Fade

My mind weeps from struggling thoughts
set down on the living room table.
Thoughts that are known, but are also unrecognised.
Thoughts that are expressed, but are also forgotten.

There are seats by the table, addressed by the shadows
each with their own agenda.
I cannot touch them.
They mutter but I cannot hear them.
Now and then they may embrace me,
but I cannot feel them.

I once knew these shadows
yet I have never been more apart
and I have watched flesh turn to shadow.
Will the shadows fade as does the light
that flickers on the ceiling?

I want to leave the living room.
I want to pick up familiar paintbrushes and pens
and splash colour.
I can't.
I'm not sure why.

Instead, the room is both quiet and loud,
and although many journeys have sung chords of poetry
my throat coughs dry.

It is a long tiredness,
a still tiredness,
another drone.

A radio plays in a corner.
The static interrupts my sight, my ears, my feelings,
and melts into a slur of a pitiful consciousness.

It's been so long,
dancing and singing and shouting
that I feel much more of the nothingness
that begun my art.

The Evening Train Home

The southern orange glow
regrets its departure
and dives into the ocean
as its platform descends.
The light strikes the train window
like a weeping glare
burning the eyes
until it has finally been overthrown
by the purple night clouds
and the green bed.

Just a discord (of a poem that says it’s not a poem.)

I'm sorry kid but no poetry today. I'm cross legged in a room full of pictures depicting the deflation, the declination and deletion of a place that's derelict to me. Can't stand it. I'm sorry kid, but there ain't no poetry today. I'm a boulder, a pillar, in the way of a structure that wants to crash down above, pushes hard this way and that, shoving my back this is anger my friend. I'm seeing red. So there's no poetry today. You see, I'm not delicate with my words today. I don't feel gentle, I don't feel kind I don't want to tiptoe across puddles of water I want to break the ice. I want to scream so many things that would only be a symptom, not a description of everything that's screwed up. I've tried, I've tried. But I can't sing poetry because I've died. There's a lacking soul in here kid, been hibernating for too long under a smothering winter that reeks of sickness. “Dead, dead, dead,” The madness dances from across the room and that laughter that is so loud inside it's tearing my lungs it's messing my eyes. I'm seeing shadows hiding behind the doors I'm haunted I'm torn I'm wrecked I'm displaced I'm anger. And to resist that calling, that faithful, honest calling to break break break break break break break everything. To pick up the phone and say goodbye To walk out the door and imply forever. When I can't remember an entire summer When I can't consider a newborn spring When everything that makes sense disintegrates and the only thing the only thing I hear is “destroy.” There's no poetry kid, there never will be. Poetry is the assumption of a picture, it's lace it's a window, an image a portrait or a landscape what is this? That's simply the point. It is. It says. It does.

Everyone gets a little angry.

but I have to mute this. This kind of recklessness doesn't make for good art. This kind of hopelessness doesn't make for a good heart. I'm resting. The dragon sleeps. Inside there's a monster. But it's name is not “inevitable.”

A Discord of a Friend

I didn't think goodbye had any meaning until I met you.

A thousand words but I couldn't pick one, that spoke about the damage that's been done.

You're someone I can't let go, someone who won't disappear by will alone.

And I wish you had known

That everything had a connection to a suffering that poured storms of rain

That smothered the ground along with the dust, along with our trust.

I always thought 'Til I see you again'.

But you've gone, leaving me to blame pain that is a constant arrival on platform one,

A timetable strictly woven to begin over and over

'Til the birds cry 'Tis really over!'

And I too am gone.

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.

On one strange night a magic spell came to be

Now for something rather different and a change of mood... This is a spoken word story that was commissioned by a member of an online forum. The aim was to use their two original characters, Joel and Jenny, and construct a nonsense story completely in rhymne.

Click here for the spoken word version.

I have also made a transcript as you can see below:

On one strange night a magic spell came to be

Where words tended to whisper

Some kind of tricky philosophy.

It twas when curses quiver

And the old anger shiver

When the words didn’t quite deliver

Their intended esprit, you see.

For when dear Jenny and Joel sat down,

And the sun began to frown

(Er, that’s a way to say it set, if you hadn’t guessed yet)

The spell began thusly.

“Call of duty? You are joking right? That game is dull, it’s all just fight.”  Jenny huffed tugging the blanket across her shoulder, seeing Joel’s smoulder, as his eyes lazed upon the rest of the games.

“Well, I like the game, but if you’ll complain, make a better suggestion, something sane.” Joel grumbled while thumbled his cookie that crumbled, how jumbled his thoughts came to be. “Hold on-”

“What’s wrong?”

“This is odd. I sound like dod!”

Jenny raised her eyebrows high, the night now nigh, (that means it’s very dark outside!) and thought her friend too tired to play.

“What is that Dod you say? I’ve never heard of a name like that in a day!”

Joel frowned and stood up. He looked around. He sat back down. “Dod, my friend, my eager poet, had a voice like you’d know it, if you were far away. He tended to rhyme, ALL THE TIME, and did my head in, like others in crime.”

Jenny slowly nodded, trying to let Joel’s words sink in. Since when was he a poet, though his rhymes were thin, Joel hadn’t cared for the rhythm within. 

“Joel you’re being very weird.” Jenny feared. “It’s almost as if you’ll grow a beard!”

“DON’T MENTION MY LACK OF FUR, IT’S SOMETHING THAT MAKES ME VERY MURRR.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Jenny cried. “You’re making me very tense!”

“For bouncy squirrels and acidic slime, I can’t help but do nothing but rhymne!” Joel raised his hands in the air, it was tragic time, a literacy affair. For he was known for his foul mouth and tough declare such as ‘You funny mumma.” Hmm, seems even the spell works on the narrator, I hope there’s no side effects later.

“I don’t like this at all, why on earth is life so cruel.” Joel’s anger started to grow. He wanted nothing more but to cause a KO.

“I realise now. I think I see. You’re starting to rhyme. A bit… Like me!” Jenny exclaimed, and fast proclaimed the title for her slowest gain of the situation. A fixation. Dilation. Of true plot manifestation. For all they were doing was procrastination, annihilation of a giant mis-celebration of a poet’s translation of some kind of story that was nothing more but a vocation to provide sensation. (GOLD PLEASE)

“What shall we do?” Jenny wondered. “Shall we still play or-“

“FOO.” Joel growled.

“Did you try to swear again?” Jenny tried not to grin.

“Let’s just play games and say whatever. Maybe this curse will be bored forever.” Joel suggested, vested. He wasn’t going to let the spell win. “How about Tekken?” He threw in. He paused. “Tekken…. Tekken… Tekken… Tekken.”

“Chicken.” Jenny said and gasped. “Oh, I wasn’t calling you a chicken,  that was… This… Weird… Thing that is happening to us. Something I can’t quite suss.”

“Just thinking if there are words we say, that would make this spell go away. Like words that don’t really rhyme, or at least not in today’s time.”

Jenny put the Tekken disk into the machine. She was now keen, and maybe quite green to remove the spell on. They played for sometime, each thinking of a non-rhyme, something to break the hell. (Although quite admittedly, Jenny is quite amused by the whole thing, the fun it would continue to bring silently makes her chuckle.)

Just before Jenny won the next game, Joel pressed start and paused the frame. With a burst of thunder he roared a chord that cried “ORANGES!”

“Oranges?”

“ORANGES.”

“Oranges...? Ah! Oranges! Orange!”

“Oranges, oranges!”

“Oranges, orange-oranges. Oranges!”

“Oranges.”

“Orangey Oranges. Oranges.”

And that is how the rest of the night went.

When they woke up the next day, the spell was spent.

Perhaps pure nonsense was the true intent,

And silliness was all it meant.

Through oranges Joel felt happy to breathe,

For Dod’s memory and poetry he could leave.

But back in his mind, a single sentence lay low,

For it if it was spoken, it’d be quite the blow.

As Sporanges  grow Orange in Blorenge.

I leave you my adieu.

The end.

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.