Alone

Tags

Alone, creative, Life, poems, poetry, time, verse, writing

And the pages turn

And the numbers fade

Like they always have

And they always will

Wiping clean the slates

And erasing words

Hiding the faces

And fading the names

And we all look back

As we always do

Try to see the things

That were never there

And when out of sight

Means we’re out of mind

Did they really mean

Anything at all

If for just one day

We could see it all

Touch the ones we know

See if something’s real

Or just shy away

Like we always do

Afraid to make the move

To hide and die alone.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

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Slowly

Tags

creative, faith, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, verse, writing

He bends slowly,

Kneels, with the grace of earlier years

Lost behind him,

Shuffles to the floor,

No longer shy

Of the days that he has seen,

Crosses himself with fingers

Worn to the bone,

Withered skin wrinkled

The scars of things

No-one else could know,

And thoughts turn

Like a ferris wheel grown old,

Rusted at the elbow,

Tired now of reaching up

And grasping only the disappointment

Of the crash,

Tearing at the sky

And feeding only the salted sea

With tears that dropped like feathers,

Waiting for the page to turn,

The wish to turn to truth,

The voice to speak his name,

He bends and sinks,

Half composed, half falling,

To the floor,

Hopes that his movements have been seen,

Been captured in the eyes

Of someone he cannot see,

And not slipped, unnoticed,

Between fingers grown arthritic

Through abandonment and regret,

He crosses himself again,

Head bowed,

Brought low by the burdens

Of those he had known,

Wishing now that his words would be heard,

That time would don its darkened cloak

And slip between the frame,

The doorway he had left ajar,

And wield its sharpened blade,

He bends slowly,

Kneels and crosses himself,

And sighs.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Watching Suns

Tags

age, creative, faith, Life, loss, poems, poetry, Remembrance, Strangers, Sun, time, verse, writing

She sat and watched the suns

Come and go as if they were

Strangers passing on the bitter streets:

A nod, a glance, perhaps a smile.

They rose in the levelled east,

Fought their way to the highs of their days,

Then struggled to climb each obstacle,

The mountains of the west.

She watched from the window

The porch and the gate

As the clock stole the hours,

Spirited them away,

And filed them under ‘lost’.

Emerald vines grew like memories

Creeping slowly over the garden fence,

Tendril-fingers seeping into the grain

Tenderly choking the life unlived.

She watched the marks of the years

Engrave themselves into her hands,

Pathways followed and gone,

And so many dreamed,

Her face the scorched and dried

Map of ages,

Marked, but abandoned before the mark of treasure

Had burned itself into her.

And the suns still came

And the suns still died,

And someone else took her chair.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

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

 

Ice-Ribbons

Tags

age, Change, creative, dreams, faith, Life, Planes, poems, poetry, verse, writing

I watched the planes trace ice-ribbons

Across the sky before

They were lost to the

Cirrus wisped blueness

And their tails faded

Like promises written in

Tide-threatened sands,

And hopes took restless souls

To the promise of utopian shores

Not realising that they

Like all that came before

Wore the mask that hid

The fault-line masquerade

That spread like disease below,

I watched them come and go and

Taxi slowly on the grey

As if discarding the seeds of doubt

That grew beneath their wheels

Like ancient gods burying

Defeated foes unaware that

They would rise again,

And as the stuttered raging roar

Splintered hearts like candy then

Tore holes into the sky

Which like starving angels

Swallowed fleeting flailing dreams

Cocooned within a safety shell

They never saw,

As standing rooted in my

Futures past and present

I watched the planes

Trace

Ice-ribbons.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

The Road

Tags

Depression, dream, isolation, Journey, Life, poems, poetry, Road, thoughts, verse, writing

The car stops

The middle of the road

Deserted, quiet

A hundred miles from home

Lights flash

Blinking out a warning –

Should I be here

Or still at home,

Still in bed

The dreamscapes spreading

Like melted butter

Or redemption’s promise?

Still blinking

Yellow, orange, red

And what was it that

I came here for?

A change

A retrospect?

A reason tattooed

On life-worn skin?

A number on a page

In a book

On a shelf

Of some forgotten library

In some forsaken town

Where you leave your shoes

And your belt

At the gate

And listen as

The doors close in?

Engine silent

Stills the night

And chills the tremors

As they sleep

The cub-fox whimper

Disappearing

Swallowed by its den

And isolation’s silence

Slices

Grid marks in the night

That lead to neither

Here nor there

But feast upon

The stars,

And cat’s eyes fade

From memory

And power’s whimpered

Gasp

But dreams return

Assassin ghosts

Their fangs and claws

Exposed,

And was it this

I came here for

To drown in silent words?

Or find myself

Upon a road

That disappeared from view?

And all these signs

That I once saw

Flooding into view

Did they sprout

From idle hands

To lead me from

A home?

And was that

In the distance

Another car like mine

With tail lights dying

With the stars

In the middle of

The road?

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Waste the Time

Tags

creative, dreams, Life, nostalgia, poems, poetry, time, verse, Waste, writing

What did we do before we had

The time to waste the time,

When every moment seemed so full

Of obligation’s ties,

And commitment pulled us closer

Then swallowed up our days,

When hands were full and red and raw

From dawn to dusk to dawn,

Of all the things we ever made

For lives we never knew,

From pit to fire they came and went

To lay the tracks from now,

And love was just a distant dream

In books and silver screens,

We washed away the dirt of day

And with it all our hope,

So tell me now with hindsight’s eye

When dear time’s time we kill,

What did we do before we had

The time to waste the time?

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Kitchen Window

Tags

creative, Life, loss, poems, poetry, time, verse, writing

She stood at the kitchen window

Still her eyes looking out

Over the fields of wheat

Now clothed in concrete and stone

Salt-moist with the days

She had given away

And moments she had sunk

Her tired hands into

Too deep to ever catch the dreams

Which swam in the shallows

Transients in the currents

Which left their lip-stain

On shores she felt that she

Could never reach

Not seeing that they

Like the hours lost

Were nothing more than shark-bait

Driven onto rock-scarred shores

Wishing that the story book tales

Had not been quite so tall

And that true love’s lips had kissed

A promise of truth

That the dragons had left some bridges

For her alone to burn

And that the rainbow had borne

Her happy ending

Still, her eyes looking out

She stood at the kitchen window.

 

 

© 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

 

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