I stand still, walking slowly
Through indifferent crowds,
Echoes of cares and stresses
Bounce through the empty gauze
Between my ears, decisions made
Or only dreamed, remember ‘right thought’
So what is real, or is that also grasping,
Another sad attachment to the world of misery
Of distraction dressed up as fate,
Tastes of old and young inter mingle
To make us what we are today,
This path walked down, padded earth
No space to think sideways out of happiness
Into the bright blue skies of comforting sad
I miss the one I cannot see now,
And tear the pain from my own inside
But instead release it safely guarded
Secret loss, aired outside
There is a method somewhere lately,
A statelihood I cannot reach,
But stir and swing on loss’s rainbow,
Pierced right through by love’s bright colours,
One range happy in life’s miraculous birth
Of newness even when loved ones leave us
But what to do when choosing paths now,
Which way to go, nowhere to hide,
All that’s left with me is anger’s impotent sadness,
Tinged with the guilt of a small lost boy,
And the sweetest memories of angels gone
But not forgotten.
Category Archives: Poems
Poetry is
The art of the heart
Written in the lifeblood
Of the soul.
Potatoe potahto
Recently I was accused
Of some sort of racial slur
In a story I wrote
About gorillas in
Much Like Us.
When I looked again
Re-reading it through someone else’s eyes
Or as close as I could get in my own mind’s eye
I still could not see what they meant
Though I tried as hard as I might.
So I sat
And I thought
About all the pictures people see
About how we all see a different world
Through a myriad of different eyes,
How everything is up to us to define
Decipher, discover, decide
And we are all as infallible as each other.
From the slightest misunderstanding
To religious discourse, to racial hatred and outright war
The whole problem is us humans, desperate to not be alone
Fighting for some real meaning, some vital substance
In this life, on this rock, floating alone through space,
The vacuum that surrounds us.
There is no straight answer,
No all-encompassing truth that we can all happily
Accept, nothing that is so clear cut and true
That we all see it the same way, so we go on
Fighting and arguing, judging and describing
Pidgeon-holing. Reinforcing our own preset world view
Until all that exists in the wonder of reality
Fits within our own ten-second segment of bite-size life,
Allowing us to relax back into comfortable modes of behaviour,
The ruts of common existence and habitual blindness.
When will we all wake up to the pure beauty of clear sight?
By the River
Sit and watch the swans dance
Sublime across liquid time,
Ripples sparkle with dying light,
Edge the night’s winning battle with day,
Waning as it does towards the end
All the while wondering at time lost,
Another echo in the well of lives remembered,
When eyes still burned with amazing grace
As each new dawns golden light broke
Once upon a time, not forgotten but tasted
Instead on tip of soul’s forked tongue,
Not lies at least, embellishments of memory’s fickle grasp
Love’s ghosts, favoured tastes of childhood’s own
Rose-tinted glasses, a hug, a smile, a coy glance
Forever lost in the quickly darkening water,
To surface again only in the glint of time’s remembered waltz,
The dying day’s final kiss bleeding light breaking sharp
Against the deep dark, swans sublime swimming
Cross micro waves of timeless wonder,
When will we next meet again, my heart
Is here when I next visit Kingston-
Upon-Thames.
The Market Lane horses
Standing slightly bedraggled
Sad Gordian Knot hair hanging listlessly,
They gaze querily, beyond the edge of the field,
Rubbing chins against the broken fence
Overpowering memories of what they once were,
Wild and free, powerful and hungry
Eager to bolt and run with the herd,
Nostrils flaring, hooves pummelling the earth into happy submission,
One more pounding heartbeat of mother earth’s naked crust,
Memories cripple their hunched majestic necks,
As they stand there, so still
Their mad eyes remembering
What their bodies never will
That once upon a time,
In their cells remembered past,
They were free to run riot,
To breath perfect air, run anytime
anywhere. Now
Having been harnessed,
Brought to the brink,
Given slavery instead of freedom,
They’ve gone mad,
And stand rubbing chins
on bent metal fences,
Staring into the end.
The Market Lane horses,
Once so free, proud and gay
Stand stock still, til beckoned
Eyes blaring mad, empty thoughts,
Forlorn hearts steeped in soul-cell memories
Of better days, of freedom
of life.
money dreams
‘What if someone steals it,’ Cheryl asks me,
Ramping up previously nonexistent fear
I quickly file away and smile nonchallantly,
‘I’m not worried,
if they steal it and make money, it’s extra publicity for me,’
Hearing my own bald-faced lie,
emotional attachment to letters arranged,
I pulled the strings, touching my soul
and back out again,
I file the fear for a different day, the future calm,
My subconscious
with time to digest
Then spurts the answer I need to relax, and
When the answer came
Of sculptures soaring free
Where anyone can climb and enjoy,
see and take in
Interpret their own meaning
The clear thought that true art,
Coming from deepest space inside,
Should be free to disperse in the public’s eye,
To remind us all how, as humans together,
There is more than fragmented dreams allow,
I could say all of this in a lengthy late reply,
But the answer was just for me,
The fear breathed out,
after-stress sigh.
Thank you, subconscious,
For sorting all that out,
Now if only you were focused
On feeding my monetary drought.
the answer for that seemingly life-long question
would come just as easy, and take away the stress
that desolate accounts plague my dreams at night.