The Sitting Room

The Sitting Room

You are just a tenant here you say
living in and out of this life
as cheaply as you can

I sit here
in the darkness
gently
like an old woman

Thoughts knot and click
like brittle bones
doing too much
trying to question all of this

Trying so hard
to fade out in the blackness
all of the fear
all of the tears that bring us to this

Sometimes it is better that we sit
here in the silence
I don't look at you
and you don't seem to notice

And the reasons
The reasons are impossible to see converge
They gather like dust
upon a shelf

You are just a tenant here you say
Living in and out of this life
as cheaply as you can

Swimming

Your body is the shoreline
Sometimes I am the sea
Clinging desperately
Feeling all the contours
Ebbing away
Pulled by the tides
The moon
And digital clocks
Sensitive to nothing
Parting hours
Time falls through our fingers
Like sand

An Ordinary Life

The madman looked inside the eyes
Of the face upon the mirror
It seems I'm losing my way again he sighed
And once again the tell-tale tears begin their journey
down an ever deepening track

His wife places a hand upon his shoulder
How over these past few months he's aged so many years
He'd give this life to live again
He'd be so more daring
Be so much bolder
But a little less aware

It's something of which he can't be certain
And so he stays restrained and hurting

At breakfast he places a kiss upon his only daughter
How he longs for her to run to him
As she did when she was young
But her secrets have become her fears too
Still she remains his child

His still-pretty wife manages so well
Makes excuses for his absence
Tries so hard to find the road he's on

The madman combs his hair
His expression has returned almost to normal
And he blends almost perfectly with the crowd
Back into an ordinary life

Shades

Through the soft shades of summer
Fused together by the strange seasons of the city
The stationary is stained with all my failings

The bed lays now cold and empty as a casket
Your body left its shape upon the sheets and little else
I shall dress my room in the colours of sadness

Short Story

There is a little place
In a little room
Where a little chap
Hides away amidst the gloom

Tucks his little legs
Undemeath a well worn chair
Plucks a piece of paper
And attacks at his despair

A stubby lead pencil
Scratches through the fears
Of every little cruelness
That reduces us to tears

Sharp is the lead
But will it penetrate
All the nooks and crannies
That this world creates?

There is so little time
For us to stop and look
As he places the cover
Upon his little book

There will come a day
When this little man will die
And they'll put him in a tiny hole
Underneath the sky

His little lead pencil
Book and chair
Will be placed inside a plastic bag
And taken - who knows where!

The Power Game

I've been sitting here all day
Trying to understand
Why people want to rule each other
When the problem's close at hand

A little less of what you want
And more of what you've got
Is enough to keep you struggling
Without hatching other plots

But justify yourself!
Don't satisfy yourself
You should be out there voting
Say the power mongers gloating

The left wing rich
Trying to shed their guilt
Go knocking down dreams
Before they're even built

Don't tell me how to live my life
Don't tell me what to do
Repression is always brought about
By people with politics and attitudes like you

All We Have To Be Thankful For

She clutches on to his protruding hips for dear life
Going down she is going under
She wishes he were emotional
Or something approaching tenderness
Outside the weather beats a little harder than her heart

Not even this will keep them together

She makes love
He makes time pass a little less painfully
One and the same perhaps

This time it could be everything

It's enough reason for staying
It's enough to make you want to die
The hardest part is trying not to make a mess of it all

It's all we have to be thankful for