Some beacons are brighter than others

Like a silent village on the edge of the sea,

you’ve been there for me through the chops.

And the rough tides,

and all of those sea metaphors.

That’s what friends are for, right?

But generally, they’re not.

I think for a time I might have forgotten how to be…

well, just to be.

 

You didn’t forget me.

 

You were there despite the strife going

on in your life.

Your kitchen and your cat.
You made me feel more important

than all of that.

Remember wine and whinging, bingeing on things

and each other?

Tori and Sia and Kate Bush and another, and another.

Eltham and New Cross and Watford and Torquay.

Where I’ve been, I always want you to be.  

And think of the new things that Tring can bring!

The rhyme is getting ridiculous

but I keep thinking of you, me and us.

On a serious note...

My wonderful, fiery, unstoppable friend.

Pride doesn’t cut it. Love doesn’t either.

You’re my teacher. You have been my stabilisers.

So many hotels and drinks and appetisers. 
Bath robes and hostels, 
fights and hugs...we laugh now about it. 
If you could flout a friendship, I'd flout ours. 

And now we're older, a little less bold in our beliefs, 
but we are secure in the knowledge we'll 
have a you and a me,
and a suitcase full of memories. 

Brother

At first it was small,

then it grew into a person that was you.

A pillow over the face, Magic taking flight,

some unremarkable days

and clutched-up nights.

The fights you used to manufacture with a stuffed elephant.  

Me kicking out, acting the witch.

You, who would never lie.

Somehow thirty years have gone by.

Pride and anger and love and frustration:

a repertoire that stretched from Devon to London
could never get the

way I feel about you spot-on.

In Torquay, you slashed the hair from my trolls.
I cut the wires of your toy and

we started fires when we became friends.
Later, a fist through a car window…
and other things. You worried them,
and you worried me.
Some flames are best left to burn out into embers,
but please remember not to revisit:
fighting is not the best way to pretend she's not gone.

You didn't know your own strength then.
You still don't.It’s strong to start again;

even more so a number of times.

You’ll always be fine, because you have the

best of those two and maybe a little of me.
Now show us that person we knew you would be all along.

Pierre and Mr Twit taught you to be clever and kind to others.  

I admire my brother.
 

He’s a friend, and that thing they brought home, in the end

might be okay.

The Bird and the Sea

The Bird and the Sea

Like a migrating bird, she flew to the city one winter.

One more adventure she thought,

One more flight path to valiantly venture.

There was cooking and cleaning with meaning, not much money

Isn’t it funny?

A jarful of ordinary days and fleeting nights have somehow patch-worked themselves into a precious memory.

In time, she settled.

Made a nest.

Embellished it with trinkets and the rest.

Red walls and chipped laminate floors.

Revelries, near-misses and flags on the doors.

Shiny pint glasses lifted from pubs; we were light-fingered and light-souled.

And we joked of growing old together.

And then the coastline came inland for a visit.

Almost like a tidal swell.

I liked him as well.  

He was good enough;

Not just for anyone but

for her. Which is no mean feat.

After all, he had me to defeat.

Then I saw the bird and the sea become one.

Happiness seemed like just something to be done; the in-thing.

You’d think it would bother me: losing my sidekick, my love, my partner in crime.

But in time the coastline also became mine.

A familiar friend within the space of a mere weekend.

And so a funny kind of existence began to become.

My friend found a sea view without realising she’d needed one.

Then looking out of the window became a journey.

Venturing further, the coast and the sea and me

went our separate ways but kept hold of the twine that had sewn our time so defiantly together.

Until another winter years later, on a river,

the dirty, snaking path back to our beginning;

he said he’d always be with her.

First post...

This is a big step...publishing or even sharing my poetry wasn't something that entered my mind until very recently. I was asked to read something at my best friend's wedding and, as an English teacher and long-time secretive writer, I decided to put pen to paper. The reception at the reception (!) was something I didn't expect and made me imagine that maybe I'm not so bad at this poetry stuff. So here it is. A lot is personal - as good poetry, I believe, should be - and all of it is up for appraisal. I don't pretend to be technically adept or even accomplished in my writing. I just write what I feel is right, and am partial to a bit of internal rhyme!