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The man in the suit is always here,
and is always sitting on the same seat, at the same table-
I always see him typing on his laptop,
and is always quiet and smartly-dressed,
and is never disturbed, and I have never seen him ever
do anything to take notice or to make trouble.
The man in the suit is and has always been a mystery to me-
however, every time I come back here
I can always rely on him being here,
wearing his suit and tie, his shiny-shoes,
and his gold-coloured framed glasses,
and to always be where he is,
doing what he does, typing and engrossed in his computer screen,
and I am not sure if even he realises how long he himself
has been here, nor how many times he comes here,
nor what the time or the day is.
On the other hand, however, it is highly-possible,
and more likely, that the man in the suit
knows exactly what he is doing,
and he, like me, and like most people who come to Starbucks
all the time, he has a story to tell about himself
that I wouldn’t believe-
and I must admit I would give anything to ask the man in the suit
who he is and what he does,
but that is just because I love a question,
and I love a great story,
and I am in awe of someone with a secret
who keeps the rest of the world guessing-
like the best character or protagonist in any great
and compelling story does-
and in all honesty, no matter how much I would love
to know the man in the suit’s secret and who he is,
I would genuinely be happy to never know every thing,
even though knowing everything any way is impossible,
and I would remain happy just seeing him there
where he always sits in the corner by the window
doing his thing and keeping the mystery about him
that has always intrigued me alive and well.
I have only heard the man in the suit speak only once
in one conversation he was having on his red-covered mobile phone-
I remember him having an ‘educated-‘ ‘posh-‘ ‘intellectual-‘
sounding voice and accent, but unfortunately I do not recall
what his phone conversation was about-
but I think it had something to do with the sale of someone’s home.
There are places that I come back to regularly,
because I always feel at-ease here, and there,
inspired, at-peace, refreshed-
where I am even recognized as someone who genuinely loves
being where I am and coming back,
and to me that is the reward of any pursuit.
There are people who you see every day
who make you smile for many different reasons,
and I have to say that I always smile too
when I walk into Starbucks and I look around and I see
the man in the suit.
Every adventure begins with a dream;
every epic starts with a first step;
every day begins with a sunrise
that you may not always see;
every ocean starts with that very first drop.
Every singer starts by singing into a hair-brush;
every author begins by first writing in a diary;
every musician starts with an imaginary instrument-
like an air-guitar- while listening to their favourite music
full-blast, and being told to turn the music down
with a bang on the wall, or a hush;
every song-writer begins writing songs as poetry.
Every driver starts by having a go behind the wheel
of their parents car;
every life full of language and conversation
begins with that first word;
every humanitarian, or doctor, starts every day of their calling
with the oath ‘to do no harm’;
every disease that was ever thought to be wholly-untreatable
will one day be found to have a cure.
Every happy life begins with that first friend;
every band began with that first practice-session;
every new beginning started with an end;
every great relationship began with a question.
Every fortune started with that first penny;
every chain began with that first link;
every thing about who you are and who you will be
goes back and can be traced to who is your family;
every change of perspective begins by you considering
a possibility that you never thought to every think.
Every collection begins with that first item that you treasure;
every place of peace and serenity started as the place
where you always wanted to be when you were a kid;
every passion should always be a pleasure.
Every singer, every musician, every poet, every astronaut,
every teacher, every vet, every soldier, every inventor,
every gardener, can always go back
and point to the time, and they can always tell you what,
and where it all began, and where it all started.
The lonely word.
The lonely heart.
The lonely world.
The lonely art.
The lonely voice.
The lonely face.
The lonely choice.
The lonely race.
You can sometimes think you are walking alone
even when you are in a crowd;
you can sometimes feel you are hearing nothing
even when the world sounds so loud;
you can sometimes see the world distorted;
you can sometimes hear the distant call
of someone who you may not have seen for a long time,
who is nowhere even near you at that exact time-
like the voice of a ghost,
but even though you can’t see that person
you have no doubt as to its origin,
and you will swear on your life
that you heard the person that you heard say what they said
in the way and in the voice that they said it.
The lonely soul just wants a mate.
The lonely journey is always more bareable
when you have got someone to travel it with.
The lonely note just wants to be played
until it becomes a source and a beacon of hope.
The lonely time can be when you are on a break.
The lonely place can be when and where you feel
like you have nowhere to be and nowhere to live.
The lonely mark can be the brightest and the most wonderful
and wise question and answer that can help you to cope.
Sometimes when you feel the most lonely,
you are the most surrounded by friends, energy,
affection, and love;
sometimes when you feel like you need somebody so badly,
you already and always have them with you-
because they are like the stars that are always there
twinkling in the dark heavens above.
Sometimes when you feel like you are being infected by something,
you are actually being cured;
sometimes the most inspiring and breathtaking thing in the world
can make you feel something incredible,
but can also be the loneliest of words.
“So what are you thinking and feeling right now
whilst you’re out there amongst Nature?”
I feel free! I feel open! I feel hopeful! I feel me!
I feel like I could touch the sky with my finger
just like I am touching the muddy ground with my booted feet.
I feel warm! I feel energized!
I feel home! I feel blessed
as the beautiful and golden sunlight touches my eyes!
As I walk through the forest though it is cooler
because the sun is radiating and being absorbed by the surrounding trees.
I can hear birds and the rustling of unseen animals all around me,
but they are so high and fast they are the dwellers
of this fertile land and sky that I cannot see.
Coming back here brings back so many memories!
Coming back here reminds me of so many happy times,
and it is like they are still there to be remembered
and felt by the touch of the cool but magical breeze.
Walking the fields, walking over the crisp brown leaves
and sumptuous green grass,
I have this sensation of feeling like an animal feels,
I have this urge to walk and run and forge my own path.
Everything is bright, everything looks new.
Everything I see is bathed in light,
and even that which is in the shadow cast by something else
retains it’s beautiful natural colour and hue.
The country lanes I walk have no natural footpath,
so I must walk on the road.
Cars and 4×4’s race past me and create a splash
as they drive through the puddles I too pass through-
out here there is no such thing as a Highway Code.
Out here where I walk there are little oasis’s
of rarely seen and hardly touched patches of Earth
that resemble my kind of heaven.
Out here you can hear nothing but your own heart beating in your chest,
sweet birdsong in the trees, and the faint sound of an airplane
flying high above in the sky that is skirting and almost touching
the atmosphere and making dreams a reality
and the passengers on it feel as if they are light as a feather.
I am a man of many secrets.
I am someone who has done things, heard things, seen things;
I know things that can’t ever be shown, admitted to, or said.
I am a man unlike anyone you may have met.
I am someone who has memories of places and times that happened,
but didn’t happen- about things and people that I can’t tell anyone,
but which I remember and relive every night
when I dream, when I am laying in bed.
People never say everything.
People have so much to say sometimes they end up saying nothing.
People find it hard to admit an unfiltered truth.
People will do anything to keep a secret
that could change the way people see them-
so much so that they will go to great lengths
to not make their secrets obvious,
and they try to not leave any questions behind them,
nor any sort of clues.
Many of the secrets that we keep are to protect something,
or someone that needs to be surrounded and enclosed,
because if knowledge of it became well-known
there may be ramifications and ripple-effects
that could follow you afterwards everywhere you go.
Everyone carries a secret with them every second of every day;
everyone has to live with a shadow hanging over them
that they only see when they look in the mirror,
and they feel the pressure of keeping their tongue at bay.
Most secrets are not Earth-shattering,
but they are reality and identity fracturing.
Most secrets are a thousand secrets in one,
but they become something you fit in the palm of your hand
when you are on the run.
People say that want to know every detail about something,
but that in itself is a secret,
because secretly, perhaps even to them,
it is the not knowing that keeps something interesting-
the more you know is not always the best.
Honesty may be a policy, but as a way of life complete honesty
can be hurtful, destructive, the worst thing for so many reasons.
It is only when we are told that we were being told what we wanted
do we wish we were still being lied to,
but most of the time we wish that what was said and heard
was the truth- but that is a gift that is like nature,
because nature doesn’t lie-
it is complicated, hard to fanthom at times,
and cannot ever be tamed, but you know where you stand with
and in nature, and it tells you and shows you
so many of its secrets every day of every season.
Secrets are like mysteries,
and a world without mystery
no one would choose to live in.
Secrets are a question and an answer,
and they keep life continuously interesting.
Secrets are what compel everyone to meet,
and to talk to someone they don’t know and have never met.
Secrets are important,
but choosing to not say all that you know
and what is on your mind can sometimes be hard,
even for a man of many hidden secrets.
Standing in a dark forest, on a moon-lit evening-
with no idea of how I got here,
and with no concise answer as to what I was feeling-
I looked into the shadows,
and suddenly I saw the face of someone watching me.
The face got larger and larger as they walked towards me,
and then stood two feet away from me,
staring at me with unseen black eyes,
with a face as white as a ghost-
that if not for the moon, you would never believe or see.
“I am Dream,” spoke the man, dressed all in black
and with hair as wild as a thorn bush.
“You have many questions, I would guess;
however, for now, you must hush,”
said “Dream” to me, as he put an ice-cold index finger to my lips.
“Truth sometimes comes when you least expect it,
and moments of understanding happen fewer that the times
you will witness a total-eclipse.”
The man seemed to know me somehow-
it was as if he knew exactly what I was thinking;
as I looked into his eyes I tried to read any emotion that I could
on his face, but he remained nonchalant, still, and unblinking.
I felt like I should be scared,
but, oddly, at no time did I feel uneasy;
my eyes told me, from where I was, that I should be cold,
but my mind and my body didn’t agree.
“Ask me a question,” said Dream, “even though I know the one
that is always on the tip of your tongue.
Ask me the question that you have been asking
for so long to be answered ever since you were young.”
“Who am I?” I whispered, not expecting this man to know what I was asking,
nor why-
the question that I have never been able to answer for myself
without beginning to cry.
“Most that ask that question nearly always already know the answer.
Some stop asking when they believe that they have found a real-world
substitution that they prefer,” replied Dream, as he looked up to the sky,
and then back at me,
and for an instant we two were like two beings of light in darkness
and no longer surrounded by trees.
“The name that you were gifted after your birth was not accidental.
Who you believe you are, and what has befallen you throughout your life
is elemental.”
As I face Dream, I noticed that I too was wearing nothing but black-
but that I was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned in white with a word on my chest:
“What does this word mean?” I asked, pointing to myself- “Is this a test?”
When Dream spoke this time,
I swear that his skin shone whiter that it had before;
as soon as Dream had finished saying that
“This is the word that has forever been knocking on your front-door“-
that was the moment that I felt as if he, Dream, was telling me something
that I had never considered before.
“Is this a dream? I don’t recognize this place?”
“This is a place that is very important to you, I understand-
somewhere you have never visited after dark before,
but which has always made you imagine what it is like to be in outer-space.
This place is infinite, unending- and yet brief, and simple,”
Dream explained, as he looked down, as I did, to see below on the ground
the symbol of a snake devouring its own tail.
“Do you understand?” Dream asked, “Do you recognize the answer?“-
as I looked into Dream’s face, I saw and I felt something that was
incredible, beautiful, and pure:
I imagined a child being born, growing rapidly older-
as if every year of its life were a second-
until the face that I saw looking back at me was myself, completely stunned.
I have always believed that things happen for a reason,
but I never put much credence into the idea that everything in my life
has been guiding me to a truth that some may call a destiny-
that was for stories of heroes, not for me.
“But you are a hero,” Dream proclaimed, to my surprise-
“You do have purpose beyond your dreams and your horizon-
the terminus of all, not just the one.”
“Why have you come to me now? I don’t recall ever dreaming about you before?”
“I have been a part of every dream that there has ever been
since time began, as I will be forevermore.
I was there when you first fell in love and dreamed so intensely,
deeply, powerfully, that you awakened your gift of creativity
and inflamed your waking desire to make someone feel special;
I was there when you first looked within yourself,
found who you were, who you were going to call on the world to know you as-
the name that sounds as perfect and fitting, as it does natural.”
Dream then turned and started to walk away-
to which I soon beckoned: “Dream? Wont you stay?”
And then Dream replied, without looking back over his shoulder:
“I see no need to stay and remind you of that which you know
can only be grasped by they who are the beholder.”
“Thank you!” I called out into the darkness, as the pale-faced
dark-clothed man disappeared so that he could no longer be seen.
“Next time you feel the need to rediscover who you are,”
said Dream, as his voice echoed as if from every direction,
“you need only to close your eyes, return to this place,
and dream.”
Inspired by The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
In the light of day
there are not that many people who know me for being Me-
the man who gets up every morning,
and loves nothing more than watching the sunrise,
while writing beautiful poetry.
I love writing, and I love to write poetry!
To me, sometimes when I am writing a poem,
I feel like I am in the driving seat of a Formula 1 car
in the middle of a Grand Prix!
The ideas and the images that race through my mind,
the feelings that I feel when I am writing a poem,
or a rhyme that feels like it is almost writing itself,
is like having an out of body experience and revelation moment combined.
It is a rush, and a phenomenal surge of heightened awareness
of where I am, where I have been, and what I have seen;
however, when I am not writing, when I am not dreaming,
if you were to see me walking down the street,
that part of me would be utterly unnoticeable-
nowhere to be seen.
Most people don’t walk around holding a sign,
or wear a T-shirt to declare to all who they are and what they do-
most of the time the “true you” is veiled
and hidden from view.
As it should be, most people take great pride in their outer-appearance-
while asking everyone else to make up their own mind about who they are
based on how they judge people generally-
the first impression we make on, or of, someone
is usually the most lasting one,
and the one that we reflect upon in our minds memory association gallery.
If seen from far away, then I can honestly say
that my appearance would tell you absolutely nothing about the man I am,
nor what I am thinking about;
however, up-close, and in conversation,
then I feel confident that in a matter of seconds
you would glean something in me
that would eclipse your first impression forever-
of that I am in no doubt.
The first impression is a question:
is what I see all that there is?
And the answer is always the same:
no; however, the first question is always but the start of the great life quiz.
The bank clerk that I speak to every week
could be a beautiful dancer, or an amazing artist;
the waiter that brings me my lunch
could be the next Mozart, Shakespeare-
a future celebrated composer,
or a one day award-winning novelist.
You simply cannot tell who someone really is until you ask them,
and it may take a while before you see them for all that they are
from what they say, but it is not a question of will you find out
who they are, it’s a question of when.
I love a challenge, I love meeting new people,
and once I have begun something I never quit.
To me, life is meant to be loved, and made the most of.
I love to be moved, I loved to be inspired,
and I am a secret poet.
The Life, the Light, the Tears, of the Poet of the Sphere 