Once and again.

Only once and again
I will hold on too tight.
You'll want for air
But you don't mind.
I see it in your eyes
Like a silent I love you.
I want you to breathe
But I still stand here
Holding you.

The Electric Field.

I am in a field. Waiting. I struggle to remember what I am waiting for as I stand utterly alone in this field filled with a million flowers I have never seen before.
There stems are of a brilliant blue, so alive they seem to spark with electricity. The flower is - in total contrast - a somber yellow, the petals rimmed with an almost see through grey.
As I stare at this field of mystery I remember.
He stands in front of me. Ten feet tall and six wide. A man made almost entirely of muscle and sinew. Built to single handedly crush battalions of fire breathing men from the depths of hell. He opens his mouth to speak and as his gaping mouth reaches its full gate and I prepare to shield myself from his molten words his massive frame suddenly crumbles, showering the ground with a billion fragments of a fading nightmare.
As the dust settles and I gather my thoughts a figure starts to float through the dust. A figure much smaller than the last. Something small but still filled with a sense of menace.
I hold my breath and pray for something - I don't know what - to happen. It does. The figure now before me is dull and lifeless yet somehow hovering there before me. Its body a mess of brown and bile coloured matted hair with black, pulsing boils that look as though they're reaching out, feeling for a new victim. Something with fresh skin to feed on. The face barely sits atop the body as it lolls from side to side producing a sickening, crunching sound on every rotation. The face has no features. A vast open nothingness, no mouth to express its thoughts and feelings or eyes to see the horror upon my face - a blessing I'm sure.
We both stand facing each other, not breathing. I want to get away, I want to run.
As I start to put this plan into action the beast senses my intentions and starts a movement of his own, toward me. A deep, terrifying fear locks me to the ground. I stare down at my dumbstruck feet, plead with them to save me from this peril - no response. I close my eyes and scream aloud for something to save me and with my eyes still closed I realise something undeniable.
It's standing right in front of me.
With eyes clamped shut I realise I have regained the use of my feet. Maybe the darkness has provided a clarity I didn't possess before. Maybe, just maybe, I can save myself.
As I stand erect, in this field in my head, I can feel the hot, sticky breathe of the beast as it waits for its reward. I can feel its mind clawing at my thoughts trying desperately to force me to open my eyes and confront my fears. And then I realise that that's exactly what I need to do. I may be able to run but the beast will always be there. My eyes a tool far greater than my feet to conquer this terror.
Sucking in a long, deep breathe I tell myself to raise the lids of my eyes and battle this beast right here in this field. Stand forth and face that which is right here in front of you!
Open.
I am a thousand feet in the air looking down on the field I was standing in but a moment ago, the beast a speck of oil against a sea of yellow and blue. A bitter chill dances on my skin as my eyes start to water and I think to myself, "how did I get up here". . .

Morning gray.

Morning gray in sharp focus.
Spying through the misty light.
Buildings with their open features
Hiding from retreating night.
Figures shift from shadows long
While quiet turns to rising din.
Into life comes all the town
Rising as the day begins.

Under the waves.

The following is a short tribute to the joy and peace and lasting effect of having a bath just for the pleasure of having a bath.
Some people think that having a bath to find peace and meaning is lame, they don't understand it's properties. Fine. For me though - and my father who introduced me to the concept many years ago - having a long, hot bath can bring peace and enlightenment. It can help you focus and make sense of things. Or it could be the place to go for some peace and quiet and a nice dram of your favourite spirit.
Either way, if your not a bath person I strongly suggest giving it a go. You never know, it could be the thing you always new was missing but couldn't quite put your finger on.
Anyway here's a few words that popped into my head while under the water tonight. Enjoy.

Deep hot water
Under the surface.
Holding your breath
'Til your lungs get nervous.
An ocean alone
An inky black cave.
With a long, deep breath
Back under the waves.

Good luck kids.

I decided to pop to the shops yesterday and felt a little music was appropriate. I've not got a lot on my iPod at the moment so I wasn't exactly spoilt for choice but then I remembered that my father had put some albums on a memory stick for me. After searching every nook and cranny of the flat I came across said stick and popped it into the laptop. There were a few albums vying for some play-time but the clear choice was 'Motown Chartbusters 3'. After loading the tracks on to my music device I set off to the shops.
The first track on the album is one of the most classic tracks in any genre of any decade and it goes by the name of 'Heard it through the grapevine' by the great Marvin Gaye. As the moody bass starts up and those silky snare taps rapped against my eardrums something happened inside me and with out knowing I started to dance while walking down the road.
I was walking along like something out of West Side Story, side-stepping along, nodding my head and snapping my fingers while Marvin poured his heart out to me. Maybe I looked a little crazy, maybe I was the subject of a few odd glances but I didn't care. I was entranced by what I was hearing and I was lost in the music.
This is something I find myself feeling less and less as the years go by and the music starts to mean less and less. It was fitting for me that it was music from the 60's that would evoke such a reaction from me, in a world where I am feeling more and more detached from the realities of what music has become to the mainstream audience. Modern 'pop' music is devoid of soul, the very thing that Motown is - pure soul.
When I hear about Rihanna contemplating whether her 'rude boy' can 'get it up' or Akon telling us he's a convict and he plans to 'smack that' I feel as though a little bit of Soul dies.
The joy and pure expression of love in a song like 'Rose for my Rose' by the wonderful Marv Johnson is a powerful and incredibly uplifting experience, something I feel that as the years drop off the edge of the universe the youth of today - and generations to come - are going to completely lose touch with.
It seems as though a love song today is less about love and more about sex and this is worrying. What message are today's musicians sending our children when all they seem interested in are songs about sex and money and a personal life riddled with divorce, drugs and parties?
Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying these things weren't preferable in the sixties. We all know free sex was a big part of the culture, but the music was always about love and unity and being happy - Dancing in the street you might say. This is clearly not a message being promoted in today's music culture.
Maybe I'm worrying about nothing, but i fear for the things my niece will hear when she grows up. But hey, maybe we'll get lucky and music will become something free and passionate again and the youth will once again be exposed to the joy of unity that music can bring.
Motown will always have a place in my heart, no other musical genre expressed the human condition better and with more power and joy. Even Marvin Gaye singing about hearing his love is planning on leaving him for another brings a smile to your face because it's expressed with such clarity and honesty and that utterly compelling rhythm. I just can't help but break out into a smile and dance along.
Music has come a long way since Motown, some of it just as compelling and passionate but mostly not. With the advances in technology it's become less about the voice and more about the sound.
I'm 'sending out an S.O.S' to those in the studios making the noises of this generation to make it count and produce something with Soul so that the youth of tomorrow will be able to feel the way I do about the power of music.
You'll never better Motown but you can make your own voice and your own message that doesn't centre around sex with strangers and drinking yourself into a drunken stupor.
Good luck kids.

The midst.

In the midst of it all
In a call from above
You know when you fall
You fall into my love.

And we fall, laughing
And we cry together
Knowing only each other
Knowing forever.

Living rewind.

My guess,
I'm living inside a smell.
Something I lost long ago.
Something I swallowed.
Whatever you know
I'm finding out too.
Resulting in space
To fill with that smell.
Biting at the skin
To get at the blood.
To get at the goodness
I smell deep inside.
With open desire.
A raging, blasting smile.
This ripened rewind
Of smells gone by.

Upon your lips.

Instant calm.
My soothing balm.
Upon your lips my lips.
Your charm.
Open palms.
To sense alarm.
But none exists in me.
I'm calm.
Instant smile.
Seen from a mile.
A place to warm my soul.
I smile.
Open minds.
Lost entwined.
Upon your lips my lips.
My kind.

Beautiful silver.

Outside the shell but still by the sea.
The waves in my ears.
A sound you feel like you can see.
So big.
So unimaginably big.
Such beauty in the rocks around me.
So dull with passion.
The greys drink in the water.
They glow like silver.
The most beautiful of silvers.

This tree to me.

This tree to me is an explosion captured in a freeze frame. Birth in a fractured moment. A piece of history left for a world to enjoy or ignore as they see fit. Walking slowly through my local park all the trees have taken on a impossibly beautiful form. A message to me from the earth that what I am and the things I go through bear no significance to the future of is earth. Some may find that a disturbing thought, but for me there is a sense of comfort in such knowledge. It helps to rationalise my fears and doubts, it puts the realities we all face into unblinking perspective. We may not want to die but we are going to, and the world we occupy for this dot in time is filled with joys and marvels of a nature far more powerful and spectacular than any man or woman could hope to conjure. So go outside and smell the grass, touch the air and laugh away your troubles because, well, because you can so why wouldn't you? And who knows, maybe you too will see that freeze frame of an exploding tree.

The pain.

The pain still pains but without such malice.
A dampened impact to my heart.
The waves still crash but in time I know how much such love can drown it out.
To know such company lifts the weight so heavy once upon my days.
A love, a care, a thought of feeling close to those that show they care.
So while I seek to heal this mind I'll keep in mind the ones who know.
The worlds we keep and hearts we need are always close and never cold.

Lost for the first time.

I've never felt like this before.
I am lost for the first time.
I am lost
And I am losing it still more.
I am wandering a land of strange sounds and feelings.
There would appear to be no end.
I am lost for the time being.
I hope for a sight.
A word or a light to lead me somewhere warm.
I have no strength and I'm slipping away.
Crying alone with the world as the only silent witness to my directionless fear.
The source of my pain hides, unseen by all in a corner of my mind.
I can't catch up and I am beginning to scar.
I can't scream to escape, nor cry away this darkness.
This deep open darkness folding it's wings around me to close out the light.
But I will fight.
I am not a man to be forced against my will.
I will overcome you, black nothingness.
I will find you.
But for now I remain.
Lost for the first time.