Moonlight (now with audio)

I casually looked up
from flicking through some book
I saw the way you stood
Hell, we’d better look alive
while we’ve got the time…

You met me by The Globe
the whole world waiting with bated breath
you were purring ”are you in?”
O, I’m in…

We blew along the Southbank
for one night only
kissing by the wheel
I kissed you deep within the shadows
a thousand lights tied in the trees

My hand reaching, slowly, for yours
as the tower struck out its chimes
and the moonlight on the Thames
never looked so fragile…

If there is any kind of magic
it is between two bodies
that understand and share
something elemental

The taxi driver asked
if you were my wife
I turned
looked into your eyes
and I lied

Your plane’s leaving in the morning
its engines ticking in our bloodstream
for tonight; there’s no tomorrow
we’ll just indulge this feeling

In some other world
it would be alright
in some other life
this lasts a lifetime

A little kiss of magic
brightens the edges of our lives
it was a little kiss of magic
lighting the edges of our lives

But the moonlight on the Thames
never felt so fragile…

[2017]

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Photocredit: https://www.trevorsherwin.co.uk/london-at-night

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Souvenir

Acquainting myself
with the moon
trapped behind glass
we’re exchanging glances
And on my back
a thousand heart-attacks
roll past
My fingers cross and uncross
as she sleeps, so black
back in the real world
paid-up entirely
on her subscription
to actual reality

Might you return
with a souvenir for me
from the envious depths
of endless peace
perhaps a child
or a patient nurse
or some control
with a button for reverse
My fingers press
that longed-for switch
watch deeds recoil back into the body
where I don’t turn that key
don’t cross that threshold
slipping backwards, contentedly
from actual reality

Moonshine lights the shore
as I drag the boat
of all my swimming thoughts
along a silver stretch of sand
where all the land behind
no longer matters
a bowl of sea, insignificantly
the only thing
between the horizon and me
but crossing is possible
with the coins that you earn
waking night after night
and each mile is a measurement
you take
from actual reality

This father feeling takes over
My child
in a superposition
only alive inside its mother
between the hours
of two and six AM
a phantom haunting, stalking
poised with talons drawn
to fly this solipsistic me
and drop him heavily
back in the sticky city streets
of actual reality…

[2018]

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Still Waiting…

Throwing away another spent calendar
I toss another slice of my heart into the wind
I’m still waiting…

I feel all I have known is the length of this wait
and all I’ve been doing is biding worthless time
still waiting…

What difference has it made to me, this waste?
what have I gained so far for my blind patience
and still waiting…

O, nine years… nine years!
I’ve been waiting
still waiting
but I don’t know what for

On this moon-lit beach
in this silver-soaked bay
cliffs hung high over me and you
please tell me it’s you

Tell me it’s you…

[2009]

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