Underneath the silence,
Of the deep, dark ocean.
You float all the way down.

We danced in the sun,
You and l.
And only when those voices woke us,
Did we drown.

The waves keep lapping,
Against the stones of my heart.
But your voice,
Is still the only sound.

© M.H.

The whole of ’72 went by so slow.

There was party after party,
Christmas almost every day.

Laughter was the language we spoke,
Even in our sleep,
Even in our dreams.

And when Christmas finally arrived,
We were all laughed out.

We had the best presents already opened in June,
Or September.
So there was nothing left to be happy about in December,
Except the coming of ’73.
The onslaught of lower expectation,
And the end of the party life.

It could not last forever.

We stumbled into that new year,
Eyes stinging from all the artificial lights,
And menthol cigarettes,
That filled our evenings and nights.
And the songs.
Oh what songs we sang!

What poetry we spoke to each other,
Before the hatred showed its face,
Was merely epitaph,
Wrapped in the sweetness of chocolate and coffee.

Our end was that Summer,
’73’s balmy July.
When sweat replaced the tears,
And anger suppressed the laughter.

Looking back.
It never works.
The mirrors of recollection,
Like times’ hazy stream,
Reflect a distorted picture of what really was.

Sometimes the lies are the best we remember.

© M.H.

All the way from Kielce,
The sky was gold.

But grey seeped in,
The nearer to Kraków I got.

Until,
At Zastów,
The skies opened,

And Poland said goodbye.

© M.H.

I am standing in my own light,
and you come as the night.
Singing ‘l am the shadow next to yours tonight’.

We will never know which one of us is right.

I am drowning in my own song,
and you come as silence to my throng.
Whispering ‘there is no place to which we both belong’.

We will never know which one of us is wrong.

© M.H.

I say
That you love me
as l love you.

Still you believe
And true or false
It may be

It’s going to hurt when it heals too.

Lead me
And I will be led.

Feed me
And l will be fed.

Love me
And I will be loved.

And that love will heal us all.

© M.H.

Fireworks
blaze across a dark sky
lighting up the heavens
gasps and whoops from all around,

But l see only you.

Lightning
forks down in a storm
thunder crashes, rain lashes
people run for cover,

But l feel only you.

Christmas
tinsel, angels, baubles, presents
the smell of turkey
in the warm air
White Christmas on the radio,

But l hear only you.

I want a billion dollars
I want an end to war
I want to live forever
But there’s something I want more,

I want only you.

© M.H.

02.00am   30/07/25

Downy hairs
glisten with beads
of sweat.
Steam rises from milky flesh.
She lies before me.
Aching for me to touch her.

That place
that hides
comes out at night
shows me her heart
her eyes when the tide rolls out.
Just at my touch.

Wetness
her sweet scent
air that comes in words
and fills ears, and hearts
that comes in waves
each time we touch.

And when touching is done
when all the aching
the yearning
the needing and the wanting
are all sated
all that remains is electricity
arcing
racing
speeding through every nerve

at just one touch.

Oh how the whole world changed

when

we

touched.

© M.H.

9:20 pm 29/07/25

Just give me a second of your century,
A moment in your dream.
And I will give you everything I have,
Everything I am,
Everything I can be.


Just give me a kiss, hidden in a bush of thorns,
A smile in all those words.
And l will give you starshine,
Everything under heaven,
Everything there is.


Just give me a reason not to fall,
A gravity that does not pull me to you.
And I will argue for the sanity,
That is the madness of my love.
My love for you.


© M.H.

11:21 am 28/07/25

It felt like a lie
In the dark of the night
When my comments went unanswered.

It felt like l tried
And you just came for the ride
When our destination was a shared dream.

It felt like l died
Every time you denied
That simplicity, not stardom was your goal.

I felt l should hide
And get out of the light
Give up my supporting role.

And it felt like goodbye
When you never said goodnight
And l was always the one who did.

It felt like goodbye
It felt like my life
Had come hurtling towards this.

We never said it
But it feels like it is

It feels like goodbye.

© M.H.

She whispered,
Within a scent of kissed rosepetals.
Under the blue
Of Summer skies.


The sea shushed
And we listened,
To it’s sussurating song,
With the gold of ardour in our eyes.


Behind our backs,
Back on land,
Our piles of clothes,
Lie as tombstones to our passing.


We went for a swim.


And became each others’ ocean.



© M.H.

3:38 pm 26/07/25