ONE YEAR ON EARTH.

It’s a year to the day
Since you arrived in my life
And no one who has landed before
Has made anything like the impact you have;

No person I have known
Has marked the ground around me
So compellingly or with such business
And industry as you have so honestly brought.

Love has been
Dubbed before In the
Lanes of my animation but it’s also
Been lost or nailed to its own carried crosses

Without hope of
Remission, or the pleasure
Of resurrection to tether it to,
And fatefully it’s been placed within a grave.

People have sent
Friendship or lent trust
That has been rusted beneath
The insistent rules of my constant rain

Which inevitably
Has washed away any sign
Of their endeavour or spread
Thinly their measure across the plains.

But only you have
Made the move from
Seed to me and grown inside
The husk of my hide with sufficient drive

To thrive and root
And inspire my tiredness
To respond long after it usually
Throws in a towel to announce retirement.

Only your lore
Has had the capacity
To capture me at source
And scatter ancient thoughts of mortality

And failure
That have ailed me
Since I first set foot upon
The turf that worsened at my touch.

The fine kindness
That imbues you flows
Easily into me and soothes
The winter views of my version of events;

Centring attention
Spans that have languished
Since love left me feeling useless
And unworthy of ever finding proof of it.

You have done this,
And with only best wishes
For the next adventure that has
Tempted me into maturity’s outstretched arms;

You have lit me
Internally and bidden
Me to learn more of you,
And together, my love, we are greater on Earth.

APPROACHING THE FIRST REVOLUTION OF OUR SUN.

There are lights
That never dim or fade,
Or flicker for good labour,
And for some they activate so easily,

Though many who
Consume the warmth
Of ordinary brightness
Do so without realising how fortunate they are,

But not I;
As for me the night
Had been the default
Condition of my history’s constant stumble

Until she reached
Out across the active
Vacuum of distance’s hard drives
And brought the swarthiness of my life illumination,

And now,
On the edge
Of the first anniversary
Of our glorious meeting I wish for all to see

How much love
There is in the luminous
World and how it thrives
When the lives of the once blind are touched by it.

AFTER ALL.

After all has been said and done.

After everything this year has brought;
Thoughtlessly or meant.

After standing next to a shapeless shadow
And knowing its face.

After having a cracked window each Saturday
In which to view a relationship with my boy.

After being accused of verbal abuse
And more heinous truths.

After my last strength had left
Me senseless.

After all has been said and done.

After pre-arranged fleeting meetings
Were abruptly cancelled.

After balances and checks were stretched
Beyond the last cigarette.

After smoking and stroking addiction's itches
And stopping and starting again.

After avoiding a celebratory drink
On the brink of success.

After passing into realms of
Absolute centres.

After all has been said and done.

After legal arrangements strained what
Relationships were left.

After feeling bereft at the cost of stretching
Judgement’s emergency budget.

After being vindicated by the drunken incidents
Of his mother’s perpetual failings.

After taking it further than I anticipated
I would ever have to.

After winning the first round and
Beginning the second.

After all has been said and done.

After losing Jim in the flames of his own
Home’s strangeness.

After gaining Tammy’s love in the lanes of
Her American city’s mystery.

After staying the course of my determination’s
Race and facing its responsibilities.

After fulfilling my life’s mission by finding
A final role for its missing bits.

After sitting in a room and being told
I hold the key to Harry’s future.

After all has been said and done

I now have my son.


For Harry, Tammy and the memory of Jim Holley.

SECOND DAY WITHOUT A CIGARETTE

I’m seem to be waiting
In the shade
Of a tradesman’s promise,
That was honestly offered yesterday,
And regardless of how many times I say
I’m not going to do it again
I always do,

And as the shadow
Of his oath
Grows over today’s closure
I’m left to consider bidding elsewhere,
But then there are only so many grants
Available and plenty of days
Left to waste them.

So after licking
The stickiness
From a yoghurt pot top
I guess I’ll stand up and get my hair cut,
Seeing as how it’s now nearer a new day
Than it was when I sat down
In anticipation.

And wouldn’t you
Come to
A similar conclusion,
About the world’s worthlessness,
When just as you’re dressed to go out
A knock on the door announces
Their arrival.

WALKING INTO AUTUMN.

The recent week has seen a flurry of activity
What with Lennon’s seventieth birthday,
And my baby’s forty first,
And a deluge of music
Remixed and released
To breathe freely
As it always should have done,

And we’ve all run the race
And tried to fuse our individual happiness
Into the greater debate,
Whilst the baby’s been taking me for a walk,
Until he reaches up of course,
To be carried,
And I have to question the meaning of it all,

Waiting for this fall to show its true colours
And sully my mood,
And an exposure to emotion
Tire my riot,
And after my pattern’s been flattened
I’ll lay beneath the rafters
Of my house until you lift me again;

For it’s only the thought of you near me that sustains,
But the reality of you afar that jars,
And I’ve been propped up on chocolate
And cigarettes and pop
For too long now,
For now all I need is you
To bruise my cheeks with winter kisses.

MY VOCATION.

At
My school
I was one of those kids
Who thought that bed testing
Would be a worthy occupation for sure,
But,
Once left,
I realized enough
People already did that for a living
And that the pay and conditions were poor,
So
I wandered
Into shipping, which,
To its credit, wasn’t responsible
For the eventual debt I was saddled with
As
That was
My own doing
Due to this particular career
Choice not affording me the life I lived,
By
Which time
It was too late to
Stop the rot setting into
The dry timbered hull I’d lazily built,
And
Ever since
I’ve searched the Earth
For worthy work and luckily
I’ve found a sturdy girl to employ my skills.

UPON A PROPOSAL.

A proper bottle opener,
As opposed to teeth is needed,
And a cigarette lighter
Instead of hob heat;
A quiet restaurant corner,
And a meal of made proportions,
Should be thought of
And brightly ordered,
And after an attack of the practicals
We should enact the rituals
Of asking and receiving
An answer in full.

And so it went and was meant,
And we stayed until we left,
And when we did it was with
A tidy reply and the best intentions
For a life led together,
And should the weather of selves
Swell and swirl and hurl us off course
Then we’ll turn to face the force of us;
Burning a new path
In the map of life
And forging ahead
As man and wife.