whenitrains

Catching The Sea With My Final Breath

by

As I approach the sand in darkness,

in blue-black murky darkness, with the strongest of strong winds coursing through my body,

my head, my brain, my soul, my heart,

and as I look up to the horizon one more time: the horizon that combines sea into sky and sky into sea,

and the wind blows the sand, whipping my skin, whipping my eyes.

Although the horizon looks bleak it looks attractive.

Although the water is cold and black, I know it could swallow me.

I know it would subdue all of my thoughts and worries and doubts and I know the sky would take me.

It would absorb me. I would become one with it and yet I would cease.

I would cease to be.

Scraping The Sky With My Heart

by

I am none the wiser to how high the wisp of white cloud is

why I can’t touch it, why I can’t scrape it, why I can’t enter it with all my heart and soul

how far away it is from the blue sky

where it goes after I touch it wearily.

And I cannot conceive of the feeling.

I cannot conceive the sensation.

Of its softness, of its lightness

Whether I could twist it round my hand and grab it out the sky,

make it mine

Or whether I am predisposed to an eternity of staring up at blue,

at grey, at white, at cloud, at sky,

at hope, at bliss, at fear, at worry

And whether, instead of me looking up at the sky, at the cloud,

it’s the sky and the cloud looking down at me,

mocking, wandering, pointing

Or whether I am so small and minute and minuscule and tiny in the scheme of things,

I am merely a dot, a speck.

With my incessant quest for hope to look up and

watch the sky

and watch the cloud and breathe and feel and, in all my being,

feel like I am at one with the sky, whether this is, at best, just a waste, a fledgling dream that never was.

I [am]

by

I am

waiting in the wings unable to fly shadow

the rock oddly positioned and made permanent by the winds of time

the hasty over-zealous outpouring of emotion and tenderness

the wasted void of yesteryear

the ghost of your room, cold and barren

the waiting of time to reverse

the watcher of clouds and sky and sun

the beating heart of the breeze through my blood

the fossilised wreck of a brain folding in

the whisper of hope in the breeze

the collapse of control

And yet I am

a hope carried in seed

flourish of light on barren abandoned tarmac.

Where Has

by

The purity of innocence gone

When did this knowledge off pain and hate and anger start

I sit alone with this deficit of positive, hopeful, loving thought

With a stupid crazy mind jammed full of worry and misplaced self-hate

crammed all in and sealed shut

I try to move around, find a space where it’s less dark, less painful but

I

can’t

So I sit here with over-riding, choking grey-snoke thoughts of

pain

fear

worry

doubt

death

I sit here wondering why, why I can’t be

at

peace

just for a moment

why my stupid brain can’t

not think about evil, about the end of innocence

And I plead with it

I try to make deals with it

brain please, please please just stop

you’re ruining it for me, I can’t cope with this

But it won’t listen.

The Grand Old Duke Of Mania

by

He marched all day and all night up to the top of the hill

Felt the peak of the summit, the air on his face, the sky bleeding into him as one

There was no 10,000 men

nor indeed anyone

by his side

Just the air and molecules of a thousand universes and his ancestry seeping their way

into his

soul

mind

body

Awake yet asleep

on top of the hill looking down

down at a world so far away and distant

and up at a sky so far away and distant

And the Duke, wondering why, why he feels this rush of knowing, of awareness

as if knowing the meaning of the entire universe and everything

so high up on that hill

And yet now, even with sun glancing over the horizon

as if winking at the idea of a sunset

and despite that slight chill seeping quietly into the wind with

abject discretion

He sits

high above

high.

Finally In The Middle Of The Storm I Wondered

by

With strong hesitation and a feeling of rumbling melancholy

seeking forgiveness but also solitude in the grey expanse of the heavens

Whiplash gravel rain beating into me

and when that stopped, well there was

wind into sand into my eyes into my burrowing away soul

grating and chafing away at the small residual part of me

clinging on in the wind

literally but also clinging on to some

semblance of sanity and reality

And the knowing I have one train only

and yet I’m stood there longing for you, looking out at

the black of sea into black of sky

and wondering how long it would be for I sighed and just melted into the water into sky into dark

into nothing

And I could hear those waves – can hear them now

beating with sheer aggression at the shore

unseen in black, maybe a glimmer of dark-blue-grey

then gone

And I felt their pull, every time the wave retreated

come with me

stay with me

An empty friend playing a trick

And eyes straining against the blackness

marvelling at the bleak beauty of it

thinking, does nobody else see this?

See it how I do?

And underneath the whoosh of the wave

I heard your voice calling me

I felt your breath

so far away I would have to stretch across oceans for you

So I packed up that yearning

put in a box with all my questions I had

looked back to the sea one more time

And saw the sea reply

it knew I would be back

I would always be back

Would you?

Last Night I Dreamed The Moon Collided

by

In my dream we held hands under stars so bright I wanted to

scream with pleasure and ecstasy and

marvel at the brightness and the purity pumping around my veins and into my heart

It was wild, we were wide awake at night –

think of pure air, stars blinking down at us as if

approving of the impermanence of our love

I felt the magic of slight breeze on my skin

air running through my bones

I felt the slight warmth of your hand on mine

letters long since posted

now frayed and yellowed through the haunt of time

And as I turned to the sky

yours eyes and mine

felt the soundless roar of movement and speed and grace

and momentum

And then I saw it

Bright yet pale and terrifying

signalling the end

And I looked at you

for one last time

a glance that felt it lasted hours

and we took one last breath.

The Bizarre Case Of The Season That Cast No Stone

by

In this case of a singularity of reflected gold on black tarmac

In this case of sharp bright sunshine stabbing into my eyes like needles

And in this case of a clear and sudden awakening, like thunder

There was, at once, presence and surprise

Eagerly awaiting the opportunity of morning

And a shadow cast into the pool, thrown with abandonment

With no cry of remorse, no cry of shame

Battening down the hatches to release myself under shadows of slumber

Facing the cry of one demon after another, still and splendid

With the promise of sunshine, of sporadic white billowy cloud

And the landing of the plane with release, with drama, with fortitude

Ash and gray, dusty, billowy, no longer

And the slow dawn of autumn

And a slow cold undertone of sleep and winter.

Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Now Landing

by

There’s a tiny tiny little grey speck I’m trying to hold on to and grasp and nurture

And yet however tightly I try and hold it, it slips away into water, into a stream, into nothing

Whilst my instinct is to reach out to try and grab it to hold on to it, just let go

And in that water in front of me, in that great depth, in that great mystery, all I see is the vastness of nothing and melancholy

And whilst you see beauty in blinking water and diamonds and wash and swell and awe

I just see nothing, an eternal nothing and an eternal void

And the irony is when I try to dive in when I’m about to release then the last fibre and speck of my being is about to let go. I cannot

And so I just stare down at those rocks, at those shards that are waiting inevitably to take me

A part of me is proud I am not part of it

And part of me resents that I am not shattered, that I have not become part of that ocean, that I have not become part of that grey dark swell

And yet here I am and as I look up not to the sun but another grey storm cloud above me

I look up yet again at the billowing vast grey, dark, black smoke that engulfs me, every breath and every part of my being.

Oh My Daze

by

Once up on a time in a place far away

In fact, so steeped with time and history and murky years

I can’t recall the place

I can recall vague recollections and disjointed memories

Faded hot pavements

Squint-your-eyes hot sun

Cold water relief shock and laughter

Quick run inside

Laughter in the distance, I want to be involved

Running running

Commentating myself, must push

Heart rate settling

And I wonder to myself

Did I ever feel like I wasn’t a stranger peering into the world?

Tippy-toes standing up, desperately trying to see inside at something I couldn’t relate to

Or was that always the way and always will be?

Outside the circle, so close to stepping in, but when I do it’s like

I’m a fraud

I’m detected as an outside within one step of entering

and instantl

ejected

dejected

rejected