14

There is the ache, I don't need to fake it
Why try to escape, there is no way you'd make it
Remember the darkness, remember the lights in the tree
Remember the wood-burner, remember just what you see

Feel for its silent entrance, is that any more than chance
Through the hearts gape, surges the heartaches lance
Remember the warmth, remember the lasting view
Remember the arms around, remember casting you

How swift it departs, how often it strays
No more need to chart, these are forever days
Remember the solitude, remember the sin of debt
Remember the breakout, remember the winter let

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13

I could write as if I was a tree, but I am not, nor ever have been a tree of any kind

I could write as if I was the sea, but if you inspect closely that is not true I think you will find

I could write of seas, and trees, and wannabes, but how could I write about me

I could write of those eighteen-thousand nights of laying by, or making love, and wonder at how the body is so efficacious in recovery

I could write of those fifteen-thousand mornings of waking up, together or alone, embraced by joy or pain, and wonder at the minds ability for reinvention

I could write of sleep and sex, yet still I expect, I could not write, I could not write about me

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12

A poet, a writer, a parent
An engineer
A mind, a body, a man
An engineer
A pupil, a failure
An apprentice
An engineer
On a fault line, to a fault line
To becoming an engineer
Without purpose
For a purpose
As an engineer
A person, a parent
A successful businessman
Only money
Only income
A lost soul
Of an engineer
A wanderer
A waster
Off the fault line
Of the engineer
A pauper
A reader
No longer an engineer
A poet, a writer, a parent
A lover, yes a lover then
Anything, but to be an engineer

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Touch, Feel, Wonder

So soft, and so damned gentle
So wonderful
And yes, so vaguely existential

So precious, and so damned parental
So magical
And yes, so slightly elemental

So roving, and so damned referential
So particular
And yes, so faintly over-intentional

So cute, and so damned city central
So absolute
And yes, so mildly deferential

So fierce, and so damned mental
So infinite
And yes, so sure of her credential

So soft, and so damned gentle
So steadfast
And yes, so filled with immense potential

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And Houses

I was going to build something, using words; I had already rearranged two long phrases, to be used as embankments.

I went to an old friends house, he was making breakfast, his small children played on the floor, one of them weed, and a pool of pee coloured water, began to cover the floor.

I said it was the child, but my friend thought it was the washing machine leaking, in the room next door.

I drove the builder's lorry down the cut de sac then along the avenue (I used to live in both places). I had to be really careful, because there were children playing in the road.

Outside my old house there was a very tall pile of builder's rubble, as though an extension was being constructed. I was scared, I thought the pile was going to tumble over.

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