my poetry

Education
For Dennis Wittman. As you continue in a relationship you realise just how deeply someone has touched you. (September 2007)

Tonight I learned something.
It's fundamental.
And it sounds basic, like I should have known it before,
which I did;

but sometimes you need something
large
and obvious
to hit things home.

I love you.

And everything about you.

Your look and looks,
Your style and manner.
Your smell, taste, touch,
Most definitely your touch.
Your silken skin, laid gently against mine
as I glide into bed, such as air against water.
A gentle breeze barely causing ripples,
discernibly making a touch.

Its you - and only you -
that I want.
Nothing and nobody else.

And so I write this dedication,
so you know that I am forever, yours.

Velvet
For Dennis Wittman, to express the feeling of closeness he has given me and of the desire to be with him. (December 2006)

The way I melt into you at night
Laid softly against your arms
Your random laugh, always smiling
How I feel when I'm away from you.

It is velvet
The sight
sound
touch
of you.

How I feel, its like the softest cushion
Heart elated, safe, warm, secure
I can lay with you, against you, watching your eyes

Some days in the cold winter, in the darker mornings;
all I want
is to stay forever, duvet as a shield, your arms around me
Drifting, dreaming, kissing, in bliss

Make love with me, let's go where no-one else can
Our own private space, free of intruders. Stronger as one.
Your body invading mine, entering me and leaving your cum inside me; a piece of you that is forever mine.

You and I.
Let's make a velvet room.
And build a future together.

Rent
For Jay Norman - We split up after months of lack of love in the relationship. (September 2005)

And so it is
The end comes as we knew it would.
Your childishness,
my lack of patience

The end comes almost so suddenly
While we weren't looking
Busy enjoying ourselves
Not watching or understanding ourselves
That vicious circle when it's better to beat yourself up than to admit to the truth

The trouble we go to,
to keep a quiet life when we should submit to our hearts.
And to our heads.
A long walk taught me to do that and do you know...
The truth was easy.
The action was difficult.
Making my bed to lie on it was so hard
I never wanted to walk away
But if you're just there looking for,
cash for love.
Doesn't that make you a whore? A rent boy, payable by the hour, like some kind of slut wanting their payment?
I'm not going to pay your wages, you're not my cheap piece of arse,
something I choose to fuck in exchange for a crinkled Pound note.

You were someone I loved. Someone I respected and someone I would have built a home with.
But you chose to behave like a child and I am no father.
Nor a keeper, big brother or a guardian.
You wanted money, not experience or togetherness.
I expected you to mutually respect and protect me.
Not this time;
Maybe in another life.

You have abused me - mentally, financially and physically.
I won't ever forget the look on your face when I came back from hospital.
Courtesy of you and your drunken violence.
Or your face when you realised it was over,
when I refused to pay your "rent".

But for all that, I loved you and would have died for you.
You were my love.
My absolute, passionate, unassailable love.
Nothing could or would have touched you if only.
If only you would have allowed me
the dignity to protect you
As I wanted to.
And less of your control by tantrum!
You had the best of me and the worst of me.
You were the most impossible, contradictory, wonderful person.

Gone.
Quickly.
And I know you didn't love me for some time, while I loved you.
And I don't regret that. Love for me is something that doesn't have to be two way.
You can love and not be loved in return. And I did. For someone so special.
Good luck; you'll need it and I know you'll grow up quickly.

Cosseted
For Jay Norman - Thinking about the last 18 months and how I felt when we split up. Like I'd lost my voice. It's back. (February 2005)

So there I am
Protected, cosseted; happy
Going about life in a normal way
Working hard, talking to friends, having free time
With you
Enjoying our life together

Then like some bolt from the blue
Sudden, yet almost expected from the thunder on the horizon
And in a way like something previous (you don't hurt me in a new way!)
It strikes. In the same place. Again.
You don't talk, then you don't come home, then
Like a cat slinking out of it's flap while it's owner doesn't observe
You're gone.
A Dear John note and some empty hanger space is what I have to remember you by

Weeks pass.

Almost happy now;
comfortable with myself, of course.
Capable of moving on, definitely.

Missing being cosseted.
Too easy isn't it. It's not a "missing you" thing.
Just a need to be noticed, loved, held, hugged, told I'm a nice guy, adored.
Didn't get that for as long as I could remember anyway.
So it's not real.
Do I sound bitter? It's not like that at all
I am merely expressing
And feeling warm in my expulsion of the past, it was an indulgence I need to deal with
Welcome to the future and dealing with a bit more reality,
and to being cosseted again.

Morphine
For Jay Norman - An addictive need to be with someone. (December 2003)

One quietly flickering candle in a warm, velvet, dark room.
Enveloping safety like a duvet on a cold day.
The excitement of seeing a snowy morning when you're a child;
the roller-coaster stomach, the need for immediacy.

The mundane, stolen moments when a couple shut out the world, in public, with a touch of a hand, a glance, a gesture.
The intimacy of the bedroom, layers of pleasure not yet explored. New layers always forming.
These are the things I feel and wish for, in your morphine like embrace.
The hit, the euphoria, the relaxed state of bliss you leave me in.

Things can never be perfect, else would we be human?
However.
With two souls, committed to love, anything is possible. Our souls are so committed;
to love, to each other, entwined.

To you I promise my best - never less;
I will try to communicate, listen, respect, keep an open mind.

To you I promise my love, through all eventualities.
To you I promise us.

Silhouette
For Christian Fleming - Our shadows against a summer's evening. (July 2003)

Sat here
A silhouette
Gentle raindrops against the sky
Making everything soft

Sweet gentle rain
Come rain on me
Make the same of me
Remove this harsh exterior
Wash away my prejudice

Come and make my dream come true
In the rain
I see a rainbow forming
From your sunshine

Your love is universal
Yet exclusive
Make it mine right now
I love you

Enveloping
For Christian Fleming - Waiting in anticipation all week to feel his warm strength around me again. (May 2003)

Thinking, in anticipation
of having you near me again.
Simple things that I miss, the senses,
will be reunited, taking me in to joy!

With you, even the chores are a pleasure,
the dullest moments are bright;
the chance to fall asleep in your arms so precious.
We can sit for hours, candle flame flickering
I'd like to stare at nothing more than your eyes,
feeling your touch holding me.

I can melt into you at a moments notice,
feel you around me - strong arms holding me tightly.
Your very being securely enveloping me.

Right
For Bren Forry - That warm 'halo' you feel when you're with someone you really like. (July 2002)

You make me feel
Comfortable, relaxed, warm
Right.

I loose myself in you
We can walk and talk on a warm
Summer's evening
and I'll have no idea where I've been.
You leave me in a whirl
Where the world seems a happier place;
Colours shifting, noises muted
And everyone feeling like me.

Your gentle touch, your kiss,
just the very look of you sends me
into a dumbfounded place.
Each second a valuable minute
Each minute a valuable hour.
With you I could sit and stare in your eyes
all night and not need to talk.

I have no other word for it,
with you I just feel;
Right.

Innocence
To Nathan Hawkins - Sometimes a second look at a person can be very different (May 2002)

Tonight you lost some of your innocence;
A harsher sunset
a determination

I'm not hurt
you've failed and backed yourself into a corner
a place where you'll loose your innocence

How does it feel to think of me despite the physical?
I'm content with a call and a thought - I still value free will
What do you value now?

I laugh at your attempt to upset
I am the warm sunset
My future is assured.

Facets
For R L - and warm evenings in the city that leave you with cold mornings. (May 2002)

Smooth thoughts,
many textures,
warmth, a breeze,
bright neon, reflected moon.

Touch, taste and smell;
all facets - of you.
Your touch - arms wrapped around me.
The taste of our tongues entwined.
A smell of sex in the stale bedroom air.

I'm gone, sad though, happy though
Fulfilled but still needy
Don't run so quickly from me,
listen - I speak for a reason.
A desire to hear you.

Temperament and patience.
But its hard when desire wants me to experience your facets now.

Lament
Thinking about R L, this isn't about loyalty or what's right, it's about emotion. (May 2002)

Right under my nose,
beauty of another sort.
Assertion: Exchange for no defined reason.
Please don't shut that door;
Any excuse to talk to you,
your smell and feel around me
close and yet so far.
One room and six months away -
loose tongues hurt souls and make dreams.
Wanting, lusting, pursuing,
I want to betray
my inner soul to you.
I want to betray
my body to you.
Despite disapproval.
Staring at the wall, lamenting silently
wanting you to be the wall, watching me.
Feeling you as I did before.
In my mind only. And that's where this lament should have stayed. To acknowledge it is to give it form.
But.
Fantasy of mine, emotional, talented and thoughtful.
Mine?
Surely not, we both know better.
Don't we? I think corruption is my thought only, not yours,
albeit confused.
Hold me.

Space
That feeling when you just want people to leave you alone with your own thoughts for a bit. (April 2002)

Get out of my head
My ears, my eyes, my space
Just everyone give me some room
I'm feeling cramped, talked over, overwhelmed

Back off, let me think.
In silence.
Just for a bit.

And come back as I invite you,
Not when you decide to.
Stop invading my space.

Subtraction
Missing something that's a part of you. (April 2001)

It's easy math, we learn as children
But we don't appreciate until we're adults
You don't notice what you need
Until it's been subtracted

If people realised the value
Of what's under their noses,
Beside them, with them
Maybe they'd love more
You can't have what's been subtracted
But you can still love it

It's fortunate, it's temporary
Just one night!
But how that subtraction hurts
Even for just one night
Where is my other side
My mirror, my addiction?

It's been subtracted.
I will not rest until I am back
Until I lay with you again
Unified, softly, lovingly
And in each other's arms.

Carparks
Watching the rain fall on life through a window. (November 2000)

The car parks are flooding
With rain
Seeing the patterns it makes
Ever decreasing circles

Of groups
Of friends
All seeing, all knowing

Love, anger, hate and abyss
Here and now
Love is anger, hate is abyss, abyss is love
Circular and together
All is one

Settled, the calm after the storm
Coming to a close
Despite the storm, well weathered
All is strong

Home
When you want to go to a safer place. (August 2000)

Sat in a room
In a mobile sarcophagus
Listening to a terrible dirge
People to the left and right moving slowly

Surrounded

Alone

Faces, people

Never at home
Familiar glimpses every morning
Blinking together like indicators in the rain

Then separate
I need to feel together,
pulled together - forceful and strong
Right now I feel just weak
Not like me
Or really like me

From bad to confused
Help me!
Help me go home

Winter
You know when something is coming... it's in the air. (June 2000)

Winter was here on a little farm
Spring came to melt it's grip
But spring can be deceptive
Its somnambulistic slide towards
Warmth;
Brightness.

Now summer is here with it's rays of sun piercing my life
Late nights, early mornings. Will the sun never stop extending me?

Winter is coming, I am sure of it.
Dark mornings lit only by the glow of the lights on the stereo
Playing a melancholy song
But I don't want it to be winter again.

Happy as I am
It's strange how reflective you get sometimes. Even in a nightclub! (March 2000)

Happy as I am, I reflect on things gone past
Standing in a club, noise around me, I'm dark.
Looking into distance
Feeling left alone
Why did he leave me?
I want to go home.

What am I thinking? My current love is beside me
Strong and loving and needing me
Is this a betrayal of his trust and love?

No, it's not
He's loved
Only I love memories too -
Warm and black and velvet
Enveloping me
Holding me
Comforting me in moments of supreme happiness
To bring me back to earth
To ensure I never forget
Where I've come from.

Need
For Nathan Hawkins while I was away on business and missing him. (October 1999)

It's like a spark
near a lake of petrol: the need;
The sound of the people around me reminds me of my loneliness.

My need is for you, for your companionship, warmth and love
My need is to be one of those voices taunting the lonely.

My need is simple
My need is you.

What's Important
Written in a hotel room while contemplating the memory of life and missing home. (May 1999)

Always remember
What's important.
The sights, the colours, the smells and noises.
The feel of the sun, the look of your old sports field.
The names of teachers, of friends, all blur into one, but they're what's important.

Remember your roots, hold them close, never let them go;
They shape you and never shall you be changed.
Warm summers, long winters, same now as then.

That's what's important.

Juxtapose
To Jess Smith, after he beat me then left me in a hospital. (March 1999)

No words for the event.
Now there is a permanent silence
Scream and silence juxtapose each other.

The opposite of love is not hate
Indifference.
And that's the saddest part.

The photographs show you happy and moving on
Your words say you're not
And how it should never have happened.
Scream and silence juxtapose each other.

The point is, I don't care
At your name my pulse still quickens
My heart beats faster, my stomach still churns.
But only because time cannot be undone overnight
The fact remains now I don't care
Scream and silence juxtapose each other.

So here I am, cushioned; friends and family so strong.
Now watch me, the phoenix and you, the ashes.

Oh how scream and silence juxtapose each other.

Full circle
A reminisce over a previous love while with a current love... confusing thoughts. (February 1999)

I only noticed it today
Driving on the motorway, the familiarities
The little things
The look of the carriageways, the same the country over
Why do you remind me of times previous?

The past is past. The emotion gone
The memory permanent, yes, but impotent now
But why does the carriageway remind me so?

Why today did I feel as if I was driving away
Leaving you in a strange town, still misunderstood?
Why does my world come slower, slower, to a stop
Tonight?

And while I weep over a lost companion
Why are you enjoying yourself?
Are you enjoying yourself?

You sound happy

Are you?

Time is meant for together
Not always, we all need to breathe
But our time. Our time is now
So where is together?

I miss you so

Gone
That need, that immediate need, for a loved one to be with you. (September 1998)

He's not there.

The familiar sight, touch, smell. He's far away. So what do I do?
Get drunk on my own in a candlelit room; normally peaceful is full of my obscenities.

Quick phone call turns bad, reproach from both sides.
Repudiation of these feelings follows immediately, the love quickly overtakes the anger of being apart ~ a betrayal?
Who is he with now, do they care as much as I? I need his love, his touch, his smell and I need them now. Am I being greedy and selfish?
Maybe, but love knows not of these concepts. Love only knows of the emotional now and that's how I feel.

Please don't be gone for long.
Please come be mine again.

Hope
A thank-you to Jess Smith, after showing me we're not always single. (August 1998)

Suddenly. There might just be someone there. There might just be a light in the dark.
On a warm summer's night, laid on the cool grass, warm breeze blowing,
looking up at the sky; stars like a single bright light shining through pin pricks in a dark cloth.

Cold wine bottle with tears of condensation flowing to the floor,
quenching the thirst of the ground from the heat of the day.
Two people been talking, laughing, both now quiet and observing the floor.
Then the moment arrives. In the light of the moon two pairs of eyes meet;
piercing colours, mellow thoughts. The colours disappear,
shrouded for but a moment. Lips touch, tenderly and shaking -
the universe stops the moon smiles down. Everything is still, quiet and at one.

Can this be the right one? Maybe for this moment, maybe for a time.
The fun comes in the finding out, the exploration.

Hope is like leaving the cinema - what does the world look like again?
Has it rained to leave the air still sweet and new or is it just the same?

Hope is the anticipation of discovery; whether it is right or wrong in the end.

Friend
For a dear work colleague, Sarah Hampson, when she decided to leave our workplace. (July 1998)

A friend and confidant right under my nose
Someone to share thoughts with.
Sometimes it is a simple moan. Sometimes a complex emotional issue.

Work issues, private issues, personal times, public times.
Always thoughtful, always caring and looking after one another;
looking out for the other person is the important part.

Brief whispers in the corridor to mention impending doom!
A look or a hug to show you care in a time of need.
Music and feelings shared over the top of the hum of the office.
Now they are going. Reasons are valid, but the loss is real.
This friend, this confidant, never to be replaced, only superseded.
Nothing can replace a friend who you shared such moments with.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, please always remember that
I am your friend and you can share whatever you need to with me.
Please always remember that I am but some button presses away.
Whatever, whenever. Please always be my friend.

Nobody
Spat at David Henderson-Begg, after leaving me with nobody to care for. (July 1998)

Why does nobody want me? Am I so ugly that they can't look at me or hear my personality?
I've got things to offer, but I'm a jumper rail in summer. Damn them all, do I even need them?
Why should I become dependant on someone else's crutches?

Because.

I need to feel the warmth and security of loving hands around me. I need to feel a tight grip at night, not wanting to let me loose.
I need to feel the passion in the lips in the most passionate of kisses, vivid and real and enveloping me completely.

But in the meantime, is this to be my vista? Glossed pine, a bracket and plasterboard? Who put me here? He did.

What else do you do with a possession you've finished using except place it back on the shelf?

Decision
An apology to Lee Miller, after I made the decision to leave him. (July 1998)

A decision made. In haste, on the telephone.
The loudest sound in the world follows; silence.
There's a sense of disbelief, of haste in the words that are spat afterwards.
Then a dial tone - final.
No amount of redialling, no amount of regret is ever going to change this decision,
it's made, there is no way back.

There's a feeling of loss, of the emotional moments spent together,
tenderness, laughter, sadness at the moments two people had to part for a short time.
I wonder what he's thinking at the other end of a bit of copper wire,
whether he's thinking the same as I. Who is there to console him?

Was it the right decision? Yes. No. Maybe.
Who can tell what may have been if it had continued?
Who can tell what will be now that it is finished?

The point is the decision was made and that's all.

Suffocating
About Alan Merritt, my first boyfriend who had a suffocating, jealous personality. (June 1998)

In dark, fumbling and reaching, without beauty, is where my guilt lives. One obscene and wonderful grope is what dwells at the back of my mind. Dirty and disgusting is where I sometimes long to be, with some rough boy, angry and hard.

A sort of symmetry is made in that half light, candle, nicotine smell. The first breath of pure fresh fumes from the petrol we both share, that excitement from the first smothering of intoxicating rags, fast cars and dirty oily hands behind the garages.

The fear and fun of being quiet, the breath held back, desperate with control is what I want.
Quick, push down those jeans, don't unbutton them, just a firm strong hasty pushing of denim down to your knees, not right off. No romance, no passion, lust is too comfortable for what I want. You don't unbutton me either, that is where respect can creep in, and I don't want your respect.

What I want is irrelevant, I know what you want, take it, we don't have to speak, I don't want to speak. No mouths, no kissing, no love. There is no time for thought. No, he's already on top of you, so heavy and firm. Try to breathe through the dirty duvet as you're forced face down by his hand gripping your hair.

He's pushing and forcing inside you, making you dirty and wrong, but it's too late to stop him; even if you wanted to. He's in control, all you can do is feel the pain and ecstasy which threatens to make you gasp aloud and alert him to your existence.

He doesn't want you, only the pleasure he can take from you. Any time and anywhere he wants it, and you want it too much to say no. Just let him take it, steal it; rip it out of you. Then it's over. He buttons his jeans. So do you, in obedience. He leaves you, emptier than you were before, satisfied.