A daunting arrival, settle thee none.

She's a sea swan sailing low
with silver feathers and a silver glow
the sea sings calm roses red
the moon sets sail a simple dread
because she, the swan sees them all
dancing; dancing to and fro.

50 shades of stupid

So I'm sitting at work
(there's a) thinking singing ringing in my head
words been said
that seem so strange to me.

That's not right
I wanna say, I should say
but I'm afraid.

I'm afraid you'll say it's ok
for you to one day
thrust into me when I say no
and that-
it's romantic to be draining in cuts and blood when-
bdsm is an expression of love
and marks of the skin is an expression grim.

so do tell me.
how you can justify an abusive biograpy
praised as if it were new
like hell praised for killing you!
would you say sex is the decision of your lover? when you don't want it
and you're being the bother?

I'm afraid you'll say
"oh grow up, you don't understand.
love is what the lover can stand."
perhaps you don't know how it feels
when the blood's draining down your heels
and it kills
tell me sorrow
your heart'll follow
a knife or two.

I have a proposal for you
why don't you read between the lines
and stop watching the disguise
grin.
It's laughing at you, it's watching you
and it knows
oh my friend
it knows it's got you.

but when you are there
you're stuck.
struck
and broken.

Now tell me how that is sweet, sweet love.

Song of feathers

I am no flower
I am not vulnerable
and I do not wither.

I am not beautiful
like my genitils
deem me to be.

I need not beauty
Nor great strength
to simply be me.

I do not need
his delicious fruit
nor prestigious parties.

I am wholesome
I am made of feathers
and I dine on freedom and the far trees.

Let the winds guide me
Not your philosophy
that guides you dull.

Let the winds send me home
to the home
many paths lead to the same end.

We broke the house

You wrote me from a book of disorder.

You stole an identity

painted my name with a tattered brush

long, old, and worn.

Paint thrown thick and black

onto walls, onto paper,

onto stone, brick, and a cold house

yellow wallpaper no longer kind, gentle

the place that you longed for

torn, ripped, decayed and unloved.

The paint drips onto your shoes

as you remember where the first cracks appeared.

But you don't remember how.

Or what.

Except, the hate you have of me.

Grown, kept, nourished

by desperation.

That poison
My dear, it is called addiction.

You cannot resist to taste and paste

my name like lyrics to explain your hate.

To everything purple and green, yellow and red,

you compare me to everything you love and dread.

For all to see and share and learn

the evil you see

the satisfaction you feed

desperate

to help support your sadness as it burns.

Hungry child weeps.

Silence on the Borderlines

Logical annotations

To fixed memoirs

Lay on the table.

So subtly label

The experiences into emotion.

Of toil and struggle,

And the laughs of faces

That no longer

Smile.

Lost decaying touch

Fell dead with colour

And leak,

The intended saturation

now weak

And pretending never to exist.

Words we never said,

Words we were too afraid to say

Once we said good bye

Rot on the raining fence.

Stuck, hooked on the spikes between us,

Blowing away in the wind.

You and I

In no more words than

An angry whisper,

Killed the garden we shared,

And slaughtered the keeper.

So that it would grow with weeds,

And then into nothing.

But sometimes I catch your eye,

As you weep in between the trees,

Still tangled by my thorns

Still afraid of new seeds.

And I have sown many more

Bad roses that have wilted.

But when I look into the sky

I see a world untouched by my hand.

I see a world where birds fly,

And colours sing in infinite prose.

Affixed associations,

But escapist intentions

Burn paper by moonlight.

Romanticised hallucinations

Or tangible realisations

Softly suggest

A new way to move from the chess board

Into a snug chair by the fireplace.

High bookshelves stand grand on all the walls,

Crisp, tender new words,

Kiss unknown philosophy gently.

I feel the waves of cold sea

Touch warm toes

Naked hands no longer curled around

Empty glass bottles.

Instead, those bottles are buried in the sand,

Their labels still on the outside

But the corners begin to peel away until

They are all the same,

No longer distinguished.

And that's how I will remember,

The box with your name

that will always hold

All of those memories.

But no longer painful,

As I cut off the canopy

and let the sun fall onto my face.

I still peer over the fence,

And hope that someday,

You too will see the sky

But in your own way.

And feel the gentle breeze,

Not choked by leaf and dirt,

But calm and sweet

In your orange lion mane.

Block.

She’s blank.

Grey stone stuck on paper.

Tools, here and there, strike.

Loose grains of sand so scarce,

Drowning in a white river

Disappear instantly.

Blank canvas, blank novel, blank sound

Bleed into a single screech

Of flats and sharps

Making the air heavy and

Sick.

Rotting desk sinks

As hands fall to the floor.

Empty Eyes

Dark room with a single candle

                                                                Floating

Hungry ear pressed against the condensation

                                Waiting.

There is an eerie song playing through the glass,

                Familiar words distorted into paranormal notes,

                                The happy voices now split into a chorus of spite,

                                                Emphasising the lonely separation

                                                                A mark of the lacking sensation

                                                                                Of warmth breath against thy neck.

Good morning

Waking from deep sleep nine,

                            Phone too tired to remind me the time.

               I pick up a six string drum,

And strum along,

  To old melody and rhyme.

Monopath

 A familiar taste sits in my throat as I walk home at night. Letting my mind wonder as the streetlights stretch across my vision in a blurry orange beige spectrum, I contemplate on what the taste might be, but it is too unnatural to define as something organic. I let my legs stagger forward as my senses smelt together a complex pattern of ideas and thought. I hear myself groan as my feet kick the curb of the road, but the sound is detached, an automatic response to environment. The utterance is nothing more but dust on the skin of my independent society; My unique brain complex that leaks colour onto the road. Hallucinations of music vibrate kindly, entertaining my thirsty mind, bored of walking.

Smooth face

My best exhibit is a blank canvas.

No colour, no shape, no stroke

Just a void of final acceptance

That nothing I could paint,

Nothing I could create,

Would reflect the prince's smile.

Reckless words

Ain't like that any more.On the floor,
Near the bookshelf
By the stairs.
Fourth step. Fourth step doesn't smile.
But fourth step never smiled.

Quiet words,
Whispers
Thoughts
A thunder.
Simple things, a faint fire,
Burns like a scream,
A preying liar.
She ain't crazy,
Oh she ain't crazy-
But the heart's desire.
A drenched flier
Sayin'
I love you.

A mist.
A flood.
All honesty,
Written in mud.
Complicated knots
Entangle muscle, memory, mind.
Pulls me in a dark, dark cave.
Leaves my warmth behind.
Oh so subtle,
Your gentle breeze in the shape of your smile.
But then my breath,
It's empty and vile,
My words
Just
Spoken
With a rotten tongue.
But it's not just a mistake,
Because you're someone.

I'm sorry.

(But there's more to that.
They're just reckless words,
Meaningless birds
That sing no notes
in the Garden.
Invisible feathers,
invisible everything.
But let them sing,
In whatever colour you choose,
The sense they bring,
That I refuse
To say I'm always right,
Always bright.
Always alight
With kind thoughts and...
Understanding tones.
Understanding glows,
Of polite sentences.
Yourself is my importance,
And that's why I say it.
Just like that.)

The shiny wall isn't always blue.

Blank stare
With grim expression.
A face that can only be related
To an empty pit,
Of something ill-fated.
But she's soft-centered,
A smile begins to melt the water,
The image falls, and begins afresh.
Something new, something young,
Something with a dress.
A woman that once sung 'impossible'
Now with a posture so strong, yet still fragile.
She's independant, she's renewed,
And beside her feet, is a glorious sight.
Unlimited tins of paint, unlimited light
To a canvas that is as wide as the horizon.
She became the artist.

My Monster

And just like that, the old man on the corner of the street began to laugh, his eyes widened and the veins on his neck began to grow. It did not take long for his height to stretch so tall to cast a great shadow that stripped the sky's light from my face. His crooked stance gave off such a thick darkness, it trapped the colourless air above and dyed it into a grey mist which quickly began to drown my lungs. His face was something I'll always remember, as never had I saw a grin stretch so wide.

The Scientist

"The experiment worked!" The scientist said, he looked at his fellow colleges who just nodded their heads. They did what they were told, and if the scientist was happy, so were they. That's how the system worked. And that's how it'll stay. It wasn't long before another situation arrived, all hands on deck, all sleep deprived. "It's time to get that engine rolling again!" The scientist bellowed, so loud the lab shook, and nearly broke the fragile glass below. The colleges obeyed and turned on the system, reading to observe the new mission, impossible situation rolling on the screen like a documentry film. It featured, as always, a twisted play, must like the ones you see today. But the ones you see are the ones on screen, the ones you'd pay to watch at eighteen.But this game wasn't just for fun, it was an experiment. That's what the scientist said, so that was what it was. This was the lab inside the head, of a mind that was never fed, learning for a mad cause.

The Desk III - My Garden

I sit at my desk and look out through the window.
It is getting a little dusty.
Through the glass, I see the old garden I grew up with,
But the Anderson shelter is no longer at the end,
And there is another plastic greenhouse,
Rattling in the wind.
I think to myself,
If my life were a garden,
What would it be?
Would it have flowers,
And trees that blossomed,
Would it have leaves,
Left on the ground, forgotten?
Would it have an orange slide,
Or a broken swing?
Would it have a kite,
That would fly
Without string?

Generous warmth, sick heart

Cold hands hover over
An everlasting fire
and glow

Defeated is the darkness,
that surrounds the night.
destroyed by the embers
That burn bright

Yet I turn to the bars
of a prison cell
Forgetting the open door
In front of me.

I am in two worlds
My fabric has been ripped
into two pieces
Sitting in each dimension
Unware of it's other half.

The Happiness Machine

To calculate your overall happiness, you take out a few counters from The Box. Lets say... A yellow counter for happiness, and a black counter for sadness. Now depending on what kind of mood you are in, affects the currency exchange rate, but lets say you're feeling quite neutral right now, so each black counter is minus one, and each happiness counter is plus one. After picking out several counters from the box, you realise you're on a minus number. All your worries and fears have been drawn out from The Box, and they stare back at you coldly. You'll want to add more yellow counters because happiness is a good thing right? So you try and reflect upon the good things - almost desperately to get to '0' or a plus number. Sometimes this is quite difficult, and sometimes you count the black counters as minus two or three, because you feel quite sad.

But no matter your calculation, you don't have to stand by it. When have numbers or math ever served you in a light-hearted conversation with your friends, or the feeling of warmth - either from the sun or just simply from a smile? Take a break from fighting the world, and make your own personal revolution. Break free from sitting in that dark room and counting... And make your own rules to happiness.

The Desk II

I have been sitting down for a while now on my dull yellow chair, my hands stretched into a mellow chord on the keyboard in front of me, yet no music plays; the power had long since been told off. Clouds gather in the window, it's waning light highlighting particular objects on my desk such as the pile of paper to my right, and the open drawers full of clothes that hang half in, half out. I know somewhere in my room, my bin should have been emptied out weeks ago, used tissues most likely have a life of their own by now. I decide to empty the bin out tomorrow, and maybe even dust the desk too. Time had been and passed, and evidence stacks in layers within the corners and between the unreturned letters. Is this loneliness, I question myself, while realising that a significant amount of time had past since my last reflection, an old rail ticket sits in my hands. I smile to myself, perhaps somewhat insanely, and think that I am much more of a person when I am with my friends, so much so that perhaps I am less of a person when I am alone. Maybe, I have playing along for too long, that somewhere in the dust is the remains of myself. This idea is far from the belief that I am selfless, no. I am very selfish. I guess that is how I use people, I have forgotten who I am, and the only way I remember is through my friends. Fragments of myself discovered through conversation, no single friend knowing the whole 'me'. I want to laugh, this dark thought is a little bit silly, I know, I understand that well; yet some part of me seems charmed by the whole idea of losing myself, perhaps I am mad already, or I have been alone for too long there simply has never been a single 'self'. Now that sounds insane all right! I may have laughed at this point, I don't know. I doubt I'd even want a single friend to know 'all of me', so I decide that this entire trail of thought is ridiculous. I return back to reality, my arms are now spread out across the keys before me and let out a sharp wail. I must have turned the keyboard back on at some point, I turn the power off again. I have been sitting at this desk for too long.

The Desk I

It's late again, and I can't help thinking about the many times I was close to you. My dear friend. The candle burns and casts a shadow on my desk. I relate more to the shadow than the flame now, your distance is so far as to sit in an entirely different world. Sometimes your friends tag your photos online, photos of happy smiles with people I don't recognise. I guess time moves on, and your shadow moves further away. I would contact you, but other than for the sake of loneliness I wouldn't know what to say. Maybe I'll wait next month and say happy birthday. But that'll make me just another message, a sentence with no real meaning. I don't want to be just another person you met some time ago, but I'm afraid to admit that some friends come and go. But just so you know, a reply from you would make my day, don't be afraid to say “I miss you” sometime soon.

The Pocket Watch I

As I was walking home,

I put my hands in my pockets,

And tried to ignore the cold.

Somewhere I could hear the faint pulse

of a pocket watch,

It's beat as loud as thunder

On the quiet street.

It occurred to me that this sound

Was like like the drum of my heart.

A rhythm like this does not last forever.

Neither blood or battery is infinite.

And yet in this world, time passes

Without a conscience, without a thought.

Yesterday felt like today,

And today feels like tomorrow.

I know I saw your smile,
Yet I cannot remember standing by your side.

I know I heard you laugh,

yet I cannot remember if I was there.

Dreams and reality merge,

And I'm never certain,
On the existence of my own memories.

What does it matter if I had written it down,

When it does not feel as if it happened?
Feeling lost in my own thoughts,
I continue walking along the street.

Up the hill,

But down in my own world,

Where the hands of a clock draw

circle upon circle,

losing it's perfect timing,

Half a second each day.

This will be part of a series of poems. The Pocket watch is symbolic to me, and there is still more I wish to express that I can't put into just one.