The trouble with ends is not ends
As such as ends always come,
Sooner or later the good or the bad
I have in my life will absolutely,
Like my life here,
End,

No - what hurts is not the ending
But those realisations one has beforehand,
That something was a mistake,
Or that what I thought I knew
I just
Don't,

When you know someone
Truly appreciates you,
Gets who you are
Warts and all then find they dont,
And worse than that - they
Won't.

You pierced my armour
When we first met
And left me all at sea
With sails bad set

You were so much more,
You were enough,
Enough my eye no
Longer strayed

Enough my focus was
Just on thee,
On keeping you safe
And close to me,

Enough that all
I saw was you
Enough there
Was no question who

Was first in my heart
Enough,
No other could
Ever start and my love for thee
Will never end

I have been my own castigator far too long,
I have beaten myself up for my misdoings,
And rightly so but no more!
What matters is not the man I have been,
It is the man that writes these words,
It is the sorrow regret and repentance
In my heart that matters now,
More than that,
It is my actions moving forward,

For I am no more a monster or an ****,
Or other descriptor of how I was,
I am now just me,
The real me,
A man inherently decent; back in integrity,
A man who loves,
Oh dear Lord GOD how I love!
And just one Lord and one lady there
For all eternity,

I am a solid man with love and strength and skills,
A man who pours himself into the help of others
Often un reported and usually un remarked
Yet effective all the same,
And this man no longer needs castigation,
There is no more point nor place in it,
He needs love for sure
But more than that he needs
Permission to love

Permission to love and see that love accepted
Treasured and valued,
Permission to be someone's person and them mine,
Love is what we all are born for,
Not hate or anger revenge or retribution,
Why **** a man or his love "just in case"?
Be ready to react if it fails but
For my part it will not fail,
I will not fail,

Not this day,
Not tomorrow,
Nor any other day,

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

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

You've taken my beau away
Without a thought and then
Do not care,
"It's not appropriate"
To give it back again

And you do not know,
Or perhaps you did,
Or do,
How much that sobriquet
Meant and means to me

Or how keen and deep the knife wound
Through my chest
And heart at losing it,
And feeling torn as you from
Me draw part

Til nothing left
No name of love or
Of affection remains,
Just some bloke you knew
Who's name was James

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...

My horse was showing so much promise,
Fit and healthy,
Much loved and admired
Fresh fed and groomed to a shine,

But a shiny coat and tack doesn't matter much,
What goes on the track counts more,
Amidst the thundering hooves
The sweat and flying turf

It's the placing at the line
That counts,
And my horse?
She fell

At the first.

Fog is a ****** to fight,
You cannot punch it
Or choke it or
Throw it to the floor,
It's just there,
Damp,
Clammy and utterly inviolate

Like the inner workings of another's soul,
We can reach out but never grasp
Another's soul to our chest,
We can soar across
The wastes of space
Yet never quite reach them,

No matter how we try another's soul
Is theirs and once broken,
Perhaps no amount of love nor care can fill
The void created and
Never when that void is full
Of vinegar spite and
Ire

Two birds took flight at different times on pinions driven
By a shared need for height and clarity in the thinner clearer
Air above the chattering noise
Of lower altitudes,

Two birds, both feather clad yet more apart than chalk and cheese,
One a raptor with  keen and savage eye
And beak and claw,
The other softer, silver grey and dove,

Two creatures launched at different points in history,
Sharing a common physiology
Yet at odds in their interaction with the world
And opposite ends of the food chain,

Not once should their flights cross except but once,
Even would time dividing their flights permit,
And then would end in a flurry of blood
And broken feathers,

But against all that these things can happen and sometimes must And did and then
As perception grew in predator and prey,
Eyes widened in unexpected recognition
Of a kindred spirit,

Then immutable rules of living worlds are broken
And the norms of life themselves take flight for suddenly
Those rules don’t count for much
And what then remains

Is unknown

Do we fly?

Or do we crash to earth?

Flowers need water,
Even the hardiest cacti
Will expire after
Two years without it,

People much the same,
But they also need love,
A caring caress,
A tender kiss,

A loving touch,
Those myriad little
Things that make friends
Become lovers

And lovers into soul mates
That last a lifetime
And indeed beyond
Mere dying,

But plants live
With no expectation
Of water,
Just faith that it will come

In time when needed,
And if it does not then
They die not knowing
They were left to do so,

People are different,
I am different,
I crave the little things
And the big,

And unlike a plant
Or a cactus I can comprehend
The concept of that
Interaction ending

And it makes me despair,
And cry

I have always been a warrior,
Full of the energy
That gets **** done,
A powerful man,
A tank,
Going where and with and doing
Whatever the heck
I want,

But, like a tank,
Impervious to the hurts
Of others
The pain and damage caused
To roads and hearts,
A tracked and nacissistic
Behemoth of - as now I see -
Blind unthinking chaos,

Well no more of that ****,
With all that I am done,
For I have found the joyous freedom
To be gained by removing my helm,
Opening the turret,
To see and admit
My mistakes
And drive with consideration,

I cannot mend the roads
Nor undo all the harm Ive wrought,
But I can be transparent now,
Humble and chastened too,
Rediscover that better me,
The one worth loving,
That authentic James
And I can make a gift of him,

Of me

To you

Godzilla-like she sparkles through
Life entirely unaware of the
Destruction being wrought in her wake,
Where Godzilla wrought a wide
Avenue of shattered buildings
She leaves men in confusion and
With broken hearts,

So much power in such small a frame
Belies the obvious strength of Godzilla's mass,
Such poise and effervescence
Could hardly be aligned with such devastation
Yet here we are,
Here we are in a bloodied mess
Of brokenness,

As on she breezes so effortlessly
We rock in the wake of her passing,
Wondering how and why
Such beauty could destroy so utterly
And worse than that without any effort
But without even knowing
Or indeed appearing to care

From Grim Sleeper
And how much do I envy that cool soubriquet?
To confessed tree hugger,
A 40's man
A father,
An honest working guy who yet games
But is also in touch with nature and the vibes
All around,
Able to brandish joystick mouse and keyboard
Yet devine the characters of trees
And woods,
A kind of natural digital bridge
Between two colliding worlds,
While there are such as this good man
Upon the earth
There is hope for our humanity.

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

I see the fire within your eyes,
The smouldering passion and threat
Within your soul and
I blow gently,
Feel the heat blaze
White hot with that desire
Which I would quench

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

My old friend,
A famous song and I love to be in the dark of a near silent wood,
Especially with good company
Of worthy friends,
But the darkness referred to in the song is nobody's friend,

The darkness of the soul when life goes south,
When illness strikes or hearts are broken
Then darkness comes
To **** out life and joy
And happiness,

I am in that darkness now
But I refuse to submit,
I will NOT sit blinded
By my sadness and
That which is inflicted,

I shall live my grief
And outlast it until such time
As love returns and the sun rises
On a new day
Or a returning love

One way or another my heart will sing again

I shall prevail

How many times have
We each said that
One to another,
You to me
And me to you,
Just a word and yet
A whole sentence,
Entire paragraphs on occasion,
Hey hello,
Hey how's it going?
Hey, I have missed you
And I love you
And I am so very very glad
We are in one another's lives
Because it, and this, and we
Are precious,

And although you in your mood
And anger and self-righteous
ADHD infused rage
May never say hey to me
Again in this life,
Even though soon
If not already
Your strop will thaw
And your softness return but
Stay painted in a corner
Against the risk of finding love,
Although you only see the ****** bits
And focus on anything but those
Truly great memories we have,
Despite all that
I am am still here,
And despite verse two I am still
Standing here,

And I am still saying

HEY

Can you hear?

Sweet honey drips from
Perfectly manicured fingers,
Yet neither of us sees
That golden sweet glistening,
Nor the the intensity with which
I gently **** each digit with ritual focus
Until it is clean,
We neither see not because
We are either blind
But because our eyes are focussed
Each upon the other's
And thereby upon the other's soul

"Come hither" she said,
"I'll honey my fingers to aid your decision"
And of course I came
Because she asked,
Would have come crawling
On my bare **** through broken glass
Had it been necessary,
But it wasn't and the oddest thing is
She will never know she did not need the honey,
Just to crook that index finger and
Of course,
To smile

She dangles her beautifully manicured fingers
Languidly in the stream
Honey glazed and luscious
They draw fishes from
Far and wide
And she revels in their
Cute and ineffective
Nibbling

But she does not realise the darker allure
Of the sweetness trailed
From her red nailed fingers,
Nor the strength of the
Instinct to eat nor the rage
Inherent in the nibbling
Of that ticklish little-mouthed
Scrabbling,

But there are bigger fish in deeper seas
With bigger muscled flesh
And larger mouths full of
Sharper teeth,
She seems unaware of the
Attention her honey and her digits
Cause in the depth nor
The rising leviathan

Until suddenly the nibbling stops
As smaller fry take flight,
The sunny day loses
Its warmth and the scene is set
For a different ingestion
As warm and red and sticky blood
Now trails from sudden severed fingers
No more to be dangled anywhere,

She's one of those delectable girls
Or do I mean a lady?
One of those whom,
Once seen is adored despite
One's best endevaours,
Absolutely gorgeous
Yet also truly beautiful with that light
That burns from deep within,
Blazing out from eyes that dance in merriment,

She is one of those who
it's hard to deny in anything
Even that which she doth not request,
Bringing out a puppy-dog desperate
Desire to please which
In another would give rise
To derision but which here somehow
Seems but meet and just,

She is one of those alas which
No ardent fisher of girls will readily catch
Nor display in the face of others envy
On their arm,
For she has a power of all her own
Which cannot be controlled
Or captured nor yet turned to
The desired otcomes of any but her own

So she is yet another ship to pass in the night,
Mayhap to come alongside or
To sail briefly in company
Before suddenly,
As if swallowed by a fog or darkest night
To be no longer there nor seen
Even with the careful search of scopes
As if she never were

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