All of these poems have been written by me over the past 20 years, and are subject to copyright.
© 2014 IfTheShoeFits72

GOODBYE, MY FRIEND, GOODBYE

Today is your birthday.

The anniversary of the last day I saw you as you were – vibrant, funny, fierce.

I’m trying to remember the happy times, the laughs, the scandals, the debates.

But today those memories are bittersweet.

I wish you were here to see what we’re up and to tell us off for not doing it properly.

Life isn’t like that though.

We can never recapture a moment, and there’s no point in moving forward with regrets of any kind.

So today I will celebrate your life, I will raise a glass tonight and remember you with love.

Goodbye, my friend, goodbye.

IfTheShoeFits, 2014

WAITING

Alone in the darkness I think of you –

Are you sleeping peacefully, or do I haunt your dreams?

I see your face smiling down at me;

I hear your laughter ringing in my ears,

And then I feel the emptiness beside me.

Each morning you are one step nearer to home

But every night is like the first –

Quiet, eerie and alone.

Alone in the darkness I think of you –

I wear your shirt each night to bed;

I breathe into your pillow and smell you hair.

But your scent becomes fainter with each breath that I take.

I stay up each night until you’ve called:

Laughter, tears and news all pass –

One click later and I’m alone again,

Awaiting your return.

IfTheShoeFits, 2000

Home

Home is where the heart is, but where is that to me?

For in my soul, I have not one but a very special three.

My heart is in my homeland where I grew up so fast,

Those green and pleasant islands, my home now in the past.

And also with my parents now settled somewhere new;

My home is where I’m always loved, so special and so true.

And also with my true love, wherever that may be –

For I will have my home with him as he will have with me.

My home is where my heart is, this I do now know –

It’s where I am most happy and always will be so.

 IfTheShoeFits, 1996

~

The Here and Now

“Life is what you make it”, that’s what we are told

Whilst we’re still so young and so steadfastly bold.

No-one is your enemy and everyone can be your friend –

Until you get much older, and on instinct you’ll depend.

Life is what you make it, your inner self declares;

Searching for some happiness, your soul you lay quite bare.

Vulnerable and open you soon begin to see

Keeping your mind and heart intact, means you must learn to set them free .

Life is what you make it, I can still believe

Hopes and ambitions that I yearn to yet achieve.

But not by sitting idly, watching life just pass me by,

But by going out and grabbing my very own destiny.

IfTheShoeFits, 1996

~

LANDING IN THE PAST

North, north east I head,

Ever north, and immediately

Twenty years disappear

As I tentatively step off the plane.

Of course it’s the same, but rose-tinted

With the memories of youth.

Familiarity mingles with nostalgia

On the taxi ride to town.

And suddenly – it’s before me

I see it, I smell it, I hear it

The sea – my song;

And I am home.

       IfTheShoeFits,  July 2009