I speak often of once

I tied plaits in my hair
and remembered
how you took stones
and made neat piles
around my bare feet,
dry from the sun,
and promised
that I wouldn't always be stuck.

Some pages from a book I kept in Rome

It is on hold until then

There is so much colour
inside each finger,
so many things that I have seen
in the days since
that I feel important enough
to commit to history.
And then there is
synchronised diving.
And it has all of my attention.
And so the memories
will have to wait
until it is done
and that's just how it is.

I am there, even when the darkness hangs like one thousand doors between us both

I know it ain't easy when your soul cries out for higher ground

I could have written this better.
Each line would have been heavy with meaning
and laden with heartfelt sentiment.
Literally dripping with feeling.
That's if I hadn't spent the last two hours
singing Think Twice by Celine Dion
in a French accent
to anybody who would listen.

Your salivary glands release saliva, a fluid that contains various enzymes

I have so many feelings
about so many things
that if I were to eat them all
one after the other
in quick succession
I would immediately
expel them from my body
and be left standing
in a puddle of my own mess
still none the wiser. 

When I hold your hand I feel like flying

There is us because
I too am familiar with the side of the moon
that hangs gloomily in black,
face to face with unending
and nothing else
and the thought frightens me
more so than I could measure in handfuls
or anything else for that matter.

Three steps into what is next

He laid out everything
he thought he needed
in piles by the door
and put what was left
of the life he had before
in bags sealed with brown tape
behind the sofa.
He felt it was time and
only then had it all started.

I had planted my feet and buildings grew upwards around me

You said 'You're never easy'
in between rain and still clouds
and I gave you my smile
cos there was nothing else
except the clothes I had on
and the coins I held in my hand.
'You changed simply because the years did'
I wasn't sure I wanted to be free.

I am there, even when the darkness hangs like one thousand doors between us both

She laid in darkness
and nothing else,
delicately whispering down telephone lines.
And each word she spoke
marched off into night time
in rows like ants
and marched faster still
until their tiny feet
slid effortlessly upon sinking sands
and turned quickly to wings
that fluttered and hummed
down long roads
and through fields grown high with yellow
and the momentum grew
and the hum
began to sing my name
and echoed
against the empty vast skies
that kept me from her
until the calls reached the window
in the room where I lay
and hovered there
waiting for me to whisper back
and send them on their way
to her, again.

When I saw Joni Mitchell I cried wet tears that wouldn't stop

I climbed, dizzier still
into a love where crowds stood
with pencils in their hands
and the sounds of their voices
like melodies.
When I saw Joni Mitchell
I cried wet tears that wouldn't stop
and she collected them
in the pages of a book
like each tear was a religion
that could be followed
to divinity.
At least thats what she said
as yellow leaves fell from trees
that hissed as winds blew.

Now and then are not mutually exclusive

I could have sworn
the smell of crepes
danced from one end of the room
to the other
until it found me
in the spot where I stood
and lingered there
until it was clear
that here wasn't Paris
but that Paris existed still,
outside all of what Wednesday had become.

Sow, illustrated

A compass with which to bring forth tiny connections

When it got complicated for a second
I tied knots around sticks
with string wrapped around my waist
so as not to lose my way to here
from some place else
where grass had grown
taller than where my eyes could see
and I would be reminded
that I had forgotten my name,
or what it meant,
in a world that grows bigger than unending.
Each night I stood close to fires
so the heat could warm my skin
and turn it red
and the amber flames might burn inside of me
and the light they made could fill my eyes
and it could be great.
He and her whispered what they had learnt
into glasses that were only half empty
and I drank up each one
until both they and I were full
and I was heavy enough to be the bottom line
from which to build upwards into sky.

9712

It has been not much more than
a collection of pregnant pauses
that bore only shadows
where light once lived.

86,400

There are
eighty six thousand
four hundred seconds
in every day.
With the fifty seven thousand
six hundred seconds
I have had already today
I have drunk four glasses of squash
and done not much else
of any importance.
My hair looks pretty alright.
That's something.

Sow

That it exists at all
outside of my each and every day
is enough for now
because knowing that it is there
is like planting seeds in soil
sure that flowers will grow
in their place.

California, waiting for water

It hadn't dawned on me before
that the ocean in town
was the same
as the waters calling for me there
and that each flow of the tide
must flow sorrowful
knowing that it ebbed
further from days
when we had been face to face
instead of standing
on the opposite sides of everything

waiting

as love and distance grew
with each passing cycle.

A tiny promise

I will walk along side you
and draw lines with my fingers
in the air
if you are lost
and it is all I can think of to do.

If I was brave you would love me, attempt number four

I'm going to fly inside a plane with you
and when we are in the air
I'm going to hold onto your shoulders
and tell you
love I never could on the ground
cos in the sky
we are neither here nor there
and the consequences of my confessions
seem almost imaginary.