Valentine Veto

I promise
To love you
Forever
If you never
Use the word
"Valentine".

Buy me flowers
Any random day.

Don't get me
Chocolates.
They're no good.
Intead,
Get me a book.
Today,
Later,
Whenever.

Let the rest
Hold hands,
Book tables,
Wear red.

You and I,
We'll stay in
And watch
The world dance.

Fragment II

Love, to be, must mean
You read each word I ever write
Like you wrote it first.

Comfort

Sometimes my refuge is a book.
Sometimes it's the bottom of a glass.
An amber swirl, a golden whiff of agave.
And sometimes a clear, vodka-crystal kick.
Sometimes, words make magic.
Spin worlds, implode and explode.
Cascade. Cavort. Crash. Cure.
Words, sometimes, are my curse.
Easily spoken. Stubbornly unbroken.
Inconveniently true. Sometimes.
And then there's the comfort
Of an old friend. And tequila sunshine.
Or the long-suffering lover
And ageing Scotch.
Or even the long, single afternoon
Of images, memories and a fast-beading beer.
But the best, by far,
Is recognizing in you
A little part of me.

Hear-say

Your voice cracks over the miles;
It's raspier than I remember.
Those extra cigarettes you smoke,
Provoked into substantial truth.
In your voice I hear the crispness
Of the now chill air of our shared home.
It spikes into frost shards,
Angular, like these sharp winter mornings.
It laughs at jokes I haven't cracked yet
And perhaps never will.
Your voice never walks a straight path to me;
It turns into alleyways of the past,
Sneaks into narrow windows of tomorrows.
It spills out of the earpiece,
Exuberantly exploding technical confines.
Your voice makes promises it isn't going to keep.
It is a trecherous no-gooder, I know.
It is the circle to my square,
The ambivalent anti-hero to my gorgeous female lead,
As also the answer to my multi-layered question,
Sometimes.
The air to my fire,
The Aquarius to my Sagitarrius,
Ultimately, mine to know, to love, to hate, to keep.

Caffeine Detour

Two inches of coffee in a tall glass.
Steaming, hissing as it slinks to your lips.
A thin ribbon of mist snakes out,
Sneaky, also apologetic.
Like it was embarrassed being there at all.
Poor, sexless child of heat and cold.
Hardly does it touch the surface
When the cold air swats it away, cruelly.
A vanilla wafer conjured out of your desk drawer
(You gluttonous love, you)
Dunked into my half-empty glass
Soaks up all my organic arabica goodness.
Just as you soak up all my time, my energy, my life-fever.
My woody-sweaty-nicotine flavoured wafer-dude.