Not There Yet

There’s a danger all of it’s own

Of losing a stone 

Or having woken 

When you’re feeling like it’s back under control 

When you know you’re awake

When you’ve had a few well deserved easy days

When you’ve had another 5 minutes under the duvet

And you’re on the cusp of nailing it

But so, so close to edge of the abyss

And free falling back into it

Back into your old ways

Back into slumber

While your motivation plummets 

And smoke begins to fill the house 

And on the brink of victory 

You are closer than you ever were to crushing defeat

Where you are half wake 

Half way there 

And Christ calls you 

Stay awake 

Stay awake 

Whatever you do 

Don’t go back to sleep

Don’t drift 

Grab hold of me

Let’s grab hold of this 

You’re not safe 

Until you are 

Don’t will it over 

Go the distance 

Stay alert 

Dig in

Resist 

Look up

Your salvation is near 

It is not yet here 

But it is near

25/92/21 

East and West

It's not a secret

That if you set out for the East

And maintain your motion 

And direction 

You will arive once more in the West

For everywhere is West of somewhere 

And East 

And West

Is just a case of where you start 

And end

And sometimes 

With my arms around you 

I cannot tell

Where you end

Where I begin

And where do I start 

To tell East and West apart,

Am I your Soul

Are you my heart? 

Namaste

The Skinny Kid in me

Honours the fat man in you

And recognises the gaps

Where the fat pokes through

There's a crack, as the poet said

In these broken things,

And that crack is your mouth 

Where the fat gets in

The bones in me

Honour my skin

And all the pores where

The light gets in

The light in me

Honours the lighter you

That you were, that you'll be

Once more, one way or another,

When the day is through

Accidental

 I don't want you to think

That this is more than coincidental

When I tell you that rhyming here

Was accidental

To a poet a rhyming scheme

Can be fundamental

But I assure you this time it

Was accidental

I don't want you to think 

I'm lying

Don't be judgemental

I wont mislead you that this rhyme

Was accidental

This time I wont lie, 

I wont place words out as ornamental,

I simply stumbled across those that

Were accidental

How could I be so blythe with words

And yet so unsentimental

When gentle I remind you it

Was pure coincidence

Boxes

There is a terror of blindness.

There is a box about me 

I can't see beyond

The outer perimeter 

Of the universe 

There is a box about me

I can't see beyond 

Earth's atmosphere 

And the vacuous black beyond 

There is a box about me

I can't see beyond

The breeze block walls

Of this break room 

There is a box about me 

I can just see beyond

The cell of my skin 

And the place the senses end

There is a box about me 

I can't see beyond 

The perimeters of my vision

Which recede day by day

There are walls which close like lids

But God within the inner space

The vast expanse 

Is infinite

The lid will close on this box

Be it eye or coffin,

For the final time 

But I shall not be trapped within 

These walls cannot contain

Let alone define.

Certain Surrender (For Bono)

 You say that those you doubt most

Are those who are certain of their answers.

That you still haven't found

Whatever it was, that you set out looking for.

You say that the journey is the point 

With no destination

No line upon the horizon

That you will surrender to the mystery,

Wandering in the desert.

You Eulogise Paul, 

And I believe you love him too,

But I feel you would disdain his certainty,

And what you need to know about me,

Me and we whose certainty 

Causes you so much doubt,

That my surrender simply came earlier in the journey,

That I surrendered my answers to those given words of God,

That my journey has simply been 

To carry my thorny doubt with me,

And let it's niggle in my side,

Remind me:

On this journey,

I've already arrived,

Doubt for the moment,

Is just along for the ride

Cell For Sale

Cell for sale

I'm selling the cell,

You're forewarned It's a four-walled

Living hell

The aspect is irrelevant,

And the vista as well,

Whichever way that you are facing

As you're pacing, 

You can never tell,

The toilet is open plan,

And yet it is quite discreet

As the cell, is, well, private,

You have your own en suite, 

And parking's a dream,

There's no need to compete,

As there's no street, it's wherever you park your feet,

The soft sell is that it comes

At a competitive price,

Stuck in your head

A prisoner of your own advice,

Never think once,

But always think twice,

And on second thoughts,

Let anxiety entice,


I'm selling the cell

Yeah I'm moving out

Out of my head,

And out and about,

I'm leaving behind 

The lock and the key,

And the prison of anxiety

And the jailer who I now realise

Has been me.

Landscape

Poetry is just going out walking

Through the landscape of the soul

Where reality meets imagination

Where the half-lived

Meets the longed-for-whole

Taking down what I see here

And mapping where I'd want to go

Recall all the past misadventures

Landscaping the garden,

Like so,

Like so,

And sculpting the real

Into the unreal,

And bringing the unreal,

Into something I can feel,

It is not me walking,

In the poem, on the page,

Sometimes the character,

Sometimes the actor.

Always the stage,

The garden I am drawing,

The landscape I define,

Is blurry round the edges,

Like this old mind of mine