A Farewell

Tags

creative, fiction, flash, flash fiction, Honesty, loss, short stories, story, thoughts, writing

I thought of you then, on the day that I left, knowing, despite the words, that we would never meet again. I thought of you as I sat in the darkness, as the Sun dipped like a dying friend beyond the horizon for what might as well have been the last time. I knew that I, like the errant Sun, would rise again, but that neither of us would ever be quite the same: the Sun would burn fractionally less brightly, its gaseous source ever so slightly diminished, and I, with less reason to rise than before, would begin to become a shadow of myself. I thought of you and the words that we had shared wondering if you had ever truly understood my meaning. Had you thought of me as a friend or merely an acquaintance, and had I ever truly understood what lay behind your eyes? I thought of how close I felt that we had become, our shoulders brushing against one another as we shared a joke, our laughter spreading its roots between us connecting us forever, or so I had imagined. But did you leave me behind along with all the other artefacts of work when you closed the door behind you and returned to your home?

I thought of you and wondered whether I had been too obscure, too subtle in my words and looks, for you to see me. And what exactly had I felt? Was this a connection that I felt that I had needed or something that had burst upon me unexpectedly and had opened a new door which whispered quietly for me to go through? Perhaps the moment had come for me, after a life of living at a comfortable distance from the edge, to finally take a chance, a risk. But, of course, caution is a powerful bedfellow, and, by the time I had recognised the chance, if had closed its eye for ever.

I thought of you then and wondered if you had ever lain alone in the dark beneath the Summer’s heat: I wondered if, like me, you had lost yourself to imagination; and I wondered if you had ever found yourself with your hand between your legs, wishing its fingers were mine.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

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Underneath the floorboards

Tags

creative, Floorboards, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

Underneath the floorboards

Where the downstairs people lie

With their clay-heavy hands

And their hollow eyes blind,

Underneath the floorboards

With the roaches and the dreams

The lost coins and the fears

And nothing more to buy,

Underneath the floorboards

Where I cannot find my sleep

And all I taste is dust

And all that breathes is death,

Underneath the floorboards

With the grammar and the text

The stolen thoughts and smiles

That’ll never rise above,

Underneath the floorboards

Where the downstairs people lie

My feet between their teeth

The window out of reach.

 

© 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

 

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

 

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

 

All the Things

Tags

All the Things, creative, faith, Life, lyrics, music, poems, poetry, song, thoughts, verse, writing

All the things I’d promised me,

The things I’d do, the things I’d see,

Now disappeared.

The time I wanted oh so much,

The time to feel, the time to touch,

Now faded grey.

 

All the hours I’d wasted then,

I knew one day would come again,

Desert me now.

And all the words I’d left unsaid,

Now dance like ghosts inside my head,

Still haunting me.

 

But if I’d never caught your eye,

And if I’d never seen your smile,

Would I be still left wondering why,

And would it have been worth the while?

 

All the hands I’d never reach,

What was it that I had to teach?

Forgotten now.

The movies that replayed my days,

Ended in much happier ways,

Can’t live them now.

 

But if I’d never caught your eye,

And if I’d never seen your smile,

Would I be still left wondering why,

And would it have been worth the while?

 

All the things I’d promised me,

The things I’d do, the things I’d see,

Now disappeared.

The time I wanted oh so much,

The time to feel, the time to touch,

Now faded grey.

 

Giving

Tags

Creative writing, Giving, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

I have grown good

At giving things away:

A word, a look, a plaything;

Objects gathering dust on shelves

Which serve only as a reminder,

Hollow and spent,

Of the emptiness of detachment;

A touch, a smile, a heart;

A muscle with purpose usurped

Scratches on the page

Of another’s life;

A hope, a wish, a future –

And of what use is a future

When its past has been given away? –

An entry erased from the ledger:

Yes, I have grown good

At giving things away,

Giving until this shell

Is empty.

Different

Tags

Change, creative, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

Is the world any different

Now

Our hands and heads are bound

By circuitry,

Invisible waves that pass

Above, through and beyond us,

Weaving webs spider-like

Catching us all with a silk that we are

Powerless to resist,

In wonder gazing at the virtual

World

Ever expanding

Its horizons and ours,

And communication exists

In waves unseen –

Yet hasn’t that always been;

Words face to face lose meaning

Somehow

So why not talk to the invisible,

The creations of wishful desires,

The imagined fulfillment of

Imagined dreams,

The love that was always an illusion

Born on the ether,

But isn’t this the world

Unchanged from when youth held promise

And dreams fell from one hand to another

And to the ground,

So we move on

Ever led by the New

Which searches just as we do,

So tell me, please,

Is the world any different

Now?

Casual Hands

Tags

creative, fantasy, Memory, nostalgia, poems, poetry, thoughts, Truth, verse, writing

I remember

The Sun on our backs,

Shirts tossed aside

Like gum

Deserted by its flavour

Which hung on our lips

As bitter-sweet future memories,

Ones we could as yet

Not see,

Nor wish to have

On endless days,

Days which built the frames

From which we’d have

The clearest view

Or merely hang,

Clothed in success

Or failure

For all to see,

Not realising that, as

In childhood’s garb, we pass unnoticed

So our shadows would fade

In time’s relentless passage.

I remember

Days that stretched far

Beyond the hours

Swept aside by casual hands,

Days in which the rooms held promise

And the ceilings were so high,

And my hands held

All that I knew,

And I forget the things

I buried in the yard

Hoping that they would stay

Beneath the earth and rock,

Not realising that their ghosts

Like the silence of the night,

When even the sweetest dreams won’t rise,

Would haunt the shadows

That I could never set free.

I remember

A Sun that burned

Only in tales

That I’d wished were true.