I hope you understand my

L eaving you was hard. It’s not
O nly the distance that hurts like an empty promise. It’s the
V ery fact that for
E very single-second I am away

Y ou forget what we were.
O r do you? I know I cried drunk
U gly tears when I heard what you had done.

The view is breathtaking.
If you could muster the words
you’d say it was more than
the purest dreams of man.

Small sailboats in the bay
reflect the sunlight like stars
in a perfect night sky.
People stop as they walk by.

The town sprawls before the ocean
bowing to the lapping waves.
The harbour is alive with voices
of men at work, men without choices.

To look the other way, turning around
the hills roll into mountains
decorated with a carpet of redwood.
How long for? It’d be gone if they could.

I look down in front of me;
a pad of paper, a blank page,
a clean slate of possibility
lays deadly looking back at me

expecting another rhyme.

She executes her line beautifully.
She executes it to the extent that
I can’t hear her in my poor bleeding ears.
(Not that I understood what she was singing!)
It’s all opera to me.

An omnipresent presence
narrates “Mind the gap”
as you step from
the platform. The carriage
is full. Full
of people on their way
to work,
to play.

He is in his suit.
Smart shoes reflect the
flickering fluorescent lights.
Lightening blue sparks from the track
below, explode
at the profanity-etched windows
with a midnight moonlit-glow.
A look of knowledge falls
across his heavy face –
work is the next station
stop.

She is standing.
Awkwardly. One hand up,
clutching her lifeline-pole –
the only reasons she is
upright now.
Her face tells the
story of last night;
one too many.

You will always hold a place in the heart
of me; making me feel as if I’m home.
I can see myself with you, my new start
as I leave safety to live on my own.
What is it that draws me to you? The way
you have everything to offer me and
more; with you I can spend my entire day
doing nothing; I just don’t understand
how you make me want to come back so soon.
A dream of the future is all I have
to keep hold of between now and next June.
Until then, money is what I will save.
I would give anything to be with you,
to see you again just to be a two.
Only a Memory

I was walking in the park,
an archway of friends holding hands,
dark green fingers locked together
lined the coarse concrete,
blocking out that eternal daylight streetlamp
thousands of miles away.
Each parasol leaf doing its part
to shield me from the white white heat.

A giant stone doorway greeted me;
a toothless mouth, smiling around me.
As I walked under, another stream of the
world was passing over head.
The dark moments I spent alone in this space
refreshed my exhausted frame.
On the other side
the burn of day had returned.

The grass had changed;
Baked into something new,
transformed by feverous warmth.
A solid scent filled the park, and
filled me. Now only a memory.
The bed was floral patterned
alight with the summer’s sun,
shining back up in prayer.

You were there, centre to
my current world. Stationary and
cool in the blistering heat.
That stone heart of yours will never melt.
You stood there, grounded
on the pedestal I put you on.
You stood proud. Still.

Butterflies do not lie.
Life begins
in the dark. A life confined.
Dependent on
an outer shield,
a shield designed to stifle pain,
to resist truth – a way of protecting
the inside. One day is
all that is allowed
for this life.

They can majestically transform
from what they were
   to what they are.

Escaping the nurturing cave
which once was enough
should breathe life to this life;
freedom comes from flight.
Butterflies know
regardless of orientation,
the direction which they
must fly. Butterflies
do not lie.

Welcome to LAX
the voice chimes through the speaker.
Welcome to waiting…
Passing the time as best you can,
in as many ways as you can,
in as many solid and torturous
economy lounge chairs as you can.

Landing early from a connecting flight
sounds perfect, almost beneficial.
It resonates with positivity,
as if you have gained time.
When all we gain is time to wait,
to waste.

T minus thirty minutes until boarding begins,
T minus forty five until take-off,
T minus moments of my life.

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen
Gleefully, without a care pierces the gate attendant.
Gate 48B, I can’t think of anywhere
I would rather be.

Keeping my baggage in sight at all times,
in sight at all times,
from a watchful security camera eye.
In sight more than ever, close to 5 years on.

To think that once you had fallen for me,
you had already thought ‘bout moving on.
Love is blind and your lies weren’t clear to see
and I was involved in you far too long.
He cannot promise you the same things that
I can promise. No matter what you say
I am not the one you should be mad at;
look at yourself. Don’t look at me that way.
Despite all the headaches, I forgive you
for the damage. I don’t think you know how
much you hurt yourself. If only you knew
how little I’ve been thinking ‘bout you now.
Maybe the choice you made will let you change;
show you love is more than fluid exchange.

        It’s Tuesday.
             All day.
No longer Monday,
not quite Wednesday.
So far from the Weekend,
           The Weekstart.
Just stuck.
Here.
In Tuesday.
Why does nothing ever happen?
I guess we could make something happen.
But why bother?
     It’s only Tuesday.

Chairs in regimented curves
pay attention to the lectern’s vacuum.
One by one at four we arrive,
choosing our chairs. Comfortable,
after an introduction,
the reading begins.

I listen, but do not watch as others do,
I watch the room.
A mix of people, old and new,
focus intently on
what there is to say. A poem
ends. The first to be shared.
A breath of closure issues
from everyone, and the poet.

Aahhh.

A new poem seamlessly
begins on the same topic. Men
and what it means to be a Man
in the world.
Another breath closes
another poem. Aahhh – just as before.

A new poet seamlessly
attends the recently vacated lectern.
One by one she articulates
morbid poems to rows
             upon rows
of comfortable chairs.

Again that sound. That aahhh
swells from one side of the room
                                    to the other.
It is the sound of sleep; a lullaby
for each poem as it ends and is put to bed.

Hushed applause echoes
around the room, swelling
just like our content
night-song chorus of aahhh.
Thank you for coming,
no, thank you for sharing.

Aahhh.