Stacked

Tags

art, Cards, creative, Gambling, Judgement, Money, poems, poetry, politics, Power, Privilege, Stacked, verse, writing

The dice were loaded from the start

Lauding profit over art,

And power came to those whose names

Resonated with the vain.

The cards were dealt but some kept back

For those perceived above the pack,

And we all watched their chips stack high

Left to sit and ponder why.

The judgement that was promised us

Despite the silence and the fuss,

Faded out like winter days

Left us shrouded in the haze.

And those who sought a better home

Crushed in corners all alone,

Seeing now the game was framed

By faces that belied no shame.

Caravans

Tags

Capitalism, Caravans, Change, City, Contlict, creative, Fashion, poems, poetry, politics, verse, writing, Zeitgeist

Watching from the highest walls

As in and out the city gates

The caravans an endless roll

With voices raised and banners tall,

The clamour on the dusty streets

As desperate hands they try to grab

A hold upon the latest rope

To lift them up from life’s defeat,

With well placed words, deception’s smile

Lips offer up the old as new

And sweetness masks the bitter pill

The only prayer to stay awhile,

But wagons roll forever on

And pass like faces in the sky

Until the next one comes along

And we realise they’d never gone. 

Gulls

Tags

creative, Fear, Flight, Freedom, Gulls, poems, poetry, politics, Power, Trapped, verse, writing

Herring gulls on the waste ground

Litter the horizon

Like ice crystals in the air

Or uncut diamonds in the sand

Fallen from the cliffs like the words

From our lips

Scavenging the ground for the scraps

That keep us where we are

And from where we should be

In flight above the ground

And the melee that wraps itself

Like seaweed around limbs

Its grip tighter than the folds

Of love which bury themselves with time

In the folds of our winter coats

Which we hold against ourselves

Against the wind

And in the folds which grow

Upon our faces

As furrows in the frozen soil

Bitter cries that cut the cold

And nine parts of the law

Which screams ‘possession’

Eyes fixed on other eyes

As glimmers in the distance recede

To die in quiet corners

As the gulls circle slowly

In the sky.

Sooted Kisses

Tags

creative, Deception, faith, poems, poetry, politics, verse, writing

Digging so deep

Deep beneath the soil

The rocks that strain up to meet me

Like the souls of the sleepless dead

Their voices echoing in the chambers

Of a restless head

Abandoned too late not to leave scars

Backlit by dreams that missed

The Mayday call

That sank like rain on charred and thirsty earth

Still weeping in the splintered light

Which fell fractured through the cracks

Pick axe cut and soaked

In miner’s bloody tales

Those buried in loss and hollow-eyed

Blinded by the notion of all they’d lost

And all they’d never find

Their nasal words

Choked in sooted kisses promised from above

That slip like venomous snakes

Into their lungs

To silence the echoes in the hearts

That strike a soundless beat

That roars with anger

In my ears.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

They Said

Tags

Control, creative, faith, Lies, poems, poetry, politics, Promises, They Said, Truth, verse, writing

They said the Sun would always rise,

The clouds would always clear,

They said the light would always burn,

Beneath the wall of tears.

They said that this was all a game,

The rules we never learned,

They said that they would hold our hands,

But never said they’d burn.

They said that we would have our day,

That waiting always paid,

They said that all of this was ours,

Behind their backs the blade.

They said that if we held out nerve,

The steel in our backs,

They said that if we learned to bend,

Our spines would never crack.

They said that when we heard the bell,

We’d know just how to act,

They said that when it came to this,

They’d never break the pact.

They said that time would be our friend,

And shield us from our fears,

They said the Sun would always rise,

And the clouds would always clear.

 

© 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

 

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 Waited

Tags

creative, faith, poems, poetry, politics, religion, Truth, verse, writing

We waited in the dust

We stood there in the sand,

We wallowed in our comfort

Waiting for a hand.

We waited in the snow

We slipped beneath the ice,

We swallowed down our pride

But never asked the price.

We waited in the temple

We knelt before the sign,

We waited for forgiveness

A gift that wasn’t mine.

We waited by the water

We hoped would wash us clean,

We stared towards the sky

For things we’d never seen.

We waited for redemption

Absolution from our sin,

We waited out forever

To find we hoped on nothing.

 

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Waif

Tags

Childhood, creative, Inequality, poems, poetry, politics, Power, Truth, verse, writing

A wallflower

Still and rooted

Held fast by threads invisible,

Bare-footed and

Lithe-limbed

Dirt ingrained like DNA

Seeping through veins

That know no different,

Knees tucked

Up tight beneath

A chin scuff-marked

By experience’s children

Grazes which, like timeless heirlooms,

Pass down the ages

Storm waters of our age

As older eyes,

Nicotine-yellow,

Look no further than today,

And those judgemental

On high-borne thrones

Cast down their bones

Complete the wall

And keep the wheels

In motion.

We Kneel

Tags

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.