Eyes wide open
the adventure begins
kicking sand and crushing shells, hunting for starfish with his new friend.

Laughter and shouts fills the air as they run with the dog without a care.

Then back to the car to move up the coast and a chance for a moment to thaw themselves out.

Skipping like fools all holding hands watched by his mother as she laughs out loud.

Then calls to come as the day is done, their faces cold as they've looked in rockpools.

Mummy look! Here are the fishes as the time flies by and the wind is bitter.

Blue in their cheeks it was time to go, so shoulder rides to cross over the rocks.

Almost there as the cold wind bites, but always time for a pitstop for Ice cream.

Then home as they laugh and start to warm up, their memories made with pockets of shells and a stone for a friend.

A winter's day so windy and cold?
Couldn't see it myself, inside all were warm.

Boston for me was Cheers on TV
A mailman who was loveless
A shrink who was mad
It was history at school
A tea party of fools
The founding of a nation
Now it's an image of pain
The western world see on TV
Akin to Syria and Afghanistan
But now it's not a remote story
It isn't in a foreign field
It is not detached
It is now Real
On home soil
It is abhorrent

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul
Yet so many seem to be broken windows
Or shuttered so that no viewers gaze can see
If they are indeed the fabled windows
I fear many need cleaning

Dark sky looms overhead across the Mersey
Like a blanket of grey candy floss
Creeps ever closer and the cold bite of evening comes
People walk without smiles to occupied to notice each other
In summer they would glance and smile, exchange words
Now the bite of the cold new year bows their heads in symmetry.
They sit on the bus pods in place shutting out all around
Trying to make the journey home in a shroud of invisibility
If you don't see or hear it doesn't happen does it?

Old cobbles, irregular moss between.
Some lifted as natures reclamation puts it's mark beneath them.
Roots splitting their pretty pattern.
Trees being trees.
The tram lines polished tops dazzle me as an early spring sun tries to make an appearance.
Enhanced by the light glistening on the droplets of water on my glasses.
I didn't notice that yesterday.
Cold east wind bites as the ferryboat blows it's horn.
Each captain different in tone remimding me I'm home.
The dark grey sea churning as the ferry fights its way to Liverpool.
Each day the same just different in small detail.
How was your lunch?

Undress me she said
Not with your hands
With your words instead
Then poet take me to a place
Where speech makes my body crave
The more I like, the more you see
So poet softly speak to me
Make the hairs rise upon my neck
Tell me of the written word
Make me weaker verse by verse
Till all is left, my underwear
Then whisper soft and that comes off
I think you've finished, words enough..

Words
If I could arrange them to say what I want each day
and get them onto a page.
It would calm my soul and clear my brain and extinguish  this inner rage.
Speeding around inside my head a million thoughts at once
Writing them down is all that I have to keep them quiet and calm
So if you read what I write, sleepless at night, know only what matters to me
If they made you smile or put a tear in your eye, then the words have found a home
For when you write it's your soul that you give for another to pick up
Poem or book it's a piece of you that you give away to the world
It's  so often the only way a lonely soul can be heard

I think valentines is needless
A media free for all!
Show some one you love them,
As you forgot to for the last 12 months.

Say it with flowers to make a statement, and show them that you care.
Is it them you're trying to impress? Or the rest of the world.

Then tomorrow back to normal till this time next year. When once again a cheesy card and nothing that is real.

Well I can't subscribe to that, for I don't see its worth.
I would rather tell someone they are beautiful when they least expect the words.

Tell them that their smile excites you and makes your universe feel bright.
That you find it hard to talk to them and look into their eyes.

You fear that if you looked for too long somehow you would be lost.
But you stare when she's not looking tempting fate at any cost.


Tell them when you wake, they're the first thought on your mind.
You picture their smiling face when you open your eyes.

Tell them that their voice melts you in some unexplained way.
Because what they say matters, not simply just the words.

But most of all tell them, if you get the chance.
Tell them when they need it most, not as a Valentine's expense

Tell them for no reason, you don't have to shout.
Whisper to them gently, hug them when they're down.

Because it could make the difference between their light and darkest hours.
They may not feel the same but dare you take the chance?

Then there is their humour. Tell them how they make you laugh.
How they make you think of them when they're not around.

So that's all I have to say just words nothing more.
All I want to say but can't to who I adore.

It doesn't mean I don't want to, it doesn't mean I don't care.
I don't think it would make a difference.
Because for her romance is dead.

Beneath a blanket of stars laughter reigned
Held tight in an embrace at 3am
Home in their beds they should have been
Watching the waves break on the shore
With a phosphorescent glow you dont see any more
The end of a shift and a long walk home
Both with troubles all their own
Days to months, then years flew by
Before they looked into each others eyes
Now married with kids and more on the way
Career's and home's its a different game
Years they pass and then once more
They meet and chat like years before
I know the stars are still up high
The seas still there and an autumn night
Her face to him is just the same
Could they ever try again?

One day you realise you love someone. You just know. That's it, no warning sign, no guide, just BOOM! A feeling that turns your whole world inside out and upside down. Fire from your belly that won't be calmed. Like Mother Earths polarity changing ends. They become your North and South. A friend becomes a lover and in that magical moment the way you see the world has changed. Because you share their vision. Then in a flash they have the keys to your soul and can walk through its corridors as though it is their own home. Use or abuse it as a trespasser.
In that moment you have no more armour no chainmail. No mask to hide behind. They hold your secrets and all your vulnerabilities. You gave them away like candy. You place your trust in an asassin that has your very soul to nurture or destroy.
For some they will spend a lifetime there and help you grow and heal, love and laugh.
Others simply use it as a space to rent then destroy everything that you built together on leaving.
They take more than they ever gave. Trust, love, light and more.
All they leave is desolation and fear. Damage that often can't be repaired and a hopelessness that builds walls and shuts out love like it is a poison.

Why would anyone try love again?

Well you can't polish a ****!
No matter how hard you try
Nor can you hold the clean end
Go ahead if you like
What am I trying to say?
I'm trying to make you see
No matter what you try to do
All you get is me

Running late and running on empty with the kids kicking off and the weather against her.
Has to be there for 835 and at 840 they rolled up outside.
The eldest stroppy as she's back to school the middles in a tantrum and wanted to stay at home.
The youngest crying and wanting a feed and her ******* sore from the infants greed.
Looked at and watched by the perfect mums who have it all and whisper amongst them.
Back to the car and home for the feed she looks in the mirror and what can she see.
Yesterdays make up, still on her face no time to exfoliate.

Speak softly so I may listen to your words
Touch gently for your touch moves me
Sleep well for the dawn awaits you.

Asked what I'd do if my numbers came up?
If millions were suddenly mine
Would I buy a big house a horse or a car
Get a yacht and date models or movie stars
Would I spend all my time from beach to beach seeing the world and dining like a king
Would I spend my nights with ladies of pleasure, whose virtue in dollars is how they are measured.
Would I help all my friends and settle their debts
Build an ice rink where I lived for the kids to just play
There are many of them that I would do
But all of them pointless
Without
You

You can't laugh all the time;
Nor everyday
But the one you miss should make you dream and smile.
The one your with should make you feel and be wanted.
The one you love should light your day.
The day can only be as long as the light that shines upon their face.
The night is as long as they hold you. The morning as sweet as their smile.
But you can't laugh all the time.
But you can carry a smile in your heart.

A million different thoughts
What!
If!
How!
A duet it continues, a lamentation to oblivion
Assorted brain functions carry on like a clock keeping time
Not higher but primal try to carry on normality
The physical suffers as they inflict damage upon my tissues, organs and emotions
Practicality doesn't warrant candid thought
"Tell me about your childhood" Which one!!!
One battles to suppress the other and take its throne of light
It has no place in my mind in this irrelevant state of chaos
Then like a calm before a storm you could hear a pin drop in the void between my ears
They are neither here or there
The quantum moment of exchange
Everything becomes nothing
Nothing becomes everything
The dead emptiness for seconds as the transition takes place
As the vacuum of hopelessness once again ***** the lucid thoughts away
Tortuous like air from a dying man's lungs
Trying to cheat the ferry man
Not on his final journey, oh no that would be relief  and sometimes prayed for to a god I don't believe in
But my now daily fight to refrain from losing  myself into the abyss
I only focus on what I think I can balance between Rationality of day when I can maintain it
and screaming pain of turmoil at night
I live two lives split like continents, never touching again after they separated
Yet in binary to each others existence, a duet of spatial rage
It is the cold reality, my curse, my fate
Two individuals one body, arguing for supremacy
Both alert both sharp both denying the other audience
One during the waking hrs one during the slumber
A Duet of desperation as they battle to trade places
night for day, day for night
One a craftsman one a scholar
The church would call it possession
A physician a personality disorder
I call them my Daemons
Part of me yet all of me
You?
You may call us friends

Darkness veils my thoughts
Not gentle, or inviting to sleep
No an intense choking of them

A blackness you cannot imagine
A feeling of alone you can't describe
Not the first time, but may be the last

Like a tight restraint
There can be no clarity
Just a wanton lust for self destruction
Anxiety feeds its depths
A burning tight grip in the chest

Sinister your thoughts collate
Not segmented, oh no
They spiral out of control
They have no place here
Yet have no other home

You're in turmoil and beg for release
Held to mortality by a strand
It's threads thining with each attack
Yet you may see me smile

I don't condemn you for not seeing
You just wouldn't understand
If I tried to explain I'd scare you
You can't comprehend such pain

I die a little more each day
I know not what keeps me here now
Is this simply an existence rather than life
Darkness veils my thoughts

Every page was part of the story.
Every sentence, every word.
Crafted over decades.
Like a book
They treated people the same.
Instead of reading all the pages, the good and the bad.
All they wanted to do was skim, flick through the pages to the good bits
Ignorant of the true story.
how the journey took them there.
Just looking for the happy ending.
Then after reaching the end of the page and realising that the story wasn't complete, they decided the book wasn't for them.
They may read a little more.
Come back and finger the pages for fun, but
it was only a few pages that made them feel good.
Finally they put the book down, tossed it aside and picked up a glossy magazine.
The kind that is relevant for two weeks then back to the recycle bin.
No substance all pictures, sensation and glitz.
In a couple of weeks a new copy to finger through.
So are you a book or a magazine.
Is there a story or a few extracts.
Are you a reader or do you flick through books and never read.
You see one day you have to pick up a book with your name upon it.
Will reading it be hard?
Will you simply flick through it unable to face your own story.

My mind is somewhere else today. A collective lack of sleep and time being the main  protagonists.
But.. A few things made me chuckle.
A good friend and Vicar posted what looks like a screen shot of a prayer meeting on zoom.
Don't think for one minute I'm bashing their faith or ingenuity. Quite the contrary. Talking to him is a breath of fresh air in my experience of organised religion. However I digress.
There are lots of boxes of the participants. And one blank.
With one dark box. No picture. Then that little voice in my head said.. I wonder if they all out of the  corner of their eye kept looking at the box in the hope it says
  "God joined the meeting"
or it suddenly went blindingly bright and a voice said
"Sorry I'm late it's getting busy here with covid, well I'm not late really am I because time is only a  construct for you."
Would the omnipotent one ask how they all were out of courtesy?
Knowing the answer already?
Which leads me to free will.
If God already knows what's going to happen and what you're going to do what is there to look forward to for God?
As you were