Evening nears
Another dreary day
Hauls me over its shoulder
I continue to draw breath.

I sit here
in the knowledge
that what I want
will ruin me.

A little canary
lands on my shoulder
and chirps its song:
"My friend, my friend,
wait and wait.
It's not too late to smile again,
Tomorrow has its own tomorrow,
your legs will gain strength
and your heart will follow"

It's not the best sunset I've ever seen,
nor the most pristeen,
but it holds secrets.
It makes me feel something
blue, orange, lilac and grey
Leafless trees stand silhouetted
Pretty, prickly nervous systems
I'm nervous too
I hope God isn't petty
Hidden in the lilac clouds

A flaming horizon
caked with lilac clouds
I ask it questions
but its silence lasts the night

Winter begins to wrap her cool limbs around mine.
Age-old enchantress
Stark and pure
Dressed all in blue, silver and white,
She opens the door on summer and slowly her presence fills the place.

The trees hold clawing fingers outstretched.
Summer is slipping away.
It's time to spread your emerald shawl on the ground;
Lay a brown, orange and red carpet for our honoured guest.

Age-old enchantress
Stark and pure
She has opened the door on summer and slowly her presence is filling the place.

Your teeth are real
They're ugly like mine

Your smile isn't ugly like mine
It's not real either

I've got some cheese and onion crisps
Half a packet of strawberry bonbons
And a kitkat that might have got wet on Crinkle Crags

I can't remember
the last time I saw my grandma
Or recall ever towering above her delicate, motherly body telling her I love her.

"It wouldn't have been the same without you"
"No, it wouldn't"
"In many ways"

I wonder what my dad meant by that
He likes to talk
And say nothing at all.

Man on the train furiously widens his eyes
At the piles of suitcases spewing from the rack
And curls his lips

Keith pouts like donald trump
So do I
Maybe it's genetic

I've got my grandma's genes too
She doesn't mind if I pout like donald trump
But she never liked bruce forsyth (who died last week)

Or maybe
The week before
"I've been watching strictly"

My older brother
Pulls out of the suffocating tar pit
Something nonflammable

I wonder what he meant by it
He likes to talk
He likes to say what matters

But what matters to him
And what matters to me
Isn't what matters to him

I've got a quarter of a packet of strawberry bon bons
And a kit kat that might have got wet on Cringle Crags

I carried a lady's suitcase
Over the bridge and
Back when the platform changed

She rewarded me
With information about herself
And I am grateful for that

She helped me
As simply and easily as I helped her
She gave me a smile to keep

What mattered to her,
Funny Welsh stranger,
Mattered to me
We swapped smiles
And walked off in brand new shoes.

Here again
The same old table
The same modern, open, space.
Natural light floods through the towering glass windows
And I think,
Why human?
Why couldn't I have been a rock or a tree or a waterfall?
Do trees fall out with one another
Are rocks concerned by the density of other rocks around them, or their plans or relationships or purpose
A rock is a rock
All a waterfall needs is gravity.
I'm human and I have just as much gravity as everyone else and I'm still unhappy
I'll have another cigarette.

A waterfall is water falling
All a human needs is
Something
about people or love or food or the motivation to cook food or the will to eat food even when sober.

Don't forget about money.
That's very important.
Without that, I couldn't buy tobacco.

Although on page two hundred and twenty
it must come to end,
for two hundred and nineteen and a half pages,
I found on this tree-pâté
(I don't know where ink comes from)
a friend.

Patrick for all his lonely sorrows
has taken me, sat me down in a blanket, and hidden me from the real world.
From touchable, grabbable joy
From the cold touch of a dead memory
From the contorted warmth of a lover about to take a journey.
From the satisfaction of a day job
From the numbing repetition of a day job
From anything tangible I hide,
and while away awhile.

Reading.

Page to page different circumstantial photographs,
beautifully, hauntingly captured, some of them,
all in his warm tongue and keen hand.

I wonder if I know these things he speaks of.
I am so close to them
I can see them
I'm in my blanket
My tongue in my mouth
My hands on his pages
My ears greedily lapping up his nutrition (too quickly to taste)
and my mouth is dry.

Not a callous touches my skin.
Not a memory picks up a pencil.
Not a lover contorts my limbs, my neck, ruffles my hair.
I can ruin my own hair.
I can stand up and see through my eyes as well as his
I might feel tangible
And I'll write a poem about it

Cardiff still sleeping
The light rain kissing the dark pavements
Delicately in the dim, secluded lamplight,
As lovers do,
Willingly oblivious to the odd lonely commuter,
Who frowns at the fresh, wet passion
From behind bleary eyes behind grey spectacles behind the wheel behind the grumbling, soggy rubber on the road.

Cardiff's lover must too
Make their commute,
The slow, grey flight is blown with such intent,
The wind is cupid and knows
Crops must be watered
Rivers filled
Valleys and hills alike await their romantic precipitation.
And the rain loves to please,
Turning yellows green and greens brown
And commuter's smiles upside down
(if they have smiled in the last ten years...

...sometimes I wonder if I have)

So, rain, peck my cheeks and run through my hair gentle fingers,
Speckle my glasses with moisture from your cool, close breath and whisper silence-quenching lyrics on my window with your pitter patter and I will dream and I will wake again to the early dawn rain and I will turn to you, open my mouth and taste your gentle kiss on my lips and tongue and I will smile.