Five, ***, seven
If and only if,
You are from Belfast.

If this is true
Why did they not focus on the ***?

“Make Love not War” etc.

Who really cares about religion?

Especially today.

Chica cailiente, straightest hair,
Image rich, asset poor tonight,
**** sirens, seeking Mr. Right.
On this Friday in Santo Domingo.

Single fathers with kids, eager
To earn a weekly happy moment,
For all the mistakes of the past,
On this Friday in Santo Domingo.

The other men are here hunting,
Searching, looking everywhere,
But, into their partners’ eyes,
On this Friday in Santo Domingo.

The girls here are too young,
The men are twice their age,
Desperately looking for love,
On this Friday in Santo Domingo.

...the rugged
Raskols ran amok again
Using guns, knives and stones
Made black a sunny Port Moresby day
Robbery the intent, ****** on their minds
Sir George attacked by thirty animals
Tete settlement violence victim
Just another day in Paradise
Airways breakfast last
Of  his 78 years.

Dos cervezas por favor in De K’ffe,
Cold bite of the first beer refreshes.
Una mas and workday fades to dull,
The night feels bright and hopeful,
The Palitos de pollo satisfies hunger.
Conversation flows to Cepas de Altura,
Three bottles later the stories repeat,
Groundhog day of interesting lives,
With eternal friendship in every bottle.
Six corks line up like truth bullets,
In an aggression of arguments,
Maybe he has just said too much,
Friendship of an unremembered hug,
Next day sorry and failings forgotten.

Flashes of lightening in darkness freeze the moment
A freight train of thunder rumbles across the night sky
I love to sleep with the girl whose love spans the miles

Your sleepy voice hello makes my heart beat faster
Distant Vienna ballet memories and Loos bar champagne
I love to wake with the girl whose cuddles chase the cold  

Lost alone in this big bed your comforting arms are absent
Together in dreams but our bodies chill with the distance
I love to be loved by the girl with the beautiful smile

Sophistication is the refuge of the complicated,
High maintenance, it’s someone else’s fault,
Infecting everyone with their little paranoias,
A black hole, taking all and giving nothing back.

Simple pleasures are the friends of the complex,
User-friendly, reliable and rather iPod-like,
Touching everyone with their magical dreams,
A desert oasis, giving all but getting even more.

She gazes down on a daily sea,
Of expectant lesson hungry faces,
The teacher uses a carrot not a stick,
To prove these cast-off kids stomachs,
Will love them when they cook creatively.

Vogue-like poet on the catwalk of life,
She sees life in little things each day.
Weekend dates in the big smoke,
Will blue suit and red shoes work,
With him again, again tonight?

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.

Half a million miles a year,
My carry-on is my home.
Living in three shirts, in
Indifferent cold hotels,
In far-away lands is like,
My shifting sands in life,
Until I see you again.

Sometimes I get homesick,
For places I’ve not yet been,
Where I will feel at peace alone,
Everywhere I make my home,
But without you this is like,
My shifting sands of life
Until I see you again.

Familiar “Buenos dias” from Bianca again,
Sandwiched, betubed with 5000 miles to go,
The blue-black spaceness of the endless sky,
And runwayless earth of comfortable clouds,
Reflecting on what has been and is yet to come,
A million miles of poetry, pain and pleasure,
Star Trek on the TV, seared Tilapia on my plate,
Flying to you for a first-date hello-again feeling.

Priceless,
A moment with you,
In my life, my everything.
I am saving every memory,
Soon, I will be a millionaire,
With a treasure trove of,
Unforgettable moments
Like grains of sand,
Golden for-
Ever.
For
Us.

1 simple set of instructions
4 heavy flatpack boxes
5 square aluminium legs
27 painted pieces of wood
100 ridged wooden dowels
101 white plastic ***** covers
102 blister-causing screws of various sizes.


Assumption that no unter or ober
Equals drunken waves of shelves
Sadly means finished is unfinished
Reworked masterpiece complete at last
Male ego boosted by admiring plaudits
Value enhanced by effort expended
Flatpack frustration in 4 easy pieces.

Together the whole world will be perfect

Time stands still when you are with me

I feel your smiling voice and **** eyes

Distant closeness banished with a hug

Your laughter is the sunshine in my day.

Words that touch you physically,
Emotionally, spiritually, make you feel
Younger, stronger, adventurous, in love,
Touch you in gentle massage, fast beating
Heart, tingling skin, enraptured, in words
You see everything, experience feelings,
Beyond senses, living in the moment,
Wanting, waiting, wishing, words that
Touch your very soul in living love.

As we wake on a winter white morning,
You are all blonde hair on a blue pillow,
Your smile is the sunshine in my day.

Our two hearts beat as one, now we
Are curling together, closer than skin,
As we wake on a winter white morning.

Too early to rise, too late for dreaming,
But just perfect for morning sleepy love,
Your smile is the sunshine in my day.

Our bodies touch and time slows down,
Perfect passion banishes a world outside,
As we wake on a winter white morning.

That flying feeling as we both let go,
The world is far below our flying high,
Your smile is the sunshine in my day.

Together no one can do us any harm, when
Night becomes day and we become one,
As we wake on a winter white morning,
Your smile is the sunshine in my day.

A dog is for life
A duck is for dinner
A dragon is for barbecues
A friend is for inspiration
A fish is for relaxation
A frog is for kissing
A cat is for ever
because it has
nine lives that make
it ideal for experimentation

Orange squeezed, tea brewed, bacon fried
Self showered, beard shaved, robe wrapped
Wife kissed, tea brought, eyes rubbed
Juice sipped, toast munched, day discussed
Sugar stirred, tea drunk, watch checked
Kids rattled, cornflakes spooned, plates emptied
Mum fussed, kids grumped, teeth cleaned
Noses wiped, shoes on-ed, lunch packed
Stragglers awayed, byes waved, friends greeted
Office called, PC packed, car started
Wife snuggled, door closed, journey begun.

The verbal diarrhoea of a politician’s promises
Flows over a broken roof of dripping umbrellas
Hustings heckling hastening onset of pneumonia
Voters need every candidate to be seen and heard.

Un-hygienic kissing of babies and pressing the flesh
Flash avoiding fixed smile like toothpaste commercial
Thinks - one man one vote a bad idea by Election Day
I wonder does every candidate vote for themselves?

Tense wait as political pundits make newsless news
Oscar like performances as the winners are announced
Four-more-years in The Slough of Despond for the loser
The Olympian heights of triumph for the winner.

Softness envelopes you like a warm cloud
Sensuous touch brings us closer than skin
Time stops for almost endless moments as
We fly higher than the moon in the morning.

We are always good together methinks and
"Nothing can do us any harm"- like that song
We made out to from the White Album many
Years ago when you were just as beautiful
As you are today in our rumpled feather bed.

Before was cool, after was a relief,
The “gift” delivered intact,
Is four hour operation normal?
Pain, pleasure and purpose,
Concern that the 10% rejection
Will be my kidney – only one to spare,
So far so good, after four weeks,
Thinking that my surgeon has a frown
At being called a butcher.

Eat drink and be merry
For tomorrow ye die
Is a curious maxim
In a world where
Slim is beauty
And fat is not.
Staying slim
Is a vocation
To abstemiousness.
Being comfortably cuddly
Has the advantage that I can
Avoid the misery of dedicated
Jogging too, and live life as God
Intended, enjoying the good
Things in moderation with
Sympathy for starving
Stick insects.

Monday party night with Mad Fish and friends
Conversations buzz of annual friends’ reunion
Christmas cheer as enemies are friends again
Complex confabulations as wine wisdom flows
Midnight truths all revealed in vino veritas
Eccentrics leave early, party animals at dawn
Tuesday late unslept sleeping son on Dart
Brains slow to restart despite espresso kick
Hangover no handicap to present-wrapping
Inbox full from friends Happy Holidays hellos.

Wanda greets me with a “Hi” and a hug,
?Qué hora es el vuelo los lunes¿ she asks,
Touch-less communication is absent here,
“Ocho y media” I reply in almost Spanish,
To be sure I email my itinerary for pickup,
“Tener un buen fin de semana” she says,
As a parting hug ends the conversation,
On my visit to the right side of Hispaniola.

Hearts - beating faster
Temperatures - rising
Eyes - shining bright


Because


Anticipation - almost too much
Closeness - never too much
Happiness - just being together

Blonde colours shine in my true love’s hair
Blue night solitude when we are apart
Red sunset romance of together evenings
Purple moments relaxing by the fireside
Grey eyes bright smile melt my heart
Pink glowing bodies curled on silver bed
White hot passion in my arms last night
Black coffee sips of breakfast intimacy.

Plus thirty in scorching sunshine at noon
Heat insulation isolates me from feeling
Warm sensation fries me from your touch
And a contrasting black emptiness inside
Is a distant sort of closeness for me now.

Is a pleasing proportionality
Is imprecisely harmonious
Is before and after in time
Is the friendship of lovers
Is the mirror of reflection
Is a patterned similarity
Is an agreeable balance
Is two sides of one coin
Is a dyadic relationship
Is the love of friends
Is a perfect couple
Is you and me
Is us.

Too hot for eating
Too hot for drinking
Too hot for thinking

Too hot for hugging
Too hot for kissing
Too hot for loving

Too hot for not

Too hot for shirt
Too hot for trousers
Too hot for almost anything

Too hot together in coldlicious shared shower
Too hot to stay cool as our temperatures rise

Too hot as ice-cold razors of water turn to steam

Too hot for hot.

I feel bleaker than bleak

More empty than full
More restless than calm
More hopeless than hard
More gutless than strong
More boneless than brave
More pointless than sharp
More faceless than feared
More skinless than naked
More airless than breath
More lifeless than dead
More useless than you

I feel like crying inside.

Won’t someone just do something?

The agoraphobic need to clutter
The empty spaces in
My life with
Needless

&

Endless
Junk is the
Un-relaxing discomfort
In my struggle for a simple life.

Cambio todo cambio is a song of hope
And new opportunities in love and life.
By embracing change we escape from
A prison of trivial things we love to hate.

Cambio todo cambio is a song of fear
And new challenges in love and life.
By rejecting change we can only be
Trapped by the things we love to hate.

Cambio todo cambio is a song of desire
And new beginnings in love and life.
By seeking change we can fly above
The small world of those we love to hate.

Roses red
Sun shining
Bed blissful
Sheets satin
Lovers laughing
Shower shared
Touch tender
*** sensational
Nightfall now
Sleep sudden
February 14th.

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.

She gazes down on a daily sea,
Of expectant lesson hungry faces,
The teacher uses a carrot not a stick,
To prove these cast-off kids stomachs,
Will love them when they cook creatively.

Vogue-like poet on the catwalk of life,
She sees life in little things each day.
Weekend dates in the big smoke,
Will blue suit and red shoes work,
With him again, again tonight?

Time passes in a mystery of minutes and months,
Days and nights a survival of solitude and sleep,
Life and living becomes an unending wait for Now.

Now is just a Technicolor rush of with you again,
But our time together always is impossibly short,
So that leaving you again gets harder every time.

Why is time a new variable with the one I love?
Why are the colours of love so warm for us now?
Why do Cupid’s arrows still draw blood so red?
Why are grey days bright and rainy days soft?
Why after all these years do I feel like this?
Why is time with you in too-short seconds?

If only our love stopped the earth turning,
We could love in a frozen second of time,

Forever.

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.

The guilty truth is we choose to deceive,
Sometimes to please, sometimes to win,
From our five hundred Facebook friends,
To that convenient little lie on our own CV.

And we think ourselves the un-guilty ones.
Why, I wonder, do we succeed in deceiving
The deceiver in this manner? Is it because,
We are at heart black both inside and out?

Hold me tight just a little bit longer
No words can bring us closer than skin
You are my Sunday morning moment

A breakfast in bed relaxation becomes
Silken silence like a deep dark lake
Hold me tight just a little bit longer

Warm bodies become lazy lovers
This perfect time must last forever
You are my Sunday morning moment

I am as vulnerable as a fractured moment
But you make me whole again today
Hold me tight just a little bit longer

Come back to bed for one more minute
Too soon relaxation is slipping away
You are my Sunday morning moment

A daydream shower maintains the spell
Steamy moment from steamy morning
Hold me tight just a little bit longer
You are my Sunday morning moment

Snow at last, at minus ten New York wears its winter skin
Homeless escape the streets to the subway train warmth
Animal-house comments from shallow breathing commuters
Shocked smiles from startled stockbrokers and secretaries.

Slip-sliding on sidewalks, fills my shoes with slosh of slush
Hands reach out to hold falling commuter - ouch, thanks
Buzz in Bull and Bear bar, smiles as Russian détente provides
An expensive warm bed for drink-confident conference Adonis.

My girl is far away but close, reading my History of Love
I see her smile that “I want to spend a lifetime discovering”
Valentines’ hearts abound, nervous dates in fancy restaurants
Incompatible to all but each other, tense jazz in the Red Eye.

Monday memories of together again,
When ordinary things become special,
With you beside me, sharing the moment,
A pavement espresso, a smile, a place,
A knowing look, our post-prandial siesta,
Burns bright like the unquenchable fire,
The never-ending passion, of my endless
Love, for you and those little things you do.

Two halves would not be one,
If our paths had never crossed,
And we went our separate ways,
Where would we probably be?

Two halves on different paths,
But we were meant to be,
If not sooner than later, but
Where would we probably be?

Two halves in separate worlds,
Spinning apart never knowing,
They were meant to be one,
Where would we probably be?

Two halves would be unfulfilled,
Because if we’re apart too long,
I feel empty and lost in space,
Where would we probably be?

Two halves of two worlds collided,
When years ago you said yes,
Our worlds are meant to be one,
Where would we probably be?

Two halves became whole, and
The part of our lives apart, is not
Going to be that question of,
Where would we probably be?

The loving look
The sensuous silk
The tingling touch
The kinetic kisses
The being beautiful
The fantastic feeling
The savoured silence
The close connection
The hammering heart
The wanting to be one
As we go to the other place.

The loving look
Was all it took
To melt my heart,
My life to start,
So long ago.

Blossom blush,
Schoolgirl crush,
To take it slow,
We grew to know,
So long ago.

In midst of loving,
That 18 feeling,
When two are one,
And two were one,
So long ago.

Like a car without a driver
Like a plane without a pilot
Like a boat without a captain

Like a town without a person
Like a hole without a space
Like a map without a place

Like a suit without a man
Like a shoe without a foot
Like a hat without a head

Like a cry without a child
Like a bark without a dog
Like a smile without a face

Like me

Without

You.

Neighbours resent the forced eye-contact intimacy,
Seat barrier raised despite friendly pre-flight hello,
Too English to be happy, too weird to be interesting,
Smiling Simon says, “Nice to have you, with us, Sir”.

Irish Grubeen, Mature Scottish Cheddar after dinner,
The port on London to Miami is strangely Stiltonless,
Scottish Tracy saves the day with First Class foray,
Admits she is a Lockerbie lass with nerves of steel.

Captain Lightfoot lands this little piece of England,
More gently than his movie namesakes ever could.
I count 55 Miami immigration stamps in my passport,
Maybe yoga would make this commute more fun.

After three drinks, I sit and focus
On the night in Santo Domingo,
Like Greene’s Honorary Consul,
It is “the right measure” for me,
Beckett reads Beckett remembering.
Where he strips man’s inexhaustible
Search for meaning to bare bones.


These thoughts aided by a smooth
Handmade cigar and Carlos Primero,
I wonder as I focus on this scrap of
Scribbles should I keep it, or leave it
On the table, for some ***** to read,
While he smokes the dog-end of
What was a reasonably good cigar?

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.

Love is a gentle madness that leaves you empty,
You give everything and expect nothing back.

Love is a gentle madness that makes you feel alive,
You take pleasure in every little thing she does.

Love is a gentle madness that changes everything,
You feel your life is impossible without her near.

Love is a gentle madness that drowns your sorrow,
You swim in an endless sea of her tranquility.

Love is a gentle madness that brings you peace,
You hold her closer than prayer each night.

Love is a gentle madness that turns your world,
You see beauty as she becomes your only life.

I am now less than the sum of all my parts – in pieces

Like bits fell off something stopped working - strange

It’s like I am coming apart at the seams - breaking up

All those parallel things I do every day - disconnected

Hotel was booked for the week before I travel - dumb

One thousand euro lost due to card cloning - careless

Plans change I end up in the wrong place - drowning

People run away and ignore my requests - abandoned

Projects symphony becomes a cacophony - confusing

I feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole - dissociated

Normality is absent now as I spin around - breakdown?

My perception of the world has changed - problematical

I better get someone to glue me back together - quickly

Otherwise I will become invisible and irrelevant – not good

Like a set useless parts with no instructions - disassembled

I am lonely, pink-slipped and home,
Wanted to be home but not like this,
I feel empty without my nine to five,
This other side looks different now.

Friends fear it’s infectious and don’t call,
Last week’s empathy becomes sympathy,
Ex-colleagues simply have nothing to say,
Redundancy is the new invisibility cloak.

If you have a job, try to remember
To call all your workless friends,
A simple “Hello” won’t **** you,
But the silence may **** them.