Viaticum (the complete series)

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Complete, creative, Creative writing, faith, history, Humanity, inspiration, poems, poetry, politics, Series, Truth, verse, Viaticum, writing

For anyone who is interested (and has the patience) and for the sake of cohesion I have collated the previous nine pieces:

Mary

The sacrifice is on the table,

The gift I would lay down,

To dive into your ocean

Be swallowed by your swell.

But deep within your soul,

I feel rejection rise,

Taste the words from your mouth

Of unholy unworthiness.

Am I too pure, too perfect,

If only you knew,

How earth-held pleasures

Rise up within me.

I catch the tear as it slips,

Feel your touch at my feet,

But what words can I find

To unlock the truths?

What words can I find,

To show you the man,

Without the walls of your world

Coming crashing down?

 

 

Mother Ambition

Look at me now

Eyes blinded by pride

Stand tall amongst

Your allies

And shield yourself

From truth.

Your creation stands

Before the desperate fall

And voices cry

To feel the words

You could never

Form.

Does the image

Make the man so

Understated I stand

Arms asunder

Face so torn

From pleading.

And did I disappoint

From child to man

I fell

Drowned in expectation

Desire to do

Your will.

 Yet still they cry

Fuelled by your love

Your folly

The time I lost

I cannot set

Them free.

And look at me now

Eyes blinded by tears

Wept solely

For me

The failures of men

Your pride.

 

 

Wooden Hands

Knotted fingers work their skill

Sculpting nature’s giants,

As passion flows through hands

Designed to make things new.

Hematic flow from skin to grain

Rekindles life anew,

This touch like cryptesthesia

Animation from the dead.

And now you try to steal this love

To touch another’s flesh,

To breathe life within a kiss

And raise an amaranthine army.

These hands show dried and lifeless

Now splintered from mis-use,

Cut from weeping saplings

And drowned in blood of men.

 

Comatose

In catatonic catacombs you lay

As motionless as the temple,

Rising, monolithic, overshadowing,

Watching, guarding each mortal move.

Silent as the sermon’s words

Falling hollow from mouths,

Distorted by power, passionless,

Detached, unhinged, obsessed.

Led beyond the wailing

Imploring desperate eyes,

Hands as twisted as my psyche,

Grasping, indign, at flakes of faith.

Shallow chest, no sound no breath

Shroud pulled down from pallid lips,

My words, no meaning,

Crumble as they fall.

Moments crawl across the stone

I stretch a hand to leave,

A twitch, a blink; a rattled gasp,

In that misfortuned pause.

My feet fail as you stir

I have no place to go,

We walk as one, the jinx is broke,

Fate, it seems, is blind.

 

Sermon

If you would let your

Smothered ears listen,

And hear the words that spew

Like fire from my heart,

Wrenched like flesh from

Somewhere buried deep

Deep beneath the consciousness

That rises from the ground.

 

Let them settle

Grow within your mind,

At last to realise

That this curse that falls on you

Falls from another’s hand,

Take this severance

Permission to be, to leave

And not to cling to servitude.

 

 

In Love With You

This is the reason

That I came here

And suffered

At their hands.

The reason that

I stayed here

And followed

Scriptures road.

This is the passion

That flows in me

The blood and

Sweat and fear.

At times to see no

Other but you

My hope my

Life my fare.

And was I blinded

Eyes scarred to see

Eclipsed from truth

Meant for me?

Fell so far from grace

Another hand

Lost to me

In your eye.

This is the reason

I stayed for you

Impure

Love you knew.

The touch, your tear

The one I knew

A kiss of

Death from you.

 

 

A Final Feast

Take this bread

And break my bones

The suffering of a man.

Don’t drown yourself

As the wine is passed

But read me if you can.

I don’t want my

Words to touch you

Leaving inspiration.

Find your own path

There is no other

No promised nation.

In your heart

There is the spark

A door to make things new.

So take this bread

All I can give

And to your heart be true.

And you, my love

Will leave for me

And give to me my peace.

 

 

The Last Visit

And all of this is still to come,

You say with sharp and twisted tongue,

And set out scenes before the sky,

To bring salt water to dead eyes.

 

This hate, these lies, a swarming plague,

Reach out eternal in my sway,

Vitriolic fields of fire,

Single souls who walk the wire.

 

Reveal to me hopeless despair,

From those who chose too much to care,

And those who lay down in my name,

Wilful suffering for my shame.

 

And now you split the clouds with war,

Angelic host who keep the score,

And who will rise to heaven above,

And who will take the sacred cloth?

 

Then from another’s point of view,

You lift this faith with arms askew,

To shackle souls whose will will sink,

As from the sacred cup they drink.

 

Perception blurred, they walk again,

To find anomalies in men,

And raise the banner of belief,

A cut too deep to gain relief.

 

I search my voice and try to cry,

The road you show, it is not mine,

But what remains is your soft smile,

I cannot change this life must die.

 

And as you fade your arms are lost,

I cannot calculate this cost,

But you misunderstood my time,

Your name will bleed in time with mine.

 

Through My Eyes

Can you see how I’m pinned

Wear my heart on my sleeve

Bloodied and wearied

Down on my knees.

Can you sense this life wane

Feel the guilt in your core

Flow free like the wine

I’ll give no more.

Can you feel these tears burn

See the truth through my eye

Cold now as marble

Not asking why.

Can you see past this time

To dead futures to come

Reach out in regret

Know what you’ve done.

 

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wooden Pieces

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Communication, conflict, Creative writing, faith, history, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, politics, Principles, religion, time, verse, writing

Above the birds circled

Silhouette patterns in the sky,

Monochromatic mosaics which shuffled like aging hands

Moving wooden pieces across a board

In some endless game,

Watching, always watching

Waiting for that killer move

That only Time knew

Would never come,

As far below, talking monkeys

Hurled sticks and stones across the fields,

Reached over the seas to tear the rage on others such as them

Moving invisible pieces across a board

As if they had a goal,

Forgetting that they had the gift

Of sound and word and voice,

Turning time upside down

As if it bore the blame,

And still above their sightless heads

The shadows wove designs,

Building plans like those before who came and failed and fell

Moving broken pieces across a board

As if there were a point,

Waiting, always waiting

Til aching wings gave way

Above the spinning rock

As silent Time fell still.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

We Want

Tags

Creative writing, Life, Notoriety, poems, poetry, Remembered, thoughts, Truth, verse, writing

What is it we want

Is it just to belong

To be part of the crowd

A part of the scene,

A sense of our place

And our presence in time

A memory for others

To mark where we’d been?

Or do we all seek

To leave past days behind

And carve out our future

Our place in the Sun,

To step with new shoes

And away from the herd

To leave our feint imprint

Where no one has gone?

But as the Sun sets

We’ll all fade in its shade

No name be remembered

On each weathered grave.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Mark on the Wall

Tags

Creative writing, faith, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

Your face

Another one pinned

To a crowded board

A transient skin

A mark on the wall

And a scratch on my conscience

A look that I’ve seen

And one that I’ve known

But never really felt before

Your face

Expression painted

Over and over

On a well worn canvas

Waiting and waiting

But never through choice

A mark on the clockface

Wiped over by hours

That never felt at all

Your face

Hung beneath the tower

Hidden in clear sight

Exposed in the dark

Waiting for the rapture

A sign that’s nothing more

Than a mark on the wall

A scratch on your conscience

You never felt before

Your face.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Beneath the Bridge

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age, Creative writing, faith, Life, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

Beneath the bridge

Below the waves

With all the things

We threw away,

The faces and

The names we knew

Our fallen dreams

From younger days,

The bitter roots

We never killed

They twist and turn

Begin to grow,

Creep up our spine

And choke our bones

And root us here

As if to show,

How all the things

We ever lost

Will anchor us

And mark our place,

Beneath the bridge

Above our sighs

We are as all

A fading face.

What Use Are My Words?

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Communication, conflict, creative, Creative writing, Depression, faith, history, Inequality, Life, Love, poems, poetry, politics, Principles, Progress, religion, Truth, verse, war, Words, writing

What use are my words

If the shells still fall

From black-heart open skies

And bombs still separate limb

From torso

On a whim?

If lover’s nights are torn asunder

Each phrase of love declared

And punctuated by the rifle’s kiss

As bullets fly through skies

To deafen out the

Infant’s cries?

If families fractured fall apart

Their bodies as their homes

And stuffed in ragged bags

They walk on paths anew

Hopes and lives askew?

 

What use are my words

If every judgement still

Depends on colour, race or creed

And not on who we are

Those who act so blind

Injustice our own kind?

If passion is fuelled by hatred

And shouted from the stands

Evolution’s backward stare

Feet that stomp and pound

Like we never left the ground?

If all that we can show

Is intolerance and hate

To mask the failings in ourselves

To stick within our clan

And say this is the Plan?

 

What use are my words

If all that we believe

Serves not to heal but pull apart –

Words lost behind the rhetoric –

And sets us off to goad

The wrong way down the road?

If our deities stand toe to toe

As we become the baying throng

Applauding every blow

Forgetting that it’s all a game

And they are all the same?

If faith is lost behind the mask

And we think ourselves the show

Where Glory resides in riches

And ceremony makes us tall

Hidden safe behind our wall?

 

What use are my words

If those who shout the loudest –

The basest of our kind –

Earn mandate over all of us

To wield the sharpened sword

And cut the final cord?

If none of us is equal

And power comes through privilege

Whilst on green fields they scheme

To hold on to the wealth

Through division and through stealth?

If birth outweighs our merits

When change is just a word

And nothing brings a greater good

As islands we shall ever stay

To never see a brighter day?

 

What use are my words?

 

Stand or Fall

Tags

creative, Creative writing, faith, inspiration, poems, poetry, Resilience, verse, writing

You stand or fall

On who you are

And who you were before

The fingers of another

Wrapped themselves

Around your soul.

You stand or fall

In independence

And all you want to be

Without the need of shoulders

Whose payment

Asks too much.

You stand or fall

In no-one’s dreams

But those you dream yourself

And rise to shine above the ones

Who cannot see

That you

Will always stand.

 

Giving

Tags

Creative writing, Giving, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

I have grown good

At giving things away:

A word, a look, a plaything;

Objects gathering dust on shelves

Which serve only as a reminder,

Hollow and spent,

Of the emptiness of detachment;

A touch, a smile, a heart;

A muscle with purpose usurped

Scratches on the page

Of another’s life;

A hope, a wish, a future –

And of what use is a future

When its past has been given away? –

An entry erased from the ledger:

Yes, I have grown good

At giving things away,

Giving until this shell

Is empty.

I Knew You Better

Tags

Creative writing, inspiration, Memories, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

I knew you better then

When days were younger and

Every door was open,

When the roads that we ran down

Were soaked with morning rain

But led to other roads,

And every virgin corner

Gave rise to something new

Something that we could hold,

Or lose inside our hearts

And evening’s journey home

Never crossed our minds,

I knew you better then

When every alleyway

Was dressed in blossom’s cloak,

When crimson veins ran rich

And pulsed with love unknown

Like corridors of hope,

When fear’s unshaven head

Stayed hidden far from sight

And never crossed our path,

And complacency of age

Swept over by time’s hand

Cast us in a shallow shell.

We Kneel

Tags

conflict, creative, Creative writing, faith, history, poems, poetry, politics, religion, Truth, verse, writing

We kneel the same way

You and I

Faces like mirrors

Reflecting the futures

Our plans were made for

Trusting in the benevolence

Of something more

Something greater

Than the sum of all our parts

The wishes that we share

The words whose bloodied kisses

Stain our days –

And for how long need we free

The same words,

Now tired and frail,

Bereft of meaning?

We kneel the same way

You and I

And yet our voices

Never meet.