page stupefied, newly poor church-mice
Await another failed pension rescue bid today.

A drip, drip, drip of freshly brewed Colombian
Aroma comfort a promise for work-less workers
Catastrophe curious seriously seeking employ
Vladimirs and Estragons still waiting for Godot.

When I close my eyes, I can see your smile,
Distant yet, I feel you are closer than skin,
You are my other half, you make me whole.

I love you completely, I know you feel this
Closeness when apart, and with me always ,
When I close my eyes, I can see your smile.

You cannot know, the pain I feel without,
Your touch, on waking, a precious moment,
You are my other half, you make me whole.

I imagine just like in a dream, the feeling,
Of coming home, I see you standing there,
When I close my eyes, I can see your smile.

You run into my arms, young lovers again,
That feeling of first love madness, always
You are my other half, you make me whole.

Your love, my life, my road, my reason to be,
On the empty road, you are my beacon light,
When I close my eyes, I can see your smile,
You are my other half, you make me whole.

Weekend beckons as work crazy week ends
Winter fire, relaxed dinner, wine warm glow
Couch cosy snuggle, TV moving wallpaper
Later virtual dog and neighbour walk to pub
Bar wisdom sets the world to rights again
Depression, recession is one drink less
Striding home in no worries happy haze
Warm bed snuggles with my best girl
Week ends wonderfully again.

Regret is the consequential disappointment
That the thrilling transgressive frisson your
Online ****** therapist offered for a number.

On the web no one knows if you are a dog
But the Daily Mail knows if you are a love rat
Their readers will wallow in your misfortune.

Millions have had web fantasies exposed
Sharp onomatopoeic cheating thrills have
Become a fear of secret lives found out.

Their private diversions now public lead
Nervous executives newly emasculated
To realise life is short, shorter than desire.

Our so-empty lives are filled with pointless plans,
Every decision impacts life, and sometimes death.
The earth split -  death was in that sometimes day,
Where unending need became the end of their world.

Montana was my home-from-home in Haiti,
Art deco paradise, an instant hellish grave.
What of my shoeshine man with ***** shoes?
Two hundred dead too hard, one is possible.

Little things we do to change the world,
The smallest possibilities in this nightmare,
Saving lives each day with lifeline texts,
Today we are the hand of God in hell.

Stepping through the building site of El Rancho,
The faded glory of the best hotel in Haiti once.
I think of “Old Times” when this was Paradise,
And a Rolls Royce collected you at the airport.

A seedy casino, neglect, an earthquake later,
Rats the size of cats show you to your room,
And “home from home” this is definitely not,
Everything turns to dust in the end, it seems.

Even us.

Oatmealed and omeletted, start to a dull grey Seattle day
Mutual “Good morning” yawns wait the elevator gruzz
Cheery maid vacumates my room in a swirl of efficiency
Brundling my notes and my PC together I walk to work
Strumphing along beside the fumes of the grundling traffic

Email mountains confabulate the uncoffeed hordes
Typed kerattle the calm before the budget storm
Subterranean stocks desphorror of legal gamblers
Bonehead logic meets dumbling marketing aspirations
Now silent nerbling excuses of cur-whipped executives

Micawber’s message crystal in strangression of promises
Fundamental economics the only possible bankerage
Blood will flow in abattoir of management incastrophies
Doe-like and frembling in the light of impending execration
The stapression painfully personal as reality bites as last

Beer time comfrunks gather early in a huddle of hope
Sheep-like they absorb the tendralations of others’ fears
Remonstressing their misfortune in a depression of dinner
Relaxed at last in a hopefindation of beer goggle logic
Sleepfully staring at the mortgage arreared ceiling

My thankful escape to the Murakamied Sputnik symphony
Harmony in the silence of solitaricious nightcap with Hilton Mark
Wishing I was home now with my cuddlicious girl again
Grateful for loving and living in this aventacular world
I quietly srift off to sleep in a snozzle of sweet dreams

Here is life and love, pain and pleasure,
Ten years traversing those steps,
Tired waitress, twelve hours hell,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

Too-jolly Australians on a budget,
Eating soup and dessert, are missing,
The pasta, the best part, it seems,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

Miscreant male constantly corralled,
By his Austrian authoritarian aunt,
Filling her face with a pasta mountain,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

New lovers lost in each other’s eyes,
Carpaccio di salmon slices sharp cold,
Their Gaja Barbaresco lust blood red,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

Old lovers holding hands in silence,
Pasta warm feelings of Taglioni Fratelli,
This Chianti Classico two will soon be one,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

Married couple, on different planes,
Broadcast to their neighbours the plans,
Of loveless friends in lifelong *******,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s.

Meal memories of two and more,
Of friends and family, work and play,
Life and love and unforgettable moments,
I am facing the door in Fratelli’s

Stress is living life in a self-inflating  balloon
From airless to full is the excitement in life
Increases in pressure is a tension of colour
Stress filled is not stressful in this party of life
With survival a knack of avoiding sharp objects
And where excessive inflation will inevitably
Cause an instant deflation in very small pieces
Of the dreams and goals which are life today
And like Humpty in pieces these cannot
Be easily put back together again.

Living
On the edge
Of adrenaline
With caffeine
No sleep.

Torture team
Manage manager
Calm customers
Shoot supplier
No sleep.

Fixes fail
Skype saviour
Possible plan
Fanatic focus
No sleep.

Forget food
More madness
Temper tantrum
Solution soon
No sleep

Rock & roll
Back broken
Problem past
Adrenaline addict
No sleep

Go to bed – write this poem.

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.

In my arms you are safe tonight,
I feel your breath warm and soft,
Your heart beating fast, a memory
Of passion past and my fingers that
Traced a pattern on your skin, soft,
A gentle loving touch becomes the
Afterglow of lovers’ quenched desire.

An altitude of ale
A barometer of beer
A circulation of champagne
A depression of damassine
An equilibrium of eau de vie
A fractus of fenny
A gust of grappa
A hail of horilka
An isotherm of icewine
A jet stream of jenever
A kilopascal of kirsch
A layer of limoncello
A metamorphism of mead
A nocturnal of nuvo
An overcast of ouzo
A persistence of porter
A reaction of rakia
A storm of sake
A torrent of tequila
An updraft of unicum
A vortex of *****
A winter of whiskey

A disaster of drink

Wine is for laughing
Wine is for talking all night
Wine is for living life out loud
Wine is for making us beautiful
Wine is for all-night conversations
Wine is for getting together again
Wine is for ‘never again’ tomorrow
Wine is for sleeping like a baby
Wine is for telling the truth
Wine is food for love
Wine is friendship
Wine is fresh
Wine
Can
Be
The
One
Perfect
Companion
At the end of a long day

Old Year on last legs staggers slowly towards midnight,
Memories in our pockets are like butterflies and stones,
A deep dark lake of forgetfulness swallows the stones,
Some sink deep, others shallow, a source of pain again,
Butterflies now free lift our spirits in a tapestry of colour,
Flying high on past pleasures and treasured moments,
New Year born in a carnival of gluhwein and pink pigs.

It could be the end of the world as you know it,
When change is a crisis that decolours your life,
If you choose in your blindness to only see grey.

You know nothing has changed, and it’s just
Your perspective that turns day into night, but
It could be the end of the world as you know it.

It’s hard to see good when the news is so bad,
With everyone nervous about what is to come,
If you choose in your blindness to only see grey.

Go back to a place when colours were bright,
Unless you can see that things are not really grey,
It could be the end of the world as you know it.

Try recolouring your life with Instagram intensity,
And switch back and forth to see it’s your choice,
If you choose in your blindness to only see grey.

Repainting your world with your mystical mind,
A perspective that is more balanced than true, or
It could be the end of the world as you know it,
If you choose in your blindness to only see grey.

Save water
Green clean
Share shower
Love living
Parents play
Kids away
Soap lather
Hot bodies
Skin close
Electric touch
Perfect passion
Warm towels
Wet kisses
Afternoon love
Siesta slumber

South of the border west of the sun,
Cluttered emptiness cannot fill the hole.
Bridges fell in anger replaced by loneliness,
Murakami makes our languishing love raw.

The reflective silence eats into my soul.
The hell in the empty hello from Haiti,
Wanting you but I am on a different plane,
Knowing needs, the threads of our tapestry.

You my missing part I have been looking for
Love expressed in my doubt of past escape.
Coming back to you the fragile love of my life,
Bringing balance as my past pain takes flight.

We know the house of cards has fallen down,
Seeking new foundations for living loving life,
Can this "best thing" open a door to our future?
Smiling eyes become the windows to our heart.

Hands held
Fingers touch
Eyes smile
Happy glow
Warmth flows
Air charged

Hug hungry
Bodies close
Hearts beat
Happy rhythm
Lips kiss
Time stops

Conversation watching cricket flows
Between corporate strangers who
Work together but know nothing of
The others’ lives outside the office
Where work-life balance is a myth
The bowlers bowl and the batsmen bat.

Not much happens between innings
On the field, but the action is in the
Stands, as wickets fall, the barriers
Between spectators vanish, and new
Understandings develop, all because
The bowlers bowl and the batsmen bat.

Wine that universal lubricant, moves
From polite engagement to introspective
Intent to solve all our corporate problems
The laser-like focus as new friends grow
Closer than that 22 yards seem as the
The bowlers bowl and the batsmen bat.

The curious belief which drives
A man to **** so many for
The reward in martyrdom of
Seventy two black eyed virgins
Has an ironic twist in the
Disappointment that a belief
So carefully nurtured, if
Houri are hur, and the error
In translation is a paradise
Of white raisins instead.