Tuesday 20 November 2012

First attempt at a Terza Rima! Not finished yet :)


The rage in your eyes,
A distant reunion,
You cover the skies.

Without this you’d move on,
Fall down with the rain,
Define this delusion,

Detract from the pain;
The howl of your breathing
Fragments the strain.

I see that you’re grieving
God knows I am too,
To see her there bleeding

It broke you in two.
I’ll remember that night
Until I am through.

Thursday 8 November 2012

For Now


She takes a step back and
Wonders if this will be
Added to her long list of mistakes,
Or if those 9 weeks of
Happiness were really all that
Would have been given
Despite what she said
Or did to make you all
Turn away again,

Like a lost child
In a rainstorm, her
Socks soggy through
Her summer shoes,
Unable to deal with
What could have been avoided
Had her mother only seen the
Signs

And stopped her baby from
Going out alone again,
When she’d seen all too
Many times before the pain
A raindrop can cause her
Pale complexion when it has
Already been burned by the sun.

The splits in her skin
From days gone by,
The last time she barely survived it,
So to make her
Feel a monster for your
Own fraud is
Nothing
Short of cowardly.
This deceit belongs to you.

And when the
Midnight hail threatens
To crack the windows of
Her bedroom and destroy
Her final sanctuary,
She questions where
Her sanity truly lies, and

Wonders if this world even fits
Anymore,
Could there be another that
Doesn’t rub at the flesh
On her heels quite as harshly?

But for now she sits closer
To the line but not quite on it,
Because certain things are worth
Holding on to;

The children she has not yet
Held but loves irrevocably,
The songs she sings in the
Kitchen on winter nights in the
Amber glow of the refrigerator,
The call of cities 12 hours away
That beckon a new life where
Nobody feels it,
The coffee rings on writing desks
And sunlight tainted beautifully
By the windows on busses,
Muddy puddles or the
Glasses of a stranger reading
The newspaper.
The blue eyed boy with a
Gruff morning voice.

For now, they are enough.

Monday 29 October 2012

Always This



My old home and a blue sky,
The evening sunlight in my eyes,
Remembering ’08 in winter fields
And back to summer on the lake
Describing my home to him thousands
Of miles away,
And how I forgot to tell him about
The Christmas lights
And the comfort of the cold air,
The children laughing on their way home
And the way it feels in October when I’m
Walking through soggy streets.
And how many worlds stand between us?
And my slice of his childhood 10 years
Ago still echoes,
And I wonder if I could ever really swap this life for
That; snow every December and ice skating
In the old school playground.
Would those memories ever replace what I
See now in front of me, would the seasons
Shift from orange trees to knee deep
In snow and rooms full of tinned food
Just in case?
Of this, I’m unsure because somehow,
Somewhere, I will always be this.
Always that bench and that first kiss,
Always that bridge where for one year things
Made sense,
Always that summer and those faces,
Always me and the other half of me
Discovered at 14 and never lost despite
What happened on New Year’s Eve three years ago.
Always the boy down the street who
Forgave what I did to him on Christmas Night
2009,
And the way he still comes around for coffee,
Asks about my Mother and says he likes
My new haircut.
And despite what he has to lose by being here
He stays still,
And does not falter in the name of new
Dedications or worrisome green eyed
Girls,
A loyalty I know won’t alter even
If the girl next door returns his
Affections and his voice echoes through
The thin walls of our shared home.
A silence and a city that
Glows with days passed;
My home for now,
My home forever
Even if my lungs take their
Final breath on a foreign land.

Never Do


Opposite the table, a simple way of saying it
Without even meaning to or wanting to,
Or knowing if you can.
But you say it, and I’m still
And gently contemplating my words.
Here is yours, but mine for now is hidden,
Because mine is worse in my own mind
Than it could ever be out loud.
Words will fail me and so would you if you knew.
So for now, I keep mine safe and away from
Questions and concerns,
And I know you kept yours buried until
I tore it from you accidentally,
And for that you know I’m sorry.
But bravely you continue like I know
I never could,
And I don’t judge you or
The others who have dropped theirs in front of me,
Some even wear it proudly.
But I only feel safe knowing mine
Belongs to me,
My past belongs to me
And this keeps me sane;
For until their eyes see what’s behind mine
They cannot judge the things I want,
Or say,
Or never do.  

Sunday 5 February 2012

So I Wrote A Song...

I didn’t know you had a story,
A hidden tale of fear and glory,
Trapped behind your eyes,
Baby.
I didn’t know if you could save me,
Take me away, and then just maybe,
Kiss me in the dark, parade me
Around the town in your new car,
We’d sit around and play guitar,
And laugh about the way we were,
How did we get here, how did we become who we are?

And I’ll never forget the way the sun shone,
The way that I felt when I knew that you were gone,
The feel of your bones pressed down on my bones,
The wind in our hair and the fear of the unknown.

I’ll always remember the sound of your footsteps,
Walking away as I cried on the doorstep,
Leaving me here with the taste of what could be,
A bitter reminder that you made me happy,
That I’d never be the person I could be,
That no one would ever see what you saw in me.

And I’ll think of you every time that the rain falls,
Every time the sun shines or the wind blows,
Every time my breath fogs up the glass,
Every time that I lay in the grass
Staring at the sky,
My part of your story ended with goodbye.