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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shells

Tags

Change, creative, faith, history, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, Revelation, Shells, thoughts, time, Truth, verse, World, writing

She sells shells from off the beach

Lifts the pennies from their eyes

And then fades away,

Slowly drifting through the crowd

Clothes that cannot mark her time

Whispers in their ears.

 

Hand scratch scars upon her face

Trace the days she never had

Curled upon the ground,

Rock-pool tears that kiss the shore

As the sea calls out her name

Disappears once more.

 

And for awhile we see

All as it’s meant to be

Until we turn away

Back to the world we made

And all the things we see

How we want it to be

A world we’d never change

Or seek to rearrange

 

Angry tides rise up again

Sweep away all that she knew

Kisses on the sand,

Faces lost amongst the clouds

Trapped forever in her box

Buried out at sea.

 

She sells shells from off the beach

Lifts the pennies from their eyes

And then fades away,

Slowly drifting through the crowd

Clothes that cannot mark her time

Whispers in their ears.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Faces to the Wall

Tags

creative, faith, Fear, history, loss, Love, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

The past taught me nothing

But to be afraid,

The future just a promise

Further than the grave.

The wishes that you scattered

Buried in the sand,

And all the prayers you asked for

Held in fearful hand.

Every door that opened led

One more step away,

A shoulder for our tears

How we slip away.

The days that grew in wonder

Slip into the night,

All we held within our hands

Soon gave up the fight.

And history lies naked

Stain upon us all,

Futures carved in blood and stone

And faces to the wall.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Wooden Pieces

Tags

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

 

The Forgotten

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creative, Forgotten, history, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, war, writing

The future will kiss

Our shadows as if it knew

The things that we had chosen

And all the things that we had forgotten,

It will stare back as if

We were a part of all to come

The things that we had seen

And everything that we had prophesied,

But we are the lost

The souls who burned on Hell’s cold fields

And left the lessons buried there,

The future will still close

It’s cold unempathetic eye

It’s vengeful ghost still chained against

The cliffs we fought so hard to tame,

The laughter rings like rain

Upon the boxes we built as defence

Which wall out the moments frozen

To stop them scratching out our eyes,

The future will still blow

It’s kisses downwind to hide its fear

And all the things that we had chosen

For we are the forgotten.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Owen or Brooke?

Tags

Competition, conflict, history, Humanity, Philosophy, poems, poetry, Rupert Brooke, thoughts, war, Wilfred Owen

War poets: a) poets who lived through times of war

Or b) poets who write about war?

I saw this poster and, for two seconds, considered writing something for it.

Then I read it and began to consider what exactly were they looking for?

Would they want a ‘war is abhorrent, causes nothing but suffering, pain and misery, and it is about time that we evolved Humanity to a state where wars no longer took place’, or would they rather a ‘war is an unfortunate, yet necessary evil, in which good will triumph, and all those who fight are ‘heroes”?

I decided that the ‘judges’ would err towards the latter.

I trust you know that my leaning is towards the former.

I shall not participate.

Days of Nostalgia

Tags

Childhood, creative, history, Life, Memories, nostalgia, Past, poems, poetry, verse, writing

When we were younger

Our feet danced

To the beat of the factories

On every street,

Metal bins rattled

Voices roared

As our rain-heavy leather ball

Slapped on the wall,

And we watched our dads

As hooters blew

Stride from the heat to the corner pub

And the pull of beer,

It was always enough

To halt our game

And wonder at the marvel of what

Lay ahead for us,

As the words of our mothers

Rang in our ears

And we knew that all too soon our games

Would be lost for good,

And that the storm ahead

Was rising still

Our adult lives being forged in the mill

Despite our cries,

Sweets and penny chews

On happy days

We dipped our toes like liquorice sticks

In life’s tart sherbet,

But not for us, not yet

The working hours

Our endless time still filled with joys that

Poverty couldn’t kill,

As on the kitchen table

Our mothers served their fare

The food that always smelled so good yet

Always was the same,

And mornings came so very late

With our fathers gone

And days of school – what did we learn

But how to play the game?

And did we ever really know

What lay beyond

The streets down which we lived our days

And voices never heard?

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?

 

We Kneel

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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.

Cities – 3

Tags

creative, faith, history, poems, poetry, verse, war, writing

I stand

Stand on the high ground

The victim of

Your disease,

I watch

Watch with a glass eye

As you destroy

What you once made,

I see

See with perception

The jealousy

That you deny,

My limbs

Limbs you have shattered

That held you once

In my heart,

Your hands

Hands of destruction

That turned from me

On a whim,

I fall

Fall on my own sword

A victim of

Your designs,

I cry

Cry as the guns sing

A broken shell

To breath no more.