Echoes of you in echoes of song

 

Echoes live on in the static that surrounds, 

like a radio dial that keeps jumping around.

 

Fizzle, fizzle. Crackle. I fumble the dial.

A song breaks its shackles and bursts out.

Embracing the airway, Marvin Gaye,

followed swiftly by the sonic imagery of

The Temptations, The Impressions,

The Drifters. Song after song painting pictures,

swooping through the airwaves, like bricks

thrown through mental windows,

or a bird in flight, wings beating in harmony.

 

Memories collect memories, gathering together

in a puddle of songs, reflecting your love

and a heart that would always beat so strong,

along with the tears and the hurt, that we can

no longer share in the story or share in the song.

 

Echoes live on in the music that chooses to play

when things are going wrong, or we are having a bad day.

 

Fizzle, fizz, crackle. Crash.

The little things you'd say, snap through the static.

Wordplay, deft, daft, delicate, sometimes delicious. 

They echo in the wind, sayings you'd created, jokes

that would hang in the silence before our brains

could connect the links.

 

You thought with cleverness,

and you fought with your demons,

But would always fight ours first.

A deft touch of poetic flourish.

For your words were never there to crush,

but to aid and nourish.

You didn’t talk to talk. You'd let the words

have purpose, so that every message

was imparted with wisdom beyond all of us.

 

So many memories, one for ever channel.

I turn the dial, slowly, trying to pinpoint

a voice, a memory. I hear so many.

Some heartbreaking, they bend and scream,

breaking reality, a heartbeat fading in time.

Memories a son should never see,

moments of life stolen away.

 

The dial slips, now it is spinning independently.

Some echoes are there to mend the fractures

of time's broken screen, to repaint the smile,

which has worn so thin.

 

Echoes of you live on. I have memories.

A list so long. I can just retune the dial in my head,

and a different moment comes rushing in,

a wave over a riverbed, these whispered kisses

left to always be read.

I remember holidays away. I remember

you cooking dinner every day,

and whilst you were not the finest chef,

not even in the top 8 billion, to me

you were a 1 in a million.

 

The memories screech past at blistering speed...

The poet, the comic artist, the thinker, the writer,

the avid Marvel viewer, the film buff, the collector

of stories, a mind full of memories and moments

we will never get to see.

 

I have too many echoes of the day

that your life slipped away.

They deafen me. Frantically trying

to compress your chest, to keep death at bay.

To give us even one more hour,

a minute. A second. A memory I replay

every single tear-soaked day.

What I would give for you to open

those eyes and say it was all a mistake.

But it wasn't to be.

 

Now I see you in echoes of memory,

in the echoes in the mirror facing me.

Stories that will never die,

Memories of a sunny sky,

whiling away on a sunny afternoon,

as The Kinks suddenly break through

the gloom, and I know somehow

that somewhere you are sitting back,

your records playing loud, singing you heart out.

 

Out of tune with the words all wrong

but it didn't matter because that was love,

you loved the sounds. You loved the song.

A game of hearts

 

I fell under a black moon.

The sky stained with lost fortunes.

I danced aimlessly into

a game of chance, a game of hearts,

and I lost to you.

You gave me sanctuary

away from the solitaire life.

Free parking when I didn't drive.

But it was all a ruse, a bluff

where the house always wins.

 

And this house was a house of sin.

 

For I never stood a chance.

The game was rigged

when you passed go.

You advanced,

as I slid down through

snaked pathways,

as the slippery ladders were

snatched clean away

from my hands.

 

You risked my heart,

by gambling on my emotions.

You took apart the cards,

picking only the winning ones

from your stacked deck.

You scratched

the scores in illegible

scribble, you made me scrabble

for my scrambled emotions in

a mentally disorganised mind,

feeling I wasn’t an equal player

on this field.

 

"Checkmate"

you state, as I fall

to the cards of fate.

The cards of hate?

 

You rolled all the dice

I just counted

the numbers,

6 6 6

Devilish grin on your face

I couldn’t ever win.

 

Or so you thought.

 

I cast aside the dice.

Instead of anger

I took out my rage on the page.

Not flipping the board,

or flipping you the bird.

I offered my arms open wide

I smiled in your disgrace,

and I said goodbye with a hug

for I wouldn’t keep

playing your games.

Fumbled emotions

 

I fumble with my words

like they are dripping hot coals

over my fingers, I juggle them,

keeping the direct heat

dancing away from me,

but each contact

sears a part of them

to my stripped skin, like a tattoo

or a broken window

to look within.

A letter, a meaning,

a feeling imparted in

the way that they sting. The way they sing.

 

Because the words

I want to say are

that you are beautiful,

in the way a summer

sun kisses the

morning sky every day.

You are a special type of unique.

A one of a kind,

My kind of heart, a heart that

takes me flying,

and to me you are the clouds

that rip apart, delivering

lightning bolts to my heart.

 

So I keep letting my

singed fingers catch,

then release.

Catch,

then release.

A smooth transition

between war and peace.

As my mind is

at constant battle with itself.

The soot on my skin,

fingerprints my thoughts

on every surface I brush,

whilst the searing heat

leaves a scorch mark

upon the sun in a blush.

Dust covers the pages

of my note book,

and my tears run black

under the light of dawn.

 

Because the words

I hold within me, I hold tightly

like I wish to be holding you, for

they are honest and true.

The war in my brain

is just fireworks expressing

their joy at your flame,

and I'd hold the hot coals

like the fires of home,

 because

you are beautiful.

Not just to the eye, but to the mind,

to the heart and to the soul,

to the skin and to the bone.

You are like home, a place

I wish to never leave.