the girls I danced with
I never wrote songs about

the girls I kissed under bursts of fireworks
I never won carnival prizes for

the girls I entered the sheets with
I never made a deeper connection

the girls who gave me their best
I never understood their motives

and I wondered where they all went and
why we parted ways like cathedral doors
and why they took the hand of other monsters and vanished into the night.

I was too naive to notice
all the red flags waving behind me
and too dense to turn around
and open my eyes.

but now I face this dry vacancy
and I see they’re
intertwined with their domestics
constricted with their marriages
taunting their husbands
commanding their boyfriends
obsessed with their photo albums
cramming belief and guidance into their children

its the same unabridged story
told over and over
and over and over
again.

I too, sit with this adverse outcome:
this one wants me to quit drinking
and that one wants me on a diet
and this one wants me to get a better job
and that one wants me to exercise more.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels,
but as I lay down in this bed with this one
like so many buried cold beneath the Earth,
I can’t stop thinking of those angels from my past that have flown off into other heavens.

I was never deserving
of their time nor
their presence

and I am neither
here nor
there.

every failure has a seat
at the long dark table of my mind
they do not wait to be called
they arrive uninvited
dragging their chairs with splintered grace
and settle in like they never left
they speak over each other
loud and unrelenting
their voices rise like smoke
curling into every thought
every breath i try to take
the one who cost me everything
leans forward with eyes like broken glass
whispers that i was never enough
not then
not now
not ever
another laughs
a low and bitter sound
tells the story of when i tried
and failed so loudly
the silence that followed still echoes
they rearrange the walls of my mind
scrape at the corners
with claws made of memory
chisel new shapes into my thoughts
and paint shame in places
light used to reach
i beg for quiet
but they are architects tonight
they are sculptors of sorrow
and i am clay
soft and unwilling
turning under their relentless hands
they feast
they sing
they remind
this is not a dinner
it is a haunting
and i
i am still the host

Passion is something that coats my skin.
It runs through my veins constantly.... knowing that this is it's home.
Passion is a feeling, a power, being alive at midnight because your mind can't shut off. every muscle in your brain always on memorizing unimportant details because that's what catches it's attention.
Passion is having no one match your energy, feeling like nothing is ever enough.
Passion and I are best friends.... always have been. we live for one another. knowing we'll never find a kindred soul.

Too young for the first
Too old for the second
Quite the fine timing
When all is reckoned
He could have been one of the 20 percent
Destroyed at the Somme
Their flags and their bodies
Horribly rent
Or shredded with schrapnel
On Omaha beach
French liberation for them
Just beyond reach
Instead he was a docker
And fathered eight kids
Imagine the population difference
In this fair land
If Arch Duke Frankie
Had not got whacked
By the Gavrillo and the Black Hand
But the war machine rolled
And the tales all got told.
My lucky grandad
With his dockers hook
Stands and stares at the future
From the Liverpool Dock.

Father Time and Mother Nature
Conspired one drunken night
Off the rip
To meet again
Decades later
Upon my gimpy hip.

My left knee tells me it’s still winter.
My shoulders are still unsure.
Every part of me that aches
Aches more for the uncertainty.
I smoke some Acapulco Gold.
A serpent creeps down from the sun
And curls round my spine.
A warm wind blows over me
And for a while I don’t feel old.

The knife’s worn handle is solid against my palm.
Sharp edges, dull tip,
Stained with resin.
It has lived far passed it’s lifespan,
But it sits in my drawer.
I hold it some nights when
I want to feel the weight.
I use it now and again
When my scissors are misplaced,
But mostly it sits.
I wish you could see the life that I’ve made.

I count my heartbeats in time with the clouds.
I hold the smoke.
Let it blacken my lungs.
Four-hundred thumps in the time they move four trees down.
Exhale, and accept
This rocky path to which I’ve clung.
The horses almost trip,
While dragging their carts.
Like a half-finished sentence,
Lost at the start.
I am stuck in this place,
The air thick with time,  
And lost in gravace.