Every day, reminded by
Emotional knick-knacks,
Learned skills haunting me
With my past, a cow speckled
Single shot espresso maker
Abilities to cook schnitzel
With my eyes closed, a photo
Glimpsed in passing, one more
Of a million waltzes across
My living room floor, all tearing
Me to shreds, my heart constantly
Remade, like clockwork put together
Like a spring unsprung again at the end of the cycle,
Tears unshed for lives not lived,
Or those who have passed on
Having lived their lives full,
If not fulfilled, this is just another echo,
One more drop in the bucket
Of despair, I have none, for life
Is good, full of love and loss
Happiness and pain in
Equal measure, just as it
Is meant to be, this is life
This is me, another echo of love lost,
Brings me crashing back to heaven’s cushioned earth,
One more reminder, of life lived
As yet to be fulfilled, all is good life,
A promise better, never whispered.

tired,
a word I no longer
Wish to hear, whispered
sinuously,
from within my ear,
two syllables
rhythmically
rapping my drum
drained, I’m almost too tired
to come, to this
final restful state,
still dressed, as
I am, coat and shoes
still on, leg draped with
aching tender comfort
across the old leathered puff
breathing shallow from
between sleep-dried lips
moistened momentarily
shallow breath quickening the pulse
that sends waves of bestilled calm
down tired legs, blood beating
in the back of my skull,
momentarily lifting my head forward
from its final days rest, tiny pulse
felt through too tense neck muscles
as I sit skewed, bent forward at
an awkward angle, but this is just so
the most still I have been
all day, run from bed
and to bed I return,
soon,
tired,
as the moment I woke.

I did notice something suspicious,
As I traipsed up the stairs at Ealing Broadway,
The announcers words still ringing loose in my ears,
“If you notice anything suspicious,”
And I did, she was 5 foot 5 with dark brown hair,
Liquid blue eyes, blue jeans, trainers, t-shirt (I’ve
Already forgotten the colour), but
She did make eye contact, more than
Once, on the train from White City, and so I smiled
Because the announcer’s metallically repeatable voice,
Hemming us in to the dull painless fear
Of being blown up by disgruntled lonely militant men
And women while we travel to and from work,
Watching the ebb and flow of our lives,
In the ever-increasingly empty threats of the angrily despondent
Self-righteous few, though forever disputed,
That same metallic voice repeats its message of canned fear,
Like some sad Circus barker gone robot,
Tin man rusted in lost days and mindless repetition,
Meaning gone, until that thought echoes
Across the vast empty life-drained space between my ears,
Drawing one mischevious cartoon-like cheek-curving wicked grin
Across my face, “If you notice anything suspicious,” stated the not
So lively not-live voice, “ly cute”, finishes my overworked brain
As she disappears off through the gates to The Broadway,
And I break off up the steps to platform 3, smiling to myself and
Feeling ever so slightly flattered,
She was cute, I’m still smiling
Now.

In the quieting soul stillness
That pervades each vibrating cell
Until any noise is more than the momentary cessation of quiet,
But rather the pointed reminder of inner calm, that
Permeates my being, flowing outwards in
Undulating waves of peace, from the very
Centre, my life force telling the rest to wait
Be patient, this is the eye of the
Storm, no more a safe haven
Than the cellar would be in an earthquake,
I am shaken down to my very core
And it is this vibration I feel,
Which in synchronicity cancels wave after wave
Of external and internal noise,
Until all that is left is the tinnitus bells
Signaling the death of full hearing,
And my own whispering voice
Reading these words.

Fine, all is well.
Still, all is calm.
Me, I am here
Now.
Where
Is this all heading?