Only for itself

Then what is left
Why do anything?
Thats it precisely the answer
Do it only for itself
Never for another reason
Another time
That exists only as thought

Despair

It is only through our inventiveness
And by extension, our self delusion
That we put off our despair
And hence its resolution

Become Ordinary

Life is so unconscionably cruel
By giving us more
It takes away
The more you love
The more you will miss
When love has dwindled to dust
And so we must be Spartans
Granting ourselves only fleeting pleasure
After much discipline
That we may trick life
And make the ordinary seem a gift
And any hardship or trial
A reward for those few stolen heartbeats
When we remember careless nights
On the French Riviera
You and I and the unmapped future
Of youth
What I would give to have that back now
I knew it was special then
Now I realise it was priceless
No billionaire could buy that mind of unbridled optimism
You were the greatest lay I ever had
But had we stayed together
So many years later
Might we be bored with one another?
And so like the Spartan I should perhaps be grateful
For these bitter ashes, these memories undimmed
My regrets now are my pleasure
For unsullied they are
By succession
And the numbing turn of the years
So I remember you now, lost love
Lost life
And celebrate that I never knew you
To become ordinary

Discipline of Breath

Discipline of breath
You need less air than you think
Slow strokes take you home

Icebergs

Luminous icebergs
In a moonlit azure sky
Slowly drifting by
Like the days of my life
Beautiful from far away
Like the sound of wind
In distant pines
Hinting at things we cannot see

Lightning Rod

Writing is my lightning rod
It is no source of joy in itself
But the well worn conduit through which I find release

Shit Storm

Resent the now
Because something else should be
No one’s fault
But the fool you were
When you made the choices
That now enslave you
Perhaps you knew this was
The hardest path
But took it anyways
Or was blinded
By your own arrogance
And assumptions of growth
Forgetting you’re just a man
With an expiry date
And a mind not half so clear
As the pool that reflects the moon
The fate of an intelligent idiot
Is to get everything he planned for himself
And miss all he could have had
By accident
So full up with all he knows
He can’t see the vast sea he’s never sailed
Better by far to be ignorant
And know it
Such a man can never be taken by surprise
Expecting at any time
To fall from grace
Into another shit storm

Careless breath

Splendid castles
Shattered by the careless breath
Of God

Skeleton

So many memories
Old lives left behind
What remains?
A skeleton wearing today’s clothes
How I long for you
My anchor
To make all this real again

Biggest Fish

Life streams by
Water through the net
The few fish caught make us who we are
A pale distorted image
Of our own history
Easily lost in the eddies and swirls of living
While the biggest fish swims free