I’m running running

for my life

sprinting hard from

 

yesterday

 

the games you played

replay nightly in

my dreams.

 

I’m running running

from the years you

kept me down

 

you

 

diced & sliced

with such precise

dissymmetry.

 

& they all smile with

knowing eyes;

who never saw

 

the hidden knives

the twisted things

you did to me.

 

I’m running running

to the sea: above an

old blue moon

 

looks down on me

& now I’ve found

my dignity:

 

I will be free

I will be free.

The other side of midnight

hides

behind super nova swan ride.

 

‘’No access to the inaccessible’’

just words dripping from a pen

heavily wrought in silence

 

……. & then…….

 

I wake to grey somnambulance

hibernating morning where

the traffic glides.

 

We hurry towards, then turn in vain

from open eggshell of the ‘’self’’

we touch eternity.

 

The other side of midnight hides

rings around the moon

& I am lost in the lute of winter

 

I shuffle into dreams:

What of this dream of life?

Where I’m losing me.

 

1.

 

The trees hang heavy,

leaf heavy sweat heavy

the lone star sun eats the sidewalk

crossing and re-crossing  intersecting lines

that always meet in the wrong place.

 

There is no “you”,

no gallon hatted, boot buckling, bourbon swigging

hunk of unknown man

come to rob me of my European blues;

just fleeting caricature

 

dark smile , closed hands

eyes bounced from airport lounge

to line dancing, hip grinding,,

neon crazy

one bar saloon.

 

As usual I don’t fit the offered shoe

pressure cracked,

smoked glass too soon

I hobble barefoot

in someone else’s parody.

 

 

2.

 

Smell draws across a crowded room,

there’s no denying what you want

soft sure hands that hold secrets

want to own if only for an afternoon.

 

Like the best of your kind

I know the pleasures heavy scented

butterfly tongued with proficiency

leaving only a light hangover

by- passing recriminations.

 

 

3.

 

The air sings grey constant cicada music

& for an envelope in time

I’ve left behind the known limits:

still there is no “you “, may never be

just strangers snatching snippets

 

where here, like everywhere

I sit and hum impatiently.

 

 

(To listen to me reading this poem click here  )

 

‘’How do you love?’’.

He said

 

She held a picture in her head, of him

& answered: slowly day by day

 

‘’I’m green & gold & sometimes sunrise red’’

 

‘’How do you live with all of this?’’

He asked again

 

She flicked the brim – full of her pain

paused a moment gently shook

 

the ache they’d left:: the ones she’d

loved and lost to life or death.

 

She turned away as if to say

‘’I’m heady like the bee……

 

believe in something: maybe me’’.

 

‘’How will we be?’’

He cried…

 

She sighed.

‘’I think we’ll leave it up to time

 

it rattles years it undermines

I’m weaving this with golden thread’’

 

‘’How shall we love?’’

He said

 

‘’A kiss just take a kiss from here

we’ll take a kiss & then we’ll see

 

a kiss from me’’

 

 

I’ve got the deep October blues:

then, summer shimmered in my bones

 

but now the earth has turned to night

& sleep is all that fills my life.

 

I dreamt of you & there you were

your voice the same, your laugh that

 

turns me inside out.

 

But I won’t take that London train

to see you now.

 

I’ve got the deep October blues

or is it age that’s tracked me down

 

Love it seems so immature

& too much effort to pursue

 

to only be alone again.

 

The Buddha told us to let go

that life’s a never ending dance

 

of saying goodbye

 

so here I’m listening to your songs

that make me cry.