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10/08/2012 – A Tulip Prayer

You’ve been living for this for weeks.
Laying down at night in bed
wrapping your arms tightly
round your body
in anticipation.
Sleep evades you.
Projected images leap
before your eyes.
Technicolour bursts
flashing pictures
disturb
and excite you.
Your heart beat races.
The fragrance of lavender pervades the room
– even with your eyes tight shut.
burned on the inside of your eyelids
the reds
and purples
clash
and compliment the perfume
of his gift.
Remembering the surprise you felt
when the doorbell rang.
The crackling of the sellophane
as you clutched his flowers
against your breast.
From him?
And now
the day at last has come.
Tomorrow you will know for sure.
All that waiting and anticipating
wondering and agitating
will be no more.
You open your eyes.
All thoughts of sleep gone.
Look at the flowers by your bed.
Symbolic there,
each closed tulip like a prayer.

25/07/2012 – Dreaming

I slowly rise to the surface of consciousness.
Where my two worlds meet.
And here I reach
two hands
towards the disappearing beach.
Sand shifts beneath my feet,
the place on which my longing
washes on that shore.
And I feel the heat
of long gone times
of intimacy
and love shared and warmed with suns
of summers passed together.
Swimming side by side.
Sychronised by love.
It was but a dream.
Reflected images of love lost
shatter with the morning light,
rippling on the surface of reality.
Shimmering memories dance and leave
me as I reach again
and try to believe
that then is now
and ending never came.
Shadows of love and loss
merge together,
forsaking blame;
creating pictures fresh and new;
And weave
a tapestry of threads in colours
rich and strong.
An image real and not reflected
from days long gone.
But let me sleep.
And dream again.
And wallow
in those waters clear and warm.
Holding my past and healing today.
And let me see
reflected in the glass
my eyes,
devoid of pain.

21/07/2012 – Nocturnal Journey

Again I wake at four,
and face the open door
to another world I see,
and the two will meet for me.
I rise and walk to meet,
step following step my feet
carry me on from this world
to the next, and I am held
with love, hand in hand
we cross the bridge and stand
together, my shadow and me,
face to face, and I see
she is no stranger
but my friend.
I embrace her;
hold her;
face her
and weep
the tears of joy,
that seep
and flow
like the river
below,
washing Fear
ever
faster to the sea,
away from me.
Nocturnal Journey

18/07/2012 – Bridge of Sighs

The bridge is strong and gracious,
proud.
Connecting banks of dual self,
and spanning black waters deep
and predatory. Rapacious.
Singing songs to suck you in
and drown you
in the roiling waters of their murky lies.
Whispering tales
of your hopelessness and failure.
She has heard so many sighs
of condemned souls which walked
across her span to their predicted death.
I found my shadow self today and watch
as she emerges from the dark Venetian walls
to greet me like she knew me centuries ago.
She watches me stand on this sighing bridge
Light and shadows, shadows and light,
and I lurk in dark places, shaking with fear,
lest my shadow can see her reflection
in my eyes.
But my bridge connects my alter and my ego.
She holds me high above the swishing, sucking
rivers of destruction. Sighing, knowing that
the choice is mine. I can stay on this bank or
cross
to the side that looks so dark, forbidding,
unknown.
Or I could jump and drown in suffocating lies
filling my lungs and soul with fetal waters -which?
The amniotic fluid lures me with escape -an end to the agony
of sorting through years of flotsam and jetsam,
driftwood of a life
lived partially.
But the bridge connects both paths
one to the other and back.
To cross to the other side
will not cause the bridge to collapse
nor my life to end.
The bridge will be there standing
as long as I need it to be.
And now I see light
tunnelled down through tall buildings,
splitting the two banks and illuminating
the waters surface with promises.