SLOUCHING TOWARDS WISDOM

All the negative space

In-between each tear

Has me slouching towards wisdom.

Learned impulses

And fractured heartbeats

Leave me drifting past knowledge.

What do I know,

About the human spirit.

What can I know?

As a sub human, bare threads

Of humanity

Lace their way through me.

Half made

Never worn

Over wrought

Ah, ceaseless motion.

Beating heart

Flowing blood

Ebbing tide.

Keeping me regular as

Rusted clockwork.

While I startle those around me

When I toll my bell on the hour.

A theatrical tragedy

Or is that a comedy of errors.

Only Shakespeare would know.

As I play Viola

A woman in men’s clothing,

Beauty guised as the mundane,

In an adaptation of my own circumstance.

Life as a double entendre. 

RAIN

Outside the window it rained

Silver drops of fallen cloud

Cascading from the sky

Coming down with my mood.

Heavily. Pounding through sadness.

This unrequited love, drips

Through the unrelenting rain.

Its ferocity upturns my stoicism

Drowns me in hot waves

Of tears and anxiety.

The thought of not having you,

The thought of having you,

The thought of you at all

Sends me into frenzies of

Panic, passion, happiness, sadness.

You unhinge me.

I am unrequited,

And thus unfinished.

And now, I’m unravelling,

Trying to recapture all of myself

In the muddy ground

In the pouring rain

Through bitter tears

With broken promises

Holding my heart.

TENDER IN YOUR WAKE

Time scrapes

Dragging its pointed

Second hand

Across my corneas

Blurring my vision

Taking my eyes out

For another season of woe.

Tideless and saltless

An empty sea lays still

And all I can hear

Are the echoes

Of a hollow shell

Held to a broken ear.

A feather,

Soft and pure,

Feels like steel wool

Pressed firmly against

Fragile epithelial cells,

With my broken pores

Letting the light in

In broken shards.

Touch turns to blistering burns

Sight turns to blinding pain

Hearing turns to deafening silences

Taste turns my tongue to molten lava

Smell turns to dour odours.  

My senses were never so heightened

As they have been

In our aftermath.

I’m tender in the wake of you. 

LOSS

A year passes so fluidly.

Life meanders on through the stream of time.

Loss stays with you.

Always at your back

I miss you.

I cry for you.

I wish you weren’t gone.

The pain in every ones eyes

At the mere mention of your name

Gives me goose bumps of dread.

Where are you now?

I guess we will never know.

But traces of you have been left

Imprinted on me forever.

Your hand print on my heart

I try to smile when I think about you

But sometimes I miss you too much

And I can’t smile.

I know you would hate that

You always made me smile in life

It’s harder to make people smile in death I guess.

If you’re anywhere

Floating around in the ether

Know this,

That I think of you daily

And I miss you minute by minute.

I’ve been a bit lost

Without your guidance this

Last year.

I hope I’m making you proud.

I hope I’m becoming the woman

You always saw in me.

Strength through memories

That’s all I have now.

Memories in silver and gold,

Black and white,

Shades of sadness,

Shimmering.

Carrying me through.

Keeping you in my heart.

Keeping me afloat.

SILVER LADY

All through my life,

Whenever I thought of you,

I would see streaks of silver.

You glistened, you shone, you dazzled.

Friend of my mother.

Heart of wisdom.

Soul of impossible kindness.

All through my life,

I wanted to be just like you.

I  Still do.

You were the woman I looked up to.

Brave, funny, bold.

Unashamed of everything that made you

What you were,

Frightened of nothing.

Strong, kind, gentle,

I idolized you, and you never once faltered

From the pedestal I placed you on.

My female inspiration,

My moral compass,

My Godmother,

My friend.

My very own Silver Lady. 

YOUR EMBRACE

You with your sadness
And shadows behind your eyes,
I with my litany of remembrance.
What a grim pair we should make.

But what happens when our lips collide
Is that I forget, and you shine.
No shadows, no sadness, no memories
Just us, here and now.
Together.

Two lost souls treading the same path
Lingering in unison engulfed in our
Own darkness.
My kindred spirit, a soul mate perhaps.
Hold my hand as I loose myself in your embrace.

GREY

The grey sifts through the light

Falling heavily into the air

Dancing streams of silver

Cloud my vision

On this dull day.

Heavy rapture

Choked breath

Undulating spirits of the dead

The lost

The closer to God I lean

The further away I feel

Second hands sound out

Like a jack hammer in my brain

Swirling time

Loosing faith,

Loosing what is fated.

The worlds music

Brings calm

Calm brings emotion

Emotion brings space

Full, packed space

Crammed right in there

Like the particles of an atom

The light sifts back through the grey now

Bring it back to me

Call me home

Call me. 

BRAIN MATTER

Tiny grey pieces of brain matter
Each holding a different piece of me
Each containing a different memory
Each one a different part of the puzzle.

Rip them apart,
Put them back together
And leave out gaping holes.
Room for improvement,
Space to forget.

I wish I was splayed out
On a hospital gurney.
Eviscerated and cleaned out.
A bloody pumping mess
Waiting to be refilled.
Waiting to be made whole and perfect
Without all of the damaged raw meat
That fills me at the moment.

Tiny grey pieces of brain matter.
Some I use
Some I don't
Some I wish I didn't have.

Funny how something so small and soft
Can seem so vast and solid
When you try to hold it.

MERCURIAL WASTELANDS

Dusk drips down the walls of
My mind and drapes itself around me
Dreams overcome me
Night embraces me as
A creature of its own making
Time lingers for me as I float on clouds
And tip toe across oceans
Waves lap the shores of my subconscious
Waves of silver and gold glistening
In the half light of a moon filled sky.

I am on a beach, barefoot on the sand.
I spot a seashell, luminous and perfect
And solitary in the night.
I am naked and stark white against the
Pitch black back drop.
I am glistening wet and a gentle sea
Breeze ruffles my hair.
I pick the seashell up and raise it
To my ear, and I hear the dull
Splash and groan of a thousand
Ebbing tides.
I am humbled.

The moon is a cold eye in the
Sky’s sullen face.
I focus on it and I am faced with my own reflection.
Naked and wet and unashamed.
I am shocked by my own brazenness
And then I wake.
And I crawl into warm welcoming arms.
Arms that wrap themselves around me,
Willingly and eagerly, and I am happy,
And for the first time in my life I
Realise, I am truly content.

RE : ME

Retarded
Redundant
Repugnant
Repulsive
Reclusive
Reconstituted
Regurgitated
Rebuked
Recoiling
Reviled
Revisited
Renewed
Reinvented
Replenished
Refined
Reignited
Relinquished
Re-educated
Reborn
Redefining me.

TWISTER

I’m so lost without your touch

So empty without your kiss

Like my skin is numb

Like my eyes are blind

So full of loss

I’m hollow

Your fingers left traces on my flesh

That I can almost see

And if I close my eyes tight enough

I can feel your breath at the

Nape of my neck

As I lie in my empty bed.

Every where you were

Sparks in me a fire,

And every electric impulse in my brain

Floods me with images of you.

My body is cold

Without you near me.

This is killing me

I just want my life back

You came like a whirlwind

And left my world shattered

Around my feet

But I would give anything

To feel those all consuming winds again.

For you to sweep me up

And make me spin

Like a twister in my heart. 

TIMBER

Touch me gently with savage claws

Sedate me with a saccharine smile.

Kiss me with cyanide lips.

Embrace me with granite arms.

Love me hard

Love me fast

Love me thick

Love me deep,

Love me intrusively

With reckless abandon

But mostly,

Love me painfully

Without mercy or grace.

And love fiercely,

Aggressively, with no apologies attached.

Unabashed

Unashamed

Raw.

That’s how I want it.

How I need it.

Uncompromising lust.

Unerring love.

Unfailing intensity.

Oh, you could make a play for my heart.

But only if you catch it

In needle lined kid gloves.

My blood on the hands of my lover.

My heart a syringe stuck corpse.

Tragic soul aflame,

Inside a  timber box. 

DOLDRUMS

I am stuck

In the doldrums

Of dole days

And lager nights.

Hit the city lights,

And sleep till 2pm.

Do I surmount to this?

Am I that...

Inept?

Incapable?

Or just that inebriated?

For all my pseudo intellectualism,

I am back in a room,

In my parents house,

Where I grew up.

Surrounded by childhood memories,

That I don't think I ever managed

To fully leave behind.

The thick fullness of them hindering my adulthood,

Stunting my growth.

So, do I surmount to this?

A litany of failed lives,

Failed loves

And failed longings.

All set to ash underfoot,

On this stained carpet.

And while the walls of my heart

Drip with the blood of

What I could have been,

What I should have been,

I relinquish myself to

Watching the world pass me by again.

And, glass of wine in hand,

I resign myself to my failures,

And tiptoe back

To despondency in the doldrums. 

PRELUDE TO A ROMANCE

Time with all its glorious hindsight,

Pricks at me.

Stinging my face with its tears.

How many times can a heart

Be broken apart like a jigsaw?

Be put back together again

On the playroom floor

Of another in a long line of playmates?

Well, from now on I’m hiding a few pieces.

And one in particular, no one will ever find.

And that final piece to the puzzle

Of my heart will forever remain mine.

Kept in its box.

And though it will make a beautiful picture,

It will never be complete.

The prelude to my next romance is this,

I’m keeping a part of my heart,

Only I will ever own. 

MIDNIGHT WHISPERS

In my ear you whispered
Three little words we all long to hear.
When dreams had taken you
When night caressed your lips,
And sleep hushed you to a breathy croak.

Awake in arms thick with slumber
Restless, and naked and warm
I nuzzled backwards into those words.
Like you really meant it.
Like you offered me all of yourself
And I guzzled you down hungrily.
Greedily lapping you up.

But you were asleep
Lost in your dreamy darkness.
And you said what I’ve waited for.
The way I’ve longed to hear it,
Full of truth and meaning
Full of heart and warmth.

In my ear
In the dead of night
Whilst you were dreaming
You whispered
‘I love you’
And I wished you had been awake
Then I would know it was true.

LOST AND FOUND

Self righteous

Self betrayal

Smothered in self loathing.

Where is my joy?

Has my hapless wonder

Gone to seed?

Deadened in the winter of

My lost enlightenment?

Oh look, here come self pity

To join the party.

I’ve been consumed

By the glowing embers

Of my own dying fire.

Time to douse me in petrol.

Time to strike a match.

Re-ignite my soul.

I’ve stopped feeling beauty,

Seeing emotions,

Hearing the worlds visuals.

My artistry endangered

As I lick my own skin

To try to taste myself again,

Because I can’t remember

What flavours I come in.

I touch the air with my fingertips

To feel the world again.

Moving particles around my head

To make myself feel more involved

In the continuous motion

Of this spinning pile.

I think I swallowed my creativity.

But I can feel it,

Crawling through the gaps in my teeth.

Its coming back,

Lingering on the tip of my tongue,

So when I think my mouth is full

I’ll raise my hand to my lips

And blow onto my palm

And  rub my hands together

Until the friction starts a fire in me

Until I’m ablaze again. .

A couplet. Before and after.

PORCELAIN

My heart seems borne of frailty
Fragile I am.
Vulnerable under your guard.
My skin, once thick
And hard as diamond,
Turns to porcelain under your gaze.
I am breakable with you.
You hold my heart in your hands
Moulded like plastacine.
Every inch of me feels transparent
Around you, I am an open book.
Around you, I am lost
Around you, I am a million different languages
Just waiting to be spoken.
Around you I am safe.
I've never felt this safe before

PORCELAIN 2

My skin had turned to something,

Porcelain I said.

As though being that fragile

Meant we were more desirable,

Frailty through the skin

Of a broken object such as my heart,

Why should I have thought this desirable?

Because you broke me.

What I thought was impenetrable

You penetrated wholly and fiercely.

And all the while I thought it charming,

I was being deceived

By a false safety that you exuded.

And now I fall

Shattered to pieces.

Because of you, I am unwritten.

Because of you, I’m more lost.

Because of you, I am a dead language,

Soon to be forgotten.

Because of you I am vulnerable.

More vulnerable than I can afford to be. 

3 Poems about my Grandmother. The fall from grace.

ODE TO AN IRISH GRANDMOTHER

Oh Grandmother,
My heart.
Patron saint of our family.
I see you as a luminary,
O f solitude, grace and strength.
A woman who’s hands
Have borne the work of men,
And whose hips have done the same.
Whose lips have tasted poverty, yet,
Fed her children gold.
What sights you’ve seen,
What fears you’ve felt,
Yet still you’ve soldiered on.

Oh beacon of the Irish heart,
Oh heroin of same,
You have built a strong hold,
Around us, that never can be breached.

Oh Grandmother,
My heart,
Oh patron saint of unity,
Gather us together in

Matriarchal arms and smother

Us in tea and biscuits. 

AMAZON WOMAN

A vague and putrid essence

Assimilates into cold bed sheets.

As a mighty Amazonian takes her fall.

A warrior woman.

Laid slain in week old pyjama’s,

And we like pygmies huddle round her,

As though she were a shrine to lost greatness.

What sickness is this?

Grasps the strong and makes them weak.

Touching all around it with its ferocity.

It will not sleep,

As anger, madness and panic creeps through

The veins of all around it, all that touch it.

The warrior woman becomes bound by it.

Succumbed to its devilish charms.

We cannot bear the weight of this great woman.

Fallen so heavily onto such moistened earth.

What do we do, but wait and let her waste away,

As she always wanted,

Surrounded by nothing but her own murky memories

Of a past no one else remembers

Of a time no one else is from. 

MEDUSA

A matriarch of sickness

Spilled upon the bathroom floor,

Spread across linoleum

Like hardened butter.

Snapped heartstrings

Plucked from their core

Broken in shards around you.

It has come to this.

It has come to shove,

Because all you did was push.

Force us out of pity into anger.

Penetrate our open hearts

With steely resolute bitterness.

I admired you once,

I even hated for you.

I will always love you.

But nothingness comes to the rescue,

As we watch you squirm

And shout

And abuse

A bird on its belly,

Fallen from…

From what?

Never from grace.

But into degradation

Self inflicted.

And the open wounds

Of those closest to you,

You decide to salt.

A matriarch.

At least the shadow of one,

Morphed beyond recognition

Into a medusa,

Your snakes hissing and biting

Turning us all to stone. 

DISTANCE

In the vacuum of light

My soul calls out to you.

I can hear yours calling back.

But I can’t reach you,

Can’t grasp anything except your emptiness

It slips through my fingers.

All I want to do is touch your skin.

Traces of you on my pillow,

On my skin,

Even that is fading.

Hearing your silence,

Feeling our vacancy,

Touching your distance from me.

All I want to do is hold you

You’re much too far away.

There’s too much space between us. 

DAY BREAK

Delicate strands of light
Laced the edge of the clouds
Tainting them pink
And slowly turning the dark
Into a bright glowing blue
Busily preparing the sky for sunrise.

As the huge orange sun
Rose from beneath the horizon
The stillness and calm
Of this early world was interrupted
By a cacophony of birdsong.
A thousand voices in fugue
Praising the glory of daybreak.

The sun rose higher still
And light found its way into every crevice
Gliding over every surface
That the night had hidden
Within moments the earth had come alive.
The ground walked with a million feet
And the sky flew with a million wings
And the breath of the world
Danced and rippled upon the glistening water
And rustled through the trees

I FALL

With a small amount of wisdom,
And a huge amount of fear,
I jumped.
Head first into the depths of your heart.
Nothing prepared me for this. 
Your beauty and grace surrounding me,
Engulfing me,
In fire and water and air,
And soft soft kisses that last for days.
And you are just there,
An abundance of love and laughter,
And when I close my eyes at night,
Your smile is the last thing I see.
So I fall asleep smiling. 

You make me feel beautiful.
You're inside my heart.
Locked in there,
And wrapped all around me.
I want to stay lost forever
In your embrace, 
And find myself again in your kisses.
And at night, when I whisper ‘I love you'
To the stars,
I hope that you can hear it,
Through the rustle of the breeze

PAPER DOLL

The pearls of my wisdom equates to this,
What dreams have made of me.
The burden of self awareness,
Limitations of a 2D existence,
I am a paper doll.
Jagged edged
Holding the hands of a dozen other versions
Of myself.
You can use me as a decoration,
Or separate me into the individual parts.
A paper army of myself.
Either way, all I know, is that all I have
Is the bare shape of myself,
An outline.
That’s all I show to the world.
A dozen blank, white paper dolls,
Fluttering away in the breeze.

BLACK THORN

A lover’s garden

Gone to seed

Rose red he said

Whispered in her ear

Breathy and coarse

Like their love.

Desolate now,

A wasteland of loss

A garden of remembrance

She gazes now

At the long dead rose bush

Lost in the memory of reds and ambers

Black thorn she whispers,

Black thorn.  

Poetic Musings

To start a blog for poetry..hmm... maybe this is an exercise in futility....maybe not...either way...something has to be done....so from here on in...I shall be posting my poetry on here in the form of a blog..and perhaps any other inane ramblings that I see fit to regurgitate publicly. A few to start off I guess. Then more and more each day....Enjoy.