Cutting to the heart of all this longing is it the vicious tongue you wag at me or the perpetual mystery hanging from your actions the contradictions of your possible state of mind
I see the hurt, I feel the pain you carry and sense your urge to be desired by men the flirt of all you do rings loudly before you and against my better judgement I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
With every scar you try to inflict or accidentally leave on my skin I drift away for a moment only then find myself battling the waves I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I know you didn’t ask for this I know you didn’t choose me or this adventure Yet, I brought it to you anyway and you didn’t quite turn me away
And you’re cute, there’s no denying you spill out in all my favourite places and know how to smile with a catastrophic magnitude that tears the hair clean off my scalp
The bile in your belly, the bitch barely-contained I never knew how much I loved that rage your misery is contagious I feel its cells dividing in my bloodstream
I doubt I am the only one you’ve drugged this way I know you’re not planning to leave your man but as long as you keep stoking the engine of longing I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I dream about you most nights and when I’m on the bus or train, or tube, or walking down the street or when I’m in bed with somebody else I dream it’s your body over which my hands journey
And yet you only reach out a paw for me when you know I cannot be there you only say you might want for me when you know we can’t connect
You’re playing me, humble instrument to your vanity you keep me hanging on for nothing real I know all of this so well and yet I gladly hang myself I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
Sometimes it seems; maybe you feel more for me than I realise an ambiguous choice of words and perhaps it could mean more you say the lovers kissing in the bar, are reminding you of me I say the denim shirt I wore today was reminding me of you
So, who are you anyway and why do I long like this I feel a sudden shortness of breath when I look into your eyes I feel my chest twinge when you catch me looking
There’s something in your history too I know you’ve got some good hidden in you beyond the selfish drive you choose to expose I know there’s something that I could harness
There’s something in the things you’ve seen the pleasure I know you’ve experienced your taste for the beautiful and the sublime perhaps if I could make you choose me, it would mean I’m beautiful too
You laugh at my jokes… no matter how ruthless the punchline the sharper, the more scathing the better I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I need to catch myself before I fall much further slam my pick in the ice before the precipice
Cutting to the heart of all this longing I see such complicated shapes emerging and despite all my better instincts I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores…
The complication of those earrings the texture of the paint around your eyes the sun’s highlights in your hair
The redness of those parting lips such belief in everything we said the pristine shape of your nose
Lying on the roof your head close to my heart summer blushing the sky weren’t we beautiful weren’t we beautiful then
Nothing to fret about just prolong the passing day swaying through the city weren’t we beautiful there
The precision of our jaw-lines the optimism in our hearts skidding through that midnight snowfall spelling out each other’s names as I caught you in my arms
We were so alive so in love so beautiful at that moment in our lives…
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Her fingers tracing mine Lily danced me out of the garden those green eyes brimming lively with purest abandon Then barefoot on the boardwalk her summer dress riding high she leapt onto the jetty and gestured to the sky
We let our tanned legs hang below as we bottomed up the bottle the air was hot and heavy the sea around us peaceful There was lust upon our minds as a veil upon a bride the deepest searing truths politely shot between our eyes
And no man could deny us loose and open all the time our hands and fingers; wanderers tongues locked in a rhyme By the spit between those kisses our burning lips were sewn her dress was barely there my body carved from stone
With each nail driven into skin I felt a clapping thunder the temple tapestry was tearing as she pierced my thin armour A melody sung upon her voice a lyric loudly grows I’d have gladly turned my back on all that I held close
We could have traveled every sea taking turns to lead the way if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay…
Dusk light falling on the harbour the day became a dream with toes curled round the boards she danced me to my feet in one movement I was shirtless in another she was naked a smiling glance was shared as we leapt with fingers knitted
Our kisses painted salty lungs burning between breaths the solution we had longed for as our bodies coalesced We swam until our limbs ached then floated side by side in the moonlit wideness of her eyes; another world, I spied
I was so thirsty for the moment and drank it all too quickly my mind got blurred and cloudy my greatest drunken folly Too naive to know the value of the treasure in my grip like sand through careless fingers I stood and watched it slip
There was water on three sides and only one path back to land but somewhere on that journey I somehow lost her hand Now, I wonder if she thinks of us a moment spared for all we shared does she ever sit upon that jetty singing of a parallel despair
We could have traveled every sea wild adventure every day if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay
If only I’d had the wisdom to stay…
[2020]
Extra special thanks for reading, I know it’s a long one. 🙂
We scratch, I bite, you claw
the most arresting violence
I have ever known
takes place between these sheets of ours
as you growl, as I lash out
a stream of fire
I am a violent man, tonight
I am consumed by love
and lust
by love and lust for you…
Hair is pulled, skin gets grazed as we beat against the wall as this takes place between us You murmur, high Senses heightened and alive as I spit out a shower of crackling sparks I am a violent man, tonight I am birthed again In love and lust for you In love and lust for you…
Laura Lee, she was my first love tangled in her parents’ bedsheets and shadows from the attic window With my army-surplus shirt slipping from her shoulders
Laura Lee, she was my first love my first taste of intimacy her loving hands upon me guiding that desire, so deftly through our discovery and naivety
Laura Lee, she was my first love our fumbled teenage kisses quickly blossomed and were washed in ever deeper waves of lust and learning a new language
Laura Lee, she was my first love she taught to me the chorus of that lover’s song she handed me the blueprints I would forever build upon
Laura Lee, she was my first love I’d ascend for hours into the bottomless darkness of her eyes and the lines of those lips her quiet radiant beauty
Laura Lee, she was my first love as I learned how two hearts will knot a little death, a birth as she sang the lover’s song deep into me
It’s a melody I’ll chase perpetually Thank you, thank you for the tune I’ve carried always with me…
The early evening rain falls hard treading the yellow line, I’m solemnly waiting a little drunk, a little lost again all too aware of where I’m not going haunted by the ghosts littering this platform…
As she draws him in so close to her he dips his head, accepts those smiling lips begging, no, they’re beating to be kissed as phantom hands journey all across her body curves pushed tight on this freezing platform…
Now, thicker rain spits from a pitch black sky lit orange, my face winces, squinting hard twisted by the warmest dreams of last winter all too aware of what remains trapped back down my tracks haunted by our ghosts parading on this platform…
She holds the back of his head so firmly his eyes open looking into hers so deeply words shoot between, saying ‘I’d leave her for you ask once and we’ll make this passion permanent’ as those ghosts merge like puddles on the platform…
Clattering lights approaching, shattering the moment six empty carriages sailing down towards me inside there’s shelter, some drab imagined safety but no curves pushed close, no fingers locked tight haunted by the ghosts on the platform of my mind
Journeying onward, journeying home but haunted, always, by the ghost of you and I and all we could have been…
I was living certain and sure of the future I desired A house by the water sea air kissing my eyes before I brave the morning paper
A figure framed in a gaping doorway watching freighters skim the horizon Rest my coffee cup on the fence slide a nail down this foreign envelope draw the perfumed letter from within
The paper see-through like her summer dresses My fingers beneath it don’t do justice to the gentle tan of her skin or the constellations of those freckles
“They’re building bonfires down in the city park” she writes “I’m jealous of that fire and that flame I think of the fireworks that only we saw I recall those fireworks with a dampness in my eye
The realness of the fantasy we’d be painting daily between the thighs and sighs and all the magic we brought forth our bodies so alive”
Signed off with red lipstick and the creases of her mouth it’s suddenly not so obvious why I made my home here It’s suddenly so unclear why I made my home here
And I look out to see they’re building bonfires down on the beach O, I’m jealous of that fire and that flame
How I long to feel the creases of her lips pushing hard against mine…
Now I wasn’t looking out eyes down quietly working satisfied and gently living loving in time with the tick of the clock or the beat of her heart O, I was a good man I was doing alright
Then the poison found me crawling surely noosed my arm tapped my vein and came and came and came violently derailing loudly rerouting all that loving to the rev of the engine skewed to the thrust of this new heartbeat O, I was quickly turned I was too easily bent
And all I would know from there all I could know to see the only wants that dwell
They’re bad thoughts bad wants bad things bad thoughts bad wants bad things
All I’m wanting for is bad things, bad things with you…
Come on, come on, close! Won’t these lift doors ever close? You breathe into my mouth my fingers invade your finery I was hypnotised across the table by the explicit silk of your bare shoulders Now hot air slathers at my forearms as our legs entangle their thick reef-knot Behind this crashing waterfall no one can hear us moan as you’re bitten for the thrill of it
And in this lift, we write together the oldest poem, it’s the oldest poem a poem as old as time
You don’t know this but you’ve re-lit the fuse of life in me I’ve been feeling dead for months in some subtle crushing ways I’d lost my grip upon the rip chord of that passionate parachute Now, I’m risen and roused heart beating in my lower lip as it crushes itself to yours My sleight of hand restored your clasp magically unlatching All hell is breaking loose as I soar across your skin
Come on, come on, close! Doors; gift us some privacy Lost in the moment, penning together the oldest poem, it’s the oldest poem a poem as old as time
In the caverns of a King’s Cross bar I quietly compose an opening six months now, since our last meeting I catch sight of my reflection twisting in the half-full glass upon the bar What am I doing here set up for a disappointing sequel It’ll never be like it was at the start it’ll never feel like it did before
Festive cheers fill the bar as my mind slips back one year when my world was folding inward intoxicated with the excitement of chances taken and how I quietly spoke of my growing love for you in the blurry Christmas air I made foolish gestures at what I wanted slid my heart across the table waited with baited breath for your reciprocation and headed home empty handed…
Tonight is such a bittersweet evening a reminder of how much I love your company it hits me squarely, and for the first time, fully how much I’ve missed you But you’ve changed, grown up, matured somehow wisdom where once there was only spiked humour oh, as a friend you’ll always remain a favourite held out of reach by our history
It’s so bittersweet, our meeting our reflections melt and merge in the glasses that we drain I’m still beguiled by your luminous beauty and vindicated to know what I thought I’d felt was honest not pure circumstance, greed or opportunity our briefest spark lit my world so brightly in a way never bettered before or since It’ll never be like it was at the start it’ll never feel like it did before
Such a bittersweet evening lit in the primary colours of December you, grinning, purr ‘let’s do this again soon’ and of course I say ‘I hope we do’ When I cast my eyes across this year it’ll always be your face reflected back at me when I look back from some future distance your face will always be smiling back at me…
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Let’s make a pact let these shadows hold us swaddled in secrecy and breathing quickly I see you draw in close to me sense those lips loosening my foundation questioning the forcefield of your sly grin and the delicacy of those fingers upon me exploring
Let’s make a pact let this moment be our blueprint to not accept a fading or a softening of this urgency I feel that magnetic pull strengthening see the bond between us as pure light drawing my every cell back into you the atmosphere of your swelling heartbeat and the longing in those murmurs you’re whispering expressing
Let’s make a pact as these shadows hold us close the night in around and bury us breathless breathless and beating hard…
We were strangers by the pool there was summer on your skin I lay low, opened my whole body in the hope that you would find me
Then taking it the distance from the shore raised to the sky there were many sailors scheming on the bending of your knee
There’s a bridge in your dreams as it recedes behind a fog you wonder what it means…
Even naked, your body was a silken gown as you scurried across the room I brought you this glass paper an outcrop of shattered slate
Upon your hip some childhood scar the very first place I aim my dirty lips the innocence in your womanly eyes meets my age but not my weariness
There’s a bridge in your dreams and you wonder what it means…
I taught you all the things I knew about the moves I needed from you you later said my expertise was nothing but a trick with a flick of the wrist I’d left another scar on you
And, waking, we melted one final time before I drew from the bed you briefly begged me to stay then turned around and slept
And I know when I go you’ll find a honest barer of the tenderness you’re owed the goodness, the reality
I wonder what I brought you and I wonder what I took you were the silk that moved beneath me you were the sweetest laughter
For now, I dare not tell you as I cross that bridge vanish into the thickening fog slip from your life
Remembering dim rooms hushed conversation whispering those compliments almost embarrassed trying to communicate the reverence the pure weight of all this feeling wading so deep in love
Ah, they’re only moments…
Remembering falling rain buried in each other’s coats kissing through smiles desire whilst laughing being perfectly overwhelmed by someone the greatness that is all-consuming swallowed so deeply by love
They’re only moments so missing so missed
Today is bright, today is dry ah, but to feel again that feeling to feel again the deepest drowning of love the greatest feeling
Those moments only moments so missed so missing from my life…
Do you remember when we kissed in the dim bar, beneath the railway arches that hypnotic smile you wore the way you demanded to be held as all hell broke loose between us
Do you remember how you took my hands as we walked beside the rails you thrust yourself into my grasp pushed your body hard against mine and stopped time
And I felt so alive that I’d been nowhere seen nothing before that night
I still think about the drunken orange skies the red tail lights stretching on for miles as we drifted through the sprawling city the only heat; that which burned between us pressing your entire being up against me
And I felt so alive truly, I’d been nowhere seen nothing before that time
I remember you so clearly with such precise clarity I wonder do you remember me do you still think of me at all
The Lighthouse 