She was a dancer,
caught off beat
by a neat little stranger lurking
in the body of the womb,
where once she strayed from danger,
within a motherly costume.

After show drinks, stage
& waits in the green room,
were pipe dreams for this
Mum without a groom.
Yet still, and continuing so,
she provides for two girls,
her blonde Monroe's; be that lifts
to school or another
big shop so the nonstop
keeps from turning blue.

But how up North can you keep from the cold,
when constant frost creates the vignette
to the serviette snow out there?
Cheap beans and even cheaper bread
won't make that meal you read and said to be good,
any better than it is.
But a text, fax, pigeon post fast, to your Mum back home
wipes clean these thoughts of being alone
and underfed,
and instead; restores your faith in everything
and anything you may do in the future,
and what you said-

to me once on that walk;
will stick with me until we next talk
or, maybe quite possibly, drink
until glasses are empty and
the wine bottles clink.

*for the Carters

Over staffed and under fed
Spanish waiters
rush around with
waistcoats of wisdom
wearing black shoes
of sordid shift-work soles.

They greet and speak to every new
tourist, and regular, as if a
brother, sister, mother, second-cousin-twice-removed
stepmother, yet really they are:

the ephemeral fodder of the
cheap, low-cost-airline,

the flash and it’s gone spine of most cities
on the map,

the ‘Sorry, I left it in a Barcelona Café, could I get it back on insurance?’
baseball cap, that most sightseer marionettes wear, back to front,

the standing in line, waiting to complain,
tourists that know nothing of decorum.

So the Spanish waiter served me my coffee
and whispered in my ear,
‘Disfrutar de su día senor’,
that was,
'Enjoy your day Sir’.

This poem is for the girls and guys in limbo
Somewhere between love and lust
Up the dark road
Inside the cold box
This ones for you.
For u sweet dreamer
For the girls lusting for the boys who have only followed the trail of perfection
This is for the nerdy guys
Afraid of the way she flips her hair
And his own shadow
This is for the friend zone
Those who tip toe cautiously
Reading mixed signs
And deciphering smoke signals
This is for you
This is for heartachers
And the people that will never know there own doing.
This is for the girls who say no
And for the boys who don't know there power
This is for I love you's
Whispered under breath
This is for the crushes
And the people that love them
This is for the traded glances
And the misinterpretation
This for the hours wasted
And tears that have fallen
Fallen long enough to build you an ocean
Like a mote
to place around your heart
This ones for you dark forecasters
And glass half fullers
This ones for the poets and the phone calls
This is for the obsessing
The morris code blessing
And this ones for the confession
Those that take there pride and tuck it between their legs
This is for you
Stand tall
Tall enough to crane your neck to see the horizon
Because this may look different on the other side.
This is for the hopefuls
Those who love and still believe
This is for the love lyrics written
And those that repeat there songs
This is for you.

my first-ever valentine
walks on pebbles soaked in limes
****** out rinds and empty shot glasses
street lights sparkle as our taxi passes knoxville’s twisting highways of black
your voice, wailing, raking, sent shivers down my back
a million voices are singing your songs,
but one less than a million are singing them wrong
a million aching empty eyes glaring,
five hundred thousand pairs are staring off into space, all stuck in the past
I’m sitting here wondering how the **** my glass got empty again,
so toss me a lime, and pass me the bottle before I notice the time