Whenever I close my eyes

I watched you run from the sauna to the December sea -

I felt dizzy with love watching you -

I wanted to shout out you are lovely -

I had to be silent, pretending not to be looking at you -

I remembered how I'd felt your heart on mine -

I'd said you had bought light into my life -

You were a bright star in a dark sky - 

Whenever I close my eyes, I see you -

Beautiful and brave, running across the sand -

December 2025

East Stoke, Ferring 

Reading Murakami

The border is closer now - 

This book I'm reading is my passport - 

I will walk through these birch trees -

I will lose my shadow - 

I will read dreams -

I will find a darkness deeper and softer than anything I know - 

December 2025

I should have asked all of them for their names

The Kurdish barbers gave me coffee -

It was on the house -

No, no -

They waved my note away -

The young man with the darting scissors told me he was born in Syria - 

He cut my hair with swaggering artistry -

There was a boy from Iran in a leopard print fleece -

There were gleaming beards and laughter -

We have no country one of them said - 

I remembered the scornful words I'd heard in the Turkish village -

There - that is where the Kurds live -

The small house beyond the tea garden -

The stony soil -

I should have asked him for his name, the young man cutting my hair -

I cannot go back he said -

I listened to the music coming from the speakers -

I sipped the sweet coffee -

I should have asked all of them for their names -

I should have told them mine - 

I can hear your heart

I drove through the forest, thinking of you -

There were dark trees -

It was New Year's Eve -

I remembered you snatching my diary, tearing it away from my grasp -

What's in here you asked, laughing, clasping my wrists together - 

What have you written ? 

Later, in the boat park, you held me in your arms -

I was breathless, barely able to speak -

My lips were bruised from kissing -

Sometimes we would drive at night - 

You would stop the car and hold my hand -

You would say I can hear your heart -

December 2025