Night weep the weary
words that he said
quietly to her heart
as she slept

Mischievious whimsy,
knee high flare
Loosely lifted
On warm summer sighs
Pink on paleness
Lilting with each
Light step
Of bare feet
On burnt grass.
Dainty matchstick
Wrists, turned quick
And ringed with daisies
That drop their petals
Like wishes.
Hair all caught sun
And caught sky
Above cheeks
The colour of flowers.

Heard her heart through the screen
And all the tabloids deemed
Worth enough to smear beneath her name.
Headlined and underlined,
Saw that sadness in her eyes
Long before it wore away her smile

Grace is freely gifted
To those good enough to find her
And though they tried their hardest
I fear they never spied her.

Always there;
Spun silver on peach,
Leaking little agonies
That even with the itching
Never heal.

You're no longer here
But my footsteps
Ring with your laughter
And all the things
I wanted to say
After you'd gone.

What do you see?
Dollops of dreams
Ink blotted on my retinas
As they escape me
Pulled in splashes
And dashes from my chest
Where they beat their wings
Restless.

What do you feel?
Weightless
Unreality, coloured
All psychedellic
And bleeding
Rainbows.
Flowing from the
Secret spaces of my soul.

The burn, icy in the throat
Flaring up constellations as it goes,
Spitting up supernovas that blast in puffs
of grey air and curl into the ether,
like an afterthought.
Tongue tied, lightly listless in the snow
Glowing white with the wonder
Of nothingness in the mind.
Denied the deafness,
Dreary doubts and thoughts of morning, where sunlit and blinded fumbling take hold,
Knowing devolves, unknown.

Synapses sizzle like taut guitar strings,
Plucked with the pining of the in-between,
The nameless dimension
Where everything is and isn't.
No, box.
No cat.
Schrodinger, doffs, tips cap and theory
To the bountiful bleakness of being.
Explanations die,
Shoot stars behind the redness and the glassy-eyed smile.
Words fail, burnt up frozen
And flailing in their mediocrity.
Silence spins, giggles fill its spaces
And gravity grounds the freedom.

He had the echo of the wind about him
Wild with the freeness of never
Being tethered to anything.
He disturbed the calm trees
Bustled about their leaves
With some restless frenzy
That knocked their white blossoms
And trod them in the earth.
He knew nothing of the hurt
All the hopeless bareness of their branches
Split and splintered before chance
Could have them grow and splay
Into shoots,
new and green with a
Respectable pride to their name.
How their babes would wail the loneliness
As he breezed on,
Head never turned
And never concerned with going back
The way hed gone.

Lopsided look
On maizy trail
Rich with sunlight.
How he wished
He didn't scare away
The songbirds.

Everything is small today
Closed in
And choking.
Walls are built
From judging gazes
And doors
Are fumbled to lock
Through fear.
My fear
The only certainty I
Own today
It is the spaces of my mind
Is the beat in my chest
The twist in my gut
And all the dust that settles
On the stuff
I no longer think I love.
I cant look at them
Happier in their times of health
I feel like a ***** among them
Stranger bent and twisted
They wonder why i visited
At all
If i cannot stand to smile.
What is that
My lips are downturned hurt
And muscles ache
With the strain
Of keeping it together
If i should loosen my hold
Just for one toothy lie,
The i should fly apart
Around the sadness
Then who would clean up
That mess?

When the storm abates
Not a single trace
Remains of its lashing
Upon the senses,
Or the dredged up drowned
Tatters of a conscience
That was peppered
By the relentless sting of doubt.

The calm peaks through the gloom
Into the unassuming eye
And hypnotises.
Wiped clear are thunderous
Clouds, all grey with self loathing,
Deprecating droves of icy
Words that circled tornado-like
In the torrential downpour of your world
As it crashed round your feet
Its smytherins the pieces
You used to open old wounds
And soothe the ache within.
Gone are those tell-tale tracks
Upon the arm, upon the heart
The route to all your evils.

Because the sun is out
And clear skies mark the mind
In shades of sweetest blue
All calm and cool in the aftermath
Where nothing is all that bad,
And you cant be sure
There ever was a storm.

Glassy morn
Glimmer at me
Fill my lungs
Aftesh
With freshest air
Delightful and dewy
Mark me with your
Cold sun
And breathe
My breath
To clouds.

He wrote me
wondrous
charmed with
child-like innocence
and soft
with safety

But close the book,
creak of wood
and crawl
of thieving
fingers,
off with the
innocence
let it settle
on the floor,
as stony cold
as all that
softness has become.

He wrote me brave
proud in the way
ladies
should be,
unafraid
and lovely

But turn the
page
and all is fear
and fretful
dreams
soak skin
to awakeness
when footsteps
mark the hall,
and rattles
turn to the
dooming click
of entry.
He hears
every silent
scream.

He wrote me defiant
unreliant on
conformities.
social standing
was just
weakness
dressed prettily

But end the
phrase
and compliant
limbs
fall exhausted
from the fight
and tear-stained
cheeks sting
rosy red
against the pain.

Adventurer, my adventurling,
Wandering the wild woods of newness,
Fern fresh. Smells unknown
To a nose
That knows nothing of wet leaves
And undergrowth,
Mulch that dampens in the rain,
Mossed rock soppy and soaked
With age.
Novice to the backpack, outback,
Untracked tracks on unspoiled paths.
****** to the bluest eyes
Cut softly, gently, waterly
By lakes of mountains,
Lakes of skies.
Mirror to the heavens
The untrodden, barren, open wasteland full of light.
Touch toes to ancient rocks,
Reach hands to ancient stars
And know, that as old and wandered
As you are,
They will always be new.

I loved his hands
Not too big
Not too small
Just right
And fitted on my hip
That splendorous press
In the small of my back
When he wanted me close

I loved his eyes
That darkly gaze of
Auborn
All full up with the passion
And persuasion
That could make me
Doing anything
The toe tingling
Look or heat
When he turned
That gaze
To mine.

I loved his lips
Rough
And wicked
On my skin.
That purse
Of soft sinfulness
That pressed my
Own to part with sighs

I loved his laugh
Husky happiness
Unrestraind and deep
That moved me to smile
Brightest.
Joined in joyous
Inside jokes
That lingered dimply
In his cheeks.

I loved his heart
The steady thrum
When pressed ear
To his chest
That secret space
Of blood and ache
That he gave me access to
I loved it all


But I
did not
love him.

Hold me like you held her
The one I see in your eyes
Whose name you cant disguise
On your lips.
Cherish me as you cherish
Her memory
Dusted off and revisited
In your mind
Kept alive by your
Reluctance to let go.

Share our stories
Like you share hers
With unrehearsed
Adoration
And small smile secrecy
Those moments meant
For only you
And only she,
Smile like that with me.

Love me
Like you loved
And still love her
With that infinite
Reserve of softness
As light as touch to cheek
But boundless in meaning.

Want me
As needily as you want her back
With that
Grasping desperation
That would never
Let me leave
Or let me be
Without you.


But i am not her
The one you
Cant let go.
I am always
The she
That came after.

Had me, held me in verse,
hynonotized me with the lines
he mumbled into the shell of my ear.
Rainbows laced in the vibrations
that quivered, shook within me
As I shivered and he smiled.

They were wild green,
thick foliage of possibilities,
mild mossy tone, that was young and old,
Untold and untamed.

They were gold,
Honeyed, syruped on my skin,
with lashings of sweetness
That sparkled like sugar
On my senses.

They were red
ripe and passionate,
hanging low
ready for my want
to pluck them from the air,
carry them close,
***** pressed, heart racing and tempted
to all that he offered.

They were were white,
Light on the air like whisps of smoke,
quietly sneaking and closing the door, disintegrating into distorted colours
Whose sound I strained to hear,
in the silence.

Leave me lover,
Like autumn leaves
The trees that have
Burnt for its beauty,
Blind to their
Nakedness
When all the fires
Have burnt out.

Are we the same
Souls similarly soaked with sadness
Weighted down with woes and worries
Whittled away to outlines
Ill defined
Against a back drop of finality

Palm pressed
To the glassy impression
Of you who would
Steal my likeness.

Sometimes I feel like we're connected
Heart to heart
String between
Held in place with safety pins.

The path is the same;
Same crisscross of black
And churned up river bed,
The crash of the trees
And distant symphonies
Of trains, of traffic,
As I take each step.

Booted feet shine with dew
And I think of you.

Was it here? This patch?
This green and yellow halo
Shines dully, idly
And I think I can see that night.
Not like its clear
Or that you're here,
A mirage of some other you
Some other me.

They're echoes,
They shout beneath the bridge
Scream up at the bricks
And let it echo
Echo.

That other me
Stranger in this suit of now
Did love and laugh
And cling,
Every little thing was kept
Even worthless poetry,
Those naive ode's to love.

I remember it was cold
And I was slimmer, thinner,
Cut away and wispy
In the chill.
And you,
Were you.
I probably don't know you now
And never will.
Our worlds are fleeting
Changing like seasons
And in cliche frays get
Blown into non-existance.

A stranger promised
And clung
And wept.

But I am now
Fitted and anchored
Not melancholy
And melodramatic,
Whimsical of a time
That I rhymed
In a desperate attempt
At the nostalgic.

That was then
And I'm not yours.
Not anymore.

The world awaits
And I travel side by side
Where weary steps
Did mark the ground anew
Sunrises to sunsets.
Patron saint
Of wandered worlds
Colours dark and light,
My feet
My hands
Know foreign day
Know of foreign nights.
To see each land
Soil and sand
Lives changed along the way
Tis why I walk
Tis why I leave
Because the world awaits.

New name
He speaks it like a new taste
Repetitive,
Reflective,
And I lean in close
To taste it with him.
All our differences,
Nuances,
This is just the same
A carbon copy
Of previous behaviour
But it all feels so new.
Like we were the first,
Threw old names in the dirt
And sheltered under
Our idea of love
Of all it took
To be enough for another.
Me a Mrs
You a Mr
All proud and puffed
With the transition
That was as simple as donning a suit
And stepping out of a dress

Workers boots are full of voices
Melodies and words
Never sung, never spoken
Never written
Just steel toed and ordinary.

Put them on
Tie a knot
Workers boots are heavy,
Heavy with ordinary.

Workers boots are full of dreams
Incredible things
They go by unknown,
Unlived and outgrown
Filed away for ordinary.

Put them on
Tie a knot
Workers boots are heavy,
Heavy with ordinary.