night – The Lighthouse

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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Late Night, Harbour Lights

The air is warm tonight
the sea no longer ravenous
As the shawl slips from your shoulders
there’s a feeling that breeds in us
now, we are home
or close enough

A candle flickers at every table
the seafront cafes like crooked teeth
The harbour mouth is kissing us
with its swing bridge tongue and river beneath
We feel that we are home
or close enough

Tied by these rings
and the meaning of this thing
we’re bound now in our journey
seas and sunsets, tears and terror
I long to treasure and to explore
the universe inside of you

In my hand, I now find yours
such a sweet relief
the reassuring touch of home
now close enough

Late night, harbour lights
dancing on the water
This love now blankets us
And our kiss… our kiss…
we’ve never tasted anything like this
The feeling spills from every pore
O, we’re both home
now close enough…

[2022]

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Nocturne

Floating through the house
all curtains open
lit up against the night
let the people see what you want them to

Curating the moments, so carefully
trucks pass
lost walkers returning from the fields
catch glimpses
see slivers
of the character you created

A sensual, lost, bright mind
the answer, the home
to any lost soul…

Close-up on your pale face
painted, pained, so perfectly
the precise nature of your openness
a second thought and then it’s revised
a second thought
and something not quite right; vanishes
you vanished it

The scene is so moodily affected
controlled and filtered
so accurately gloomy
in brooding midnight
An ambiguous painting
our eyes can’t help but dwell upon

Seeing all we want to see
seeing nothing real

A beautiful, longing, artistic mind
a destiny, a home
to any lost soul…

Do you remember
do you recall
who you were
before you were the imagined answer
before you were the suggested home
for all those lost souls…

[2014]

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Death Is The Only Song

As the sun slickly slides
through a quickly capsizing sky
you needle me for taking photographs
for wanting to record this way of things
Do you not feel that this is temporary
Do you believe there won’t be a different way

These are precious moments
these are precious moments
in our short lives

And with each day that ends
I feel a larger ending
creeping closer
and with each dusk descending
I sense a fuller ending
edging quietly closer

Remember when you kissed me with passion
on a peeling pier by painted boats
some Grecian bay, one nameless day
I laughed a lot, we both did
then we felt the twist
the sparks of our lives crackling between us
the energy of all we were; burning before us

These were precious moments
these were precious moments
in our short lives

And with each ending day I hear the tune grow
with each night that we casually let end
I hear the chorus

And death…
death is the only song
I don’t want to sing
death! death is the only song
death is the only song
I don’t want to sing…

[2017]

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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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Don’t Forget To Breathe

Stuttering awake
in the anxious hours
when white noise
no longer lets you sleep
And in the mattress springs
a crawling metronome
some percussive heartbeat
one thought then another
one worry trailed by the next
Did what was said make sense?
was it understood
will this be good enough
impossible options
improbable odds
suddenly so awake
in the anxious hours
Don’t forget
to breathe…

Stuttering awake
in the anxious hours
try to recall these words
line by line
whispered in the dark
piece by piece
fall back to sleep
it’s peace upon peace
and don’t forget
to breathe…

[2019]

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A New Beginning

Leaves of brown and green watching
as the fire reveals a destiny for us
flames licking their lips at the change
of solid and tangible into smoke
On a beach of melancholy teenagers
destroying themselves for something
that they can’t explain or focus on
the big picture that is still being drawn…

Bottles of green and brown offering
their joyous and deceptive contents up
ready to infiltrate our consciousness
convince us that the weight has lifted
a sea of liquid to baptise our brains
then we dance and talk of this rebirth
forgetting all about thoughts of maths or progress
the new beginning we’ve been dreaming of…

Leaves of brown are falling in the sunrise
but day reveals that gravity has won again
our heavy heads are hard to lift now
and the breaking waves outside sing loud
A song of measured secrets that expose
themselves a beautiful harmony of movement
the moon under which we slept last night
brings them to us with it’s strong will

Bottles of green bloom in the sand
empty shells left behind from the war
we fought the best we could all night
and momentarily there was a surrender
a decoy that we fell for too easily
now, in the morning light, it’s obvious
the horizon arcs itself out before us
a new beginning comes every day
a new beginning is ours every day…

[2005]

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Adrienne

There exists a God in your body
a deity in you, somewhere
All who look upon you, they become
detached from what they thought they knew
from what they understood before
And so begins the free fall…
into a deep and glowing love for you

You are a carrier, spreading the seed
of this great ailment throughout
With each bat of each lash you do
and with that smile and slow sure dance
your words are bursting in my ears
And so begins the free fall…
into a deep and shining love for you

[2008]

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Note: written into my phone in a club in Oxford early 2008.

Image Credit: Image is a still from the excellent film ‘Victoria‘ 2015.

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Trespassers

Does this trip start with you
or spring somewhere in me
there is an urgency of need
I can’t seem to abandon

My fingers on the button
clawing at your door, heart thumping
will you answer all this longing
let me cross the line, trespassing

Calling by, I’m calling by
that ancient question in my eye
and you can tell, you can smell
that I’ve been drinking
you know me
I don’t act without reason
a song as old as time
sung by my insides

You don’t close the door
you don’t tell me to go back to her
just study the mat for a full half-minute
then shake your head, crack a smile
‘we’re trespassers’ you say
and lead me up the stairs

I’ve been longing for this thing
I’ve been looking for what’s been missing
I’ve been down a few roads now
you’re the only way that works
you’re the only way I know

Sunday morning
there’s no escaping
it’s written every way I turn
trespassing, this foreign skin
how madly I wanted it

Trespassing
the only road I know
trespassing
you’re the only road I know…

[2017]

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Image borrowed from: http://margaret-durow.com/