Skies promise.
I look up.
First
Flake.

Don't worry, little friend.
Don't be so concerned.
Even flames bend
To see you unburned.

The clouds that cover
The blistering suns
Are the skies watching over
Our treasured ones.

So just go outside and
Dance in the rain.
You don't need to hide,
There's no danger or pain

That threatens you, child.
You are never alone.
You are safe in the wild;
Mother Nature is home.

November shakes the wet from
Her wings and stretches them to
Their full reach; tips touching
The death and birth of October
And December,
Feathers the colour of leafless
Trees and ploughed fields.

A thirty day lifespan of deathbed
Lullabies and hardened faces,
Bodies crouching to lay themselves
Upon their own warmth in
Desperation, clouds of breath
Escaping layers of
Cotton and wool.

Winter is as inevetable as dying.
I wander between birches and
Pinetrees like crooked teeth
Protruding from the mist; the
Bones of something decomposed
Between moss and
***** forest water.

Black as old blood.
Brown as mud, air like millions
Of tiny arrows against any bare
Skin.
This landscape could be someone's
Nightmare, some horror movie
Set or a Ted Hughes poem backdrop.

But I stand, still and alone, one
Palm against a rotten tree trunk,
The other upon my Norwegian
Heart. It is a time for looking within
For strength. To be silent and not think,
But feel; a time for building fires.
To gather what's dry, and prepare.

Few things are as black
As a snowless December morning

In Norway.
Some nights it's so

Dark I can't
Sleep.

Winter introduced itself like a
Sudden death in the family.
A -28 degrees celsius day has fingers
Thin enough to reach through glass,
Leaving its ice on the inside of
Windows.

I find candles and carry firewood,
Preparing for a cold one.
Out here, blackouts can last for a day.
My iPad and portable modem have
Battery enough for one
Poem.

Such are my priorities.
I empty my fridge into the snow,
Thanking the gods
For my beer.
Don't try to reach me. I'm remembering
Life from centuries ago.

another shooting star
dances across
the night sky
but this time
i wished
for happiness

because i know
i'll never have
your arms wrapped
around me no matter
how many wishes
          it takes

There is always a longing bittersweet
euphoria when I spiral out of control in just a heartbeat;
when nothing is in my hands anymore,
a special kind of freedom that I have longed for.

Carla kept nudging me to learn Italian.
It is the language of lovers and liars she said, life’s two best friends,
Discipline yourself, it will teach you to sing, she offered,
Each phrase a lyric, a seduction,
It will give you an unfair advantage over younger men, she promised,
Tickle her ear with this tongue and she will shiver and unfold,
Her heart, her knees unlocked.

Italian is a calculate of rhythm, Carla suggested,
Every woman understands timing and phase,
Our life is nothing but cycles for god’s sakes,
How have you not understood this?

It is the lingua of fair play, she continued, each syllable an equal citizen,
A dialect with an innate sense of justice,
Women are as intrigued by its possibilities,
As they are by threat and danger,
Either of which you can no longer promise.

Tell a woman you love her in Italian,
Ti amo più respiro, I love you more than breath,
And her ******* will disappear,
She won’t be able to take her eyes off your lips,
And as we all know, your mouth is your hook,
Your irresistible smile, the pout, the persuasion.

You are a poet, a miracle I know,
Your words are narcotic when you put your mind to it,
I’ve heard you quell an unruly crowd;
Your resonant tone could soothe a pack of ravenous jackals.

But with that intricate face of yours,
Your accumulating age, the leather wrinkles,
Believe me, you will soon need to help to ****** even a photograph.
Enlist, become Italian, Carla told me, it is your only hope,
And she tossed the last of her wine onto the sand,
Watched the red stain saturate and fade,
And lay back to face the sun.

I **** at poetry,
But I'm an expert at being me
It took years of reflection ever since the *****
But finally...
Now I look from inside
Now I laugh when I cry
Tears that remind me I'm alive
Write carefully...
That's what they tell me to
The voices in my head and the sensei's of the pen
For fear of breaking rules established by who?
well see I don't care, then I ask them
Do you laugh in tune?
Do you cry in tune?
With the gold received from the silence of thoughts
My soul buys the mightiest pen to go to me
Just so I can jot,
I really **** at poetry