2014 was a **** o a year
Her closest to me was riddled with fear
You know your classic
Slough of despond
A long dark crushing passage
I did not know how to respond

Then in June my dad got sick
an unholy malaise
Saw him on Father's Day
Looked like he'd been dead
For three days

We got the diagnosis the week after
They didn't hold out much hope
To avoid the disaster
See the cancer made his bones leak calcium
So they couldn't treat it
Harsh reactions
Would make the chemo **** him

So they pumped him full of saline
To flush the chalk away
It made parts o his body
Bloat and swell and sway
My mother said
His ***** had never looked so big
Nearly choked upon my laughter
It was a gag that I could dig

The thing then metastasized
And that was just about it
On September the 19th
His light got unlit

A week or two later
Our kid's girl
Found out she was pregnant
Just coincidence
Or the irony of heaven
And so nine short months later
Emily popped into the world
Red headed loud and beautiful
Like some  miracle occurred

So as you step into your life
You ginger tornado
You'll never know how much
Jimmy would have loved you.

I coloured my world today
my hands smeared in pastels
canary yellows
ripe peaches and cardinal ochres
pink from a flamingo sunrise
a passionate cerise

Splashed
an array of feisty blues
a flamboyant turquoise
a topaz tango
a twinkling periwinkle

Streaked it with
beams of gold
contoured lilac smudges
lavender tipped edges
in custard pineapple floats

Splattered emeralds, toned pistachio
fern greens with swift finger strokes.

Tempered it with
muddy crusty earthy browns
rock coloured sandy mounds
reined in royal purple
the sensual blaze of a flaming sunset
the dark indigo of a gloaming sky
agate drops a few
a silver sliver of a crescent new

I coloured my world
with my eyes
my words
my fingers, hands
my hues
....just the way I wanted to

Shrouded in this mystical darkness
The tenderness of fog a good company
The winter silence reinventing its language
The inception of tears suspended
How wonderful to love everything as it is
Like trees love the patience of earth

My ma would say
It's bin a funny old year
But I remember her saying that
Since I've bin able to hear
Or at least to remember
That I could do the same
Everyone does it
Everybody is to blame
We generally don't  demur
To the ones we deem smart
There is in em
The  truth
That we feel in our hearts
But do us a favour
And check the year's news
And see just how accurate
These ***** were with
Their  views.

I enter the bathtub filled with warm water
To wash away the stress and trauma.
The liquid which used to bring me so much comfort
And so much fear.

The water i used to warm my hands with,
The water i used to make food i hoped no one knew about,
The water i gave my dying dog,
The water that kept me alive.

And i sit there, thinking about it.
About everything that can happen
In the span of 4 years.
Earth is a strange place indeed,
As it is filled with water.

This is a story about a young man and his web of lies and smoke and mirrors. This man was once a honest man alas the temptation of the dark led him to the smoke and mirrors that are the demons in his head

~
Hand and needle,
weapons of mass protection.
Mending day called solace,
bitterness in every stitch.
When all guides disappear
the hand begins to tremble,
that is the material point.
Listen to the water,
the sea is full of memories.
It knows everything,
it feels nothing.

A rage is building.
The sails unfurl,
the wind follows.
A hundred years of
traversing the deep
on a ship full of opiates
and other distant mermaids.
This blood vessel,
cresting the heart of the wave,
you will never completely cross
this body of water
until you learn to trust
the hands that hold back
death and it's squall.

Even now they drop anchor, singing
into the starry sky:

"Gather ye fishermen's wives
As thy men roll out to sea
Pray one and all
Thy sails hold strong this day..."
~