I always wondered how I would die and now I know I'm thinking, hey that's not so bad, because I will be visible one minute and not the next.

Let the flowers grow where they grow
Empty hands are still good hands
There's nothing to reach out for
Or hold on to or push away
No splinters or cuts to worry about
Breaks are healed, scars faded
There's nothing to touch or feel
Nothing to count
No one to wave to
No hand to hold,
And it was all right there
In the palm of my hand
This life
There for the taking
There for the receiving
There for the giving,
I let it slip through my fingers
But empty hands are still good hands.

There should be a word count
After all we only get so many chances,
So many prayers in every life.
Only God knows all those I did and didn't use.
Poor words, they never get any credit,
We can't even decide on
A universal language for them.

They should build monuments,
In Honour Of Unread Words.
Still, who would visit?
Instead we have shopping lists
Stuck to the wheels of supermarket trolleys.

Abused, misused, misspelt
Misunderstood, misquoted
If they put in a complaint, who would read it?
Take the most overused ones, those usually said
years too soon; 'I love you.'
And that one always said a few minutes too late; 'Sorry.'
Words must be exhausted and confused.
It's obvious to them what the next one should be, but not to us.
We stare at a blank page
Expecting them to pop out.
They would if we would let them.
Poets make it worse.
Their luminous portal is my door.
Still art thrives on confusion.

But words can easily get their own back,
Our reasons and excuses look silly
When we re-read them
And our attempts to make ourselves look good,
Are fake.

When you left I gave up on everything except you.

Don't let them tell you
That you are good
If they start to say it
Put your fingers in your ears
And sing Dixie as loud as you can.
Good is worse than *******
It's commonplace
It's ten a penny
It's entry level for any writing
Or anything artistic.
Good relegates you to a life
Of expectation and frustration
Because you will probably
Never achieve what you want to.
So you'll need to be a super talent
Maybe one in a million
To really get somewhere
And if you are I imagine
You'll need two things,
To work hard, very hard
And to try to keep
It all together
Which I'm guessing
Might be the hardest part,
It must be unnerving
When you realise you can
Fly up ladders
While everyone around you
Keeps sliding down snakes.
Oh, and good luck.

One minute we are playing
Quite happily
On swings and slides
And roundabouts
Then suddenly we find ourselves
On The Thunder Mountain Railroad
Stuck in The Haunted Mansion
And trudging up Space Mountain
And The Twilight Zone
Tower of Terror.
I don't remember signing up for
Expedition Everest,
But I must have done,
At birth,
And The Top Thrill Dragster
The Swarm and Racer.
So I was wondering
Has it all just been
One long ride
Or has everything in my life
Led me here
To this moment?

You are always looking
Slightly away from me
So I only get to see
One side of your face
As you gaze out of the window
Or peer into the mirror.
But reading your poems
I wonder how you even
Have time to write them
Why you are not swept up
Every day to a safe and wondrous kingdom
By the very brush
That painted the universe.
And though we will never meet
And I will never get to see you
From another angle,
Face to face,
It's easy to have feelings
For that side of you.