Beneath the Bridge

Tags

age, Creative writing, faith, Life, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

Beneath the bridge

Below the waves

With all the things

We threw away,

The faces and

The names we knew

Our fallen dreams

From younger days,

The bitter roots

We never killed

They twist and turn

Begin to grow,

Creep up our spine

And choke our bones

And root us here

As if to show,

How all the things

We ever lost

Will anchor us

And mark our place,

Beneath the bridge

Above our sighs

We are as all

A fading face.

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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.

 

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.

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.

Fear of Change

Tags

Change, creative, Creative writing, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, verse, writing

What was it

That kept me here –

A hope that this

Would be enough,

Or just a fear of change?

The thought that all

Would, in time, return

To repeat itself

Once more?

That those who left

Would lose themselves

And on their pointed

Memories fall?

Or perhaps the grip

Of ties unwanted

Held me far too tight?

The chance to step

To move apart that

Shook me to the

Naked core –

Or is this place

That I call home

Really all

I need?

‘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.

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.

Remember

Tags

Communication, Creative writing, emotion, loss, Love, lyrics, poems, poetry, verse, writing

I see you in my dreams,

Always in the dark,

The part of me that died

When I was seventeen.

 

The laughter at my side,

The smile upon my face,

The look within your eye

From which I cannot hide.

 

If only I could,

(See through your eyes)

If only I could,

(See from outside)

If only I could,

(Remember)

What took it all

Apart.

 

Lost amongst the trees,

And blinded by the light,

Living in the shadows

Thrown over all we see.

 

The tears we never cried,

The things we could not say,

The faces that we lost

At least I know I tried.

 

If only I could,

(See through your eyes)

If only I could,

(See from outside)

If only I could,

(Remember)

What took it all

Apart.