When life is your lover,
There can be no other.

Absorbed by the dreary remains
Of a web of circumstance,
You fumbled in the dark for a door,
An exit strategy.

Whether "can't" or "won't", it's clear you don't understand these tears -
Well, each tells a story of its own:
This one's for best, but never enough -
That one's for brightest, but never on show.

It's a sorry series of unfortunate events,
A spidery path of ups and downs.
Reflective to sensitive others,
They remain opaque to you.

Then the world collaborates,
Confers and corroborates.
The domino network forms a chain,
A bridge to distant decisions.

So long a life donated to the service of man,
Thinking the weight of the world
Rests on two shoulders.
Now, finally. A man. Donated to life.

We arrived brave and bold, art and science at our backs -
A rigid grid of perception to transpose upon all we would see before us.

Expectation of the unexpected,
Of normality with new norms.

Alas, close or foreign, observing or feeling,
Pain is one and the same.

Navigating slow waters muddied by social pollution,
Our lanterns cast a feeble light through the detritus.

Then, as the stream presented the sea, black and thick as a Venus night,
A dart of colour transcended from the voluminous burden.

Do the waters behind represent those ahead,
Or should we portend this tiny creature an omen?

Step outside of yourself.
Step outside of your routines, your safe circle of friends.
Step outside of your memories, beliefs and prejudices.

Awaken to a fresh perspective on the world,
A more visceral sense of its ebb and flow,
A new view of its entangled web.

Where are you? Who are you?
Examine your life as art, judge as for a crime.
And into your verdict pierce a pivot,
Auspicating a diasporal pilgrimage
Towards the re-introduction of fortune,
Spontaneity, serendipity and surprise.

Rebel against Lady Luck’s long-laid path,
Sedate her inexorable chain reactions
And embark instead upon personal ventures.
Live a life where every moment is
More than just a precursor for the next.

And in crushing your expectations,
Welcome the unexpected.

Injustice fuels accelerating regret.
Inertia proves no barrier to escape speed
Breaking away from the gravity of goodbye
Into the comfort of an infinite past.

Bring more toys for Christmas Day
Bring them here from far away
Distill the oil, then melt and mould
We’ll play today, but never grow old

While you were sleeping,
Lazy eyes wandered across
Mountains and valleys -
Your genetic topography