An Old Photo

An old photo lies on the desk
You hold it and see me smiling
I was always ok
I walk into the room
Ask you what you’re doing
You say
Nothing

An old photo lies on the floor
Past tense
Are you still the same?
I was always ok

An old photo
Of us when we met
The kids look at it
And wonder how we felt

Do they know the story?
Like my mum and dad
Do they know the story?
I think they’d be glad

#selfie

Bequeath unto me thy visage
Rapturous naivety
Loneliness personified
Love’s failings clear

Do you need this?

Words upon words
Night time is bliss
Do you need this?
Water in the dry
Rescued with a kiss
Do you need this?
Something that takes you high
A beacon in the mist
Do you need this?
A lover’s cheerful wink
The promise that it is
Do you need this?
A moment to yourself
Till you figure yes it is

I’m just a young man

Lying on the grass
Looking up through the trees
Somewhere in North Northumbria
I think they’re birch
Or beech
I’m relaxed
Some girl had left me
Obviously wasn’t the one
I feel part of it all
No poems
No thoughts
Just watching the wind blow the leaves
In the late afternoon sunlight
It’s warm
I hadn’t met you yet
You were a few adventures down the road
But I knew I had to be somewhere
For something
And I had to get there
No timeframe
But
No time to mess about
I took a deep breath
And heard a raven call
I stood up and walked back to the car
My first
Shit heap for a hundred pounds
I put the key in the ignition
and look back at the place I had been lying
Nobody there
Nobody cared
The birds continued on as normal
I gunned the car
And slowly drove back to Newcastle
Feeling
That the way was there
On my way to I don’t know where

The last poem

Is penciled in
You just took
Your
Suicide
Pill
And I’m sitting here.
Fuck me she’s gone
I’ll buy two
I won’t last without us
My heart is broken
The pain immense
Supernova exploding
No recompense
Time to go
We had great times
The river flows
What is this?
This love we share
We’re sleeping, bitch
I’ll fuck you here
And kiss your lips
And hold you near
Please don’t go
I want you here …

You’re sleeping in this cacophony of nature.

It’s not peaceful in the slightest
Everything is awake
The crickets are loud as hell
The frogs are hunting
The night unfolds
As a cat howls
And a dog barks
And as thunder claps
It’s not peaceful
In the slightest
But it isn’t a drunken howl
Or a motorbike’s bowel
Or a concrete echo
Of an ambulance’s miaow
It’s nature
And it’s a buzz
And you sleep and it’s real
Good morning love

Come to my quiet place

I’ll invite you
It’s full of wonders
And magic therein
Where I stand shy and embarrassed
That you finally see
I’ll put the kettle on
And make you tea as you look around at all that is me
Come to the quiet place
Where all arguments subside
Where I don’t articulate
As it’s there before your eyes
And all distractions
Of the world outside
Rattle the brain but slowly subside
Come to my quiet place
Where beauty resides
And I don’t have to shout

At the world outside
You have one too
Your inner sanctuary
Where thought is yours and
Calm resides
And act upon not meaningless words
But truth and wisdom
And the sound of birds

Believe in me

I believe in you
In front of me
For a fragment of eternity
But the fragment is the eye
Open for a second
Seeing the thing that cannot be unseen
If you forget mortality
For that one moment
Then you live in eternity
Like the blossoming of a flower

The Navigator

I’ll steer you through this storm
Of monstrous seas and dreadful skies
Emotional trough and windswept highs
To calmer seas
Where the sun will shine
And lightest breeze
Calms troubled minds

I’ll point us to the brightest star
Its light still shines
It seems so far
But guides us through
The maelstrom here
To leave behind dark memories
I’ll hold the wheel
And take the wave
At an angle that will keep us safe
From shipwrecked shores
And shark-filled night
Towards the island of azure light
I’ll trim the sails so
Fate’s violent wind will not throw us off our truthful course
It will be tough
But waves subside
And blistered thoughts
Will heal in life’s serenity

When I was at sea

I used to go down to see my mates in the engine room
Their cabin was there
Behind a big iron door
So it was quiet
But to get there you have to walk past a large diesel engine
which was so loud
This was where I started singing at the top of my voice
I used to love going down there
The cabin was full of cassettes
And one of the guys Charlie had a fuck off stereo system
So we would smoke joints and listen to music

I’m in the distance working away

On some large grey ship.
Thinking about you.
As you lie in sleep,
I think to myself
“Who is this girl that
I have to be with?”
I feel the attraction from a thousand miles away.
And I haven’t even met her yet.
And then I get distracted by
A sailor who is needing some help
With some seamanship task

The ocean is flat calm today
But there are large swells
And the ship is riding up and down like a slow fuck
The mind less distracted now
Makes some decision to wake up to the task at hand
As we tie knots on the free banging lifeboat

which had broken free from its berth
We have a conversation mid-Atlantic about Panama
Are you going to the donkey show?

He says winking.
Donkey show? I ask.
He mimes a blow job and laughs out loud.
“ You know” and winks.
I grimace but laugh along.

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