Fires in ditches and fields with
Newspapers, boxes, and dry grass
As our accessible anthracite;
Once smouldering enough on its own feet
To become its own source is when
The limbs were stripped and introduced;
Torn from trees or salvaged from
The outlying waste - they fed the
Crackle - spitting whispering embers skywards.

As children with little sense, our noise
Was all we could offer to appease
Wayward youth's disorder.
The crippled heat was secondary,
But to watch things burn was valuable;
A ring of lives held tenuous.

One thing I came to know
From the nights we gathered in droves is
That within this life of loose bonds and swells
I soak in the hungry gloam.

As you speak careful words they fan out
From your lips to soak adoring souls -
You paint their cages with a message of escape
And you reach between bars to warm the
Cold cheeks of the lowly.

As you search for the people behind
Translucent skin you spare a kiss -
Guiding them out, granting them
The freedom you pen in never-ending
Spirals on unsheathed arms.

It wasn't you who promised your crown.

We all grew to take more than we deserved.

It wasn't tackled with a surgeon's finesse
But the battered brute of conviction.
I can still see the two man cross cut saw
Jammed deep in the bark - but a tickle.
A mail of thick branches disguised as
Dense fodder stood strong against waves.
Throwing everything at it - raining sawdust -
As the giggles were heard for miles around.
Now standing crippled, taunting as it sways -
The battle's won but the war will have its day.

Dig deep in the sand with a cupped shovel-hand
Until you come across a healthy source of water.

Scoop up what you see and let loose the soggy contents,
Let them dribble through a careful filter fist.

Slowly drip foundations and upon them start your fortress
Using steady streams of trickled dribs and drabs.

Stalagmites in hyperspeed form walls and lookout towers
With the damp bricks one by one constructing peaks.

Spectators of all sizes will collect and cast their gazes
But you must keep up the focused droplet swell.

Maiden battles can't be won and so the masterpiece will crumble
To the tide that forces motes to overflow.

Waves crash and reek their havoc on the castle that you managed
To build with will and manky dripping palms.

The sand on which it once stood will be flattened out and polished
To make way for a palace twice as grand.

Stop kindling the fire.
Wait until the embers are
Enough to forge a season;
To kiss hot skin to sleep
Or to the raggedy edge, to tease;
Not all for fun but again to feel
The glowing ashes left in the pit

Kept alight, I felt their heat
And how they dwindle --
Stifled by the chill of passing time
And the many crystalline branches
Chipped from snowflakes

"Winter must be cold for those
with no warm memories..."
The sentiment reduced to shards;
You were my winter warmth,
But it's my spring that
Carries the frost