THIS DAY

This is a day I will remember -

I feel closer to you than ever before.

Once we conversed like strangers,

Now there’s much trust and even more.

I am jubilant to see you happy

And proud to know you’re sure

Of years ahead and lifetimes

Together on one or other shore.

We will swagger through love’s jungles,

Ambling coupled as we explore,

Knowing our souls are tangled

Like tracks across the wildest moor.

Perhaps we’ve been in each other

All along as Rumi would implore;

Or maybe it’s a coup of chance

That bids us join and fly and soar.

All I see is pure perfection

In your face and mind and more,

Tendered as gifts to please my heart

And marvels for me to adore.

PHOENIX

Are my treasured memories

Collapsing into comas of oblivion?

Does the darkness of lost years

Hide our ruin in false hopes?

And yet the reminders of you

Rise up with every morning’s light

And swoop into night’s blistered dreams

Like a phoenix in fair and fancy flight.

I walk the beaches every day

And marvel at the shades of blue.

I imagine you gripping my arm

The way you used to do.

I see your black eyes shining

As you speak and softly laugh.

I marvel as the sun kisses

Your skin just the way I want to.

If only we had been brave

And taken those final steps.

Our hearts might well have saved

Our babies from their nothingness.

But I still pray that you might rise

Adorned with triumph’s sashes

From the flames that severed us

And turned unlawful love to ashes.

I WANT TO

I want to see your skin glisten

With the droplets of a shower

As you dry shy and shaded,

A pageant for my adoring eyes.

I want to feel your body pressed

So warm against me as I doze,

And the cuddle of your arm,

Your breasts teasing my ribs.

I want to smell the perfume

Of your hair against my cheek,

As your head rests in a place

Between pillow and shoulder.

I want to hear you breathing

Through the darkness of night

And count the times you sigh

Or moan or speak in dreams.

I want to taste your mouth

In the first moments of day

As morning makes us restless

And desire grants us delight.

The painting is a late nineteenth century work by Edgar Degas.

HELL

Once again I am trying to sleep

And failing to rest

As another loud party

Spills on to the street.

Ugly shrieks of women

Hideous laughter of men

Inspired by alcohol

And who knows what else.

If I complained

It would achieve nothing.

I’d seem a puritan

Or much, much worse.

And there is no

Argument with fools.

So there can be no

Discussion with drunks.

How do I know

If the women are safe?

How do I know

If children are at risk?

Such a sadness

Overwhelms me

On nights like this.

What has become

Of my nation?

Where is the culture

My father fought

To preserve?

When did such tyrants

Conquer our land?

Why do I feel foreign

Washed up on dry sand?

Who is to blame?

Is it my fault?

Then let me die

Before they kill me.

WILD HEART

Love is like a piano keyboard

It seems digital black and white;

But its music is infinite,

As varied as each day and night.

It takes a wild heart to play it

And all your soul to heed its demands;

But there’s no manuscript to follow,

Nothing to steer your trembling hands.

There are times you know love’s got you

Spreadeagled on its stave once more;

But she has other men who offer

Grander melodies to explore.

Yet like a fool you take your chances

With desires that suffer no delay;

But she gives her pledge to another,

Your descant slowly fades away.

So what has it cost you this failed fancy -

Just an adagio never performed?

But you know it was so much more than that:

It’s left your wild heart barren and deformed.