Un-poem ( for D )

I ache somewhere I cannot touch

And long for something other –

Something I cannot feel or fathom,

For it has not been invented yet.

I will nurse this aching, this longing,

This yearning, though I know not what it is,

And then I will pioneer it, build it,

Shout it from the very mountains I’ve created –

I do not boast, or gloat.

This is not arrogance – just the facts.

Someone once hit the nail on the head, you see,

Suggesting “A quiet confidence.”

I will rise in the same breath others see as my downfall,

And in rising, others will foresee my plight.

A hard fall – fool-hardy descent I’m sure,

Whatever that means.

I notice that others are embarrassed about their strengths,

And I struggle to see anything but the same.

And if it weren’t for a tingling in my bones –

And the strength in my inky voice

Which, whether or not triumphant,

Gets me where I wish to go,

and gives me warmth,

And a comfort otherwise unknown.

I hope you feel this too,

For there is no space for elitism -

Stirrups and dishtowels are all the same to me.

I hijack races,

I do not boycott them,

Whilst waiting for your approving word.

You are me, but with a song to sing,

And at better odds with the world.

There’s no faster way to send a message than through song,

And you’re delivering the post -

Whether it be in how you deliver,

Or in what you enclose,

It will be with grace

And artfully,

And with authority.

So do not tire.

In the gentle hours you return.

Concentration is lost,

And as you enter I realise I cannot write,

And that you’re too big for the paper in front of me.

I dream of bones, and what you mean,

And what you mean to create.

I pretend to understand,

And wish I did,

And wish a myriad of other possibilities

Embodied by you.

Potential is something you have come to know,

Whilst for most it remains aloof,

And at the top of stairwells yet discovered.

Remember this.

Treasure this.

Utilise this.

If only for my sake?

Believe it or not,

You pass through my mind

Whenever I sit down to write.

Do not go ego-tripping –

I know you wont.

But know that I know that you know you have the confidence to succeed –

However Ehrmannian (it’s a word now) this might sound.

I’m sorry we have not been in touch

As much as we should –

Clichéd perhaps,

But true.

Come visit.

Yours, as ever…

Philosophie.

Pulling long strands of your lemon grass hair from my clothes,

I consider, as I watch them fall to the ground one by one,

Should I let you go as easily?

Coffee stains, you see my Darling, are not so easy to remove.

And amber stones infect my heart with rapidity.

I stole an esoteric kiss from red, enraptured, trembling lips,

While eyes deep and wide enough to drown in shot me through the chest,

And fingertips

Traced my limbs

Through candle-lit smoke rings.

And achingly beautiful birthmarks, scars and loveable idiosyncrasies

Swirl around my mind, awash with whisky,

And Puccini,

And suicidal Butterflies.

A dangerous, heady, Olive-green elixir.

An ethereal melee perpetuating unrest,

And thoughts of when I'll be seeing you next...

And other nervous questions,

Like where can you get a good night sleep round here?