Once armoured and indeed
Once a fearsome tank
Of a man,
I strode across the battlefields
Of my life
Swatting trouble from the skies
Like flies from a sweaty face

No more bothered by trouble Than by a bluebottle
A man of certitude and confidence,
Capable of rising to meet and beat whatever
Life threw at me,

However it seems that love
Has become mine undoing,
My Achillies heel has been mine heart
And mine heart is breaking in pieces,
No more able to pump the blood
I need to live this life
About my walking corpse,

And so I'm shucking my armour,
The plate falling with a muffled thud
Upon the grass as each leather strap is loosed,
So strange to feel lighter as my
Weakness grows greater
And mine ending draws
Ever and certainly closer

I am an onion,
Layer upon layer there
Is of me,
And none of these
So readily revealed
To casual scrutiny,

Oh  no you must work
And work hard to
Learn each layer,
Reveal every closely guarded
Aspect of my being
Or my soul

But dig hard enough,
Dig deep enough
And with a sharp enough blade,
And with dedication
You may just see
That which I may choose you to

The butler falls for the princess
As much as the Lord ever falls for the maid,
And even from his inferior role
Might feel
Albeit briefly and in error
Like a master of the palace,
When his princess fawns upon him
And lies beneath,
All alabaster perfection and
Perfume and passion,

Yet when all is done and said,
Whether in or on,
Even under the bed,
He's still the butler,
She's still better made,
She will never be his
No matter his dreams
Aspirations or hopes,
Or what with her legs spread
She said,

Because she is a princess,
She has no thought of
Love for a lower form such as he,
He scratches an itch to be sure
Which left un relieved might
Be sore,
But her parts and her heart are
Both bound towards someone more,
Much finer,
Far richer
Much better,
Than he.

This fool is not dressed
In colourful rags
With bells at his toes
And the horns of a ridiculous hat

This fool does not cavort
For the applause of a court,
No tumbling or bumbling
For applause,

This fool stands aghast
Seeing in its awful scale
The enormity of his folly,
The depth of his error,

This fool is in jeans
And a shirt and yet
Not a stitch of his
Dignity left,

This fool is just
A fool who loved
Much too well
And who's stilled heart now

Is broken in hell

A hand that is open clings to nothing and no one
And none can tear its grip away as it holds but air,
A hand that is open is unthreatening,
An open hand is peace,
An open hand invites welcome and presence,
An open hand over the heart is a greeting,
Even if that heart
Is breaking

Written by anyone else I would read what follows and guffaw,
No doubt!
And say between laughing tears,
"What a mug!"
"How insecure!"
Yet you cannot be insecure
About something which does not matter,
And neither can you feel dread
At something coming that
You do not mind about,

I can be objective and say
I knew this day would come,
And if not this day then one day
That the moment will arrive,
I can say the truth,
I love enough to let you go
And indeed dance at your wedding,
As indeed I shall if I am invited,
Yet the keen pain that I now feel is
More the knowing that those three

Small yet massive words we shared,
Rising inexorably from my heart
And yours (then at least),
Have changed everything for me,
Every. Thing.
And I can no more stiffen my lip nor
Be just pleased for you because my heart,
Oh GOD my poor bewildered heart
Is dying now inside my chest,

And with my heart dies the last
Vestige of hope for me,
Hope of a shoulder on which to lean in
Those rare times of need,
Hope of one to love me warts and all,
Hope of one into whom I can pour all of me
Without let or doubt or hindrance,
Hope for that one love we all crave,
And we all know that without hope?
We die.

There is for everything under heaven a time,
And mine has come,
And mine has been,
And mine has become history,
And so now time for something new,
For someone new,
Someone with whom to enjoy
The benefit of all the lessons learned
With me,
Someone fresh and unsullied
By our mistakes
And our cocking up,
The rows and the stupid misunderstandings,
A bright new future in
Those sunny uplands we oft discussed,
Those painful conversations
We both hated to perceive the truth of
Have come home at last to roost,
For everything under heaven
A time comes,
For everything and everyone
A time also leaves,
So now I am left,
Now I am alone,
As perhaps
Indeed
Should be.

We are all falling,
Life is a drop towards ending,
You dear reader,
And I,
And we can no more delay or adjust the
Speed of our descent
Than flap our arms right now
And take flight towards the clouds,

And though we may aspire to the heavens
The only route out of life
Is down,
Drawn by that terrifying gravity
That draws us ever faster
As the years pass,
Accelerating steadily through childhood
Adolescence and young adulthood,

Streaking past the unknown
Mid point of our lives
But suddenly aware we have less to go
Than we can know and less to get
Than we already had,
And that as we hurtle out of middle age
Puts a scale to our brief existence,
And a reasonable sight of our end,

But these calculations are of no use,
As our muscles sag and our hair thins,
Skin wrinkled and transluscent,
Eyesight dimmed,
Because we are tripped
By illness or literally in a fall
And thus we reach beginning of the final bend,
Our flailing stops

As we reach our journey's end

That I too decided to end my life,
And a fascinating process it was,
Or is indeed - who knows?
(Like a scout it is good to be prepared)

For first there was method and,
Applying that six step process I have so often taught,
I have to decide how long
Should the process take?

I do not wish to exit in pain
Nor rage or humiliation,
But calm and at peace with my choice
And with my action,

Maybe not a firearm then
For in emergency time slows and surely
The blast and rendering of face
And skull must hurt

So the same with hanging,
That sickening drop and
Thence to dangle as darkness gathers
And my bowels empty

So with dignity then,
These things matter after all
And this way at least I have control
Of these important details,

Poison?
Now there's a thing but
Poison is inimical to life,
So how might it feel to die
Destroyed that way?

The plot thickens as
The form of exit desired takes shape,
Comfortable and unafraid,
No pain

But concious to the very end
And so a warm bath,
A drink or two,
And feeling the lethargy

As my blood  pours
From my wrists,
The darkness is coming now,
It's harder to type
my focus is dim
it dark
i think im leavignow
bye

I have gained more than a few pounds of late
And my soul is feeling it too,
The fog and the darkness
Are gathering fast about me,
Smothering my endeavours and choking
My initiative,
Stopping me achieving for myself ,
Or others,

It's a sense of constantly impending doom
That follows me ever closer,
Patiently waiting to strike me down
Or just slowly asphyxiate my essence,
And remove me from that
Essential interaction with others,
And the thing is it is much like hypothermia
I know it's coming,
I know it's killing me,

And right now,

I just

don't

care

Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?
Christ called out upon the cross
But I do not feel my God has forsaken me
For He promised He never will,
And my soul is in His keeping always,
But at the end Christ said
"It is finished"
And at that point He died

I will never cry Eli...
But "It is finished",
That line I feel is perhaps
Time to start rehearsing,
I do not wish to pass alone,
Unmourned un-missed,
Yet in may ways that is kinder than
Causing pain to those I love

Time then - in love - to open my hand,
Let go the people I would depend upon
And fade quietly from their ken before I die
Such that,
Once word reaches them
Of my demise - though I was not their foe,
They pause a moment only,
Then shrug and walk on

"Really? Oh"

I have tried all my life to be
Bold and effective
And invisible in equal parts,
Quietly and without fuss
To help others,
To assist everyone I can in this life
Without recognition or tan-ta-ra

But it seems I have been rather too good
With my wand because
Nobody sees these things
That I do,
Well some do but of those
Some see in order to criticise,
Others just pour scorn,

For who indeed am I to offer
Help to others when I have
Nothing worth to give?
And when I point mute at the worth
I have indeed procured,
It's coincidence or their own effort,
No facilitation of mine!

Perhaps it's time for one last
Magic trick then,
A final swan song
Played to an empty theater,
To sail as oft imagined and written of
In that small boat to the sea's far horizon,
And make myself

Truly

Disappear

It's funny being berated for being too busy,
It's funny being told I do too much for others,
Or that I cannot save everyone,
That not everyone wants my help,
That some do not deserve it
And that I should rest
Before I burn out,

What those self righteous,
Albeit well meaning in their way,
Characters do not know,
Cannot know having never done
Such as I do every day,
Is it never burns you out
To help a fellow soul,

They do not know the reward
That the occasional acknowledgement,
Or simple "thanks" bestows,
Or how it charges batteries
Back to fully fit,
However low
They may have been,

But in one respect,
Although they do not know it,
My judges and detractors are
Painfully correct,
For though I burn my candles
Both ends and middle
And show no ill effect,

I have just realised as I sit here
Sad and lonely,
Heavy in heart and my usual
Confident footsteps slowed,
I could really use a chat myself with someone,
A sounding board to hear
Perhaps a hug receive,

But right now

There is,

Noone

The worst part of a funeral is not the sombre faces,
Nor the awkwardness of people
Who know not how to be at such a time,
It's not the heavy sense of sadness and loss
That permeates the air or the brash jollity of those
Who over compensate,

It's not standing to eulogise my friend
In so few minutes
When he was so vibrant and ALIVE,
Nor seeing in my mind's eye his face
As he lay recumbent in the coffin's cushioned dark
And airless embrace,

Not the sobs that came in public as I sat
After giving his farewell my all,
My first eulogy and sadly probably not my last,
No, the worst, the most awful thing was the wet thump
Of roses red falling on his coffin lid,
I tossed a handful of dry earth,

It sounded better,
Seemed more fitting,
An example followed by others,
A better more respecttful
And indeed final fare well,
Rest now Damien

Rest in peace
I will see you soon enough

As I sit waiting in the storm,
My car buffeted by the wind
And pedestrians leaning
At impossible angles
Those few who dare
Perambulate

I watch the ferry that will
Carry me back approach
The dock at a crazy offset
With wind driven waves
Smashing in spite
Against its side,

Outrageous weather
And red travel warnings
Everywhere yet this ship
Will sail and on it will I be
With my car and with my son
Travelling anyway,

And such is my life
In many ways,
For there are many waves
Hurled against me
And the winds that set against
Are huge,

But ships are safe alongside
The Dock
And I would be if I would
But acquiesce
But ships were not built
For harbour's shelter

But rather for the open sea,
And therein lies the issue,
Ships should brave
The oceans swell
And so the same
For me

Can change a life,
Yet not just the one
That you'd expect,
Not just the existence
Of two souls involved
But also those of others,
For not just our hearts
Were gladdened
When I said that I love you,
But another heart jumped at that
Phrase for it pleased
Your mother too

...that I saw
And how did it mine eyes perceive?
For I saw - albeit with hindsights perfect focus -
Beauty and passion and God,
But how did that shine?

How did that preciousness
That value and that potential
Light mine eyes
Through all those layers
And years of accumulated ****?

Yet once seen such a glow,
However glimmering or pale,
Cannot be denied nor yet become
Unseen nor unknown, and
Definitely not undesired,

And now the effort spent
Spitting on rags,
Buffing hard to remove
Decades of perceived unworthiness
Are bearing fruit,

For now I see a more
Even lustre as my
Project and my protégé
Steps out in confidence
And power,

Shining ever brighter
With a light inextinguishable,
Because although my effort
Undoubtedly played its part ,
It's GOD that's powered this change,

Not me...

But rocks are hard
And buttocks are soft
And the two do not
Good bedfellows make
And I cannot remain here,

And so I climb,
Again,
Scrabble painfully up the scarp,
Again,
Towards the light

Of a sun which seems
So very far
And unfeeling
In an azure sky that
Holds little hope

But each painful inch
Is one less in the shade,
Every focused lever against the
Gravity of pain and loss
Removes me from its grasp

A little more,
Until eventually the suns rays
Start to penetrate the cloak
Of my depressed state
And even my wracked muscles

Start to warm and,
At the cliff top from whence I fell,
I spy that rock which my back
Missed still stood in place
Where it always was

Did I lean the wrong way
Or did it wobble?
Or was it a bit of both?
Either way it feels stable now
A rock

On which I pause to lean

And as I fell on backwards
Into the vacant air that once
Was rock to have my back,
I felt the shock of water
Envelop me,
That great and boundless deep
Come to claim my soul,

Cold water shock though,
Not the warm embrace
Of my heart attack,
But an alien freezing
Splutter inducing cold
And I do not like it,
Not yet my time to die

And so I struggle back to shore,
Haul myself from the waves
That rejected me and sit
Shivering,
Alone,
And silent,
On the rocky outcrop of my sadness

After every row,
After every disagreement,
Every fight,
There comes conversation and then silence,
And the bigger the discord it seems
Then deeper and more profound
The silence that ensues,

And this one I am in now is
Startling in its totality,
Even words do not disturb
Nor ripple
The absence of communication
And the echoing hum
Upon my mind's ears

It's a sort of stasis
Where time and blood
And passion hang
Suspended in time,
Going nowhere,
From nowhere,
Just there

I know that love will,
Like the suns rays,
Thaw us and warm us
Back to softness and intimacy,
Back to how we "are",
But 'til then and right now we sit,
In silence

And I hate it......

If I  leave this life
Unexpectedly,
And do not get
To say
Goodbye,
Then know this truth
My alabaster lady,
While I had breath,
I loved you

From out the boundless deep
I came full fifty and five
Good years ago,
A helpless mewling pink
Noise on a white terri towel,
My first memory
"I do not want him"
As my ***** changed,

Five and a half decades on,
A lifetime of striving and failing,
Loving and losing,
Achieving some and
Losing too,
Trust betrayed and money lost
But finally a rock to
Rest my back upon,

And it took time and
Many hours of feeling that
Solid safe place before
I learned to lean in time
Of need but lean I did,
And came to count upon
That relief of time
Spent thus reclined,

But I should have known
The dark clouds on
The horizon were meant
For me and yep,
Today I leaned and the rock
Was gone,
So now perhaps time to
Keep falling

To turn again home

Farewell

I am too long
Outside a boat,
Too long away from the
Tip and shimmy
Of a dinghy hull,
The joyous swoop
Of a hull under sail,

Too long since my
Hand rested upon
A tiller,
Felt those five essentials
Work in balance to
Place no load
Nor need a weather helm,

Too long away from that
Which brooks no
Office politics,
No lovers tiff
Nor household chore,
Just pleased to carry me
By wind away from shore

But soon and soon
No matter the weather,
Be it storm or calm,
Sun or snow or rain,
Even frozen lake won't
Stymie my day,
For I shall sail,

And when that wood
Which bears me
Is a diamond coffin,
And life has left my body,
Be ye certain that somewhere,
God willing,
My soul is sailing still

This heart will last me a lifetime
If only because when it fails,
I fail,
But this heart, barely half way through its span is already much damaged,
For whilst the attack that did not claim me
Left no visible disease
The slings and arrows of emotional assaults, betrayal
And cunning, low and savage attack
Have left an invisible mark,

Every selfish unwarranted ******
Leaves a hole which heals slowly,
Oozing my life's essence all the while
Until the damage is patched by a layer of hard scabrous tissue,
A crude patch to mend a hole
Yet limiting the function once there found,
A tiny or not so small area which is not quite the same
And cannot fully carry its load any more,
A small damaged piece of me,
That fails

One such part? Hardly worth the notice and
Already as always forgiven,
But it is not just the one small part is it?
It's a fine network of such holes with the occasional larger ****
Where the stab was sawn and worked and
Widened with savage glee
Yet still healed or healing and still already
And as always forgiven                                                         ­                         
But the whole of me that part not stiffened and dead
Is smaller now

That shrinkage is not visible to the outside world
Nor will it be yet the shrinkage of useable
Worthwhile working tissue
Leads only one way and at this ever increasing rate
Of damage the end is coming close,
But who cares?
Well no one it appears
Because the attacks and the wounds are neither slower
Nor stopped,
So soon instead it seems
I will,
My heart will


Stop
Stopped

How many poems have I writ?
And how easy has the process been?
To think and to conjure from my brain
Unto the printed page,

Ideas and concepts flowing
in a seamless joyous
Tide of vocabulary and
Profusion

Until a while ago.
When everything.
Just.
Stopped.

So what is it?
What is this ******* thing
That circumvents my joy
And my creativity?

Where is it skulking?
Coward! Come forth,
Be fought!
But it would not

Did not
And I did not write,
My pen was silent
But not my creativity,

Until I met some strangers
Who became immediate
Fast friends and true,
I opened up

And ideas flew,
Turns out
The block was that no one actually
Asked me to write,
No one and especially not me!

Well these new friends did,
And the blockage,
In that instant,
Died
And went

And so this verse,
Poor though it be,
And first in quite a while,
Has indeed

Snuck out

Under

The wire

It's funny how hospitals,
Whence one goes to heal
Or die,
Focus ones mind upon
Profound things,

Life and death for sure
But also the life that's been lived
The life being lived,
Being dead and also
The process of dying,

I do not wish to die
In a hospital ward,
I have seen this and
I have heard it
And it is horrid,

No,
Let me pass good Lord
In the arms of a beautiful woman,
Or the embrace of a wooden boat,
With sails full and ocean spray
All about me,

Let me die astride a galloping horse,
Or in the metal clashing of swords,
The crack and ping of an airsoft war
Or the twang and thud of archery,

Let me pass on a zip wire Lord,
With the scream of a block
In my ears,
Or wining and dining
With my loved ones,

Any of these things Lord will do,
Or anything else the same,
But let me die while living Lord,
Not on a hospital ward
In shame

I am not fat
Nor fifty (plus)
Nor bald
Nor halfway (or more)
Through my span of life,
My earlobes are not grown,
Nor are there bags
Beneath my eyes,
Wrinkles on my face
Slack skin upon my hands,
It's just the mirror tells me that is so,
And it's lies,
All lies,
****** lies...

War is hell and battles
Are ****** and hard
Whether in flander's fields
Or spiritual plains,

As I sit scrubbing ocre
From my sword's flanks
Lest it's vitriol pit
My blade

I test the edge and run
An oilstone along to
Finesse away dullness,
And look around

At a post martial landscape
Littered with scorched scars Where demons were,
And shell holes whence

Came criticism and ungrateful
Viciousness and suspicion,
And realise for the ten Thousandth time

There is no victory in valour,
Nor glory in a battle won,
Just a grubby pause before
The next attack

Odious indeed is he who sits uninvited
And unwanted at our table
And yet refuses to take the hint and leave,
So throw that ******* imposter out
With a contemptuous boot
Right in the rear and
Cry "******* satan"
Loud and clear,
For unless we permit,
He has no authority here

In the dream (or perhaps it is forseeing) it is cold,
The air carries whispers of ice
That cut through the warmth of my skin
Like knives,
The quay is deserted,
Quiet aside from the occasional
Breeze induced moan from
A beer bottle tossed casually away
To lie discarded and thereby
A bit like me,

As I single up the mooring lines
Of the boat below me its movement
Becomes greater,
As if shunning the cold stillness
Of the land,
And seeing this I feel kinship
With the waking hull,
And a sense of shared impending journey
To the grey seas
Beyond the harbour wall,

As I work the halyards and
Aged sails creak up the mast
The breeze becomes more evident
In the brisk flapping of canvas,
Rime frost on the gunwhales gives way
To dark hand prints as I steady myself
Moving forward and aft,
Steadily prepping for departure
In a routine well known
Across decades,

Finally all is ready,
The wind picks up,
Sundering the clouds to reveal
A clear black sky studded in diamonds,
The navigation lights
From far galaxies come to light my way
As the backed foresail
Pushes the bows away,
Then with a creak the boom quells
The flapping main,

Approaching the harbour mouth
The wind rises further and a few
Long lazy yet driven rollers
Make their presence felt,
The heel increases as the bow tastes freedom,
Nav lights on the breakwater are
Unnaturally bright but no one sees
Nor waves goodbye,
Nor ever will again for tonight
I that was James just crossed the bar

I miss the sound of water
Keening past the hull,
I miss the soughing of wind in sail
And the dull thrum of the shrouds
Like oversized guitar strings
Plucked from my heart,
By fingers felt
Yet never seen,


I miss the heel of the hull as a gust
Catches the sails,
The feel of the gunwhale
Below my buttocks as I hike out,
The restored sense of balance
As my weight matches
The turning moment
Of sail over keel,

I miss that simple shared moment
Of unity and rightness
With a crew who understands,
Or sometimes while solo
I share that instant with
The great good God that made
Me and others fit
To experience His creation

I miss the water,
I miss the wind,
I miss the feel of a taut sheet
And a tiller in my hands,
The surging sense of motion
As the shore retreats
And the horizon beckons
Me forward

I miss all these things and yet
Even as I type this verse,
At the end of another day,
Another week and with another
Boatless weekend ahead,
Like all good fish heads,
In my head and in my heart
I am - still - sailing