My every breath forces you away,
Yet each exhalation is matched,
By the fullness of your return.
And when I run so far,
I can no longer breathe.
Speechless, wheeze-gasping,
You calmly whisper me back.
Just like before.
Our tides ebb and flow,
Ranging waves lap,
Fluxing eternities on the shore.
Against timbered pier legs,
Dry-wet, dry-wet and dry again,
Your barnacled clinging grip,
Weighs heavy my supportive frame.
Just like before.
Choking, vain efforts I writhe,
Striking out for invisible points.
Curved horizons, defying geography,
Just once.
If once, I made its measure,
I might jump and be free,
But surf roughs between the edge and here.
Just like before.
Of bruises, scratches, fractured bones,
I’ve lied, I’ve tripped on stairs at home.
And friction burns from ropes you tied,
Were mystery rashes and woe betide,
The one who queried how I got,
Those slashes on my wrists and thighs.
I lied.
Just like before.
But then tonight,
At way past, long gone Witching hour.
A plan my seasoned nest brings forth.
And mine the tightening grasp,
Whose now the sallow pleading brow?
As weighted, razory barnacled grip,
Seizes back my life in taking yours.
Not like before.
Yes, every breath takes you away,
And all exhalation unmatched,
By the emptiness of your return.
And now I stay so close, you cannot breathe.
Speechless, wheeze-gasping,
You, timidly pleading, whimper back.
But I whisper “No!”
Not like before.
(2015)
Farewell Beauty
(For Eva and Martina)
So you lay with me,
And we shared my last journey.
A hundred final breaths,
As my weary heart slowed,
And sleep called my soul home to rest.
Now I am gone,
You’re alone,
Your Beauty has left you,
But there’s more,
And I must tell you my secret.
The end is not all,
It’s just the start,
There’s so much more to know!
And I will always be there,
My scent on your hair,
I will always be there,
Saying “thanks for the care”,
That you kindly gave me,
I will always be there,
On every path we trotted,
And round every bend,
Where we cantered ’til tired,
And there in the shadows,
We chilled for a while.
So thanks for the fun and the cuddles and scratches,
And one day, I know that we will meet again.
But until that time comes, another secret,
Forever, I’ll wait, in your loveliest dreams.
My sweet breath will gently just tickle your nose,
As I nuzzle you stroking my face, and you know,
That kindness will glow in my beautiful eyes,
As you wrap your arms tenderly round me and smile.
Warm your hands under my mane if you’re cold,
In dream time and forward we’ll never grow old.
So close your eyes,
Feel my love,
I am here,
But for now,
Goodbye.
(11.11.23)
Uprights of the fallen
Almost exhausted, she traipses,
Following her lonely path,
Slaloming dizzily, as yet unsurrendered,
Between row upon uniform row.
Dragging wearied feet and dulling toes,
Our Goddess of life, mourns the defeated.
Their sunken, drunken souls beneath,
Lie answerless to her cries.
Torn flags and mildewed pendants flutter,
Flap-tatterings of the rotten born,
Fresh reddened deep gutters of dying screams,
Innocent journeys, destroyed by dreamers,
Of powerful futures that all of us pay,
As the pennies of many keep those of the few
In riches untold, and I fucking puke, on you bastards,
Dining on lobsters whenever you choose.
Your menu would better be maggoty sandwiches,
Mould, shit and bandages, cooked just for you.
Come, taste the ravages, formed from your savages,
Washed with our blood at the trench café.
For mothers and fathers and aunts and the rest,
The taste of their tears is all that there is.
Mourning in pendulum grief must they pass,
Tombstone to tombstone, mile upon mile.
And what of our Goddess, creator of life,
What do we leave her, how to explain,
That her perfectly wonderful, brilliant plan,
Was ripped at the hands of the powered insane?
Too late are we thinking: “what does this mean?”
As stopping at last, where her own upright stands,
She falls to her death, at the end of a dream,
Taking her place, as dark shadows shroud,
The uprights of the fallen.
(08.11.23)
(Edited 24.03.24)
(Edited 12.10.24)
Nobody Asked, Nobody Cared!
Reader discretion advised contains adult themes
She stayed in a hostel the first few weeks,
New start, new place, strange people,
Odd language, but hey!
Nobody asked, nobody cared!
She could learn fast, and learn she did,
So word by word joining, her lexicon grew,
And Natalya, now Anna,
That simple change, her origin masked.
But like I said, anyway,
Nobody asked, nobody cared!
And soon she found work, moved away from the city.
A seasonal job cleaning tables, quite busy,
Like summers back home,
And nobody asked, and nobody cared!
Where you were from, or where you were going.
At least here they gave you the brush and the broom,
And they paid her in cash, so she rented a room,
Her solitude broken by only a phone,
And those memories of histories best left alone.
Some tourists were nice and she learned a tip-smile.
One Yank left her twenty, another three fives.
But summer clichés, and that history of woes,
(That nobody asked, they didn’t want to know),
Pulled threads in her head, and gripped tightly her skull,
Making knots in her brain that drove off her smile,
Such that every “Hi honey!” and “top o’ the morn!”
All the phrase nonsense, so corny, so worn,
Stretched out her fine thread, which finally snapped.
And out of control, she answered them back.
But you know really, nobody’d ask and nobody’d care,
Had the boss sent her packing, it would have seemed fair.
But, having explained that she might lose her job,
He gave her one chance to explain what it was.
So since he had asked and it seemed he might care,
She told him her truth, eye to eye, chair to chair.
Those things in her life that had made it quite tough,
To smile oh so nicely, when she’d plain had enough.
While they raped her dear mother, the orc Rashists laughed.
Then the boy-soldier bastards of Putin’s proud Russia,
Had tortured her father and buggered her brother.
She hid in the garden, behind the log pile,
Trembling from screams you could hear for a mile.
When at last all was quiet, she crawled through the mud,
Her own mother’s vomit and pools of dark blood.
There were gobs of orc spit and bad magic smells,
No scene from a nightmare, this truly was Hell.
Mother slit-throated, feet burned in the fire,
Brother’d been beaten, then buggered, he died.
Just nine years old, but destroyed and defiled,
He’d never make ten and he’d never know why.
Her dear kindly father, slumped forward at rest,
Death sweat glistening cheeks, bright blood dripping chest.
Gaps in his mouth, which missed all its teeth,
Gouged eyes and tongue mixed on the table beneath.
So if she was short, just once in a while,
With less than best courtesy and missing her smile.
That’s where she had left them, and when and the why.
Now when cleaning the kitchen, the smell of burnt fat,
Brings back sickly memories, of feet singed to black.
And cleaning up ketchup spills, left by the young,
Resembles intensely the pieces of tongue,
That the Rashists had cut from her father’s kind mouth,
To slice it and dice it, in front of his spouse.
And children who run to play with each other,
Are constant reminders that unlike her brother,
They’ll live to remember fond memories jam-packed,
With holidays spent with their families intact.
And from all of the countries those visitors came,
The Yanks and the British, the Germans, the French.
They could have done more, but they chose to ignore,
Because however we’d begged, we’d plead, we’d implore,
Nobody asked.
Because nobody cared!
But they could have done more.
They could have done more.
They should have done more.
(12.06.24)
Mountains of Measure
(For Emily, my Muse)
Guardians of your soul,
Skyward rising from the sea,
They greet you each morning,
Lifting with your shadow.
Finger-trace their summits,
Map the ridges, the cliffy clouds,
And drifting, glide the foggy haze,
To ski the sloping scree.
Mountains are the measure of your heart,
The canvas of your future,
The space and place for dreams,
Formed, yet yielding to your spirit.
(26.02.24)
Croissant
(For Emily, my Muse)
Today you ate a croissant,
It tasted really good.
You ate it in a restaurant,
That serves the best of food.
They also make fine coffee,
And while that’s being brewed,
They bring you out some toffee,
That puts you in the mood,
To glance across the menu,
And thinking of your lunch,
You stay at the same venue,
Deciding to skip brunch.
At coffee time, you take a tea,
Despite the waiter’s comment,
That “tea is not correct”, said he,
Although offence was not meant.
So after tea, you took a walk,
While trying to conclude,
Would beef or fish and chips or pork,
Be better luncheon food?
But on returning to the place
Of gastronomic treats,
The door was locked and there a sign
Said “trading here has ceased”.
You threw yourself down to the ground,
Whatever could you do?
Concluding that the croissant downed,
Had trouble caused for you!
But at that very moment,
You sensed a smell supreme,
Of coffee and fresh croissant baked,
It all had been a dream.
While on the kitchen table,
And what more could you want,
Than cups of steaming coffee,
And freshly baked croissants!
(23.02.24)
Together
(For Emily, my Muse)
When we’re together,
Neither is there,
The two of us cast
A single shade.
When we’re apart,
Our troubles are doubled.
You fearing your fears,
And I dreading mine.
But if we can stay
Just attached by a thread.
From morning to night,
And when we’re in bed.
All can be well,
We will be calm,
Wrapped each in cotton wool,
Safe from all harm.
(27.01.24)
Really! Cold Feet
(For Emily, my Muse)
My toes are frozen solid,
My feet I cannot feel,
My legs are cold as lollipops,
But that’s not how I feel.
My heart’s as warm as cuddles,
With puppy by the fire,
My love for you’s forever,
And never will expire!
(16.01.24)
Beacon
(For Emily, my Muse)
They stood by the Beacon,
Staring at the island lighthouse,
West of the inlet,
Above its turbulent shores.
The keeper’s cottage where
They might hide from the world,
On and in, and why not, under the warm bed,
High on the cliffs, above turbulent shores.
Weekly trips on the mainland ferry,
Harbour jostling with dolphins,
Their pods much more than the worth of the fare,
Keeping the rhythm, near turbulent shores.
Visiting shops for fresh bread and tea,
Blankets and batteries, bacon and bandages,
Collections of letters and sometimes a parcel,
From faraway places, to turbulent shores.
Now some find peace in centres of cities,
Others find calm in a village’s heart,
But they could rest never, when they were parted,
From rough tranquil waters of turbulent shores.
(17.01.24)
Feet
(For Emily, my Muse)
You hate them both,
How indiscreet,
Your left and right,
Each foot so sweet!
You cringe at talk
Of all your toes,
And worry always
‘Bout who knows.
That underneath your
Shoes and socks,
Live two great monsters,
Worse than crocs!
But I’ve found out
About your feet,
The truth you guard
With your deceit.
They’re really such
A pretty pair,
To treat them bad
Is so unfair.
So please let’s give them
Both a chance,
And take them for a walk,
Or dance.
And I will view them,
Check, with care,
I promise not
To stand and stare.
They never gripe,
And never moan.
So why not leave
Your feet alone?
(14.01.24)
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