I'm catching up with lightening pace
I'm reading up a storm
I'm reading, learning, soaking up
those left since I've been gone.

I'm catching up with poems
at a rate I've never known
I'm hungry for their meaning,
for their meter, rhyme and flow.

My friends have come to greet me
and their smiles they light my day
it's really good to be here,
like I've never been away.

I hug the broken hearted
place a kiss upon their brow
I know true love will find them
once again someday somehow.

I soak up all your stories
all the tales of mirth and woe
the darkness and the moonlight
the sunlights fiery glow.

It feels so good to be here
sat alone with all my friends
as I wrap myself in letters
hoping that it never ends.

You're gone.
I stumble through the dark.
Thoughts explode, lighting the dark with mocking tones. I would gladly die to call your name, to reach the unreachable but it's too late to draw breath.

A scream escapes my throat, tiny against the lack of you it dies without echo.

I am alone, afraid of my need for your comfort, afraid of my quickening heartbeat, afraid of  myself.

I am the coming storm.
Shadows dance in my wake, wrapped in lace from the gowns of the jilted, they drink my tears as their music turns tainted flesh to stone.

I am nowhere.
Here reality becomes transparent. The illusion of happiness and love  revealed to me in rapid flickers, a tickertape parade of twisted lies lurking in the folds of lovers limbs.

You're gone.
I stumble through the dark.
Tonight I will give myself freely to the depths, in the hope of no return.

True love hides behind her smile.
Can't you see it?

I came to you last night, climbed in through your window with the last of the summer breeze. You sat on the floor, so small in your sorrow while you held the world in your shaking palm, the pressure of it's screaming too much for your tender heart.
I came to you last night and my heart swelled with love as I watched your tears glisten, their salt on my lips as I kissed your tired skin. I will hold you for a lifetime, tightly against my beating heart, so that you may hear the love I have for you as it thunders through my very being, strong and true against your darkest tide.
I am love, I am comfort, I am strength.
I am yours. Take my light, my song, my heart, let them lift you from the swirling depths, let them anchor your soul to mine that you may always have a home.
Once you lifted my heart to the heavens with a single word and within that moment I knew that we were two halves of a broken whole, though our pieces are scattered and torn we are bound, our destinies colliding within the storm that is our existence.
I came to you last night, no harm shall enter in my wake, no sorrow will linger, only my unending joy at your smile as you whisper "hello".

Do not label me.
I will not fold to fit in to your
pigeon hole.
I will remain unchained, 
unchanged by your desire for conformity.
All that I ever was, all that I may ever be 
doesn't rest upon your opinion of my being.
Do not label me......someday I might surprise you

There is a forest old as hillsides
tall, majestic, dappled shades
fall on ground beneath the silent
gnarled defenders of the glade.

There they stand in ancient splendour
many souls have passed their way
often used as welcome shelter
from the heat of summers day.

Sweet the air they breathe in chorus
our life's breath their lungs provide,
soaking up our daily poison
so that we may live and thrive.

You seas of men intent to clear them
citing progress, peddling greed
tearing roots from precious mooring
laying waste to nature's seed.

**** the beauty of a landscape
displace creatures for your need
rupture fragile ecosystems
scar the earth and watch it bleed.

To you I ask a simple question,
as I see the land bereaved.
What need has man of all this progress
when he can no longer breathe?

A walk on the beach in the morning
is never a simple affair
once the dog is dressed and the kid's on the leash
we leave with the breeze in our hair.
We walk along the shoreline
and watch the changing tide
we clamber over rockpools
where creatures deftly hide.
I'm not a morning person
My brain remains asleep
for at least two hours after
my eyes begin to peep.
So I take in the horizon
with a deep and grateful sigh
while boy and dog go running
off to greet some passers by
the fishermen are chatting
showing them their daily catch
while the dog he begs for something
from the bucket, just a scrap
So the guy picks out a live one
and shows it to the pup
who jumps away quite quickly
treats forgotten, heckles up.
My son he takes a finger
and reaches out to feel
this shining, writhing creature
in a bucket made of steel.
He flinches as it flips it's tail
annoyed that he can't catch it
but it slithers through his tiny hands
and back into the bucket.
We turn our tails and head for home
and talk of what we've seen
the boy says in his grown up voice
lets not have fish for tea.