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

Audience

I've been writing all my life.

For my imaginary audience,

Those that would read my words,

Once I was famous

Or dead,

But the audience,

Like my delusions of grandeur,

Have only existed,

Never excited,

Only exited

In and out 

Of my little head

'To draw a crowd you need a crowd',

I remember from my evangelist days,

When I would gather round 

The zealous speaker,

Feigning the interest I already felt

Disinterested in the interest I would raise,

And so here and there,

On social media, 

I try to create 

Cardboard cut-out, clip-art praise,

To create the audience to draw the audience,

But the soul will wither

And the dead not raise,


I cast my bread upon the waters,

And if there is in any of this anonymity 

A whistle-howl of actual worth,

I pray my words will die undignified

And rise again in the universe,

And rise again, in second birth,

I was told in my youth,

Live for an audience of one,

The one who see's your every step,

And the blind audience

Who never knew you,

Is the cruellest one you'll ever get.

And The Tide Turned On Me

 I swam out a way

I swam out, swam out, on that Summer day

I swam out without pause from that Winter's bay

I swam out, struck out, and caught the wave,


I swam out with hope but without thought,

That all my swimming may come to nought,

I swam out because fishes swim as they ought,

And because the sea, is the net in which I am caught,

I swam out as drawn, drawn into the sea,

And as I swam I drew the ocean into me,

And swimming and filling the vacancy

With vast open water and no destiny,

I swam out then, and I am swimming still,

And swimming and longing for the spill,

When the waters spill me, but not until,

They spill me on to new land, when sea's had it's will,

And in those early days of swimming,

The crossing never crossed my mind,

Of whether I'd get there or if I was winning

Or if I'd lost loosing and what would I find?

And somewhere halfway I know I'd like this to be over,

I know I may never see the other side

And the wave I was riding has gone into receding

Just like the turning of the tide,