This Serene Me
I will absolve the serene sea,
the flowing water, waning tide.
This peaceful scene I cast to thee.
Do you perhaps still think of me?
It matters not; the tears have dried.
I will absolve the serene sea.
My lonely place, my silent plea,
my cold and darkened soul I hide.
This peaceful scene I cast to thee.
My grieving heart, it longs to flee,
to noise and life, my love, I've tried.
I will absolve the serene sea.
Remember when we two were three?
Her smell, her hair, she's by my side.
This peaceful scene I cast to thee.
My prose belongs down on the quay,
To where our love had cried and died.
I will absolve the serene sea.
This peaceful scene I cast to thee.
An ocean from a distant place,
Laps sore upon a plastic sand.
it’s waves and flow and ease of grace,
ashore on land so far un-manned.
See crushing depths and distant lands,
the wheeling birds and mermaids strands,
the pretty shells with seaweed green,
the timeless toil and pain unseen.
I cast my waste upon the shore,
and say to you, my dearest friends,
'This plastic lives for evermore',
so don't be still with words and pens.
If I ill lay then so do you,
I struggle still, I’ll push on through,
So take the blanket from your eyes
Man says he cares but mankind lies.
A Dying Sea
In Diffidence
I am a solitary boy, a ghost in class, my spirit subdued by a crushing shyness, my creative soul restrained by a military-grade subconscious, sucking me into my warm, dark place of comfort and solitude.
I long to break free of this solace, to burst into a nirvana of confidence and colour where my insidious DNA cannot stifle my thirsting voice, and my crumbling confidence cannot be blown away like sand before a storm. Perhaps one day, I can take my place in that elusive nirvana and not view it through underdog eyes.
They say I must overcome my shyness, but don't tell me how; I don't have a map to that place of milk and honey, that nebulous land as distant as Narnia, that elusive ghost-like place of friendliness and acceptance that I so covet.
He needs to involve himself more.
Such things go on my report cards in red ink to be read by despairing parents who expect better. He has a keen imagination but daydreams; he has a blockage with maths, so abandons it; my father hurls these words at me in his nasal drone implying laziness, and I cower inside before the harsh words and punishing disapproval.
I do try Dad, honest, but I can't do it. Words unspoken.
He scans that tabled text through hooded eyes. He doesn't see the jumbled figures in my textbooks, and the crisscrossed symbols that dance before my eyes amidst my accruing incomprehension. He doesn't see the tears that blur or feel the pounding of my stressing heart. I won't tell; he wouldn't understand that the embarrassment would press me into a place that I could never recover from. I can, and will, survive my misery by keeping my insular self, intact.
I cringe before the pitiless stare of my teacher, with her bust-like eyes, the husky, woodwind sound of her voice spotlighting me. That dreadful, blush- infused moment of terror as I'm pinned with a question that I cannot answer, and the pursuing laughter, buoyed by my peers' superior knowledge, as I struggle with words that dissipate as swiftly as they form.
Please leave me alone. Let me sleep in the downy comfort of irrelevance. I just want to listen.
My raised hand is a beacon for ridicule, my echoing voice as alien to me as that of a stranger; so I opt out. My hand remains in my lap, and I mentally sink into a place that I cherish, to a core far removed from the banter of the boys and the eagerly fanning hands of the girls.
That was then, and this is now. I am as fearless as flowers, throwing my words into the world and not caring how they land. I can taste that mythical nirvana, but no longer want to reach it. Perhaps I am already there.
I look down, through the years of self-doubt, and call to those who never speak:
'I am you, and this is me. Look at me and see yourselves. I can see you through your masks of feigned indifference, and I now have a map that you can follow. The door I have stepped through remains ajar for you, and I will ensure that it never closes'.
For The Unblessed
For the unblessed, born and nurtured amongst the broken chariots of a satanic Armageddon.
For a ragged people, torn from broken buildings, their splintered lives picking fibres of hope from the remnants of a lessened humanity.
For the smug-faced angels of death in red leather armchairs who glance dispassionately upon the grieving wives and mothers whose tears and wracking sobs distress the distressed and wash away the crumbling façade of peace and reconciliation.
For the children swept as one into a turmoil not of their making, their uncomprehending eyes assaulted by images at odds with their innocence and developing consciousness.
For the nations dealing aid and death in equal measure, killing those who would be killers and offering shelter to mothers, and teddy bears to children.
For the warriors, the tearfully departed, facing the diligent foe across expanses of green, and crumpled cities. Blue and yellow flutters still from redoubts and defiant villages.
For the longing in lonely lands for those left behind in quiet desperation with souls bared for the taking by the reaping scythe of the infernal hellions.
For the shallow graves hiding brutalities and abominations where strangers and neighbours become one, united by shared earth and horrific injustice.
For you and I, as the tendrils of conflict seep into the cracks of our lives, splitting seams and opening hearts, testing firewalls and undermining the ancient fortress of established society.
The trumpet has sounded and now we must act, lest our own lives crumble and fade and the unblessed triumph at the end of the days.
Lost
Once there was a smiling girl
Whose dizzy life passed in a whirl
Her sinless days were spent in joy
No time for love with man or boy.
In a whore-filled den devoid of hope,
With Weed and White and Crack and Dope,
She pushed a needle in a vein.
No one spoke her name again.
Those smug-faced crowds who filter by
The streetwise ghosts with deadened eye,
Are blessed, for they will never know
The haunts where youth and innocence go.
What is Reality?
What is Reality?
Is it the time of our life or an undernourished apocalyptic event devoid of the consciousness we feel defines our existence?
Is it the juxtaposition of the soul and physical self, existing on a plane far removed and yet exerting its influence in an overtly subtle way?
I have a mind that can soar to great heights and consider many things away from my physical self, unencumbered by mortal restrictions and physical laws. A mind that can create and discard in equal measure in a spiritual plane of its own making, yet tethered to an undisclosed reality inhabited by my human form.
An undisclosed reality.
We are not to know the reality that surrounds us or the forces that sweep us along our rocky road until the tether is severed and our minds transpose to another, lighter reality. A reality no more or less real than the drudge of a life well spent. But what of our memories and learned things? Are they detritus, remnants of the tether and previous reality that fill our Mindspace with longing for past times, just as our soul distances itself from such binds? Will memories from other realities intrude upon our minds’ newfound freedom filling it with a joyous connection to realities long forgotten as we tumble to yet another?
My reality is now. At this moment. In the next letter I t. y. p. e, but it’s too fleeting to grasp. I can barely acknowledge my existence before the moment becomes another, and my thoughts slip away to nestle in a past reality, a graveyard of ‘now’ emotions, inconsequential except for the scars they can leave behind.
Can it be an illusion? Do we exist as no more than an extension of our creative mind? I think not, So I must ask again.
What is reality?