Trapped

Tags

age, Alzheimers, creative, death, dementia, loss, Love, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Trapped, verse, writing

Did you miss me

When my smile died

And my mouth would not move?

When the light that burned for you

Flickered low and, starved of fuel,

Fell silent still behind

Dead eyes?

Did you miss me

When you held my hand

And felt the skin replaced by ice?

When you looked beyond the veil

To gather moments to bring me back

To capture all that you

Had lost?

Did you miss me

As trapped behind the glass

My cries fell like snowflakes?

Did you miss me then

As much as I missed

Myself?

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2021

Don’t Let Me Down

Tags

Communication, creative, Creative writing, death, faith, isolation, poems, poetry, Relationships, verse, writing

Don’t let me down
Or leave me here,
Just cut me down
And disappear,
Don’t let me know
Or tell me when,
The cruellest blow
Bury me then,
Don’t let me breathe
And suffocate,
In lies you weave
It gets too late,
Don’t let my song
Hang in the air,
With words so wrong
And none to spare,
Don’t let me walk
With only hate,
Whilst others stalk
The open gate,
Don’t let me down
Or leave me here,
Just cut me down
I’ll disappear.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2020

Blank Eyes

Tags

age, Communication, creative, death, dream, free-form, isolation, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, verse, writing

He stares at me with the resignation of a man
Who knows what is to be,
Blank eyes
Cold-grey like a quarry
Dis-used,
Abandoned,
Reflecting the past like faded notes
On a calendar,
On a piano,
Its tune familiar like a face
I once knew
Appearing through the mist
Like a bird
Lost on its journey to find the warmth
Of a new day rising
In the East,
In the South,
He stares at me like a shadow
As if all he sees is beyond me,
Through me,
Pasts and futures bound with weeds
Wrapped in the inevitable,
And for a moment
A second at least,
I recognise those empty eyes,
The greying, decaying stubble
That sprouts on his face
Hides in the cuts of time,
And withers like forgotten fruit;
He stares at me as if he wants
To watch me pluck each orb,
Replace it with my own
And see me as I am;
He stares as if, at any moment
I will know him
Then watch him walk away,
He stares.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2020

Night Bus

Tags

Bus, death, fiction, Flas fiction, flash, loss, Love, night, short stories, story, thoughts, writing

I sat on the bus, watching the night-lit streets as they passed by like frozen, shrouded memories. The juddering, stop-start motion seemed to bring an uneasy comfort to my body, detached as it was from my consciousness. Other vehicles, heading in the opposite direction, appeared and then disappeared as if they were on some mythic quest, their headlights dull and dim below my position on the top deck of the bus, illuminating nothing but the first few steps on a journey without end. For a moment it seemed as if only they knew the direction in which to move in order to find some salvation, some respite from the pain, and yet I knew, contained within each metal box, was nothing more than one more lonely figure hoping beyond all hope that something, some miracle, would appear to snap them out of their coma.

Buildings rose up on either side of me now; giant monoliths, some pale and dark, devoid of life, tired and waiting for release, others still humming under the electric glow which gave them purpose. Their eyes stared out without seeing through the dark, and were gone again, lost to me as I moved steadily on. Their facades hung momentarily in my mind like all the faces of people I had met in my life, before fading into a sea of ashen memories. The night around me seemed to tighten its grip as, like an abandoned vessel, we sailed on.

To both the right and to the left of me roads sprouted off from the main artery down which I was travelling. They sparkled and twinkled with the hope of the newborn before even their lights were swallowed by the darkness into which, it seemed, the whole world had fallen. I shuddered as the bus lurched around a corner: not from the cold – I had long since become immune to that – but from the impending realisation that we were, at last, nearing my stop, my final destination.

And then everything was quiet, but for the pounding in my chest and the pulsing in my head. What if I were to remain on the bus? Would it eject me when it reached its destination, its point of termination, or would it show a glimmer of empathy, offer up a hand and cradle me to its heart? After all, my brain reminded me, what point was there to alighting, to leaving the bus to continue without me, if you were no longer there to welcome me home?

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Sell Me to the Crows

Tags

creative, Crows, death, faith, Freedom, Mountain, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

I’ve walked these streets too long at night,

Know every broken turn,

And when I vanish in the light,

I do not feel it burn.

I’ve sat upon the table’s head,

And humbly served its guest,

I’ve listened to the words you said,

Responded to the jest.

I’ve followed you along your path,

And tried to guide you too,

My hands wrapped tight around your snath,

To carve a way askew.

I’ve made the choices that you feared,

Torn down the bloodied wall,

Then hid behind the paper scared,

Just waiting for the fall.

So lead me to the mountain high,

And sell me to the crows,

So I at last can see the sky,

And know what no-one knows.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Walk Away

Tags

creative, death, Ghosts, Longing, loss, Love, poems, poetry, verse, Walk away, writing

And when you leave

Don’t turn around

Or leave the door ajar,

Just walk away

Without a smile

Don’t look me in the eye.

I’ll strip away

The years between

And hold them in my hands,

The days we stole

Without a word

And meaning in a glance.

I’ll carve them all

Into my skin

The hours that we shared,

The joke we knew

Would always end

When laughter turned to tears.

So when you go

Don’t blow a kiss

To ease you on your way,

Just walk away

I’ll watch you leave

Through gently drowning eyes.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Gone (Light and Dark)

Tags

creative, death, Gone, Human nature, Life, loss, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

I read the fickle words you wrote

Scribbled on a post-it note,

False sentiment caught in my throat

Made me gag and made me choke.

I heard the flowing eulogy

The standard one and not for me,

As standing there for all to see

You hung your words upon the tree.

I watched you talk of you and I

And look so meekly to the sky,

And as you spoke of when and why

To my replacement you mouthed ‘hi’.

 

I read the fickle words you wrote

But what more did I expect?

A heart torn open

Bleeding free –

A life cut short to be with me?

I heard the flowing eulogy

But I was only lost at sea

And ships will sail

And ever will –

And life goes on without me still.

I watched you talk of you and I

But true I never let you know

The secrets that

I hoped you saw –

And now I’m gone, forever more.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Last Thoughts from a Quiet Room

Tags

creative, death, Fear, loss, poems, poetry, Solitude, thoughts, verse, writing

1. (Rage)

Burning with hatred

Like bile in my throat

Another reaction

I wear like a coat,

How could this happen

To one such as me

The cruel and the selfish

Are all that I see,

I’ll spit my last breath

With venom and vile

At those more deserving

And leave with a smile,

And you with your hope

I leave in my wake

As I plough my furrow

For sanity’s sake.

 

2. (Regret)

All the things I’ll never do

Ring through my head

Like the desolate bells

Of New Year’s mass,

Their promise so clean

Like the crispness of frost

Dissolving with time

And age’s fickle kiss,

All the empty places

Once written in my heart

Lie like wrappers discarded

By last year’s favoured children,

All the flesh I’ll never touch

Once the lure of youthful days

Haunt the hollows of my eyes

Then fade like spectres past,

All the words I thought I owned

Now rattle through this house

A jumbled case of scratches

That fail to mark my time.

 

3. (Sorrow)

A thousand salted rainbows

Seep slowly from your eye,

They sigh their words of sorrow

Sign scars beneath your skin.

The fragrance of your anguish

Which fills an empty room,

The memories it brings me

Cuts deeper than these wounds.

You, curled like sorrow’s foetus

I bring you only pain,

Prostrate like a crucifix

I cannot heal you now.

And I will leave you nothing

But emptiness and doubt,

Stripped and bound in ruined skin

To never feel again.

 

4. (Love)

Kiss these lips

With passion now

As if it were

For the first time.

 

Take this hand

And feel the heat

That burns inside

Above all else.

 

Hold me now

A fragile beast

And take this love

My gift to you.

 

Take this hand

Fingertip kiss

And keep it safe

Within your heart.

 

Kiss these lips

Before they fade

From pastel pink

To night-cold blue.

Loss

Tags

creative, death, loss, poems, poetry, verse, writing

Each fleeting life

Tissue paper moments

Torn too soon from books

Whose stories cry silent, weeping

Like still green leaves

From Autumn trees,

Borne on the chill

Dispassionate voice that whispers

Syllables that pass to us unheard

But leave a salted watermark

Upon the page,

Our fingers stretch beyond our reach

And clutch the empty air

Now stagnant with our loss,

As tiny memories cling

Like children to our coats

Their eyes imploring,

But our answers fall

Beneath their feet

Impotent breaths lost

Once more.

 

Alone

Tags

creative, death, isolation, loss, poems, poetry, verse, writing

In a room of smiling faces

The old man stands

His left arm gripped in clammy hand

Falls to the floor

Word filled head cries, ‘Why now, why me?’

A scarecrow doll

Swollen pupils the silent cry

Mute lips can’t speak

And all around slow motion acts

Impotent breath

In desperation’s final throes

The figure stands

An empty platform waiting room

Nobody saw

And of the faces peering on

Did any know?

With resignation’s final sigh

He smiled at last.