When I saw you in the playground
I thought you looked pretty,
I thought I bet she's fun to be with,
I bet she's a good kisser,
I thought, I bet our children grow up
Strong and healthy like I hope I do,
And I work hard and always love
And protect her.
When I saw you in the playground
I thought I bet she makes
A man of me.

Love don't come to me
When I need you the most
In the towering, mousey night
In the swirling, foggy darkness
In the breathless, graveyard shadows
In the gnawing, soulless cold
In the gaping, beckoning loneliness.
I'll be stepping out soon enough
Into a fine fresh Spring morning
And then I'll be worthy.

She drives her man on
Over the cliff
Into the abyss
And the soft green meadows
And the ten million seeds.
I didn't even know
I was crashing,
Body try to keep up
With the butterflies.
Since you last touched me
A lot has happened.
And nothing.

When there is a lull in the fighting
And the dead have been buried
And the cries of the wounded have died down
The survivors rush off to the hairdressers.

Two lives became one
Became one again.

Two prayers, understood, unspoken
Complete as two halves
Now shouted aloud
But halved.

Food chosen for three
By small fingers pointing
Now bought for one
Prepared as solemn ritual
In silence
At the end of the day.

I didn't run anyone over today
I didn't ****** anyone
Or rob any little old ladies
Or steal from the church coffers
I didn't judge or criticise
Or expect too much
Of anyone
I didn't stop caring
Or hoping or praying
And I didn't stop
Loving anyone today
So maybe that is it.
After a lifetime
Of underachievement -
Vindication.
It's what we don't do,
Don't say
That defines us.

For you, with you
I will hide away
Those tears
That long to be shed
And seen by you.
Knowing such happiness
Is to miss
When sweet ignorance
Was bliss
And those smiles
Shared and precious
To strangers
Only remind
Of far away faces
Never again
To reappear
Or once more
To feel so dear
To the heart
That beckons
And waits
And prays
And lives in fear
Of losing again
That which
Has been lost before
Of finding again
Only to lose
Once more.

If it had been a full moon
We might have made it
Would have been easier
To stay on the path
Easier to avoid the clouds
Trying to sweep us up.
Wind and rain don't help
The horses are tired
Jittery too
I tell them they are only
Eyes in the trees
They can't hurt you.
The old barn is as good
A place as any,
I'm sorry I can't get you home before morning,
You tell me I haven't let you down
Sometimes all that is left to do
Is to take shelter.

I wrote you
Something
Hoping you would find it
On the bark of a tree
In a forest
Somewhere.

I shouted out
Something
Hoping you would hear it
Amongst the crows and seagulls
In a field or at a beach
Somewhere.

I painted you
Something
Hoping you would see my colour
In a rainbow
In a troubled sky
Somewhere.

I cried for
Something
Hoping you would see my tears
In a waterfall
In a river
Somewhere.

And if you did
You could do the same.
Maybe we are communicating
On a different level already.

The apprentice has lost the master key again
And the shops will not be opening today.
In truth they couldn't anyway
Because we have bought everything,
There is no more and may never be again.
And while we fretted about the climate,
Scoured the sky for rogue meteorites
Panic buying crept up on us like a new plague.

Little wonder then we marvel at a pair of slippers
Are eternally grateful for handkerchiefs or a new shirt.
And then there's the child's wonder, the magic
Of that first remembered Christmas
When the world slipped out of orbit
And edged a fraction closer to heaven.

It is up to us tonight, we who are alone.
We are the children again, too weary to walk another step
And asking our Father to carry us a little way.
And if this is the prayer God hears
He may yet decide to give us all another year.

Don't worry
I'm only taking five
No need to shake me
Give me another minute
No need to wake me
I'm just resting my eyes.

I know I'm missing some good skies
I'm still happy to be alive
Lying here, this is good ground
Perhaps I'll come round
Properly when we get there
I don't need the last rites
I'm not seeing any bright lights
I'm not going to start
Confessing all my lies
I don't want to sever any ties
I'm just resting my eyes.

Everyone cries
Look how time flies
And everyone dies
But that will never be me
I'm just resting my eyes.

All night our two proud armies
Fought for control over the city.
Occasionally we popped out our heads
And counted seconds
As if the thunder was a harmless echo
Of a battle being fought somewhere else
And the lightning only a crack in the sky
Which come morning would be miraculously healed.
And it was true, in the stillness and peace
That is born of destruction
It was easier then to find your love
Your hand sticking out of the rubble.

If the biggest thing,
Death
Is an illusion
Then the second biggest thing,
Life
Must be an illusion too.
Never mind that now
If we have all of eternity.
So if you manage
To dodge me in heaven
Which could happen
As I hear it is a pretty
Big place
Maybe in our next life
Or the one after that
We'll bump into each other
At a bus stop
If they have buses then
Or anything stops
And something in you
Will spot something in me,
Hopefully not a spot,
And unknowingly
We will carry on
Where we left off
With me trying
To love you better.

I was the wind
That never blew the leaf
That never fell
From the tree
That never grew.
I was the rain
Before there were clouds.
I was a marking on a rock
Before anyone could draw or write.
I was the sunset
Before anyone could see.
I was a kiss
Before there were lips.
I was a whisper
When people could only shout.
I was the second
Before the first second.
I was the love
That was fashioned
From nothing
That came and went
Back to nothing.
I am the next breath
I will never need.
I am dead
To my love
Even worse
To her I never existed.

Everything is upside down
Inside out
Back to front.
I'm glad it's me that's missing you
And not the other way around.

One of us has a girlfriend now.
She loves him so much
She wants to be with him
At night as well
Even when they are asleep,
So she sleeps with him.
Sometimes I hear them talking.
She sounds very nice
Like a nurse,
And when I open my door
Her perfume fills the corridor
Like apple blossom on a May morning
And I have to go back inside
Until it has gone.

Holding my breath,
Just beneath the surface
My fixed waiting stare
Until it was my turn
And then you used me,
Joyously, like love,
You filled my sky
With your patterns
You shook my sun
And changed my Shadows
For I was a stepping stone
And I remember you
As I remember my life.

I smile so I am happy.

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.

Straining our eyes to see
Where we are going
To remember where we have been
Let it all pass by
In the blink of an eye
For there is nothing here
To detain us.

Sunlight serves only
To deepen shadows,
Birds steal each others songs
To mimic, never answer,
Clouds mill and jostle
For somewhere to rest
Growing listless, spitting,
My footsteps going nowhere
Only more echoes to empty
The days I don't see you.
Oh to follow you into the night,
Unseeing, unquestioning, unknowing,
To relinquish my identity,
My will, my desires,
To eat and sleep
And wake and love
Only when bidden,
To lose myself in you.

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.

I may as well be in love
With a ghost
With a body chalked out
On the kitchen floor.
Are you the delicate draught
On my cheek
When the window is closed?
Is it you skimming the cups and plates
Across the room?
Are you the sound of rustling leaves
When there is no tree in sight?
Do you slam a door
In the middle of the night
When I know they are all locked?
Are you moving that single cloud
Across the sky
Or is it doing it
All by itself?

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.

For better or worse
For richer or poorer
In sickness or in health
There were no choices really
I had to love you
And come what may
Even if it all goes wrong
I finally get the chance to say
The three things I have wanted to say
All my life
There are no regrets
I wouldn't change a thing
I would do it all again tomorrow.

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.

What kind of seed
So tentatively planted
And needing neither
Water nor light
Only the dark secret
Warmth of you?
How I spark,
How I come to life
In you.

Washed up on the beach
By the tide that consumed us both
Alive, barely
But I cannot revive her love
I will never see through her eyes again
Or hear her speak my name
It is up to another now
To carry her to dry ground.

So I will walk away
And keep walking
And not worry that I can't feel the sand
Or hear the waves
And I will not look round
Even though I am desperate
To run back
And hug her
And shake his hand.

The cotton wool clouds
Glued at random
In a giant blue
Colouring book
Are real
And cause me to breathe
Deeply for the first
Time today.
The greenwood
With it's shadows
That question the rights
Of leaves to answer
And flowers, freshly
Painted this morning
By the supreme artist
Who begs us to, who
Dares us not to
Notice them
And the seed,
Airborne at last
Parachuting into
My hand
Are all real,
But I am not.

With another year of emotions to officially uncork
Poker faced poets stand on street corners,
Like town criers who have lost their bells,
And announce to startled scuttling strangers
Their innermost fears and desires.

But I think poetry is best wrongly addressed
Sent away, anywhere,
To hopefully lie down the back
Of someone's couch, unnoticed, unread
Or better still left for centuries
To mature in a dark basement
And then, when appearing quirkishly
Twenty first century
Opened by the timeless language of love.

Of course it takes some getting over
But just when I thought I was ready
To relaunch myself on the world
This had to happen.
So I take my aching heart to the doctor
And tell him it rattles
Every time someone slams a door.
His hand hovers thoughtfully
Over a prescription
And he says, strangely
I had someone else in here
Only last week
With identical symptoms.
She lives on the other side of town
But I can give you her address.

Stumbled across this,
Second hand but you wouldn't know it,
See it's hardly worn
Still in it's original wrapping
Try it on, it suits you better,
You can turn that up
Take that in
A few small adjustments that's all
It's for a good cause anyway,
At that price it's almost worth
Making it fit
And it feels good to know
We did our bit
To remember when love was new.

When you kiss these lips
That have not smiled today
Without my need to say,
When I fall asleep in your warmth
And wake
Bathed in your beauty
Gentle laughter and conversation,
When you touch this body
With your whole
You touch my soul.

Like a giant woken from a deep sleep
He will visit us with his dream
His anger will blacken the sky
Cause branches to lash windows
And rain to pound door and slate.
There will be no time to finish songs
Or shelter in familiar places
And all the world will look up
Praying for a break in the clouds.
Then just as quickly as it came
The storm passes,
You turn away from the window
And there is love in your eyes.

Time to catch breath,
Only breathe
Wait patiently this time
For the one who takes
His chance
The victor,
Punching the air
Dreams of his next
Love affair
The vanquished is left
Remembering the romance,
And the heat of day,
Draped in glory
Staggers, unrepentant,
Away.

Hollow, leafless, rootless words
I get lost in them
Stumble over, cut myself in them.
My words are struck
By the lightning of your words.
They break off and come crashing
Down around me
Like sharp blows to the head.
They render me senseless
And I awake to the futility
Of trying to talk to you.
And then there are those words
Wrenched from silence
Stripped bare, forced free
From the soul
And these last few
Written on tears
Are becoming smudged
And will mean even less to you.

I am up with the lark
Fences and walls to mend before dark
And there every morning
By the old rusty gate
You wave me a greeting
I swear I will never see a prettier sight
As that handkerchief fluttering
Against a crimson sky
And you all dressed in white.

At noon you bring me bread and ale
And we lie for half an hour
Watching clouds race by
Kiss you, I do not
Nor touch your hem
Keeping very still
And wondering when
You will say
'It is to you I will be true.'

On my way home
I watch you reading
At your window
By a single candlelight
You never look up
And so to you I do say
Think of me kindly
When I am gone.

The face of my angel
Is lost in shadow
Her coat still drips
With last night's rain
But I know she is quite young
When she tells me her name.

She kneels at my bedside
Feeding me oranges and grapes
Telling me stories
How the warrior killed the snakes.

And her smile makes me feel
I am worth saving
I can leave behind this mess
That very soon now
She will take me away
Nurse me back to happiness.

The tennis courts
Where we once played through the laughter
Lie unloved and netless in the morning drizzle,
And the already faded white lines
Are mostly smudged and covered in moss,
Winning and losing would be impossible
Even if you were here.

The bandstand watches me as I ease under the willow
And cross the manicured lawn
Where I find an old soggy ball
And as if  you had called me to do it
I throw it back.

Rain, empty, soft, feathered
Leaves roundabouts dangerous
Speeds up slides
Falls unnoticed on a duck's back
Unmeasured in the lake,
But renders the wooden bridge deceptively slippery
And if I should fall from view
It would not raise a murmur or a ripple.

From a makeshift bed
On an unforgiving floor
Where blankets
Like dreams are strewn
Left to be gathered
At some later date,
Up the winding
Creaking staircase
As I had done
In another life before,
She led me through
An open window
Where birds stir
From invisible sleep
And cows are content
To wander all day
In tall grasses,
Brushed by an unseen hand.

She will give birth to a boy
And I will call him brother
And he shall go across four continents
Until he finds her
And their child I will call sister
And we shall populate the universe
With our humanity.

He is a masquerade
Content to sow mischief in the night
And then parade his latest masterpiece
In this case, a morning shadow which looms
Astounding passers-by and critics alike
Who with suitable reverence
Must be seen to observe
What form, what insight, what's nerve!

Next, gathering around a leaf or stem
Painters paint inside,
Sculptors frown at stony ground
While poets leap onto rocks
With grandly spoken offerings
Listening for echoes, hearing no sound.

Unobtrusively we join the queue
Of course belonging to the privileged, chosen few
Hoping we can touch the hands of seers
And peer with them through familiar windows
Recording for posterity, a different view.

And all for what?
For one to exclaim
With hand on heart
Your work really sets me free,
What interpretation
What art,
And of course one of the worst culprits
Is me!

A small boy was flying his kite
With his parents.
I watched the simple family
Moments which make up
A childhood
Then left to wander
Around the park.
On my way back
I noticed them looking up,
Helplessly I thought
As the kite must have
Broken it's string
And was probably
Disappearing from sight
Forever. But no,
It was only lodged
Like a memory,
In a tree.

When you climb into her bed
She turns over
Her eyes flickering open
Welcoming the intrusion.
Her lips smile as she kisses your forehead
With hands reaching out
Unthinking, unafraid
Drawing you into her sanctuary
Her private moments,
Caressing you
Holding you
Like a lover, a friend
A mother.

A single thought
Tires of stumbling about
In stale darkness,
Sees through
His own skeleton future,
Makes it out
Into the light of day,
Shouts for joy,
Changes the world.

Here I am again with my secrets
My lame excuses,
My unfinished prayers
My bits of the day
That fly uncontrollably
Around the room.
Say hush one more time
Soothe a stranger's
Troubled brow
These aching limbs.
Kiss my eyelids tight shut
So that I may never peek again
And wake me
When you have done.

If true love doesn't
Come true there
I don't want to go.
If there are no football
Or hockey pitches
Or golf courses
Or open spaces
Where you can
Jump and run
Or mountains you can
Climb right to the top
Or if there is nowhere
To picnic
Then fall asleep in the sun,
And if there are no tennis courts
In heaven
I definitely don't want to go,
I may as well stay here
In my wheelchair.

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.

Rain is very mischievous.
It really wants us to forget
Our coats and umbrellas
So it can send down
It's ambassadors,
Mysterious dark shapes,
Swirling inner worlds
For it's followers,
Who usually have small feet
With frogs eyes painted
On to green Wellingtons,
To dance in,
While serious people are left
To sit all morning
In wet socks.

On the road that never slept
And never stopped
Trespassing through the ancient ways
The badger took his last breath.
And when the sun appeared
It was a thin cold gauze
Not nearly strong enough
To warm his back
Let alone
Stir a life's blood
As if it accepted
His death
Was inevitable.