The Forgotten

Tags

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

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Eve’s Curse

Tags

creative, poems, poetry, verse, writing

She moved like the simmering storm,

Swept in from an ocean

Which festered in its anger

Like a child whose petulance grew

Bitter berries beneath a compromised sky,

Aching shoulders, back bent twisted

Head hung like a knife blunted

Her eyes still razor sharp

Raised above the bruised horizon

Cut the rain like sorrows parting,

Loose skin caught by the whispering wind

Its map folds trapped

And blurred at the edges

Roads that once led south and west

Smudges smeared like fallen fruit beneath the boot,

Carried like carrion the black shadow wings

Swept on like Arctic winter

With nowhere to go

A desperate curse upon the land

Her eyes burned blackened by hope.

 

© 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

 

Losing You

Tags

creative, Distance, Fear, Losing you, loss, poems, poetry, separation, verse, writing

When did I first begin to start

Losing you?

Was it the note that you said I

Never wrote?

Or was it the favourite tune you

Couldn’t name?

Perhaps the day you looked away

At the trees?

Or when we passed upon the stairs

Like strangers?

When did I first begin to start

Losing you?

Was it when you looked at me and

Said his name?

Or was it when your lips forgot

How to smile?

Perhaps the day I was not there

Within your eyes?

Or when I felt the final cord cut

From my heart?

When did I first begin to start

Losing you?

 

 

© 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.

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

 

Mark on the Wall

Tags

Creative writing, faith, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

Your face

Another one pinned

To a crowded board

A transient skin

A mark on the wall

And a scratch on my conscience

A look that I’ve seen

And one that I’ve known

But never really felt before

Your face

Expression painted

Over and over

On a well worn canvas

Waiting and waiting

But never through choice

A mark on the clockface

Wiped over by hours

That never felt at all

Your face

Hung beneath the tower

Hidden in clear sight

Exposed in the dark

Waiting for the rapture

A sign that’s nothing more

Than a mark on the wall

A scratch on your conscience

You never felt before

Your face.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Distant Shores

Tags

creative, hope, poems, poetry, Promises, Reality, verse, writing

I chased the poster’s dream

As it fluttered high above the breezeblock sky,

Its white-wisp clouds kissed the blue,

And even though

It was not there

An egg-yolk sun caressed the flesh

Of perfect bodies on the sand

As draped in tiny fabric slices

Their feet in silken silver grains

They let the gentle tide

Carry off the cares

They never really owned

A thousand palms

Captured in stop motion

Waved through the lens

Across the miles

And beckoned to their world

Their silent mouths too still

To whisper truths

That they would always be

One dream away from reach.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

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?