Time pulls
between us like elastic
it stretches out to rebound
stinging

Sitting here
your hand runs through my hair
your eyes I thought I’d lost
the hours flick by like minutes
till it’s time to leave.

Time lies
the twenty years between us
wither in our smiles
this feeling we can’t shake
can never be inspired by others

though my God we’ve tried.

Time gifts
us moments you’ll remember
when I’ve turned to gold
a ray of winter sunshine
where you’ll hold the laughter

all the light we’ve
polished in our hearts:
now time can go to hell
just leave us drowning in this chance
to love again

one last time.

It’s the writing down of what I can’t say, that incubates monsters

Octopus sliding from beach to verandah
Aliens gliding across an English lawn
children turned into vampires around a Guy Fawkes fire.

In trying to create a mystery from your ordinariness I faltered,
slipped and stumbled on the pavement of your shallow clichés
made scars that ache and welts to mirror the fragrance of your skin.

The perfection of outer casing left me hung-over,
fingers blinded by sleepless nights of non – events,
body cringing from the battering to come, as I courted profanity.

Still the blame of failure clings under nails,
and all the washing,
all the washing, to no avail.

It’s the realization of who I can’t be, all the “can be’s ‘that are expected,
blazing a trail of destruction through these middle class streets
leaving cindered beds and hopes binned like old newspapers .

The things I can’t say rise like the image of a litany, long remembered,
chiming in the brains of dead nuns, pink blamange .click of worry beads.

I was never more sure of nothing as it echoes in the cellular memory of
dying stars still visible in these orange city nights as pulsars,
lending some kind of eternity to this impeachable generation.

Wherever I look poets emerge from cracks in the fabric selling
their prophecies to the hungry emptiness like ice cream cones,

dripping at the extremities.

Its cruelty that superglues this bright successful globule of society
where I dream my out of control scenarios……..

It’s the fragility of trust beyond words, words escaping like steam under pressure
It’s the movement of air from a still life breeze; the apples in a bowl I painted yesterday, a sudden gesture never to be recaptured.

It’s the writing down of what I can’t say.

For courage is a minefield of prostitution which teeters on the skinfold of truth
and all that is worth the telling has never been told,
and you who have tried to touch me fail in the twilight .

For I am lost in the seduction of Angel’s breath rising and falling……..
I am lost in the allure of unknown galaxies, rising and falling……….
Yes, I am lost in the invisible metaphor of “might have been”

While the world revolves in its worn out symbolism,
and it’s the writing down of what I can’t say,

that incubates monsters.

We are two tone
skin colours stark
sweat melting us

into light waves.

We move too fast
to watch ourselves
watching.

Sunshine shedding
shadows on the carpet

birdsong and the wind,
miles of empty sand
between ourselves and eternity.

What do I want from you?
I offer magic gifts, Ali Baba caves
of mysteries, but you for me?

A hand to hold, a body through
the long goodnight, a heart that
sweats with wounded pride,

a broken jar I cannot mend
or transfix the bits to turn you into,
what you should have been:

can only shine a light
point a path paint a picture
write a song,

look into your morning eyes
with the affirming sun.

Singing in the wild willy wind
slipping 20 knots in 30 seconds.

Anchor chain strains &
the land twirls an abrupt circle

A family of turtles at ease
in the cloudy depths

Mr and Mrs Pelican fly in
low over sunset water.

Down in the reef, moray eel hides
stingray slides, his black coat buttoned

the tourists trawl in catamarans
and we dream of loving.

You sent angels to warn me,
the dead I recognise, they whisper
of living.

Whisper they want me

Tomorrow unfolds like a napkin,
white spotless invisible

I belong nowhere

Sleep brings no answers
I dart in the dark, trail the light
sail an empty sea

Body’s deep hubris.

Sea sucks sand
alternating rolls
wave after wave
of blue puff.

Dolphins’fin
Barracuda arches
& I am drifting, at sea;
my head a blue disk.

Islands roll
fully formed
from beds of volcanic
meltout.

Palm trees, ants eat
anything & me,
soft breeze, westerly
recurring and recurring sea.

High tide, new life
blessed isles
rolling in, rolling in,
just waiting for me.

Frigate bird floating
above a bed of dead
coral calling

sea rolls in, bumpy bumping
rocking me from sleep
tossed by full moon tide.

Tonight my lover sleeps
five fathoms deep, I
drowned him with love

watched him float away
eyes staring, limbs nibbled
by fish

& the tide calling.

Black night moonlight
the sea a curtain of itself

deep down the volcano grumbles
waiting to bring devastation.

All is flux: no end or beginning
patterns on the water hold our eyes

mesmerised, offering no answers.

Moon at 4 a.m. the rocks loose heat
on the hillside where bare bones of

parched land withers.

The locals tout for tourist money
boats pass and re pass going somewhere

seeking solitude

as I am.

I might have done it

Because you wanted to
because you asked

I could have done it
if I shut my eyes

thought of how it was
before we started this.

We might have made it
in the future conditional
of parallel lives,

where we sail forever
under the green flash
of Caribbean skies

We could still do it,
& I did try

but first I pushed
you to the limit,

didn’t see why
you shouldn’t pay the price

for your indecision
your little white lies

that made it all seem alright
(in your head) .

I asked for all or nothing
(which really wasn’t wise)

when I began to understand
that no love lies in shadows

under these sup eternal skies
with the full moon blinding us.

There’s a turtle
sleeping under me

down in the turquoise depths
where Neptune dreams.

There’s a turtle
sleeping under me,

its belly soft and gleaming

floating with the current
feasting on the sea grass.

There’s a chalice
with my name on,

full of dead men’s hopes
& red eyed coral.

Where the jelly fish
stream to sting me

where the white shark
hovers hungrily..