Seven autumns have passed
leaves fallen
trodden on
swept up
much like dreams forgotten
(abandoned).
Renewal: cyclical hope of change
illuminated by colourful explosions,
a simple wish from crying eyes.
“Please, hear me.”
Sometimes it arrives
like an unexpected flowering
in the middle of a dry winter.
A chance encounter, but brief.
Yet beautiful enough to sustain hope.
For O.H.
Glasses smashing against this tall wall:
sharp shrapnel pieces
pierce the air, make bleed.
Screams echo forever in this dark hall,
even the pale moonlight refuses to shine through
and trees outside collapse without cause.
Burning cheeks from assaulting eyes;
stabbing knives twisting inside.
No sleep, only interrupted silence.
Silence interrupted no longer.
Waves lap gently caressing fine sands;
crystal water cooling and calm.
Sunlight swirling and dancing delightfully
onto glistening droplets of water on skin –
tanned and silky from loving hands.
Noah’s white dove, olive leaf in beak, glides
all around and everything is at peace:
an upward curve on your face, a delightful crease.
a magnet destined be
attraction to rusted metal
broken parts withering
in the emergency lanes of highways
back and forth back and forth
mutated and malignant
spreading spreading spreading
tear drops watering seedless ground
no seedlings of hope grow
oil spills of the mind
thoughts have no traction
spin out of control
crash
red yellow green
flashing just flashing
mixed diluted wasted rancid
scrap yard hope
damaged goods are goods still
a lone eye spots potential in destruction
rust has a colour to see
and that single eye is me
He stares out of the misty window
into the fogged, greying world
illuminated and sliced open
by one warm Moonbeam of Hope.
Cruising down this Highway Avenue of Life –
the nostalgic Music filling the voids left behind
by the chemical wars fought inside –
he is at ease.
His blue eyes stretch beyond infinities of Sky…
His glossy gaze meets the Moon’s Rays
of Hope in this bumper-to-bumper world:
a Constellation of nine Stars smile brightly
through the darkness of space
as they frame the Moon’s Secretive Smile.
It is here –
in the Honeymoon of his Thoughts –
that he finds the Mysteries of the Moon’s Beauty
tucked away neatly in a Pocket of Sky.
His Thoughts are held together by his five star Mind,
found dancing in the Moonlight of Inspiration,
as his body is showered in his tears
with a ceiling of glittering Stars staring down.
His sadness is blown away with the withered words of hurt
he releases from his Mind,
like a thunder-cloud that releases its darkness
to create Newness.
Four-cornered gods of reflection dictating their insecurities
are reduced to simple stardust in the Moon’s Fire
which ignites his Mind
making real, through word, the Daydreams of his Love.
He has one less problem of heartache tonight
as he lays his pain to rest in his marshmallow lined thoughts
in the creative cloud-mansion of his Future.
When it’s so close you can feel it –
but you can’t actually feel.
When it’s almost real it seems impossible –
but really it is.
When it feels so right and real –
but it can’t be real from one side.
When you see every sign that shows it will happen –
but those signs aren’t for you.
When you think it’s your time –
but it’s your time to be denied.
When?
But?
Only time will tell but
slowly
it will wither you away
and hope will
gnaw
gnaw
gnaw
…
This poem is dedicated to everyone who has lost their lives to cancer as well as to those who are currently in remission. One day cancer will be human history.
YOU MAY KILL
BUT ONE DAY YOU’LL DIE
YOU’LL BE PART OF HUMAN HISTORY
PEOPLE WILL LOOK BACK
AND SEE YOUR DESTRUCTION
BUT KNOW YOU’RE DEADER THAN DEATH
THEY’LL BE THANKFUL TO
THE SCIENTISTS WHO HAD THE PASSION
TO BEAT YOU INTO NON-EXISTENCE.
BUT FOR NOW YOU MUST MUTATE IN FEAR
KNOWING YOUR EXPIRATION IS NEAR!
I writhe – convulse – contort
Slick-slap!
Fall, smack!
Face hits concrete
and the blood flows and flows and flows and flows and flows and flows and flows and flows…
I gasp – air!
Blackout.
Lucid. Snap! Reality.
A pain – I search for locus.
In my chest. Pain.
My heart – it beats
and adrenaline soars slickly slither sizzle.
Alertness: cold.
A hand of truth grips my throat;
tightens: hate.
Blackout.
Needles in my arm;
poison in my veins;
evil in my eyes.
Blackout.
Alone, single blue light…
Dull but hopeful…
Naked in front of audience!
I must dance:
I fall. They cheer. I stall.
Blackout.
Save me! From myself!
Desperate screech. Desperate.
Help.
Sinking in hell’s fire.
Drowning in holy water.
Death.
Blackout.
I’ve been here for about ten days now. It was never part of my plan… to get thrown in jail, I mean. It was never part of the plan! My whole life I believed that I was destined for greater things! My mother always told me I was a star… That I was going to make her really proud… That I was going to be her beacon of hope!
She had a tough life, you know. Her father shot her mother when she was only eight years old. Eight! She ran away from home when she was fifteen. She lived on the streets for five years. Then she met my father and fell pregnant with me. I was her hope. I was her dream…
I was always a good kid growing up. I never did anything wrong. I always did as I was told. I obeyed rules like they were meant to be obeyed! I got bullied at school for being too much of an obedient child. Tall poppy syndrome. They punched me. They kicked me. They swore me. But I always got up and felt sympathy for them… I never did anything about it. I guess it made me stronger…
Damn, man! I didn’t even do it! I DIDN’T DO IT! It wasn’t me! They think I killed my mother! THEY THINK I’M THE ONE WHO SHOT HER! It wasn’t me… I’ve told them that! I’ve been here for ten days and they haven’t listened to my side of the story!
I’m riding on the wings of hope… I’m hoping they’ll listen to me… and believe me. I’m just hoping. That’s all I can do in this cell… hope… But at night, when there are no lights on, only the feint moon shining softly through my small window… that’s when it’s worst… that’s when you hear grown men weep to themselves. That’s when you hear the walls whispering their tales… Their taunts…
This place is notorious, you know… No one ever makes it out of here… Hope has no place here. Neither does justice. Only suffering and death.
The day will come.
It will arrive at a time clocks speak not
and it will sparkle like a purple haze
so that everyone knows the day has come.
The day will come.
You will feel it when it is here
and you need to shield yourself
from the shrapnelled hate.
The day will come.
Everything you have known
will turn on you.
That is how you will know it is here.
The day will come.
Friends will be few
like little bold dots,
and so too will determination.
The day will come.
Black clouds with
Silver flashes will envelop all you know,
And lick your grey rainbowed psyche.
The day will come.
But when that day comes…
Remember to be strong and
fight through the flashes.
The day will come.
But bravery will fight alongside –
in weird ways something new will be born,
so do not fear even if you do fear.
The day has come.
But:
there is a bright day hereafter!
Mr Individualist 