Mon stylo
My pen
is a stranger to me,
estranged from me.
L’etranger.
My pen
has sat for weeks,
idle, spent, silent.
Oublié.
My pen
turns in my fingers,
once a part of me.
Perdu.
My pen
welcome back, great
to see you again.
Ça va mon ami?
My Words, My World
First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing
Archive for the category “Poetry”
Spotlight
Hanging in the air
in spectral suspension,
in anticipation.
Then, animation:
a slow sweep,
a bob, a curtsey,
a pirouette.
Framed in light,
a dancer’s spotlight.
I get up from my chair
and in the slant of sunlight
through the Venetian blind
a million others go dancing.
Dust.
Hand in hand
Hand in hand: like pen and paper. Oil and gasoline. Plant and Page. Ying and Yang.
69. Yes, like 69.
Hand in hand: like Bukowski and a drink. Hemingway and a fight. King and the silver spine shiver that makes you turn and check the darkened window for a face you don’t want to see there; especially on the 14th floor. Definitely not the 14th floor.
There’s more.
I could carry on.
Hand in hand: like governments and dishonesty. Money and corruption. Lies and more lies. Lies breed lies. They lay us down and suck us up. We believe.
To the noose, to the chair, to Medusa’s lair we go, hand in hand.
In the dark
I woke up and Donald Trump was in his chair and Kim Jong-un was in his and it got out of hand. I don’t trust either of the bastards with their hand over the button…
In my bed, I slept
as half a world wept
at its sins and punishments.
In the dark bombs fell
a dictator laughed
and split the night, open.
Half a world sat motionless
arms raised in surrender;
to no avail.
In the dark machine guns rattled
an army laughed
and tore the night, open.
In the shower I stood, thankful
as water washed over me like tears
and half a world looked for water.
In the dark a mushroom cloud
a despot laughed
and lit the night, forever.
3am weather update
3am,
the devil’s hour.
The wind shrieks through the trees
and on a balcony
(mine?)
sends a flower pot flying.
Horizontal rain
sprays the blinds
in a machine-gun scatter.
With heavy head
and heavy lids
I sit
and wonder why.
Night kiss
3am, Sunday morning.
Dragged from dreams,
where feet walk on frosted blades
as a million stars fall from the sky,
which shivers
over silent faces hidden from me.
I reach out, they turn away
I call out, and they fade
The day,
still hours distant
is crawling round to meet me
I stand in the moon’s shadow
as the snow peaks stand hard and white
against black sky brushed with sweeping cloud,
the air cold on my skin
and I awaken under its kiss.
Nocturnal sighs in the blackened boughs
and, once again,
I have been tossed out into the night.
Lugano night, 3am.
Black
The sun draws blinds on another winter’s day;
whose light grows longer,
whose warmth grows stronger.
The sun’s rays of orange, pink and violet
grip the deepening sky,
like cat claws on curtains.
The sun slips below the horizon
like a drowned man
to leave me cloaked in black.
3000 miles
3000 miles of ocean
as dry as a desert highway
Distinct words from remote voices
I hear you speak
as distances vanish in the setting sun,
my setting sun
as I become the nightfall.
Eyes flicker in the madness of dreams
Then open; awoken
but the images remain
The bark of the beggar
as the sidewinder stamps its tail in the sand
of the desert highway,
where 3000 miles of ocean lay.
Green numbers
The hand reaches for the button
that flashes the green numbers
counting down the hours
of a night that is endless; and awake,
as I long to fall into sleep,
be it restless and haunted,
sleep it remains.
I envy it.
Cat’s eye
I’m not a cat;
I can’t see in the dark
yet it’s always dark
when I awake
and draw the line
under another night’s sleep.
Contradictions
Love is a stroll in a sunlit garden, under a perfect blue sky
Love is the lurching axeman, blood dripping and stumbling through corridors hard and white
Love is the warm sun and a light summer rain
Love is the vise-grip of ice, the cold that rips the breath from your lungs and tears from your eyes
Love is the warm bed, as sunlight drifts through the gaps in the blinds
Love is the sword on which we commit the ritual of Seppuku: and give all.
The night, the chemical night
Every now and again my long-term sleep problems find their way onto the written page; it’s how I feel when I pick up the pencil. I can’t tell of flowers when I see monsters.
***
The night;
star-less, aimless.
Fitful twists and turns and sweat on the pillow
tempted by sleep, made
hidden in foil
just within reach,
enticing, seducing.
The night;
I give in,
because I’m damned if I do
and I’m damned if I don’t.
Irrationality becomes normality
as sleep descends:
a benzodiazepine dream
Daydream
The day is for dreaming
What you could be
or want to be
What you could have been
or will be
The night
I avoided its darkest depths
lest from my pharmaceutical dreams
I returned; empty.
Trapped
in their batwing-leather embrace
to wander alone.
The night,
the chemical night.
Sounds of morning
The summer sun sighs through the strains of a morning
So humid
I open a window;
to sounds that fill my space
The unwinding of the blinds on another day
A car coughs
and a motorcycle
screams down the motorway
Birds wittering and nattering in an air
thick with heat
a fly whines, a bee hums
as a cat pads through grass
No breeze murmurs in this sultry morning,
just scratching
as my pen rolls across the page
like a bead of sweat between the shoulder blades
Bonds
She haunts my dreams
And waking hours
She is gold and silver
And ringed with flowers
Her presence stills me
Her words enthral me
I am hers
And she is mine
Balcony
The cat, bird stalking,
early morning dog walking,
the sun rises over the eastern hill
behind the fir trees.
Spring morning chill
meets
spring sun warmth.
It is still early.
The plants, freshly watered,
drip and gleam in the light.
Geraniums, pink and red
and rosemary lifts her violet head,
the lavender flowers, purple
while bees flit, feeling Provençal.
Sarracenia, the fly catcher, lies
and dreams of catching flies.
Dawn
The brevity
of morning’s clarity
Crystal-crusted peaks
standing sentinel
A sheer-sided cliff
black against blue
hides the sky above me
Its sides thick
with winter’s skeletons
stalking stick shadows,
stark
against night’s incandescence
which chases up the sun
A once waterfall
in winter suspension
and, like us all,
awaits the sun.
Blocked?
Every letter lingers,
and every word wrings,
while the stubborn sentence stabs
the pained paragraph.
***
White bulletproof shroud
White bulletproof shroud
Head to toe protection,
salvation
while fishermen in storm-tossed seas
knee deep and needing
breaking bread
taking water, taking wine
as you walk unhindered
undisturbed
stone rolled, risen
given
to man
to remember
to forget
to honour
to regret
White bulletproof shroud
lies in tatters
at your feet
as women weep
and men wander
and wonder
Wander, wonder
Bleach dilutes
Heart
stopped
Sliced by razor
made hollow
bleached with sorrow
Hung out to dry
to die
Then I
saw your smile,
felt your kiss
The razor’s wound
internal, infernal
but never eternal
As the heart beats once again
Drown me
Walking
waves breaking
white foam
flying
gulls crying
as the wind whips their voices
Behind closed eyes
salt sting
breathing
as the sea sighs its song
And laps and slaps the strand
Fickle mistress!
Ever moving
ever changing
From a shallow sigh this ocean roars
as the gull soars
lighter than the air
that carries its story
on the wings of the wind
Fear the night
Sleep eludes me, deserts me
It skirts my nighttime like a seige
Sleep seized from the grasp of the sleeper
Who should now be in deep slumber
As I fumble for words
(I write)
“Sleep sir, sleep!” I hear
As once again I fear
To go to bed
Lest nightmares awaken me
Awaken me?
And dreams haunt me
Dreams? Ha!
You have to sleep to dream
Sleeps eludes me, deserts me
My night perched on a precipice
A night-borne orifice
Black and deep
Like the narcotic sleep
(I crave)
The last long day
Today I left my place of employment after more than 11 years. The big hole that has been left by such an absence will be filled however, as I am now studying the Cambridge CELTA course to teach English as a foreign Language. As one door closes…
*********
The last long day
I’m left static and still
and I must keep moving
just keep going
never slowing.
But now, but now
a halt has been called.
Time to take the time that’s mine,
to use, shape and mould
As a new life chapter unfolds.
I won’t be lead blindly
as I carve and scythe
and make my way
with my destiny
in my hands.
Over yonder
Do not step into yonder pasture,
however the grass may be greener.
Do not follow the grass-flattened footsteps
of another,
who will lead you tither.
For the fickle will change
and though you may rage
and cry against your injustice
and spill tears that are useless.
To whom will you turn
when the wild winter wind burns
your face and tears your eyes,
as you stumble and chastise
your decision taken,
your intention mistaken.
For however that distant green field
may taunt you,
do not stray across those borders,
entrapped by those hoarders,
who will suck your soul
and bleed you dry and left to lie;
choked and broken
Hours
The hours slip through time,
as time seeps through the hours;
and flowers
mark the beginning
and the end of time.
Celebration of life and death;
eyes open for the first time
or close for the last,
and tears tear the heart.
A new life now grows
for time never slows
but seeps through the hours.
Splinter deep
The old year slipped into the new
While yesterday’s pain
is swept with a broom
Hard bristle scratch
My thoughts, my face
Dust choking
Acid soaking
The handle hands the hand a splinter
Through nail and skin
Deeper and deeper
Poisoning and malevolent
Burrowing and diving
Septicaemic
I can feel it
Arrow sharp
But not enough
To pierce my heart
So it turns on me
and burns in me
But spurs me
On.
Goodbye, my sun
As the leaves burn brown
and rage in a riot of red
The low, winter light losing colour
looking tired and stretched
The sun’s early rising all but forgotten
another life, another time
The soltice shroud of darkness covers all
and the frost fingers;
hard and cold
grip the earth
And its frigid breath
bites the air
As the year ends in a flurry of colour
We are
The mirror’s image wavers before me
It implores me
“Look at me”
“Look at you”
I do
And wish I did not
The mirror’s image dances in my eyes
As you chastise
“Look away”
“Look at me”
I do
Relieved that I did
The mirror’s image shows you beside me
Love unties me
Mountains slide
Oceans rage
We are
And we will remain
Semicolon
You, semicolon
A dot. A comma,
a pause slightly longer
than a breath
And instead of punctuating words
they’ve punctured your heart
You, semicolon
Half remembered, barely read
Semicolon; you ran your race,
and lost your place
And in this fast-paced world
of the modern human race
You paused once too often
and became a Winky, smiley face
;o)
Whereabouts
-
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My Words, My World 