I was young when I left home.

I was young when I left home. Flora and Fauna, time to change, return to Jesus. Sat in a house with a lime tree around the corner. I had to listen up, the wind wasn't talking as much as it used to.

I made the most of what I had, out on the road, eating nothing but rice and tomato sauce, so there'd always be plenty of money for booze. I didn't like it in the end. I wanted to go back home, but I was scared of how much had changed. I never kept updates; time is like a shoe string and it's easy to find again, no matter where it's been left.

I found a compass that had no practical application, but served as a great reminder of 'away'. I wanted to find a small shack, out in the country, I wanted to be alone for a while - it didn't happen in the end, but gee, I was alone for a while. This was the most depressing, the time in solitude wasn't self inflicted, it was pain.

I picked up my staff, made of earth, I started to cry. But the tears never showed, not in the rain. A single note droned on a piano, like the introduction to the news. I missed the music we had made, being left alone to create a symphony from a single talent - a one man band.

Collecting strangers and strange attitudes, I became forgotten to myself and, in turn, a stranger. My name had changed and adapted its own person. I needed healing. I left Jesus sitting in the back seat of my Dad's work truck; I said I'd leave the radio on so he wouldn't get bored. Three months later, the battery had gone dead and Jesus wasn't waiting there any more.

I stood in front of the ocean, in the middle of the night, smoking cigars with a friend who I was missing. He knew me before I became someone else. He talked and I was happy to listen, even though I was still so far away, separated by my new name's persona. A little abstract, being gone, but at home.

The look of the days changed, things became still, well illuminated and covered in a blanket of blue sky, flowers opening into spring. But the wind still didn't stir.

I slept behind the lounge of my parent's apartment. The neighbour was a drummer. He practiced after his night shifts. Any change of dreaming new things was thwarted by his talent. My itching feat hid in leather, the light teased them, so I spent most of the day in bed.

I went to a hill-top, more of a cliff, overlooking the sea. The still air became wind. Jesus was sitting on a park bench. He asked me where I had been. The conversation rolled on, but I soon worked out he wanted to be talking to the person I was no longer being. Again, he asked me where I had been. He gave me a lift back home.

jf.x

Their Love and Her Visa

The Issue of the Visa,

It left them both divided,

Hearts in foreign lands,

They often call for home,

Youth in Love, plagued with rationality,

illusionary power created by morality and faith,

It crushed them in their closeness,

dark-time slowed in moments,

acoustic beats played by rain

and windscreen wipers,

Not ready for collision,

two hands separate, 

drifting in distant air,

The other two are Finger-locked

and bonded for eternity,

Her slowness, in mourning,

His sunken-eyes, full,

Inevitability and decision

became so hard to bare.

There is sorrow

Today is full of tomorrow-thoughts,

and all the tomorrows go unknown,

In thinking -  Love has been forgotten,

Geography leaks from their paper-cup,

There is no patch for what is being lost.

jf. x

The Internationalist

From one plane, I got into another. All in the name of "Seeing the World" and "Hearing the sounds of the roaring globe". I started in Sydney and got on a plane to London.

"2 years", I told myslef.

I was going to feel the weight of sandstone and history. See the art and architecture. Be wet with rain. Go dance in indie-clubs and listen to the next big (but currently unknown) band. I went to discover what I wanted from life and how to make myself whole.

"Rebel! Rebel!", I told myself! An ambition that dissolved into to ministry.

I cried, each night, on my pillow, from the aching in my heart -
The eternal pining to call somewhere home, to feel complete and to be loved.

In London, I saw (and smelt) gypsy caravans. I wore the wellington boots and drank the pimms. I was quiet on a creaking tube and was loud on conservative streets. I grew mad with adversity and animosity.

I fell in Love!

I fell in love with the girl I'll always remember.

The girl who makes me feel loss to be talking about.

I lived the life of a romantic poet in Belgium.

I had cigars and wine; all before 10 in the morning!

I have the sonnets and prose to prove it.

I missed my friends and I missed my friend.

I tore my heart into pieces. I planted them everywhere I went.

I knew I could never reclaim them.

I hid in Holland. I found a place they'd call 'Gesellig'. I covered it in a thin sheet of night, placed it in a wicker basket and, later, into a parcel.

Then I forwarded on to New York;

There, I found the light and happiness I was missing.

A chunk of me, that I'd left in Sydney, was realised. I found it in the people who were surrounding the city. I knew I would need them to be near me - forever.

I went to New Jersey next, where I was alone again.

I cried. Overcome with the love I felt from the people I had been with.

"How could they love me," I thought, "when I'm like me?"

Next, I was overwhelmed by Love so big that it shattered me! And the Love I found, it directed me sternly - all while I was waiting in the New Jersey Airport!

I remember that during the time I was away, a friend died and left the world; while another died to truth and was now of the world, more than ever- and in conversation, the latter had become an epidemic.

New love was brewing and old love was being solidified.

I heard a call from an impossible place - Sydney....

... but I was boarding a flight back to London!

When I arrived in London, I was frantic. I started gathering materials in order to depart.
I left overnight and I said no goodbyes, though part of me was still burried there.

As the plane was landing in Sydney, I knew exactly where I was, but I dare not say how long I was there for; "I'm only anywhere as long as I'm present."

Here (again), I found pieces of me I never knew I had; Familiarity is a curse to understanding & innocents is a blessing to experience!

I found new eyes and saw everything as a beginning, though much had changed and ended.

I was the best I'd ever been and so glad to be me.

I booked a short stay in Hong Kong;

On top of one of Asia's peaks, by the foot of the world's largest Buddha, I drank scotch from a hip-flask I had purchased at a market in China and smoked the pipe I got in Chelsea. I was sitting, silhouetted in perfect blue sky, eating the plain rice I bought from a monk...

I wished that everyone I knew was there.

Life is where I live. Love is where I'm home.
To complete myself, I don't gather all of my heart's scattered pieces from accross the earth;
I love people and give them a piece of my whole, but broken, heart.


jf. x

A River Flowing Underground

What if it just so happened that there should be a river underground?

Beneath this city, flowing out into the sea. It's a secret and only you and I know.

We could be done with this place.

Would you hold my hand as we jumped through a trap door, leading us to an intricate system of pipe lines.We hold a map and a torch. Even though the smell of the cavern is dank and the sound of an echoing drip boom through the haunted chamber, we won't notice; we're compelled by pure Adrenalin.

The journey we're on is toward freedom.

In a little red boat that waits for us at the opening of the catacomb, we'd journey through moments of darkness, still being in the drains, but then would be met by brilliant light, dancing across perfectly formed waves, beneath pink and blue skies.

It's an exit; A perfect way to leave all of which we thought we were behind. All of those who said we were what, and everything that proved them right or wrong.

If you say 'yes', I'll let you go.

But me? I'll stay behind.

The city may be difficult, but I'll find my way out from above the ground. Taking more with me than just you and I, so that all might know the way.

Though the buildings here are shrouded in grey and the skyline is like a dirty collar, its people offer more light than a thousand sunsets across an ocean ever could.

Sure, out there we'd be free, but freedom and time that haven't been earned are boredom in anyone Else's book.

Life is beautiful.

jf. x

The Father's City

What our Grandfathers knew in their heads, our fathers believed in their hearts. So, they fought for ground and began building a new city for their children.

As their Fathers saw what was being built, their hearts turned toward the Son's and began to dream. They where now building with them. We grew up in the city. Bold and bright. Safe and sound. Protected and loved. Though, it was impossible to see it as our own.

When time came, we searched beyond the city's walls for answers; we found none. 

We embraced every feeling that came to hand as it ran across the landscape. 

Rough rock. Cold waters. Soft Velvet. 

Trying everything but the Truth we had already knew of. And after years of wondering the wilderness, our hearts turned back to The Father's.

We returned to the city that was prepared for us and it was our own.

Generation, for Generation. Until Kingdom come.

jf. x

Untitled 2#

Tell me of the world and time gone by,
Ever so slowly,
but densely important,
More than just space and time,

I want to hear the thoughts you set into orbit,
Flying through the air you occupy,
The sights and memories,
Captured by the lens of your eye,
The shapes in the clouds & the story of the sky,

The writings on the wall,
The ideas that float in a coffee cup,
Shared with a friend,
Destined to listen to each other's ramblings,
From beginning to end,

So if I cannot sleep tonight,
For fear of dreams from home,
Please give me sweet reminders,
That make me feel less alone.

jf. x

Untitled

I sleep with my window open.

Finding all the warmth I need from my blankets,
I entertain the cold world,
I like the Security of a quilt,
I hide behind my sheets,
It's a cold, self-inflicted pain,

Ill-tempered air,
And idolized duvet,
Idiocy at it's best,

There's a reminder there,
Of a life that could be better,
I save myself, night after night,
With a refuge that wouldn't be needed,
If it weren't for my own doing,

I may be better off,
I knew it was possible,
But for some reason,
I chose the struggle,

Fighting for comfort,
Battling for a sleep uninterrupted,
By wind, element, rain and raging strata,

It's my own doing,
The destruction of the life I've been given,
The cold kept me human,
That's how I wanted it,

Pretending it was possible for me to exist,
With nothing but what I had bought for myself,

I choose to believe,
That life would be no better off,
If I were to just get up
and close the window;

That is my great misfortune.

jf. x

When We Grew Up.

When we grew up, I had hoped we wouldn't change like this.

Where once a field was bright green, joyous, and opportune, I now see a pointless space that reminds me of the scars we left, we left each other.

I had thought we'd still be there, in the lush green plane, still playing with each other.

When you fell in love, my heart sank.

When I went away, I looked for the friendship I always had with you.

Others, those who refused to change, are no better off; they are incomplete and alone.

They deny it happens, but they too lament the past.

Our Golden years ended too soon, but here are no seconds of regret.

All the time spent with you was not wasted, though it might be now.

We were journeying along our own paths.

I'm so glad I got to be apart of yours for the moments I was; I'm sad to see us part.

With so many places and corners, I pray that we meet again.

Maybe during transaction on an intersection, we'll remember what we once knew.

I thought I'd left you behind, but when I turned to find you, I saw your back.

We'd both gone in a different direction.

Can you blame me for trying?

jf. x

The place I'd visit

There is a place that I visit,
He lives there, a man I love
Who's thoughts are exquisite,

I tell him of all my trifling folly,
He lends me wisdom
& tells me to be jolly,

He explains the world,
What he sees as creation,
Highlighting that all which is bad,
Is not just damnation,

"Your hudles", he muses,
"are not what they seem,
with each one you jump,
There's a talent to be seen,

The effort you apply & the way that you fall,
Make the path of your flight,
It's how we see what has become of us all"

He saw the hard-knocks as a stepping surface,
"A challenge in life is nothing but purpose!
what you aim for, you can achieve,
The 'mountain' in the way,
Is only what you perceive,

Don't squabble at nothing,
while there are dreams to climb,
Stop wasting your minutes,
when all you have is time!'

jf. x