We're late and 
I am losing the battle.
his will is stronger 
than mine,
now he is holding 
the toothbrush
except he is not brushing his teeth
instead his smearing
toothpaste across
the smiling mouth
of his fabric crocodile,
while all I can manage
is to watch
weighted by what's 
still required to do,
feeling my oversized tiredness
weigh upon the thin springs
of his undersized matt...

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We have no time

for the impending heat death of the universe,

there is too much to distract

ourselves with down here.

You're quietly explaining

your heart has shifted from where it once was,

as if knocked from its orbit

by some mysterious force.

The universe tends toward disorder, 

your eyes seem to say

just as the ice melting in the glass

and the coffee ...

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Finishing this Cortado

On a wet morning in October,

I wonder how much coffee

I've drunk in my life.

I do a quick calculation

based upon twenty years of coffee drinking

where, roughly, three cups a day,

if a typical cup 

is two hundred and twenty five millimetres of liquid,

comes to four million nine hundred 

and twenty seven thousand 

and five hundred millili...

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There is not much to separate us,

the little fly and I,

him upon the window sill

and I upon the sofa,

Two small specks

in the footnote of history,

passing time

in the thin spring light

of this pale room.

While the poplars trees

sway their shadows 

on the ceiling above

the fly stands still

as if contemplation 

or respect 

to the mysteries ...

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I should be drinking

boiled water

with lemon juice

but settle 

for black coffee 

and half a glazed donut

in the courtyard

watching the morning

traffic of bees

while the sparrows

cheep alarm

above the head

of the cat

stretched out 

in the dust and sun

and so it goes,

the sky blue

as a fresh coat

of paint

dabbed with white clouds

and b...

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The universe hates you

I'm sorry to tell you

God is getting together 

with Mother Nature

to decide who they 

should kill first.

Take you and I,

short sighted as we are,

in another time

we would have

blindly fallen to our deaths

off a narrow mountain path

or been devoured

by a cougar we mistook 

for a benign looking

beige rock.

God does...

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This morning the inner critic
is playing all the hits;
how I should have jumped 
out of bed at dawn
to do star jumps, 
sumo squats,
push ups

followed by
a cold shower
and ten minutes
of deep breathing,
then an immunity boosting
breakfast of
boiled water with lemon,
rolled oats blended with
flaxseed, broccoli
and coconut water.

Twenty minutes
of morning pages,
sun salutations
...

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I had a dream 

I was serving

in a government 

of the dead, 

I was the bulldog

the firefighter,

the master of

the excel spreadsheet

a puller of 

gold teeth 

I built the pivot table

I built the filter curve

that measured every wave

that thinned out

the herd.

I dreamt I 

was a lorry driver,

hauling through the night,

a forty tonne

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They have found 

my replacement

he is sat there with a

finger up his nose 

watching a cartoon 

about a talking cupcake.

He can recite the alphabet 

print his own name 

and his an expert in the 

sauropods of the mesozoic era.

Just this morning he 

recalled the names

of the planets, 

listing each one by size

and distance from the sun

Rememb...

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Do you know the

one about

the drunk Chinese poet

whose heart was so filled

with wine and longing

he fell to his death 

while trying to seize the reflection

of the moon in the water 

beneath his small

wooden boat?

Somewhere he is still falling,

tumbling head first

in darkness

through the centuries,

tethered to that

mathematical paradox

where a falling...

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It is cold and dark

in the universe 

when you cat is dead

and your wife not talking to you

and the planets

are moving

apart as if they have

nothing left to say

and your father lied to you

and your sister

is in a psychiatric ward

on New Years Eve

and you bury your

thoughts under red wine

and propanaol 

and out of date prozac

from your dead mother’s

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I drink my coffee 
and try being present
but my mind
keeps pushing
me somewhere 
I don't want to be,
backward and
forward in time,
an exquisite self torture
more addictive 
than this caffeine
I pour religiously 
into my body 
each morning.

So I focus on
the warmth 
permeating through 
my fingers
from the white 
porcelain cup,
studying the 
rising steam 
in the golden light ...

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I dream of coffee

waking early

strolling through the heart

of the city

the birds singing,

the sun warm enough to

roll my sleeves

the smell of the bakery

with it's open door

powdered sugar

on angel wings

a black espresso 

at a pavement cafe

the sun crossing

the street

to embrace our held hands,

as good as anything

in the en...

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