If we could bottle souls
(Like petrified coals
Of past lives and future sparks),
When would we uncork
The energy of the living?

A yearning beneath the seething
Of untapped existential angst.
A rush to restore
An end to eternal suspension
Entropy's 2nd law.

It is easy to forget
what the heart can’t bear to remember,
and every time I slip into bed
with someone new
I hope she unpicks the uneven stitching
of thread of unfulfilled promises that
“Time will heal all wounds”
(it does not).

But you are no surgeon,
your hands are not deft
but as steady as my fluttering pulse.
Old wounds gape open;
I am all bones and deteriorated sinew
old and slow
so very cold
the spaces between failing organs bleed
congealing dreams going stale.

Still you try,
with each fresh incision
slicing away diseased tissue
excising decaying matter,
believing this patient will recover.

Time might heal all wounds,
yet still,
let’s keep the defibrillator close.

The train pulls out of the station. The dull drone of its engine and the periodic thump of metal wheels meeting rail breaks accompanies the dusty scent of steam and burning coal.

The journey continues in silence, with him reclining backwards in his seat as she pages through his book. He stares into space, vaguely acknowledging the scores of faceless passengers and thinking about how they are all shared voyagers in time and space. She smiles at a witty line, and flips the page.

Brakes are applied, the train gently eases to a stop. Pistons sigh and coupling rods command the wheels to halt. She returns him the book, and a silence settles.

“See you when I see you,” she says.

He stood up, buttoning his navy flannel blazer.

“See you…if I see you,” He corrects, then leaves the carriage as the doors slide open.

Do not mistake solitude for solace;
your mind is an empty room
all your hear
are the echoes of your thoughts
voiced by your inner voice
shouts bouncing off cranium
and rejected by
lips pressed together:
an adamant attempt
to hold your peace.

You leave me,
believing in this eventuality:
that people will leave you
that I will leave you.
You just wanted to strike first.

Before you cast yourself away,
into endless horizon and ocean blue,
there is too much I want to tell you.

But no matter,
just remember
it was you, my love, who told me
that life is never about bobbing to passive waves,
but in forging a new wake
in this endless ocean of possibilities.

Your silhouette diminishes,
waves lap at these lonely shores
and I wonder if it is the weak
whom are not lonely.

Feast your eyes
on this!
100% Super One-Twenty,
Windowpane, chalk-white,
on a navy backdrop.
Fully Canvassed, mind you,
for the elegance of the suit
is dictated by its drape,
the structure the cloth streams
from shoulder to waist.

Here!
Do you see it? No?
The shoulder, it’s expression:
Spalla Camicia!
Simplification of the cumbersome Neapolitan,
shedding all the padding
of the English shoulder.
(Padding, I emphasize,
is for insecure prepubescent girls.)

Ah, but the star of the show,
the six by two,
the armour of choice of all dandies,
the de facto of the eternally stylish,
the double breasted jacket!
Shoulder wide peaked lapels
drawing horizontal lines
that elongate the torso,
nipping the waist.

(And as they say,
I like my jackets like
I like my women:
Double-breasted.)

In the dark abyss of night,
we quietly wait
for the inevitable gold of sunrise.
Like fresh wood fed
to dying embers;
our sparks renewed with light.