Hovering aquatic
She swims above me
A spectral blue hue
Against the shafts
Of sunlight that
Pierce black
I perceive her
She is there with
Quivering outline
Clouds about her head
Looking up
It is blinding and
I am so far down
The water is chilling
The black below pulls at me
She is smiling
Like she does
I want her smile sent to me
But it shoots right past
And blasts the black
I reach for it
It catches lightly on my fingers
Her lingering
She swims above me
She swims above me
She ascends
I cry out but the water fills
My mouth
She hesitates and looks back down
I try to smile
I hope it reaches her
I hope she sees it as she swims above
She swims above.

If I had a heart in my hands
One not made of flesh

If I carried it all the minutes of every day
And it was made of friable stuff

If I stumbled in a careless way
And it slipped before my eyes

If it fell to the hardened ground
And smashed into a billion atom bits

If the fractured shards were
Myriad made in a smear of salty tears

If I had no one but me blameworthy
Because it was only me around

If this was the case
Then I can’t look behind me
With accusations tumbling from my lips.

If I had the chance to glue, piece by piece
It back into a heart-shaped thing

If each tiny silver sliver was slotted into place
To once more catch the noiseless light

If I took a thousand years
And made my fingers bleed

If I once more held it up
And it had glinting form

If this repair was done in the dry dock of my hands
Would it still be a flawless gem?

If this repair is painfully gained
Does the time and care infuse the fault
With a lustre of perfection?

If all I see is the spinning binary pulse
If all I have is a sparking
Einstein-Rosen Bridge

If all around me is a sea of foaming mediocrity
If nothing else is worth my time

Then surely repairing this shattered glass is
The worthwhile work of every second

Of this remaining life

You are aggressively mediocre
And your thoughts belong to others
You occupy a space best reserved
For those bubbling with original thought
Your mass is simple weight
With no power plant to lift
It from the gravity of self

I crave the company of people
With sparks of wit and muse
Whose conversation is such
That they make me think and smile
And be on my own best mettle

So, upon you I will not settle
Your imagination stops
At your front door and ventures
No further for fear of getting lost

Instead I will be the co-pilot
Aboard a ship that skims the worlds
In a multi-verse made of chaos and string
And I will swim in pools of radiant plasma
And bask in light and warmth
From suns that gestate the DNA

I am not bound for compromise
That craft does not leave its dock
I will not agree to mediocrity
Despite your championing of that cause
I will take flight a thousand times
And soar where the lesser fear to tread

What were you thinking yesterday?
I watched your gaze from across the room
It was settled on a point in space
A million miles from where we sat.

What will you say today?
How will your mind manifest its place
In our universe of morning light?
What will you think tomorrow?
What can I do to remove
The lingering of sorrow?

I lay next to you and hear your breathing
I held you while your tears came
I felt closer to you then
Than I have ever done. It was my
Priviledge and honour to bring
You the comfort then.

Open your hands and close your eyes
Listen, we’re breathing faster
Here are the words I will say to you
Here is the touch I lay on you
Here is the smile I give to you

Darkness is a fleeting thing
Transient is pain
Grief recedes and stays away
The memory of what was and is
Is the greater of the comforts I give

Nothing here is bound for long
Our lives are wrenched from the heart
Of stars and will end in them once more
Your pain is mine until the end of things

At sea
That a wave had dragged you down
And crushed the force that was you

We thought that the black that engulfed you
Engulfed us as well
That the cold you drank
Swallowed us

We said we would not see you
Again at home
We gathered together and held each other
And talked of the time of you

We buried you
But kept the thought of you
We wrote letters to you
And each told their favourite memory of you

We talked of you
Everyone said ‘Hi’ in their own way
And smiled a lot
When your name was raised

Loss is just a deception
A temporary trick of the mind
You see, you never really lose anyone
They stay with you
And only go when you  
Can no longer remember

Gorgeous and lushly coloured
West End lights so brightly shine
Reflected in the obsidian road wet with rain
And slick with reckless hope
The painful ***** of tired dreams
Winds down around a bronzed
Soldier, toting his gun, who grimly
Sets his lantern jaw against the
Long dead faces of war and fear

I sit at his feet and watch the cabs
I draw on my cigarette and pick out
Eyes of the people sitting in their seats
They are travelling fast to places
Where I’ll never go and I don’t care
Their lives will play out and we’ll never
Speak or smile together though
Our atoms are siblings in phase

I lift my head to the stars and
Marvel at the time passing many
Years ago when the world was young
And nature was naive enough to
Believe she had got it right
The night lights flicker slowly on
And off and mimic the pinprick
Glows against the raven wing
Canvass above my head

Nothing in this world can shake
My beliefs or so I thought
Until the days when life became
A subtle masquerade and the
Food in the dishes no longer gave
Me the nourishment I craved
Everything I knew was wrong
And right was just a wishful thing

So here I sit, my suit crumpled and
Wet with sweat, the tears and rain
My case is thrown over there and it
Has burst its gut spilling those once
Important papers but now just covered
In vacuous glyphs known to others
But no longer to me
At home that think I am this
They think I am that
They say they know what I will say
When this or that happens
They know me little and
Like all men when grips slacken
Just the few square inches in my brain are
Truly mine and infused with logic
That tumbles central and
Squats on a raffia mat
In a windowless room

Happy in my world and loving
In my deepest thought
Placid in my retrospective views
Motionless against the swell
Of the crowd around me;
Nothing more of me is required of me now
I am free to leave they tell me
And for that I’m
Pleased

I close my eyes and fall to imageless sleep
The cabs keep whizzing by and
The stares are still fixed upon their
Days of lives as they approach
And when they finally come
I will greet them with a simple

“You know me”.