The last week in September

I woke up before the sky got light
and counted backwards from one hundred.
Trying not to blink
I said each number as crisp
as the air outside
and when I got to one
I started again.
It was seven cycles
before I ventured out of bed. 

Only until I work it out

I walked backwards
until I fell
and saw sky
where shrinking buildings
were before.
Waited as what I edged away from
crept across where I lay,
like a veil,
and settled over my eyes.
I heard leaves scuttle like crabs,
away from me.
Sometimes you have to stay
when grey really is
only grey.

When all seems lost listen for the ocean

He kept in time with the sea
as each grew tired
and slowly withdrew.
As yesterday became today
a song that had been sung for always
was swept up with the tide,
and with each crash
grew louder,
until two worlds
sang in unison.
Below grey skies
he left behind
names carved deep into wood,
truth that he had been here once,
and that all was different
because of it.

World

A need to be something bigger
breathes
and lives
and grows.
Stirs,
like thunder in angry sky
and crashes
between grey and sea
And still I keep walking.

Bound

I thought it'd help if I closed my eyes
when you said my name,
knowing the past cannot colour what you say
behind the dark.
And for a minute it worked
until the weight of once before
came over me like vast stillness
and sat on my chest.
Rain filled buckets in lines by the back door
and I sang to you in an attempt
to cover the sound of lonely drips
making up pools of water.

Me without you

Once when we were one

It hadn't before dawned on me
that our days could run parallel
and that we would walk
side by side,
feeling the cold on our faces
as seasons changed
from green to orange,
without even knowing
that we walked in unison
apart
from one another.

All I can do, I will. A poem in two stages

I walked around in your shoes,
two sizes bigger than mine,
down roads and through grass,
from one town to the next.

Wanted to try and better understand
how you feel the world each day,
because I want to know all of you
starting from the beginning.

By clumsy design

He spent the morning
with his eyes closed
between traffic lights and tide,
his embarrassed face
warmed by early sunlight.
As cars moved beyond him
and the pale moon became paler still
he took a sip of bottled water
and imagined him there,
waiting
in Autumn
and red shoes.

Probably mysterious, probably not

You introduce me to people
as though weights hang from your tongue
and the words trip over one another,
as though your mouth is filled with coins,
and you bumble
your way through my name
and tumble across each letter and sound
and still I cannot tell
if I should be charmed or not.