Two Candles

They dance under the stars and the moonlight,
Beside a table clad in shimmering gold and glistening glass,
With two candles standing tall, despite melting wax,
Glowing brightly in the cool dusk becoming cloudy as the night approaches;
Her eyes act like a mirror, reflecting his face,
And there he sees his own eyes, pupils dilated,
As he opens up to this person he hardly knows;
That first kiss lasts seconds, but feels like an eternity,
And it carries them up seventeen steps to a red bedspread,
Where their newly discovered dormant passion takes hold,
Amidst an undying love he had felt once before,
But which comes entirely new to her,
Whose plague has prevented past feelings from flourishing;
Gently, lovingly, they come together, two people barely acquainted,
Not in a fit of lust,
Not in searching for a soulless encounter reminiscent of the Red Light,
But each stricken by private grieves not shared by the other,
Sad histories amalgamating to create what should be a promising future;
And then he sees her scar, above the breadth of her left breast,
And he kisses her scar tenderly, wishing he could heal it and the heart that lies beneath,
So they could live in unlimited time, to see the world together,
To get married, to have children and live by the sea,
Gazing forevermore at the unreachable horizon and the revolving sun;
But this is futile, wishes confined to dreams and hopeless harbours,
Her life is doomed to being dominated by pagers and hospital beds,
Too-ing and fro-ing from the home of her own to the home of the ill,
With her weak heart making it impossible to even walk her dog
Without tiring to near collapse;
So, she sleeps in his arms, content in the present to put aside the inevitable,
But he cannot sleep, not while knowing that this wonderful new thing,
This young love on experienced shoulders, wisdom unattainable even through surgery,
Is in the hands of a higher authority than his own;
His eyes strain and fight fatigue as he realises there IS something he can do to save her,
Even though it would mean him losing her forever,
Even though it would mean him meeting the creator of these cruel circumstances
Years before his time;
A beeping sound in the middle of the night awakes her - her pager comes alive,
There is a heart out there for her,
Yet he is gone,
And outside, one candle is extinguished by the falling drops,
But the remaining candle flickers unwaveringly in the rain.

Untitled Document

And I am surrounded by mindless, random people,
When all I want is a conversation with one random, mindless person,
And I really do not want to be here, yet I have to be,
In the hope a friend not mindless will let me listen to them,
And there is sweat dripping from my forehead,
But I fail to see the point.

And I am forced to stand and watch as it unfolds before me,
On the dance floor, trapped by the people,
And I cannot move my shoulders as I see their lips lock,
Dashing dreams with every motion,
And I fight my way from the horrific heartbreaking scene,
Leaving in a frenzy of stomach churning emotion.

And I cannot afford to breath too loudly,
Or they will notice my taking leave is based on half a lie,
And the people in the restaurant outside marvel at the saddest sight they ever saw,
A man in a long black overcoat and tuxedo t-shirt,
And he walks the long road home alone, a lost look on his face,
Head bowed in the rain as he realises his hope was the biggest joke of them all.

And the break dancer with the backwards cap and the old man with withered old wisdom,
Stand sheltered beside the shuttered doors of the pub to share a cigarette,
And a drunk stumbles past, a young man with his life supposedly ahead of him,
Trying to convince me that his money has been stolen,
And he howls a crying plea so transparent, I know I will be the robbed one,
Should I take his five simple steps toward his hidden right hand.

And the old man walking thirty yards ahead holds back a tear,
As I lag behind singing beautiful words out of tune,
And they tell a tragic story with inflections of reality buried in the tone,
So much so the old man cannot distinguish between fact and fiction,
And everything in the air is jumbled with all the varying noises,
Disorientating the old man whose sleep that night would be disturbed by visions of me.

And the person lying asleep on the steps of an abandoned house,
Just wishes I would shut my well-off mouth,
And she resents the fact I can afford to walk this distance home,
Safe in the knowledge that a taxi can get me to a guaranteed bed at any time,
And she thinks me a pretentious so and so, who writes random lines into his mobile phone,
In the hope that simple elaboration will make masterpieces of them.

And I gaze into the dark never ending expanse of Fairview Park,
Seeing a gloriously bitter end to a gloriously bitter night,
And creeping cars frighten me with their shadow casting lights,
Because I fear knowing the people inside the cars and inside the shadows,
And I laugh sadly as a swarm of taxis fly by,
Racing each other to the city’s few fares (fairs).

And I see a silhouetted figure run into the middle of the road,
Before vanishing into nothing before my heavy eyes,
And I am unsure if this was a fatigue induced hallucination,
Or a warning to heed the cramp in my right calf,
And I stare nervously at the place it disappeared as I walk past it,
Convinced it will reappear and take me to the place where shadows sleep.

And a car wash light flickers on and off, when there’s no need for it to be alive at all,
When all washable cars are clean at this inhumane time between morning and wakening,
And the cover of trees shelters me from the prying eyes of hunters of the night,
Who may judge my behaviour and spread lies to those who could harm me,
And a song comes on my MP3 player that incites a rage years old,
That I did not know even existed until this moment of disillusioned clarity.

And I am angry at my father now, but not for the manner of his departure,
Or for the consequences on myself or on my father’s side of the tree,
And my anger breaks, leading to screams of undecipherable, mutilated lyrics,
As I realise with sudden helplessness the effect his death will have on my brothers,
And I resent the timing of him knotting the noose,
As his sons were too young to lose a father figure, and I was too young to become one.

And I notice now a slash on my conscience,
A seven year old bleeding wound.

(I was walking home from town one night, which is a two hour walk or so for me, and I was just typing things that happened, or that I saw or thought, into my phone and saving them as drafts as I went - this is the end result of that process).

Tell

I tell them it will be ok,
When they fall and hurt themselves,
I tell them to keep going and going,
When they just feel like giving up,
I tell them to rise above,
When words are used to play games,
I tell them to repair and re-start,
When they are rebuffed again and again,
I tell them it is never easy,
When they wonder why it is all going wrong,
I tell them goodbye is the hardest part,
When they say ‘dead people can’t hear goodbyes’,
I tell them to keep looking,
When they tempt love and feel rejection,
I tell them all these things,
Because they have no father to do so.

But I have yet to tell myself one of these things.

Room of Tufts

The paint glows in the night,
Illuminating my fault,
She takes my hand and holds on tight,
Searching for a key to my vault;
She has been looking a long time,
Wondering about the boy inside the man,
And there is a belief etched in her face,
That a lifting truth will come from her plan;
All these years my reputation has grown,
How nice, kind and sensitive he is,
Word of mouth building a myth,
A false prophet in our friends’ mist;
Her eyes are aglow now beside Earth’s colours,
A sharp blue contrasting with them all,
Piercing my own blue in complete futility,
Making her leave, deaf to my call;
The key she wants was lost by an ex,
Whose passage I allowed so I could hear her sing,
I lost the one who held the key last,
When she tossed it aside for alcohol and a fling;
And as I see my new fancy walk away forever,
I know there is no hope, even at the end,
And when they all learn what I really am,
I will not have a single friend.

And up in the sky, in my windless room of tufts,
I will see rebukes, rejections, and repeated rebuffs.

Nothing

All around
- feelings fly toward the empty sky.
No sound
- except for voices whispering undying love for one another.
Unfound
- all this remains for I alone atop my mountain.
Breaking mound
- avalanching down as they take cover.

Secret shames
- they bind me to my initially enforced isolation.
Horrid games
- they haunt my dreams both night and day.
Friendly names
- they believe my front and think me better.
Futile aims
- they fail like always, leaving only one more way.

Weather turns
- lashing down as my home crumbles beneath my feet.
It all burns
- as they all look back and yell at me to flee.
Stomach churns
- seeing the end of something so unspectacular.
No concerns
- knowing this is the one chance we have of being free.

Only I
- lying broken amidst the glass and debris.
Unable to cry
- no change to what has gone before.
Here to die
- as they all look to me to fight my solitary wish.
Goodbye lies
- shutting behind me life’s exit door.

Something
- the gift I received from a man I never met.
Nothing
- what I did with the gift I had no choice but to accept.