Neurons firing Across carriageways Under construction Messages half sent Half-received Half conceived Fantastical plans Free of consequence Free of sense Forging ahead To freedom Independence Responsibility looming 'Clean your room' ing All happening too soon Errors of judgement Under the spotlight Decisions of ego Seemed like Such a good idea At the time Practicing adulthood Without the tools Ill-equipped Metaphorically Hand-held And understood Letting go Safety-netted Still abetted A journey toward Self-actualisation A revelation
Category: poetry (Page 3 of 4)
Burn the wick
Just as the flame can burn the hand That strays incautiously too close Blistered reminder of impulse So the hand can snuff the flame, command Extinguish the light and the heat Its purpose quashed and incomplete Gentle shielding will understand Nurture, direct the naked light Use its power for doing right Protect the flame,reprimand The feisty draught set to blow out The light offering to end doubt The thoughts and actions left unplanned In darkness fester and take on A life, a needless marathon Illuminated, become grand The candle flickers and breathes life Burning passions put paid to strife
Essence
A precious gift winged back graciously with a newfound comrade
Requested, admittedly, but despite that still nicely played
Tiny little thoughtful gestures, building bridges, setting scenes
Providing succour, nourishing, customising host cuisines
What begins as a love/hate relationship makes us braver
This is now a comfort, familiar and homely savour
More heartfelt, problematic and contentious than mere flavour
Let me open your secrets and won’t you come to my aid?
Darker and scarier than multitudinous Halloweens
It’s a matter of taste, I insist, my point to belabour
You Smiling Complicit A shared moment Of trust and of hope Something passed between us Something profound and surreal Daring us to grasp on, hold tight Never letting this moment leave us Hungrily holding on with all our might Knowing now, this is not just another night A hint of a future, suddenly real Not imagined, extant and bright More than the sum of our parts A shared vision of hearts Time now to absorb Eternity nears And how you Fulfil Me
This, your first communion,
Gives no assurance of celestial reunion
It’s a yoke you choose to wear
The empty promise of unheard prayer
Its tenants and rituals offer only confusion
I’m feeling tarnished and somewhat complicit
In this indoctrination, this illicit
Eight year old’s promise of servitude
An abuse of childhood, crass and rude
This institution is humanity’s deficit
This is no tool of education
This is simple subjugation
This supplication to the divine
Subjecting the child, a crime
Colluding in foolish fabrication
Perverse, this virgin creed
A cloak for mankind’s greed
Grown of nomadic superstition
Deaf to rational petition
Not a solution, not the one we need
A god who needs your pledge of devotion
And delights in such frivolous commotion
Lifted not a finger nor cried
For all the babies which today have died
He feels not, cares not, lacks emotion
This ritual, this cultural veneer
Superstitious nonsense to mask the fear
Of no purpose beyond that which YOU create
You have no need of divinity to make you great
Your life, you can learn to better steer
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
Metaphorically, literally
The train tracks its clanking route too fast
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
But the fuel it’s using cannot last
Are we seeing reason, finally?
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
Metaphorically, literally
Folkestone, England. June 2017
The vineyards roll down these luscious slopes
Row upon manicured row of false hopes
Hail this domain, my life to sustain
Whilst sunset falls and off the dreamer lopes
‘Lost in thought’ seems such a common refrain
As farmers plough their routes up the lane
It hangs on the vine, this nectar devine
Usurping nature across this plain
And what does it bring me , this thirst of mine?
What does it bring you this thirst of thine?
Illusion of relief, cruel and brief
Release of Dionysian design
Dijon, May 2017
Back to poetry, the gwawdodyn is a Welsh poetic form with a couple of variations. Both versions are comprised of quatrains (4-line stanzas) that have a 9/9/10/9 syllable pattern and matching end rhymes on lines 1, 2, and 4. The variations are made in that third line. One version has an internal rhyme within the third line. So there’s a rhyme somewhere within the third line with the end rhyme on the third line. Here’s my first attempt:
Bloom
Get up on your bike, beseeches the song
Accoustic motorbikes can’t be wrong
Foot on the pedal, who needs a medal?
Wind in your face, primevally strong
OK, I might have made up the adjective ‘primevally’, and I inverted the syllable pattern to 10/9 9/9… (The notion of the accoustic motorbike, and the line ‘get up on your bike’ is from a song of that name by Luka Bloom, hence the poem’s title
Gathering to bright
Clouds are gathering
Clouds full grey
Gathering up hopes
Gathering it all
All in chaos
All will fall
Fall bleaching colour
Fall sweeping clean
Clean away summer
Clean away dreams
Dreams turn inward
Dreams of hibernation
Hibernation of spirit
Hibernation of life
Life draws breath
Life will survive
Survive the cold
Survive the barren
Barren the frost
Barren the field
Field of brown
Field of angst
Angst for the future
Angst of regret
Regret for inaction
Regret opportunity lost
Lost in thought
Lost to hope
Hope renews itself
Hope springs anew
Anew the warmth
Anew the spark
Spark of life
Spark of growth
Growth will endure
Growth eternal
Eternal cycle reborn
Eternal hops springs
Spring’s colour revived
Spring’s new promise
Promise me hope
Promise me life
Life asserts
Life awakes
Awakes the colour
Awakes again bright
Bright skies blue
Bright new dreams
Dreams
Blue