You my love,
Are my other half,
I need to tell you, that
I love your hands and feet,
I still melt when you look at me.
I thank the skies, the seas and roads,
Because they bring us together,
From round the world. I know
That you are mine and I am
Complete again, with
No missing parts.

You regret?
You smile
You sigh
You look
You love
You wish
You want
You believe
You breathe
You remember

The magic with no regrets.

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.

So close, that we are drowning,
So close, that we are still in madness,
So close, that we are invisible in our love,
So close, that we are one 10000 miles apart,
So close, that we do not have to talk to know,
So close, that our hearts beat like one heart,
So close, that we dream the same dreams,
So close, that we breathe the same air,
So close, that we are one person.

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.

In love – is the absence of touch,
In hate – is the desire to be alone.

In fear – is the terror of not knowing,
In torture – is the need for an answer.

In war – is the waiting to fight,
In peace – is the settling of a difference.

In illness – is the need for a cure,
In death - is the tragedy of a loss.

In work – is the worry of termination,
In poverty – is the emptiness of hunger.

In wealth – is the stress of losing,
In gambling – is the blast of winning.

In you – is the absence of together,
In me – is the loneliness of travel.

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.

Ti amo apertamente
ma tu non puoi vederlo
perchè stai guardando
nella direzione sbagliata
Voltati ora
e vedrai..

Ti amo quietamente
ma tu non puoi sentirlo
perchè tu stai ascoltando
nel silenzio assordante
Ascolta il nostro amore ora
e sentirai.

Ti amo totalmente
ma tu non puoi sentirlo
perchè ci incontriamo
talvolta in momenti tristi
Tienimi vicino ora
e saprai.

Je t'aime ouvertement
Mais ça tu ne peux pas le voir
Parce que tu regardes
Dans la mauvaise direction
Tourne-toi à présent
Et tu verras.

Je t'aime discrètement
Mais ça tu ne peux pas l'entendre
Parce que tu écoutes
Dans la surdité du silence
Cherche notre amour à présent
Et tu l'entendras.

Je t'aime entièrement
Mais ça tu ne peux pas l'éprouver
Parce que nous nous touchons
Parfois dans la tristesse
Serre-moi plus fort à présent
Et tu le sentiras.

When you go past the end
Of your comfort zone the
Experience will be electric
In a surreal world where all
Certainties vanish and the
Strangest things happen.

When fear is mixed with passion
Hope is combined with opportunity
Love becomes a bedfellow with hate
Complexity is a companion of challenge
On this light-speed rollercoaster where
Desire drives you over the edge
To where you start to live your
Monochrome life in Technicolor.

Paper sharp cut,
Slices deep,
Painless initially,
Blood bright red,
Flows freely,
Stings like nettle,
Finger ******* sore,
Bitter metallic,
Tingles strangely,
Japan flag tissue,
Stiffens sore,
Memory tricks,
Taste pennies,
Flashes of childhood.

Wanting, waiting,
Wishing the words
That touched her soul
Would answer the question

Is it right? Is it wrong?

Who cares if this is love?

Did she believe that this
Passion, perchance love
Could lead to such
Waves of pleasure
That has her drowning
In a desperation of doubt

Doing pointless things
In a far from perfect world
Is the reason we know
We are human

Doing pointless things
In a far from perfect life
Is a way of knowing
We are not machines

Doing pointless things
In a far from loving world
Is the reason we connect
With others in need

Doing pointless things
In a far from loving life
Is the way others know
We are human

Close your eyes and see the endless sea of black rain
Listen as the waves crash on the shore of your life
Smile and make believe when you are crying inside
Think of who you damage beyond repair by your pain
Pretend you are happy when you are feeling blue -


It isn’t hard to do.

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 ....

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?

Roses red
Champagne crisp
Dinner divine
Words whisper
Touch tender
Sheets satin
Bed blonde
Night noir
Passion purple.

It’s almost nine weeks since I came home
Unending days bleeding seamlessly together
A sadness of leaving you as lockdown ends
Quarantine paradise as together time flies

It’s almost nineteen years since I went away
Unending flight memories bleeding together
A sadness of absence as the lockdown ends
Quarantine paradise in absence slow time

Quarter-end game of chocolate-dark negotiations
More important than ***, more brittle than bone
Adrenalin rush of alcohol-fuelled entertainment
Bitter sweet commitments for need-it-now order
Sales smooze soothes power-crazed customers.

Is a pain
When playing

Is expected
When rocking

Is wanted
When sowing

Is a menace
When parading

Is too much
When holidaying

Is too little
When deserting

Is amazing
When lightning

Is angry
When thundering

Is just right
When at night.

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.

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.

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.

Institutional religion makes good people better
But rarely makes bad people good because
Their religious extremism makes the
Good and the bad, far worse due to
Their fanaticism for adhering to
Simple solutions in an
Increasingly
Complex
World.

Love is so easy, remembering is so good.
I forget the world every time 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, remembering is so sharp.
I forget everything but 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, remembering is so complete.
I forget all but your gentle magic 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.

Remember tonight for it is the beginning of forever
Sadness is a cancer that eats you up from the inside
Blame is a losers game that you will never ever win
Forget tomorrow as your excuse for procrastination

Live life in this moment which you can never repeat
Give love and hope to everyone with your hello smile
A new dawn breaks as you take control of your world
Remember tonight was the beginning of your forever

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”.

La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid
La vengeance n'est jamais une ligne droite
Elle est comme une forêt, où il est facile de s'égarer

Une mort, une ennemie, la haine mange l'âme
La rémission l'alimente, une vie un amour

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.

Every day living is a new room

I used to look forward
To the adventure of new
But now I know that I am
One of ten thousand guests
Who have slept in this bed
I feel my room is full of
Tired spirits of the night

Escape is to my old room now.

...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.

Forty years gone in the blink of an eye
Moments passed dimly remembered
Children born now adults now flying high
Good bosses, bad companies, stock losses
Simply an enabler of life – not life itself

Our million memories merge at ruby - crystal
Clear that we were made for each other
Together our hearts beat in slow harmony
Apart - the same hearts grow fonder - so that
We are growing younger together every year

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.

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.

I am certain now that I am me and he and she
So I try to hide hoping you will not notice but
They say things                           They do things
To make you think              That make you ask
That he is crazy                      Is she really mad?
That they are not                    Then they are too
  But he is she too                             And they say
So when I take the                   I should take the
Pills, so they and he and she will all go away,
I will just be me again and you will not be as

Frightened of us.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

Sighs
In a silence
After the storm
Intimate whispers
Confess inner desires
The thrill as two of us
Become one again
As we fly higher
On starlight
And love.

A silent thunder which
We feel but cannot hear
Rumbles on relentlessly
Through our lives as an
Unperceived presence  
In this life and the next.

Is this presence our
God who is indifferent,
To our problems and
Those of seven billion
Souls, and is unlikely
To be interested in our
Insignificant lives?

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.

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.

When
Living life at
Speed, if you blink,
You will miss it, thundering
Down the road to hell, thinking
This is not the Promised Land, since
You wanted something cooler, never
Planning an afterlife of flames,
A somewhat hottish heaven.
I found the way by going
Slow, do everything
At 33 instead
Of 78.

The week was spinning at 1000mph
I was sitting at a bar with friends
Very slowly I reached for my drink
And drank savouring the moment
Feeling every second in 3D sharp
Living in the moment, in control
My friends noticed my escape,
Expressed concern that I was
Having a stroke, so be warned,
Living life in slow motion might
Lead men in white coats to your
Door, your new heaven, may
Become an unintended hell.

Why
Worry
Muffled up
Falling silent
White on grey road
Treading on tyre treads
Winter naked tree skeletons
Icicles seem to hang from my nose
Footprints crunch across the ****** crispness
Smoke rises from drink happy crowd
Slip sliding home from the bar
Sneeze freezing friends
Alone at last slán
Breathing fog
Sit down
Sleep
Fin.

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.

In love, a delicious drowning feeling,
Where stillness surrounds us, contrasting
A movie-like, high speed madness around us,
Bypassing us, because our love is frozen in time,
Growing now like the first buds in a spring passion,
Our touch electric-like, brings us closer than skin,
So close, that our hearts beat like one heart,
So close, that we dream the same dreams,
So close, that we breathe the same air,
So close, that we are one person.

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.