Inconsolable

When you reach out 

from darkness and know

Whose fingers lace in yours 

No questions asked about 

where you lead them

When you pour out

the black ink in your soul

And watch it spread on

Pristine white

Not caring how 

it blots out the light

When you think not

To pull your punches 

Or blunt the glinting edge

of your words that draw

Angel blood with a whisper

When you see 

the Ugly in you

In the mirror only One can

hold up without 

turning to stone 

in the glare of

your medusa head

When you fly home

With wounded wings

dripping lifeblood

and try to heal

Selfishly feeding on 

Another soul, not knowing 

or caring how much

is to spare

And in the end

when you calm down

Having stifled sobs 

into her pink pyjama top with

The hugging grey teddies

You do feel better 

and it hurts a little less

But never can you forget

The echoing sorrow of the

Wide eyed little boy

Inconsolable 

In the hollow corridor as

Your lifeless words 

tumble out

Already turning to dust

Meaningless

Much like your efforts 

To save his father

Crossing Jesus Green

A distant digger stencils 

the silence in the air

A hint of children's chatter

In the shy summer breeze

as I cross the green void 

Aiming for those 

trees in

regimental splendour

I savour my thoughts dipped in 

a dollop of silence

Waves of grass rippling around

My feet, much like water lapping those

Of that other son 

Famous for feats with feet

Among other things 

Mundane Monday

Monday was bad.

Had a complication at work and the person ended up in a worse state after I treated him than before.

Another mountain of paperwork awaited silently judging my inefficiency but I didn't have the heart to deal with it after all that had happened.

Like a cat burglar or perhaps an assassin my migraine was creeping up on me - I could just see it out of the corner of my eye but felt helpless to stop its relentless advance.

It pounced as I drove home - nearly blinding me. Exquisite pain - if you were to sell it you would have stamped it 'export quality' and plumped the packet up with nitrogen. Such perfect unadulterated agony.

Somehow I crawled out of the car and went straight up to bed, catching her eye halfway up the stairs as she sat tucked up on the sofa with the kids draped across her legs.

I wanted her and then she was there and without a word she put my head in her lap and ran her fingers through my hair as I slipped in and out of a fitful sleep.

Hardly a best seller this mundane account of my ordinary life, but as my head eventually stopped trying to splinter and crack I remember thinking - to feel her love and her tenderness and the way she treats me like a wounded child, to feel this secure in someone's company - I would happily have an exploding head any day.

Firework tree

On lazy days when Mother Nature feels rather arthritic and grumpy she lights some magic fireworks under tree roots and sneaks off, not waiting to see how they shoot up the trunks and explode in wondrous colours weighing the branches down with unbearable lightness - pink and white and deep deep red

Here's the firework tree I see out of my bedroom window 

Winter morning

Grim and brooding and cold,

gnarled fingers raised 

to the heavens

stencilled painstakingly 

Every dark little twiglet

White on black

The proverbial silver lining?

Or perhaps the love child of

a wayward zebra

Like Comment Share

They burn with the fierce determination
Of those hell-bent on hell-fire termination

Like Comment Share

Hunger gnaws on dark little feet
Juicy morsels of innocent meat
Tenderised in tenderness lite

Like Comment Share

Hate flows magnificently
How useful this human(s)kill
This life-hack to hack those down
Who we do not like

Like Comment Share

Birds fall out of the sky
Taking with them promises
Baptised unceremoniously
In the unfathomable depths of
This ever-shrinking world

Like Comment Share

We judge in reckless abandon
All those we love ...
to hate
Secure in our inherent insecurity

Like Comment Share

In the midst of all this selfishness
All this brand-new technology that pales
Before age-old human stupidity
You still shine – gentle and true
Now and forever more

Like Comment - sure
But you, I will never Share