To Live Deliberately

A collection of poetry that is slowly growing as I continue to do so. It documents my life as it happens, my thoughts and my ideas. Ever since finding my love it has obviously taken a turn towards that all enflaming feeling but I try to mix it up a little for your benefit and hers. I was inspired to start writing originally by this quote from The Dead Poets Society that I try ot take as a guide to my life:
'To put to rout all that was not life,
and not, when I had come to die,
discover that I had not lived.'

Your Secret Smile For Me

I could never see your smiles forced at me.
No matter what you say I haven’t seen
Grimaces based on scrabble with coffee,
Or giggles about fingers and camera screen.
I saw no weak grin as you dug furrows in skin,
That still mark my arms with crescent red.
Where was force when you heavy breathed sin
Over phones lain on lonely night beds?
-
You’re not angry at me for loving touch.
You’re angry at you for wanting it too.
Why can we not follow what’s wanted much
And both draw easy in to loving coo.
Why hold fast to wasted stigma parts
When such gravity lasts between two red hearts?

Found (The Doorbell)

Someone rang our bell tonight. For a half a second I smiled, the thought that the mystery ring might be you. ‘I had to see you, I couldn’t stand it anymore.’ ‘You shouldn’t have come, you should be working, sleeping even, but I’m glad you did my angel.’
It wasn’t you. Smile slapped off my face like a ripped off plaster. Was just some lost soul who doesn’t know what she’s looking for. Strange how often people spend whole lives lost. Yet we were found for a time, although brief it felt in smile-hurried passing. Not that we weren’t lost but we were lost together, which we found to be better than found. When you have someone who you can be one soul with, to enjoy being lost in life with, the destination doesn’t matter so much. Suddenly being lost doesn’t seem so important, so scary, it seems like a blanket of uncertainty to wrap warm entwined arms in and be carried in to that future fog, and to find that fog a warming excitement of possibility rather than a harsh obscuring haze.

Bitter Summer Mornings

When you turn from loving words to cold
I can feel my mind turn from pliant down
To bitter cement, hardened to sorrow fold.
I, for your morning smiles, would trade all I own.

Smile to Hide the Sorrow

You say that you’d jump off bridge with me
But I don’t want anything quite so final.
I be happy if you’d just kiss and heat close be
And then sit, laugh at stupid things… urinal.

Stranger Nights

You don’t see how this hurts though
In the dark of Saturday nights.
I long for you to hold me so
Like we did when world was light,
But now no sun of any worth.
Early girls inhabit sheets
As her grinding grips my girth
And I close my eyes to hide from heat
That others gather off of me
And the stranger’s eyes that I don’t see.

Distant

“Why are you so distant Lintott?”
Why not stand a bit closer then?
For if my love here can now not
My mind will to red heart itself send.
I apologize if that then glazes eyes
As my soul leaves cold now for warm skies.

My Brother

The one-upper, the happy grin who does better.
At least on the outside. Inside, he is fettered.
Bound hand, and foot, and heart most of all.
Lying awake, awaiting a call.
He won’t tell the others, to keep up his show.
He hides his emotions, and well.
Puts on a face, ‘everything’s swell,’
But because he’s my brother, I know.