To love means my heart does little skips when I
look at my wife  and she hasn’t noticed I’m
looking so I can see the complex mixture of
browns that blend so perfectly to make the color
of her eyes.  It makes me smile.

To be there means to make The Little Kid put on her
Aztec hat, not because it makes her look cute, which
it does, but because it stops her face getting red
and puffy in the bitter wind, even though she looks sweet
with those fluffy red cheeks.

To be at peace means to notice the snoring of the dogs
as they lie stiff-legged in that sun, plush against the
carpet and to smile, again, at the silly sounds a little dog can
make whilst it sleeps.

To be happy means to take all of these things, live
them fully and let them sink slowly into what makes me
who I am right now; a happy man.

To be lucky means that I can tell you about them.

If you cross or transgress her she’ll smash you to bits
this girl is a tigress with a pole-dancer’s hips.
She’s learnt to be fearsome , she’s learnt to be curt
this way is far better, she’s harder to hurt.

She spits at the people who’re full of conceit
and she loathes the liars, those full of deceit.
See, once you’ve been bitten when expecting a kiss
the lesson you learn is: give love a miss.

But this hardness is wrapped in the green of an angel
that strides towards doors of the sick and unable
where she washes the needy, unseen by our eyes
and caresses the hands of the ready to die.

The mad, the unwanted, the babbling few,
the burdensome, the quarrelsome, the too sick to move.
She bites on her lip to snip off her feelings
as she doles out compassion and makes life have meaning.

Then slips into darkness with the turn of her key
and returns to her gremlin and slumps for TV
where, lulled by the warmth and fatigue of long days
she drifts off to sleep, it’s better that way.

Liquid solid flows with the puff, ochre stripes washed
grey with the powdering of divinity. The lines of his thoughts
across his brow, deep and drifting, running over to wash the beckoning
fingers of smoke’s fate, launching to drift on torrid
currents of time and fickle happenings, thrown back and
forth further and far from the loud “haaaaa” of the exhale.

Their prose and statuary, towering in their microscopic
magnificance amongst the whisps of their fleeting existence
unseen by those who did not look for them, breathed in to
be a part of those who did not make them; even those who
did not pause to question or care if they were likely to exist.

If, at that moment He should clap his hands or
spin to attend to some other diversion they might
scatter in the draught. It’s a fact; you can’t unscatter
smoke.

The dark is hollow, lit by the sound of my snoring
dog which bounced off just-familiar walls and
rapped against the ice on the windows. A
rumbling echo-locator beacon mapping the room.

The Omaha cold has a smell. An aroma that you
don’t get back in the nooks and crannies
of British suburbia. Over there the cold has an odour
of rotten wool or skanky grey cardboard. But here,
here it is… incisive. Like the edges of
a pattern cut into a good quality glass.
Etched. Purposeful. It tricks you like this.

And here the wind doesn’t nudge you about and
flick playful flakes at you; it pinches your ears and
slaps the raw open palm of its hand full and hard
against your sore cheeks and tweaks the end of
your nose to make it drip drip drip sniff.

Home-coming is the sound of ruddy-faced people
knocking the life back into gloved hands followed by
the communion of banging boots free of snow that
doesn’t melt. Watching are hurrying snow plows
littering dirty white drifts at every road junction;
sullen funeral pyres where Nebraska’s December
buries the bones of our long sweet lazy summer.

Up, with a cuddle for the roused snorer and a
pat on the head for Toto’s double before I stitch
myself into my great galumping snow boots and
ram my “ear hat” down hard to thwart frostbite’s
chances. Fingers straight and stiff in waterproof
gloves; required, essential – skin dies here in minutes
if you let the swirl of the wind start to snack on it. I kiss,
check, keys, check and head Oates-like to the car.

Half-light twilight and the crackle of trees flexing
nakedly in the chilling breeze that bites. The blipper
clunks the door locks and, with an OCD glance for the
right park light, full red dial, full blast fan on; both
heaters set to beat the ice away from the poor
shivering windows.

So I begin to scrape away winter from your windshield.
Methodically because that’s how my mind likes to do
these things, the way I’m designed. Square scrapes,
neat edges, top to bottom. The sound of the blade
bounces off the garages and walls. A rasping, juddering
staccato cackle of frozen resistance. No bird sounds,
no traffic noise; just me and the scraper and…
that…
damn…
stubborn…
frost, thicker than the glass I’m hacking it from.

He’s got that blankie still. Rotted with the
drool of comfort years and glazed with some
real sweaty summers. Snuggles it close as ever.
An anchor in the squally seas of change.
Creaks those cranky joints together with
a huge Kirky-boy sigh and thumps himself
into the cloth with squeezed-together eyes.
I swear he used to smile.

Now he just rumbles on that blankie, day and night
with those wobbly-paw half-yelps of him
chasing down sleep sheep or some night rabbits.
Or he just guards at that bottom window and sighs
through his nose at the disappointments. Waiting.
Early days he’d point the flop from his ears,
whiskers shivering, and bob his head like Ali if he heard
a car coming up the road. It’s knocked the shine out of
his eyes, all that fruitless checking and weaving.

Now all Kirk’s got left is the stare-and-stare, glassy eyed,
into the distance. Not a flicker except a blink to wet those
big brown pleading pools. But he hasn’t given up even though I’ve
explained it all to him until we’ve both had enough and
wack down by your couch. I’ve written to everyone else
and told them, cancelled things, notified, crossed the T’s,
but, I just don’t know what to say to Kirk.
Kirk’s the problem.

For my father, who cried at The Sleeper
and was proud of me for being his son.

For my sister, who may never understand
them though they brought a lump to her throat.

For my nephew, who I hope will one day see the
gods do not all play for Manchester United.

For my lover, who shines from within.

For my past, which sinned against me
as I sinned against it.

For my future, however short, or long;
I hope I use you well.

For attonement.

Boy meets girl. Using Maya Angelou
We’re crushes, we’re candy, we’re muscle for hire.
The ripple of pecs, six pack of desire.
Our suntans and biceps, our white-glinting grins.
we star in your dreams full of lascivious sins.

Bug-killing, hole-digging beer-swilling fun
the rubbers of cream to protect you from sun.
The flash of smiles in the dark of the bar,
the press of our hips, the brush against bra.

As much as you hate us, in truth it’s a game
you flicker with passion when we say your name
and fingertips stretch on a sunset beach
to lock intertwined so each caress each.

For the faults and the failings we endlessly list
drop from our thoughts as our lips meet to kiss,
since the truth is, despite what we say to each other
the world would be wasted without you, my lover.

It melts you, this acid love.
Dissolves the bits that you were and leaves
nothing but the framework of you, bawling.
From whole to gone in one easy splash
of liquid misfortune;
just to pour on you, on you, on you.

I am tongue. I am expression of thought.
I am revelation of conscience.
I am identity and I am definer of knowledge.

You are the off switch of contemplation,
creator of false drama and
hanging moments, the appellant to
common denominator.

You are repellent of sophistication
for fear of losing the mass of imagined
uncomplication. You are budget and
the science of demography and driver
of simplified-greed buy one get two
buy five for three commerce.

I am tongue.
I am thought into words. I am description
of the indescribable. I am music of
the soundless mind. I am pricker to tears
I am stretcher of horizons. I am inner voice
surfaced into scratched black. I am
rhyme and reason and soul into poetry.

But you are to kill me.