As I sit waiting in the storm,
My car buffeted by the wind
And pedestrians leaning
At impossible angles
Those few who dare
Perambulate

I watch the ferry that will
Carry me back approach
The dock at a crazy offset
With wind driven waves
Smashing in spite
Against its side,

Outrageous weather
And red travel warnings
Everywhere yet this ship
Will sail and on it will I be
With my car and with my son
Travelling anyway,

And such is my life
In many ways,
For there are many waves
Hurled against me
And the winds that set against
Are huge,

But ships are safe alongside
The Dock
And I would be if I would
But acquiesce
But ships were not built
For harbour's shelter

But rather for the open sea,
And therein lies the issue,
Ships should brave
The oceans swell
And so the same
For me

Can change a life,
Yet not just the one
That you'd expect,
Not just the existence
Of two souls involved
But also those of others,
For not just our hearts
Were gladdened
When I said that I love you,
But another heart jumped at that
Phrase for it pleased
Your mother too

...that I saw
And how did it mine eyes perceive?
For I saw - albeit with hindsights perfect focus -
Beauty and passion and God,
But how did that shine?

How did that preciousness
That value and that potential
Light mine eyes
Through all those layers
And years of accumulated ****?

Yet once seen such a glow,
However glimmering or pale,
Cannot be denied nor yet become
Unseen nor unknown, and
Definitely not undesired,

And now the effort spent
Spitting on rags,
Buffing hard to remove
Decades of perceived unworthiness
Are bearing fruit,

For now I see a more
Even lustre as my
Project and my protégé
Steps out in confidence
And power,

Shining ever brighter
With a light inextinguishable,
Because although my effort
Undoubtedly played its part ,
It's GOD that's powered this change,

Not me...

But rocks are hard
And buttocks are soft
And the two do not
Good bedfellows make
And I cannot remain here,

And so I climb,
Again,
Scrabble painfully up the scarp,
Again,
Towards the light

Of a sun which seems
So very far
And unfeeling
In an azure sky that
Holds little hope

But each painful inch
Is one less in the shade,
Every focused lever against the
Gravity of pain and loss
Removes me from its grasp

A little more,
Until eventually the suns rays
Start to penetrate the cloak
Of my depressed state
And even my wracked muscles

Start to warm and,
At the cliff top from whence I fell,
I spy that rock which my back
Missed still stood in place
Where it always was

Did I lean the wrong way
Or did it wobble?
Or was it a bit of both?
Either way it feels stable now
A rock

On which I pause to lean

And as I fell on backwards
Into the vacant air that once
Was rock to have my back,
I felt the shock of water
Envelop me,
That great and boundless deep
Come to claim my soul,

Cold water shock though,
Not the warm embrace
Of my heart attack,
But an alien freezing
Splutter inducing cold
And I do not like it,
Not yet my time to die

And so I struggle back to shore,
Haul myself from the waves
That rejected me and sit
Shivering,
Alone,
And silent,
On the rocky outcrop of my sadness

After every row,
After every disagreement,
Every fight,
There comes conversation and then silence,
And the bigger the discord it seems
Then deeper and more profound
The silence that ensues,

And this one I am in now is
Startling in its totality,
Even words do not disturb
Nor ripple
The absence of communication
And the echoing hum
Upon my mind's ears

It's a sort of stasis
Where time and blood
And passion hang
Suspended in time,
Going nowhere,
From nowhere,
Just there

I know that love will,
Like the suns rays,
Thaw us and warm us
Back to softness and intimacy,
Back to how we "are",
But 'til then and right now we sit,
In silence

And I hate it......

If I  leave this life
Unexpectedly,
And do not get
To say
Goodbye,
Then know this truth
My alabaster lady,
While I had breath,
I loved you

From out the boundless deep
I came full fifty and five
Good years ago,
A helpless mewling pink
Noise on a white terri towel,
My first memory
"I do not want him"
As my ***** changed,

Five and a half decades on,
A lifetime of striving and failing,
Loving and losing,
Achieving some and
Losing too,
Trust betrayed and money lost
But finally a rock to
Rest my back upon,

And it took time and
Many hours of feeling that
Solid safe place before
I learned to lean in time
Of need but lean I did,
And came to count upon
That relief of time
Spent thus reclined,

But I should have known
The dark clouds on
The horizon were meant
For me and yep,
Today I leaned and the rock
Was gone,
So now perhaps time to
Keep falling

To turn again home

Farewell

I am too long
Outside a boat,
Too long away from the
Tip and shimmy
Of a dinghy hull,
The joyous swoop
Of a hull under sail,

Too long since my
Hand rested upon
A tiller,
Felt those five essentials
Work in balance to
Place no load
Nor need a weather helm,

Too long away from that
Which brooks no
Office politics,
No lovers tiff
Nor household chore,
Just pleased to carry me
By wind away from shore

But soon and soon
No matter the weather,
Be it storm or calm,
Sun or snow or rain,
Even frozen lake won't
Stymie my day,
For I shall sail,

And when that wood
Which bears me
Is a diamond coffin,
And life has left my body,
Be ye certain that somewhere,
God willing,
My soul is sailing still

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

How many poems have I writ?
And how easy has the process been?
To think and to conjure from my brain
Unto the printed page,

Ideas and concepts flowing
in a seamless joyous
Tide of vocabulary and
Profusion

Until a while ago.
When everything.
Just.
Stopped.

So what is it?
What is this ******* thing
That circumvents my joy
And my creativity?

Where is it skulking?
Coward! Come forth,
Be fought!
But it would not

Did not
And I did not write,
My pen was silent
But not my creativity,

Until I met some strangers
Who became immediate
Fast friends and true,
I opened up

And ideas flew,
Turns out
The block was that no one actually
Asked me to write,
No one and especially not me!

Well these new friends did,
And the blockage,
In that instant,
Died
And went

And so this verse,
Poor though it be,
And first in quite a while,
Has indeed

Snuck out

Under

The wire

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

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...

War is hell and battles
Are ****** and hard
Whether in flander's fields
Or spiritual plains,

As I sit scrubbing ocre
From my sword's flanks
Lest it's vitriol pit
My blade

I test the edge and run
An oilstone along to
Finesse away dullness,
And look around

At a post martial landscape
Littered with scorched scars Where demons were,
And shell holes whence

Came criticism and ungrateful
Viciousness and suspicion,
And realise for the ten Thousandth time

There is no victory in valour,
Nor glory in a battle won,
Just a grubby pause before
The next attack

Odious indeed is he who sits uninvited
And unwanted at our table
And yet refuses to take the hint and leave,
So throw that ******* imposter out
With a contemptuous boot
Right in the rear and
Cry "******* satan"
Loud and clear,
For unless we permit,
He has no authority here

In the dream (or perhaps it is forseeing) it is cold,
The air carries whispers of ice
That cut through the warmth of my skin
Like knives,
The quay is deserted,
Quiet aside from the occasional
Breeze induced moan from
A beer bottle tossed casually away
To lie discarded and thereby
A bit like me,

As I single up the mooring lines
Of the boat below me its movement
Becomes greater,
As if shunning the cold stillness
Of the land,
And seeing this I feel kinship
With the waking hull,
And a sense of shared impending journey
To the grey seas
Beyond the harbour wall,

As I work the halyards and
Aged sails creak up the mast
The breeze becomes more evident
In the brisk flapping of canvas,
Rime frost on the gunwhales gives way
To dark hand prints as I steady myself
Moving forward and aft,
Steadily prepping for departure
In a routine well known
Across decades,

Finally all is ready,
The wind picks up,
Sundering the clouds to reveal
A clear black sky studded in diamonds,
The navigation lights
From far galaxies come to light my way
As the backed foresail
Pushes the bows away,
Then with a creak the boom quells
The flapping main,

Approaching the harbour mouth
The wind rises further and a few
Long lazy yet driven rollers
Make their presence felt,
The heel increases as the bow tastes freedom,
Nav lights on the breakwater are
Unnaturally bright but no one sees
Nor waves goodbye,
Nor ever will again for tonight
I that was James just crossed the bar

I miss the sound of water
Keening past the hull,
I miss the soughing of wind in sail
And the dull thrum of the shrouds
Like oversized guitar strings
Plucked from my heart,
By fingers felt
Yet never seen,


I miss the heel of the hull as a gust
Catches the sails,
The feel of the gunwhale
Below my buttocks as I hike out,
The restored sense of balance
As my weight matches
The turning moment
Of sail over keel,

I miss that simple shared moment
Of unity and rightness
With a crew who understands,
Or sometimes while solo
I share that instant with
The great good God that made
Me and others fit
To experience His creation

I miss the water,
I miss the wind,
I miss the feel of a taut sheet
And a tiller in my hands,
The surging sense of motion
As the shore retreats
And the horizon beckons
Me forward

I miss all these things and yet
Even as I type this verse,
At the end of another day,
Another week and with another
Boatless weekend ahead,
Like all good fish heads,
In my head and in my heart
I am - still - sailing

I once wrote a poem called
Words Never Said
And the words never said were
"I love you"

But there are other words
I should reveal,
The ones I will never say,
The ones I will not use,

God knows there are
Reasons aplenty why
I should,
Why some would say I ought,

The twists and turns of the knife,
The illogical argument,
The hand biting,
The rage from nowhere,

The blistering attack,
That storm from a cloudless sky,
Savage and unworthy
Stupid words

From a mouth become
Uncharacteristic in its harshness,
Aimed and timed and crafted
To cause hurt,

So many occasions
When no one would blame,
Not even the cause
Could blame me

Yet those words still
Hang unnoticed
Between us as the frenzy flies,
Just barely seen in the battle smoke,

Enough - I - quit

A person who can endure pain or hardship
Without showing their feelings or complaining,
Yep
That is me,
Stiff upper lip and a face of stone,
I will not betray the pain inside,
But what no one seems to remember,
Not even the stoics themselves,
Is that not showing and not feeling
Are not the same,
Not the same at all,
And although my face and tone
Deny the truth
The fact is I ****** HURT!
My heart and my soul
Are curled in a bleeding
Ball in an obscure corner,
Out of sight of the world,
If only they were out of my ****** mind!

Pain I can take,
It's just nerves firing when all is said and done,
A few tiny tiny electrical impulses
Advising of damage or of hurt,

If it's not my head then
I can grasp it and isolate it and mitigate it
And bring the problem under control,
Mostly and more often than not,

Even a heart attack did not
Preclude a presentation duly prepared,
Albeit quieter and more hesitantly delivered
Than my usual confidence,

But the turning of friend
To unreasoning and un-listening foe,
This thing cannot be grasped nor quenched,
Even by a horse sized aspirin,

It leaves ones heart
Pierced with a jagged blade
That rips and tears a hole beyond
Imagining or control,

Faith and care and love
Hemorrhage uncontrolled
Like the tears that course down my face,
Or will if I permit,

The pain I cannot contain
But stoicism is my friend
This day and stoicism
Will stem the flow

Eventually

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

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.

All around me runners,
Running from or running to,
Running aimless
Or just plain running scared,

I'm not a runner,
I'm not built to run,
I'm built to stand and fight,
To fight and not to yield,

But some things cannot
Be fought
Some things cannot be won,
Death cannot be bartered,

Death cannot be bought,
But death can be resisted,
For me and for those I know
Death need not be final,

Need not be a final blow,
So runners pause - walk awhile,
Consider the cause of your speed,
Walk a while

Ask what do you really need?
I'm standing now and defending,
The scared and frightened and lame,
I'm helping and leading and healing

That terror which has no name
So stand with me
Or run on by,
I'm standing here still fighting,

I'm not being meek
And I'm not being mild,
I'm ****** if I'll run away waiting,
Just passively waiting to die!

I wonder if this might be
The last,
Indeed most certainly it has been the best,
The greatest leg up,
The final boost to better
That I perform,

So much history overcome,
So much pain,
Such loss and sadness,
Such tragedy incarnate
Across so many years
It scarcely may be borne

By my shoulder,
Nor mopped by my soul's
Sponge no matter the trying,
Yet slowly now we see
The change,
That change sought so long,

And even as that change rises,
Even as hope and happiness
Reach self sustainment,
I fail in equal measure,
Slowly and inexorably
Fading away,

No longer blazing,
But burning,
Sputtering,
Failing,
An ember,
Gone.

And so again things come to close,
That which started hesitantly
Yet in hope
Just like that begun
In high expectation
And in confidence,

Like that subtle switch from summer
Into autumn
With the knowledge of an
Incipient winter
Which cannot be dodged,

I feel the change from
Convergent through
Parallel to now just
A little divergent,
And the first glint
Of clear water between,

I feel an oh so familiar ache
In the knowledge
Of that change,
That loss,
The passing of someone and something
Highly valued,

And I feel

Inestimably

Sad

Another day's dawning
With attendant bird's chorus
Backdrop to my awakening,
A new sun's beaten gold orb
Hauls over the horizon hard edge
As my feet pad,
With the rest of me,
To ablution,
Shower,
My morning tea,

Over cereal my mind
Considers the day ahead,
The tasks ahead,
The people with whom
I'll interact,
The ones I'll try to help
To better things
And higher flight in life
And in that moment
I ponder my own mortality

Which at some point
Will come home to roost
Although I dont know
Quite when,
Nor where,
Nor how,
Back in my room
A familiar lump is strangely
Still beneath
The duvet
Oh!

That day mortality
Comes home to roost,
That day briefly
Regarded each morning,
That time for this flawed
And challenged man
To cross the bar,
Head West,
To buy the farm,
To turn home,
That day it seems

Was now

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?

Over half a century served now,
Two kids
Two weddings
And one heart attack,
A life chequered with
Equal good and dark and downright bad,
Joy brought to some
Yet to others pain,
So I wonder now,
Can two rights
Overcome one wrong?

Yes I have done my part,
Brought some to faith,
Helped more to a better
More empowered life,
Loved and been loved
And yet always it seems
Lifting others to fly
Like eager doves
To greater things,
Greater lives,
Better loves and more,

Yet still I wonder,
Can two rights correct
One wrong?
Can even I be saved,
Is salvation there for
Even one such as I?
I have been called
An angel,
Even offered wings to
Others comfort
And encouragement,
Yet I so feel that darker side,
That darker things has done,

And so as this journey
Draws to its conclusion
I find myself drawing in
To myself yet still
Extended,
(Over so in fact) to the wellbeing of these others,
Still there for them and yet
At heart and
In the dark
I am alone aside
From the judgement

Of unelected disdainful
Self-righteous prigs
Yet here I am,
Up to my **** in alligators
Yet still trying to drain
Other people's swamps,
Still bailing while
Dodging the bites and
Still quiet,
Still alone,
In the dark,
As the coffin lid,
Slides home.