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.

‘Glory, boy; glory’

Tags

conflict, creative, Creative writing, death, loss, poems, poetry, war

Caught in the web

Of nationalistic pride

Swept on by the cries

Of ‘Glory, boy; glory’

The lad grows man

Before her eyes

The mother whose wave

Dries tears on her cheek,

Against the backdrop

Of futures left bleak

By ruin and greed

Things he’ll never see

The promise like sunrise

Shines down on him now

As foreign fields beckon

To him and his pals,

And as the day dawns

And bleeds into night

No respite no pity

From the blind and the deaf

He sees in one flourish

The lies he was told

And he cries like a child

As he sinks in his hole.

Strangers Then

Tags

Communication, creative, death, emotion, isolation, loss, Love, poems, poetry, Strangers, verse, writing

We were strangers then

When you held

The silken veil so close

To your eyes,

The Moon’s promise

Dripped honey from

Your lips and seeped

Beneath my skin,

Naked wings spread

Like caramel

Their succulent temptation

Before me,

And I, with patterned eyes,

Lay open, exposed.

We were strangers then

When you held

Your lips so close

To my ear,

The Sun’s last tear

Bitter salt from

Your eyes washed pallid

On my flesh,

Failing arms spread

Like withered branches

Lifeless now

Before me,

As I, with empty eyes,

Lay open, estranged.

Myne Dirge

Tags

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

Oh take me down to the lake tonight,

And leave me there in the cold moonlight,

I’ll wait for her arms to wrap around me,

And carry me down to the blackened sea.

I’ll take her kiss and I’ll take it now,

Pale and lifeless upon my brow,

And I’ll rest down my tired head,

If she’ll lay with me in her water-bed.

The wind will whisper in the willow tree,

But nothing more will say to me,

With your voice soft upon my ear,

My eyes shall not shed another tear.

Oh show me night and show me day,

And one to carry my soul away,

And I’ll not moan and I’ll not weep,

If my spirit you’ll safely keep.

So take me down to the lake tonight,

And leave me there in the cold moonlight.