Ageing gently
watering eyes
back dated tears
long dammed
seeping
through
the failing
seal
of tight lipped
kisses
and
learned
enforced
stoicism
such relief
at last
to cry

The fascination
is again immediate
it stops me dead
Automaton emotion
sympathy washing over
a feeling of something
out of reach
of privilege
of loss
It's something like
a girl friend I once nearly had
a song I had forgotten
a line from a song
that I always get wrong
a night that I want again
We are stupid
And we'll die
I never reached
an uneasy understanding
Something I cannot describe easily
It feels like a real future
somehow
Dystopian broken and flawed
of course
but even then...
Absolute beauty
the unknown
and dignity in death
dignity and poetry in death
light streaming through
and rain
of course there's rain
there's always rain
huge silences
and behind it all
that music
that music that makes
the future seem now
whatever that means
Doll
Robot
but still pain
still the knowledge
of what the end means
from learned
and invested
memories
so human
more human than possible
already dead
but able to share
the most delicate
honest
and fragile moments
that create guilt
in me
somehow
from somewhere
the link
is the sepia prints
on the piano
and the very essence
the thing that drives
the fascination
is The dove
and those lines
spoken like a king
like a saint
with a wonderful warm heart
full of all of my sadness
somehow
and
The unicorn
reminding me
that it was all
fabricated
by the hand
of man

I make stuff up
all the time
some stuff I make up
I think
You think
Is about me
when it's not
and some stuff
that I have made up
that you know
isn't about me
actually is
and you're in
some of the stuff
that I have made up
but I think you knew that

her teeth in my bones
given gladly
unappreciated
to my shame
not eternal
though
none of them
her teeth
my bones
my shame
all temporary
at different stages
of  decay
slowly returning
to the elemental
for someone else
to give
to take
and perhaps appreciate

Buddleia
Butterfly
Brown field
Oasis

Through cracked
concrete
scarred
car parks

New blue life
Mosaic winged
Delicate
Renewal

Chunky chains
brick built
rust puddled
and beautiful

Mixey Kit
in the verging grass
sleek wild and still;
breathing too hard
for young lungs,
black leaking eyes
and nose

Patiently waiting
for the inevitable
midnight fox;
too new
to know
to cherish it's last
sun dappled hours

You keep changing
by inches
ageing by moments
gradually shuffling
towards the light
but I only notice
when we are apart
for a while
when the hours and minutes
can be collected up
into a bundle of time
that means something
in the grand scheme
of things