Memoirs of a Life Unlived

The palm trees bristle, battle hard - Brothers too big for one room - And shade sail chains play tug of war As the grey cloth floats and swoons. Consider though the wind itself - Colour and taste long removed: It crazes like the fearful host When the guests arrive too soon. We focus on the shapes it makes - Numberless stirs of the spoon. It craves that on the stillest night We espy it in the gloom. 2017 amendment: As grey cloth floats and swoons. When guests arrive too soon. We catch it in the gloom. (spot? spy?) 2020 amendment: It craves that on a breathless night

Your measured voice is the underplaying actor to the eye-avoiding mumble. Dig and build or the rains will reclaim.

The pasture rolls a little, sweet and plain, perhaps a little boring. Herding cows ignore you. You unfold the map again: that blood still cakes the mouldboard of the plough. The Brabants' fusty sweat-steam in your eyes, you squint and hear the fragile thrum of cars along the A19. A crow describes a perfect arc as bursts of sunlight mar the clearest view you had of slender smoke. You stop mid-field, removed of shade and hope.

As I write this late at night Drowning in electric light, In my heart but out of sight You are sitting in the sun; You, my dear beloved one, Watching boys and having fun. And our hearts are yearning so; Mine is burning with a glow Stronger than the stars we know. Every day long roads I'll roam, Spending half-lives on the phone Till I hold you close, my home. 14th February 2011

Running for the bus on weathered joints, conscious they could pop at any point - cushioned by the warm and spongy grass, thinking of your tired, demanding heart. Living is a thing they cast at you - saturated postcard greens and blues. Let it be a scene of war and strife, fleeing from the cross hairs all your life. Swaying like the palms, you check your change, knowing you're beyond the sniper's range. Life is like a faulty progress bar. In a future life you'll drive a car.

The Lefties and the liberals crow that brains is gettin' smarter. The Revolution, we all know, is just around the corner. But all you frothing Neocons cannot elude the capture, cos thanks to Jesus you're the ones ascending come the Rapture. There's good and bad in everyone, in fact there always has been, and will be even when the sun coughs out its final light beam.