When I first fumbled

with the buttons on your shirt

you blushed pink

when I ran my fingers deliciously

through your lush black hair

you moaned

when we had our first child

you screamed blue murder

I crushed your hand in mine

you cursed 

you hissed

in your tearing pain 

when we simply hugged

when we barely kissed 

when age stiffened all my bones

I was content 

I know we shall take our place in the heavens

where we shall be bright stars.

The crematorium 

returned your ashes

in a brown cardboard box

with your full name

and date of birth

typed on an adhesive sticker 

I keep it

on the marble top

in my kitchen

too scared 

to scatter your ashes

like we had promised 

I wish you to linger

I should like to feel your weight

in my palm

I am not ready 

to cast you to the winds

where you will catch heaven.

People have asked me

why I devote hours

to a dying art

that interests nobody

I would retort

that poetry

is far from extinct

it is a rite of passage

for young men to rhyme

for their amours

it sings sentimentally

when there is a death 

it is indispensable

at high functions

at society weddings 

it shall never expire.

I was no unruly teenager

I rarely grew angry

I feared Mother

so when I boiled over with fury

when she tried to intervene

in my writing

when I slammed my fist

down on the fridgetop

crushing a bottle of her pills

it was such a liberating moment

I felt empowered

Mother quaked

during that wild moment 

I attained my freedom

I wrote like a dervish.

I like to create patterns

in my words. Not big flowery gestures

they are far too sentimental

for modern taste 

instead I prefer to hook together

a string of melancholy thoughts

that shall make you sad. I am

especially proficient

at scenes with black umbrellas

in heavy rain, the mourners 

rigid with grief, such things

just sing to me.

I was there

when you were born

when they cleaned you up

you shined

I marvelled

at your old man wrinkles

the bright gimlets of your eyes

I tried to sing you to sleep

you squirmed in my arms

it is impossible 

to believe

a quarter century

has elapsed

since those fabled times

I brimmed over with energy

I adored my peculiar child

I was a different man

in love with beautiful marvels.

When a sea fog

glides along the harbour

hiding the sun

I know my poetry

shall try to copy 

its splendour 

my verses shall be

like cold fingers laid

on you

your forehead

will be saturated

with chilly dew

you shall read deeply

until the rising sun burns away

every vestige of mist

revealing lean hills

like another storyboard

to write upon.

I have a fondness

for the dinosaur park

where my children played

now that the council

is decommissioning it

like hundreds of parents

I relive the brontosaurus slide

the mouth of the stegosaurus

where the kids invariably hid

it was a municipal treasure

a Sunday morning ritual 

after the labours of church

how could they ever dream

of dismantling such a treasure

it’d put a bullet hole in the community.

I have created

an enormous body

of work

I don’t expect

I shall ever

collate

my entire opus

into a definitive volume

too much is lost

there have been incidents

too shocking to story

when reams of my poetry

were waysided

I remember one verse

which was magical

only the opening lines

were ever written down

I defined blue

I imagined a great tower

rising from the old city

I was apocryphal.

It starts as a little trickle

between some rough stones

in the high country

I have tried to discover

its source

which is elusive

it gathers power

in the knotty wolds

above our city

before cascading down

I am intrigued

how it broadens

meanders across plains

on its way to the ocean 

making a great delta.