The silent scream of pain
Tortuous night
in pain, in the dark.
Piano wire nerves scream
in a white-heat silence,
searing through me,
blazing as I lie
longing for the morning
to bathe me in light
and chase away
this tortuous night.
My Words, My World
First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing
Archive for the category “words”
The pain and pleasure cycle
An intermittent intermission
while life melts in fission.
Fused and confused.
A pause for breath,
like death
but not so long
or so final
or so primal.
As each beginning is an end
in a cycle which contends with us
and renders us with reality bites.
Slights and fights,
while in the sand we bury our heads
and look for the treasure
of pleasure.
Delectable and delightful…
Any place to leave the pain.
Another notebook
I did it again, without thinking. I went to the shop to buy something for the lesson I was about to take when I saw a new line of notebooks at a pinch of a price. Well, I’m sure many of you will understand me…I just had to.
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Another notebook;
another notebook from a noted store
of a noteworthy purveyor of notebooks.
Another notebook;
bought with the notable intention of
making notes and taking notes.
Another notebook;
Noting acts of notability
and of notable notoriety.
Another notebook;
I have to take notice if I take notes,
if not; how can I note what I’ve noticed?
It’s easy to write about writer’s block
No words can express my…
non-expression.
The blank page remains blank.
Lines to be read between
have yet to be written between.
In my hand, my Waterman,
that might as well be made of, well,
water, man.
It would drip faster than any words I could write.
Reaper
Give me a scythe
but make it sharp;
so I can reap what’s been sown,
so I can gather what’s been grown.
The good.
The bad.
All lying in the sun,
drying in the sun,
dying in the sun.
My hands will blister
in this;
the hardest of harvests.
Laughing in the face of that which laughs at me
A blank page will sit and wait all day: because it can; it has patience, much more patience than I have. The blank page is king and will remain so, never abdicating, until my peasant’s revolt, armed with a sharpened pencil, a dipped pen and the spreading stain of ink removes it from its throne.
This sounds easy but it isn’t. It should be easy but it isn’t. The virgin purity of the blank page reflects in my face, making me squint and cover my eyes.
One letter at a time. One word at a time. That’s both the minimum and maximum I can do. No less. No more.
A blank page will sit and taunt me, its fresh white light, as joyous as a spring morning, laughs in my face and beckons me to do my worst. A blank page shows no fear, even with a sharpened 2H pencil held above it, threatening to stab down at any moment. While its doom hangs over it like the shadow of the executioner’s noose, it laughs in the face of fear. It laughs in the face of my fear.
Now I must go and laugh in the face of that which laughs at me.
Now I must go and write.
Night rain
I am the night rain,
float with me
I am the night rain
washing away
the day’s sins
from the shoes
of every sinner
I am the wet road
that will cause you
to slip, lose grip
as you grope the wheel
and slide
I am the oil that runs,
in colours
and streams.
Swirling, mixing
mesmerising
I am the lights’ reflection
broken and shattered
by each raindrop
I am the night rain:
drown with me.
Brass
Pavements,
spat on.
Statues,
shat on.
Marble and metal heavyweights,
like huge paperweights
Tributes to persons from another age:
forgotten,
except by the pigeons
and their stained reminders
as a burger wrapper takes to the air
and tumbles down the street
in a rustle
amid the bustle
of a city on the move.
In contrast to the statue:
a memory given permanence;
an old campaigner prominence.
But soon it will rain
and extricate it from the excrement
of the ignorant pigeons;
and the crapping crows.
Positively Monday
Monday dawned, lumpy, grey and wet; weather to add a few kilos to already burdened shoulders. The Saturday sun had already done another circuit of the Earth and was now on it’s second; unseen.
He felt good. As most people struggled with the idea of getting up and going to work, he felt Monday as a renewal. Its sober slap in the face a reawakening.
As the rain fell and washed the streets so did this Monday morning cleanse him. Its sodden purgatorial followed the weekend’s excess (was it really excessive?). Yes; a whole new week lay ahead and who knew what it would bring? He was back in the seat, hands on the wheel, foot on the peddle and the long, sweeping curve was coming up.
Grains of sand
A thousand grains of sand couldn’t grate on me as you do,
she said.
I winced.
Only a thousand?
You can count them on a dessert spoon.
Is that all?
I must try harder.
Dark morning
Morning
Dark, dark morning
If you were an emotion
you’d be despair
If you were a state of body
you’d be fatigue
If you were a state of mind
you’d be confusion
At this hour my brainwaves
should be delta or theta
but I’m full-blown conscious
brainwave beta
If you were a book
you’d be Skeleton crew
because we that walk the corridors of night
are few
If you were a song
you’d be The Sound of Silence:
Hello darkness, my old friend.
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?
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.
The mind and the madman shuffle
I’ve decided I’m fed up with writing about insomnia. It remains. So be it.
I was in the waiting room of my GP the other day and I saw a picture on the wall which I’d never noticed before. I had one of those “what if” flashes that occur far too infrequently. Oh come on, it beats writing about insomnia…
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The blue-framed picture stood out from the white wall. It framed a poppy field scene; a blaze of red with a copse of trees in the distance and, further still, white-tipped mountains, hard and stark against the blue summer sky.
The buzzer sounded. The person next to me go up and shuffled through the waiting room. A door opened and a white-coated doctor stood, clipboard in hand, and ushered the man through the door.
“Good morning Mr…”
The door closed. I was next. I looked at the picture again, studying the contrasts of the blood red poppies against the yellow cornfield against the white mountains against the painful blue sky. I liked the green, it was reassuring, a place of rest for the eyes in this riot of colour. I looked at the trees, full in their summer coat of green. Something moved. It wasn’t out of the corner of my eye, I was staring directly at it, damn it.
Yes, it definitely moved. What the hell? Behind one of the trees a figure, a man appeared. He poked his head and shoulders out from behind the trunk. I looked away, it would be ok, just look away, look at the window, think about that bus that’s crawling past in the slush outside. I looked back. Still there, he was still there. He waved, the little bastard waved to me.
A door opened down the corridor and I heard a shambling gait amble towards the reception area. I was next.
I looked up at the picture. The little man was joined by a friend. They both waved as they came out from behind the tree. The buzzer sounded and the door opened. A man in a white coat and clipboard appeared.
“Good morning Mr…”
I looked at the picture one more time.
Thank God I was next.
I hope my doctor doesn’t mind me using this image…
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.
A little piece of me
Once in a while I look back over my previous writing just to try and gauge whether, over time, it’s improving. I think it is. I also look for patterns. Patterns reveal the state during a certain period. My writing of late, especially the poetry, has taken a darkened path.
10 years ago I started having massive sleep disruption. This quickly grew into chronic insomnia, which I chose to ignore at my peril for a few years. 6 years ago I went under the ‘care’ of the local hospital, following visits to psychiatric specialists who tried to fathom out what the problem was. I was depressed, apparently. No shit, Sherlock. A few years of sleeping no more than 4 hours a night was conducive to wiping the smile off my face. They put boxes of pharmaceuticals in my hand and sent me away.
During this time I started writing. I was trying to read a book, unfortunately I can’t remember the title, which was so bad I gave up after 20-odd pages, which is something I never do. One dark morning I decided I would try and write something, surely it couldn’t be as bad as that crap I’d just given to the charity shop?
Writing became a regular in my life and it helped me where no amount of Benzodiazepine or Escitalopram could. In fact, I stopped taking anything after two years, against the hospital’s wishes. Fine, the pharmaceuticals help you sleep, but they leave you feeling hollow, devoid of emotion. I decided I’d rather not sleep. So here I am, not sleeping.
For anyone who doesn’t know, insomnia is a bastard. Mentally, it’s a dark and lonely place that leads ever downwards, where you will eventually come to your own private Niflhel. It cleaves you open and wrenches your tortured soul from your body while leaving you running on empty.
You stop telling people. You have to, because all you hear is “Yeah, I had a terrible night as well.” What? You can’t explain and they can’t understand so your interactions become sullen standoffs. You spend the day with a head full of cotton-wool; thinking becomes laborious and even the most banal of tasks requires consideration and reconsideration. Clear thinking is a reality enjoyed by other people.
Physically it leaves you hollow, like a wind-blown wheat husk dried in the summer sun, light and directionless yet always hoping for a respite, a resting place from its torments.
On the other hand, creatively it has been a wonderful input and output, where my notebook, 2H pencil and I join hands in the early hours and together we chase away the demons that frequently slip the pillow out from under my head. Those deep still hours of the morning welcome me, absorb me in their serenity and give me time and space to write. Ideas form and become words because of this. The majority of what you will find here was written while the world outside slept.
I hope reading this blog gives you at least a little of the pleasure it has given me.
Whereabouts
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My Words, My World 