Two Truths

   
These two truths
have always been,
equal,
open,
self-evident
to me:
…all things change,
and everybody leaves…
…eventually.

So while I have you here,
for as long as you’ll
stay
and with no one else
but the waning day, and
the lengthening clouds to hear;
the evening’s rabbits and
lowing cows, as they gather
at the gate; while you and I
have nothing awaiting our attention;
nothing to do
to speak of
or to mention above
in passing;
let me get around to asking now,
who it is that you
really are?

And if you tell me,
as the sun goes down;
I promise only the stars
will be around to
really take note…

Well…
them and I who will listen
at your throat
and whisper
back
in your ear;
soft breeze stirring your hair
and your precious soul til you can barely stand…
And,
somewhere,
in all of this,
I will tell you too,
who it is
that I really am…

And it will not matter
if we are honest,
for we
may only be a summer long.

Missing

    
It is not that I lament
this solitude
nor look on it
with ingratitude for that which I
still have…but they
are cruel spirits who giveth
sweet liberty
with one hand
only then
to taketh away…

It rained today…like needles before the sun
came out;
but without a doubt, there could be
no streaking colours
painted for me
across a grey canvas sky…
for I
could not share them
or hold them,
still closer,
or ever tighter and golden
yet, with you…

and as life chewed at me
and gnawed my bones
and my flesh and
aching soul
I wanted nothing more,
right then, nothing less,
than not to travel,
and to breathe, and think
like fire,
all alone. And I wanted
not to miss you
and a time,
and a circumstance
I have come to know as home among
small hours
that I have leave
sometimes
to call my own.

Most Beautiful

   
Walk with me,
for we have not depths
that the lyrics would have us believe
we
live
only
in this gentle stream and the merry dusk-light
floating wild
like crimson kites, against a humid sky.

And we need
no more to survive, than this
our own heaven created,
indeed, no more,
than this nature incarnate,
and just to be.

And so we answer, “walk with me,
come,
lie down in the grass,”
cut off the shackles of present,
and past and cherish that unworldly crash
inside
as we go free
for here is where
you and I are seen, at our most beautiful.

Thoughts on Becoming Thoughtless

   
There is calm serenity,
or so they tell me,
in accepting inevitability
quite sedately…

One should not howl,
or question, they said.
One should not pound one’s
cursed, confused head,
but stop, take stock,
and plan one’s sessions,
of lethal lead poisons,
meant
to leak,
amongst my bones.

And one should not try to own
that pain
which could be layered out,
for family gains.
One must not care more
for one’s own fate
than that of suffering others.

One must, of course,
be…smothered,
in sad dignity.
One must not get lost
in health’s infidelity.

But here inside,
lies the truth,
of indemnity,
as I see with my own eyes.

One is becoming
Thoughtless,
long before one’s charted time.

One became diseased today.
It is happening anyway,
so why should one not
seek to say
all that has not passed
my cloudless, acutely conscious
and unmerry way?

It is not my choice;
this cruellest of jokes. But
for all one’s hopes
and plans and dreamscapes,
the escape,
I conclude,
(for you) as well as I,
is as random as love.

And I was always more lover, than fighter.
Now, more frightened
of the fight, than anything other.

Take cover, friend. You didn’t see that coming?
Well no, why on earth would you?
The world chooses who
will stay
and who goes out.

It is a basket piled high with woes.
A tale of the final horrors and throes,
you all shall see.

My mother will surely cry for me,
when I am gone.
But what of it?

Come death and welcome,
for clearly, some bastard lord of fate
would have it so.

Inspired by my grandfather, who died of cancer, and my mother who is suffering from MND.

Bird

    
Fashion me from straw and cut me,
please,
right down to size
for I have been anything
but wise amongst these days of late.
I have been but
a taste of many things,
most of them without the wings and halos
you’ve come to expect…yet
I’ve still grown those golden
flecks,
in my down,
that the sun breeds just
the same,
and I could live in a metal
cage,
in the lounge,
for all your friends
to prod and touch at the end
of warm nights –
with clipped feathers and a stunted
flight, they can marvel
at my plumage…and I’m sure
they’ll pay you homage,
for a genuine, fantastic choice.