One Way

I met this boy when I was only barely eighteen
We met under the moon on a one way street.
And we can, we ran
In the only direction that we could see.

We saw each other again the very next day
Held the other's hand as we sped away
Feel the wind, the air
There was nothing that we needed to say.

We kissed for the very first time under the stars
It felt so warm being held tightly in your arms
So we stayed, so still
Till day broke and the sun rose over the hills.

Two years  passed and things just aren't the same
Every word annoys you and all the jokes sound lame
What can we do
When we've only got  bad tempers to blame

A day barely starts and we're already at it again
You're tearing apart just as I'm starting to mend
Why won't this stop
When there's no love just around the bend

I'll make a resolution to bring you around
Hush dear now please don't make a sound
Just hear my words
Bring back the love we'd found

Now we're here in the silence staring into space
No love no hate no regret etched on your face
Where have you gone
When did you leave me behind in this race

Some time later I realised that love is a cigarette
The spark of feeling that ignited when we met
It burns, with every breath
Ticking off our time into ash on the cement

Yet, we're so hooked
We look, for love
For cover, while we cry
Apart, sitting side by side
Just waiting for the other
To tell the first lie

Some times in winter I'd stand by the door
Wondering what all those fights were for
It seems so strange
We'd choose the tears, the screaming and the pain
All those times we left each other out in the rain
To wait
I'd go back, go back to say to you
The times we loved well were too scarce and too few

Happiness

Never forget my children, that happiness never lasts. It is the matchstick in the dark.
When struck, it lights ever so briefly, growing warmer as it growths.
But then you feel the sting of the flame and you let go with a startled gasp.
The warm flame sputters upon the ground, then dims and vanishes.
It burns into your eyes its impression that just wont fade, and your eyes made even blinder.
And the starless, moonless night, still grows ever deeper.

Magic

The night was spun of magic, an indigo and silver coat.

While time flows on and still I seek the magic I set afloat. 

The rage, the horror, the sobbing moons now seen so debased.

The lesson you set out to teach me that dreams should dreams remain. 

I'll descend from the sky, with wings torn up, soiled and unclean. 

The halo shattered like glass upon the concrete. 

I'd built myself a heaven on earth bathed eternally in gold. 

I'd found the flowers withered and cloying fruits black with mould. 

Still you look at me with those tortured eyes, so gentle and pure.

You plead in that bleating voice but leave me crippled and bare. 

My thoughts will linger still on dreams that have long been dreamt.

Hidden in the depth of the sea, more dragons than you can fight. 

The book of memories falls open again to an earlier page.

The words inscribed seemed more touching than upon first sight. 

Charmed like sleep, it lulls me, to past love's rosy hue.

The endless nights, the laughter, silences that were too few.

Don't comprehend this fantasy, to me it remains so dear.

The stilled quill and silences between us are born of fear.

By width, length, and by depth, you are measured so fair,

But the night spun of golden magic still hangs untouched in the air. 

Anger

It is something that grows.

Curled up at first, 

It unfurls. 

It sends feelers,

feathery probes 

that dip into the black mud.

It is something that wriggles

Soft, flesh body

And Sightless,

that blindly thrashes

Rolling itself in the ooze. 

It is something that feeds.

Rows upon rows

of sharp teeth

It latches on tight

Sinking into your bones.

It is something that poisons.

White hot blood flows

Feel it scald,

Pouring out of it,

Its nest in your open wounds.

It is something that consumes

Hearts, minds alike 

Festering. 

Gnawing at patience

Feasting on fresh blood. 

Love Letter

Thud.

The sound of the door shutting reverberated through the empty house.

Click. Click. Click.

Only one set of footsteps echoed through the marble halls.

Wosh.

Edwin planted himself down on to the soft leather couch, shed the black jacket, loosened his black tie, and sat back with a sigh. Finally, he had this all to himself.

A bubble of laughter built up somewhere deep in his stomach. He tried to push it down. No no, he was meant to be mourning, and indulging in tears, not laughter. But it could not be suppressed, and the sound of mirth bounced off the tall ceiling for the first time in many years.

*****

Blacks, browns, greys, silks, satins and furs were all piled into a great soft mound in front of him. In a moment of madness, he had ripped them from their hangers and shelves, trying desperately to purge the house of her presence. But he was back in his right mind now, and a little annoyed at himself.

Edwin bent down, and sunk his hand into the downy materials. There was a great irony he thought, that such a hard, commanding woman should have such soft coats. All those years of grovelling, of ‘yes dear’ and ‘no dear’ and ‘thank you so much dear’, and to think that she had only left him the house at her passing. All those years of servitude had surmounted to this hollowed house.

One coat still clung on to its hanger, swinging gently to and fro. It was a cream fur, once smooth and luxurious in the high of its glory, but now worn ragged and bare on its edges. It had been her favourite. He pulled it gently from the closet, and let it drown his hands. It pulled, heavy, weighted, until his arms hung limply. It pooled underneath him, a halo of butter-cream white, where it seemed to spread to the corners of the room. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her hands rising from the coat, clutching at his pants, trying to drag him under to where she had gone.

No, no.

The silence was broken by the curious crinkle of paper. A white envelope. He turned it over in his hand.

‘To My Love’ was inscribed in delicate lettering on the front. Edwin scoffed. Obviously it was not for his eyes. He tore at the letter.

‘Edwin’

He sat down slowly, the paper trembling in his hands.

‘For all of the years I’ve known you…’

*****

He’d first seen her at a party he had no right to attend. In borrowed suits, the three of them had sneaked into the country club ball, just three ordinary working class men. It had been a joke to them.

When she’d accepted his proposal, no one was laughing anymore. To Edwin, it seemed that everyone’s eyes had suddenly turned his way. They bore holes in the back of his skull, haunted his nightmares. Even with their backs turned towards him, he could feel their hatred chilling the air. And their backs were always turned to him. He’d wondered for twenty years how he’d maintained that smile he wore for everyone, while the smell of Cuban cigars and twenty year old scotch sunk into his clothes and yellowed his skin.

But she’d always been a commanding woman. She saw to it that he would live in comfort, and he’d not seen a cent beside. How he’d secretly loathed her then. 

‘…and I leave to you all my worldly possessions, for your tender and affectionate care in those painful final years.

With all my love, I fear that this is farewell.

Alice’

The paper floated gently to the ground, coming to a rest silently on the coat that draped from his knee. For the first time, he noticed the silence in the room. Not a sound. Even the trees had ceased their swaying.

This was the moment of ecstasy then. He was rich. He was still young enough to be considered handsome, still of marriageable age.

Edwin tried to summon up the laughter that had eluded him for so long. He stood up and shook off the lethargy that had previously weighed down his limbs. He needed to take this letter to the lawyer.

*****

It was a brilliant spring day, the kind that mocked mourning and made black seem inappropriate. The guests had fidgeted as the cask was being lowered into the hole in the ground, half expecting rain clouds to pool instantaneously. But it had remained deceptively cheerful.

As Edwin stepped out for the second time that day, the day seemed unusually hot. The sunlight glared off the white envelop in his hands, burning its after image into his eyes. His black jacket caught the heat from his body and the sun, trapping it next to his skin until he could feel the beads of sweat roll down his nape. He felt suddenly faint, washed out and transparent. For the first time in years, he felt eyes on him again, peering eyes that probed at all the hidden desires and suppressed hatred the sunlight had revealed. He could hear their whispers. Suddenly, he was walking down an avenue of disembodied eyes glaring down at him.

‘Look at the man that murdered his wife for money!’

No, no, he was no murderer. She’d died of cancer, wasting away year after year in that bed, pale and frail, always calling for him, clawing at him with her thin hands, grappling weakly at his lapels and always, always whispering, ‘stay awhile longer, stay awhile’. And he’d sat by her side in that dark, sickly room day after day, month after month, year after year watching her shrink inside herself, wishing for the day he could scour the entire place sterile white again. He'd vowed to burn that wing. 

Still the whispers crescendo, grating, and bouncing off each other; a swirling cacophony of noise around him.   ‘My love, My Love, MY LOVE’. The letter screamed in his hand.

Then silence.

He watched the letter flutter in space, hanging between the bridge and the rushing waters below. He wondered how it had escaped his clutches, but curiously, he was rooted to the spot and could only watch its progress going down and down. The surge of panic that should have surely spurred him into action was only a curious tinge somewhere barely registered in the conscious awareness. The falling letter was only a tiny, pinpoint of white now, floating away with all his ambitions, his fortunes…and now lost the in the brown frenzy below as it was torn apart by grappling, wet fingers.

The soothing rush of water triggered a long forgotten memory. He’d first spotted Alice by a fountain. Her hair had glimmered with shimmering, reflected light. A half smile had painted those delicate, pink lips in a graceful upward curve on her porcelain cheeks. For the first time in fifteen years, Edwin felt a swell of awe and admiration flood his heart. 

Star Child

Ashes to ashes...
           Dust to dust...

We are the children of the stars.
A blink in the eternality of time.
Our states and empires built upon the blood and sweat of millions,
Built to take it's place underneath the never setting sun
Crumbles to soft sand in the flood of passing summers.

Standing against the crashing of the waves you pledged an eternity.
But your eternity is hardly enough, merely a lifetime, a short wink
Or that moment between wakefulness and sleep
While I wander amongst my brothers and sisters in the stars, never tiring, never sleeping, never aging, never feeling.
Dear dear child, of what use can your eternity be to me?

You stare out at the stars to search for me
You wait and you wonder, you cry and you bleed.
You canter across these boundless plains, yearning to feel, again, the rush of stardust in your hair.
Your travel endlessly, on boats and cars, by foot and air
Yet what you search for will never be there, on this little circular planet
Where to go forward is to draw tighter the strings of your net.

Out goes the brief candle then, I watch your flame
Flickering against the dark, then begin to wane
For it burnt at both ends, for me,
Then, the last struggling ember glow and fades
As you grow still and cold.

Only then do I hold you again in my arms
When your warmth no longer bleeds into my skin
I will take you into the stars again, dear child,
To that place where the deepest cold seeps through skin, and flesh and bone and blood
And ice locks you away from the ravishes of time
So that I may gaze upon you forever.

Confessions II (T.A.T.U.)

These are serious times and I feel totally lost, if I'm asking too much it's only because being with you has opened my eyes. Who would've believed, such a perfect surprise? I keep asking myself, and wondering how, I've tried to close my eyes and block it all out. Want to fly to a place where it's just you and me, no doubt no shame and we can be totally free...

All the things you said, running through my head...

and I'm all mixed up, feeling uncommonly rushed. They say it's my fault, but I want it so much. Silence the screams, in the summer rain, running down my face and wash away all the stains. You stop and stare and worry about me, but I'm feeling for you what you're feeling for me. I can't try to pretend and I cannot forget and it's driving me mad, killing me instead...

All the things you said...

They've shackled me tight, I've rattled the rails. They've bound me tighter and pinned me with nails. I've screamed and cried in the dead of the night, I've wanted so much, just give me the signs. Nobody else and you still can't read minds.

Faster, looking at me, tell me what do you see? 

Have I crossed a line?

Farther, nothing can be, something you clearly told me

Have I lost my mind?