I wrote a poem recently.
Not so much a poem,
more like a story;
a story of love,
kind of like a love story.
Sure,
it was the best love story
we've never read.

There were romances,
struggles,
some revelations
and resurrections...
even a few bruised egos.
Blah,
blah.

Yessir,
a bayside view of
false paradise
if I'd ever seen one;
some dogeared page
ripped out of a
journal written in ink
and found in the gutter.

No beginning or end.
Just a thought.
A memoir
of a fantasy that should've just
been
and never had to explain itself.

I will always remember the first day each time I started school.

(L)ong (A)fter ,

                     (T)he (E)nd

The picnic bench foils under the body weight of my half drunk self
There is a cat cuddling up to me, with her tail

Pink Floyd plays in the background, as the cat brushes up against my legs
Brings a feeling like something of the loch ness Nessie

Shirley sits beside me, watching the night sky
And focussing on my presence and cigarette smoke

I pet her, and she stays
Smoke and inhale
The cars bustle by

The final places of another busy day
The wall is built and she stays beside me

But she now has disappeared
Inhale, exhale
Smoke my smoke
And drink my 4th beer

Look ahead, not at your past.

We meet by the lockers
at break
I'm still amazed
that this school
has Cheerleaders
that basketball
not rounders & netball
is the sport played
that we study
the Cold War
' Of Mice & Men'
& the War in Vietnam
that we have 'Hitzenfrei' days
that our German teacher
always forgives our mistakes
that boys & girls
hang out together
that we put on musicals
I've never heard of
That we celebrate the fall of the Wall
that we take school trips
to Concentration Camps
that there's no uniform
that the teachers
rarely explain anything
that the word ' rubber'
doesn't mean ' eraser'
here but something else
that there are stereotypes
like 'nerd' & ' prom queen'
that we welcome grafitti
that we believe in Love
above any kind of Study
that we have the freedom
to pick & choose our failiures
without being sent
to the Principal's office
that we read Kerouac
Carl Sandburg & Ginsberg
that nearly everyone
has lived in at least
two or three
different countries
that we rarely fight
that my crush
plays trumpet
in a ska band
that we go
to the nearby Lakes
on weekends
& the English language cinema
on Tuesdays
that we celebrate Halloween
bit by bit I nearly forget
my All Girls school days
in soggy Britain
where I had no friends
where we sang hymns
every single morning
where we didn't practice
the Love we preached
where our future
was crumbling old Oxbridge
where we had a coat of arms
where we had houses
named after the merchant ships
of our Founder  from the 1600ds
where we didn't dream
of becoming Presidents
or Astronauts but Academics
forever lost in musty books
the flower of our youth, wasted


Hitzenfrei days were days in summer when we were let off school because it was too hot.
Wall - Berlin Wall

I fell into this sinkhole of gluttony. Money can be a curse like that.

We wandered with no direction,
No boundaries in the grass land of dreams and cloudy skies,
No end in sight.

Running from the city's chaos
Towards home in each other's youthful freedom,
We let the wind carry us while our arms were wide open,
Welcoming the horizon and all adventure beyond it.


The only worry in our spinning, restless thoughts
Was removing the grass that stuck to the sun kissed fabric of what we wore
Whenever we sat on the ground to watch the world go by,
Because all was well, it was alright
In that wonder of land
Our Wonderland.

And although these moments, in all of its glory,
Are left to photographs and hidden journals
The still feeling thrives, wild and alive,
As the stars shine.