What right have I to expect
Skies to open up rainbows
Of answers and hope?
Or send down petals
Heavy laden with fragrant cures
For all these ills.
Or mountain ranges
To unearth themselves
To be at my beck and call,
For rivers to change their flowing
On my say so
And you, why should you choose
To see something in me
Worth loving?

Midnight.
Locked up, turned off
Tucked in,
Said goodnight to
Prayed for
Listened for an answer to ...
Silence.
The dripping tap starts
Must always have been there
Like a countdown to morning
Leaves me counting the seconds
Until the next one
When sleep turns me off.

Still here, another year older
A little closer to being
Another year colder
In that place we don't talk about.
And here you are
Heaven sent, right on time
Ah marvelous time
Don't want to waste it
With the pre *** meal
As if the world needs
More food and water
Or the pre *** chat
Couldn't we get straight
Down to it?
Why do I have to spell out my dreams
In words small enough
For the child in us to understand?
Ah there's a thought, as if
The world needs more young dreamers,
Come to think of it
Let's skip ***
I want to love you
As if the world needs more love.

The orange street lights wait
With heads bowed to be relieved.
Rows of curtained windows
Long to draw back the night
And excited raindrops cling
Perilously to leaves that would quiver
But nothing dares flinch
Or stir from sleep
Until we receive the call
That the gallery is about to open,
For this morning we are all
Painted so perfectly still.

All that is except for the clouds
Those great grey whales
Whose mystical journeys
Are chartered at first
By the faintest streaks of blue.
From under the ocean I marvel
As their huge resolute forms
Lumber purposively across my world
And I realize that the miracle
Has happened again,
I can breath unaided.

Now smaller shoals of fish appear
And lighter in form and texture,
All they want is to play
So let them have their moment
Let them disperse and lose their way
Or else face the conquering
Legions of a Royal hue.

But for now, gentle radiant light filtering down
Permeates it's subject, like a thank you.

Every night I prayed
Thankful for my life
A home, a job, a son, a wife.
My prayers, I believed,
Kept it all together.
Thankful also for our health,
Grateful for the simple things
For I thought
If I took nothing for granted
My prayers would have
More chance of being noticed.

And then you left.
Taking your prayers with you
Must have meant you stopped
Praying for me.
I quickly realised how yours
Had been the only ones
That had been listened to.
Mine had probably never
Reached their target,
Falling somewhere back to earth.

Body I will lay you down now
Leave you in the bed
Because I want to enjoy this morning
Free from pain.
And mind, I will leave you
A little further down the path,
Thank you for all you tried to do.
And soul, let us go on
See where this goes.

No more shall we talk of the passion
That swells the tides, fills the sails
And turns us into explorers,
They say it is overrated anyway.
Give us a cosy room
And tucked up safely in bed
Some hot chocolate and a good book instead.
An adventure with lashings of romance
Would be perfect.