What Use Are My Words?

Tags

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?

 

Advertisements

Why Would You Know?

Tags

creative, Depression, faith, Misunderstanding, poems, poetry, Signs, verse, writing

What did it mean

And who else was there

When you passed me

Slowly on the stair?

What do I do

With all that I know

Words that you said

That lie with me low?

Who did I see

Or was it a dream

As you glide past

In futures unseen?

How did I fall

How far could I go

Smile on your face

But why would you know?

Two Worlds

Tags

age, creative, Depression, hope, inspiration, Love, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

There are two worlds

Inside my head;

One worn weary

Through the spinning

Of millennia

Gyrating ceaseless

And out of control;

The other,

New born as you stepped

Into my view,

Sings with the sweetest

Of melodies

A tune that no Earthly hand

Could pen,

Sets spark to the tinder

That lay for time unending

Dormant like poppy seeds

Awaiting the stirring

Of my soil-soul,

Now alive

And an ancient Sun

Rises with my smile,

A joy that cannot be

Extinguished or defeated,

A joy that brings new meaning

To every moment

Each stretching sinew

Each fleeting thought,

A joy that my deepest words

Could not come close to speaking,

So I shall breathe

My other world

A world in which

To be.

 

In Deep Waters

Tags

creative, Depression, Insecurity, Love, lyrics, poems, poetry, verse, Water, writing

In deep waters

I feel the fishes

Swim round my ankles

Like destiny.

In deep waters

I feel the ocean

Wash in over me

Like fallen tears.

 

In deep waters

I am the shark

The lost and lonely

Misunderstood.

In deep waters

I am undone

Safer out at sea

And not your shore.

 

And as I swim to you

Or the shimmer that

Rises from the swell

I hear the water’s song

The sweetness of its voice

Which calls to me.

 

In deep waters

I am the one

The swollen ocean

Your well of tears.

In deep waters

I feel the whisper

The words that settle

Like destiny.

 

In deep waters

In deep waters

In deep.

Felt the Sky

Tags

age, Aging, creative, Creative writing, Depression, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Reflection, verse, writing

Saw the lines

Drawn in the sand

That marked our time and place,

Heard the words

In silence fall

That gave life to the lie,

Watched the face

From clouds emerge

Reveal its mocking eye,

Felt the sea

Beneath my feet

All futures soon erased,

Saw the veins

Fill up with salt

An atlas of our days,

Heard the sigh

Of ghosts now gone

Their helplessness unchained,

Watched the flow

Spill over dunes

The drowning man restrained,

Felt the sky

Sink to its knees

And blue eyes turn to grey.

Fell

Tags

creative, Creative writing, Depression, poems, poetry, verse, writing

We fell off

The floor again,

Tumbled down

Through calico lies

And tissue paper truths,

The cobweb futures

Doorways never tried;

Watched the beacons

Breathe their last

And die beneath

Our floorboard heads,

The jewels and dust

Maelstrom in our hearts

That frost our weary eyes;

We fell through

The floor again,

Lost its voice

Beneath the silence

The thunder of our tears,

The rusted chain that

Snaps us as we fall.

Solitude

Tags

creative, Depression, loss, poems, poetry, Solitude, thoughts, verse, writing

Solitude rose

Like an autumn sun,

Early rays pallid

Burning through comfort’s

Cloak of mist,

Casting down light

On what had lain hidden:

Shadows growing longer,

Reaching out like

Venomous snake-roots,

Twisting digits around a heart

Cosseted by inertia

And complacency’s kiss:

Too late the memories of Summer,

Their faces fading like Sun bleached lines

Whose watered paint marks

Had hoped to stay,

Lost already to Winter’s

Future cold,

As creeping silent

From shadow to life

Solitude takes hold.

Against the Tide

Tags

Communication, creative, Creative writing, Depression, emotion, free-form, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

Brought his thoughts out

Into the light,

Let the rays of gold

Breathe warmth into each

And everyone,

Exhaled and watched

Their woody shells,

Grow their hardened spines

Against the tide

Of other’s eyes,

With steel heart

And stubbled soul

Stood beyond the crowd,

And watched himself as

He slowly sank

Below a malignant

Horizon.

The Interview

Tags

Creative writing, Depression, flash, Prose, short stories, writing

     When they had asked me what he had been like, the man with the knife, all I could say was that I couldn’t really say. He had been, to my mind’s eye, nothing more, or less, than average.

     He had stood at average height; not discernibly taller nor shorter than myself. His hair had been worn short, but neither cropped nor shaven, and his eyes, well I could barely remember the colour of my closest friend’s eyes, so that line of questioning drew a blank.

     What of the colour of the man’s skin? I could confidently say that he was white, but boasted a tanned face; or had that been a more olive complexion? It was difficult to say with any degree of certainty.

     Distinguishing features? He had a knife: a response that solicited a look which could have been annoyance but equally disdain. No, there were none that my sapless mind could recall.

     He had been, the man with the knife, nothing more than average. His accessory had been all that made him stand apart. His unremarkableness reminded me only of myself.

     In fact he might as well have been me.

Predisposed to Sadness

Tags

Communication, creative, Depression, inspiration, Philosophy, poems, poetry, Sadness, verse, writing

Dressed in the finery of night

It’s chill embrace

Familiar

Like the comfort of

A threadbare coat

Collar high

An acknowledgement

Of sorts,

Submerged below

A sea of aural melancholy

It’s welcome waves whisper

Only to my ears

Sounds of contemplation

Tiny earthquakes which rumble

A stronger pulse within my veins,

And through the sunlight

The rains comes down

To drum upon my door,

And beyond the purple

Day-bruised clouds

I catch the kiss of light,

To ask if this is happiness

This yearning for the night

The beat perhaps askew

That fills me with delight.