Herald

For Christmas, she gave him the city
Wrapped in a tinsel of fairy-lights
Bank baubles twinkling at the wharf
The Shard above as a guiding star
In a firmament of planes and satellites.


Pigeons can be puff-chested angels for today
As the river rolls its slow deep carol
Pumping a hundred hydraulic hearts
Energy flows beneath the pavement-skin
In tunnels tangled with candy-twist cable.


Music is in the bow of every crane
Tube tracks click out the Morse-code beat
A rhythm of barges along the canals
In the noise of streets, the quiet of empty churches
Just for him the city sings its joy.

Comfort and Joy

Sometimes too much contemplation doesn't do anyone any good. The easy joys, the simple pleasures, get lost to view.

It's all very well to think about the sweep of time, the trajectory of a life, the arc of time passing  -  but there's a different way to look too.

Am I smiling? Right now this second? The answer is yes. And maybe that's all we need to know. It's actually really ridiculously easy to make me happy.

Last Dance

If you thought it was the last time you would see someone, would you do anything differently? Would you say things you wouldn't normally say? Or would you carry on as if everything was normal, and it was just an ordinary day?

I'm never good at goodbyes, not even au revoirs  -  I'm so concerned I'll get over-emotional that I tend to end up rushing off without really leaving properly. And I never look back: you mustn't. Who would want to turn into a pillar of salt? Or even worse, a person with regrets, who questions their decisions and keeps turning round to contemplate the roads not taken.

I reckon it's best to say the things you've got to say at the time they should be said, in the instant they come into your head (or your heart, or whichever part of the anatomy is running the show at any given juncture).  No point in storing things up for a right moment that might never come  -  as soon as you think something and don't say it, you've probably already missed the right moment.

Don't wait - in this stage of our lives, there are too many reminders that it's later than you think.

Whispers

If you listen carefully, you'll hear all the things I don't say. It's in the words I don't utter, the emails I don't send, the stories I don't tell.

Silence is a girl's loudest cry.

Factual Attraction

Speaking from the heart is not necessarily a good idea, particularly if the person you're speaking to is listening from the head. 

It's a risk after all. You go out there on a limb and   -  yes, there you are, out on a limb. Like a snail without its shell, like a baby bird with no feathers, while the chilly winds of reason whip about you.

Poets need to remember, I suppose, that not everyone is a poet.  That words don't count, or can't be nearly precise enough to take us where we want to be. As Margaret Attwood said, "the Eskimo have fifty words for snow because it's important to them; there ought to be as many for love".  But there aren't, not even for Margaret. So what hope is there for the rest of us?

Let's stick to the bare facts, then. Stop that romanticising claptrap right now. Bring on the maths and physics, the evaluation and the objective test.

And don't gaze into her eyes like that  -  it doesn't mean anything. The eyes are not the windows to the soul: they are organs for converting light into electromagnetic impulses.

Simple

"Life is short. There is no time to leave important words unsaid."

Paulo Coelho

Be

Life is a series of moments all called now.

We don't know how many of these moments we have left. How many of them do we miss, thinking about the past, worrying about the future? How many of them do we waste doing nothing worthwhile? How many are ruined with unkindness, unpleasantness? Ticked away in boredom?

I know I'm alive when life takes me by the hand, grabs me by the throat, makes my heart skip a beat, kicks me in the guts, looks me in the eye and says: game on. I want to feel the blood rushing, the world spinning, to stay up all night, to stay in bed all day, to be all used up when I go.

I want to live rather than exist. I want to sing not whisper. I want to be the flame, not the moth. Dance with me.