The Forgotten

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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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We Want

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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

 

Mark on the Wall

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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

 

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.

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

Broken Rainbows

Tags

Change, creative, faith, Life, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

I saw you in the quiet light,

The shadow of your disguise,

That slipped away as long days

Withered on the calendar pages,

The numbers that were once laced

With the beauty of mystique,

A stairway to the clouds,

And angel’s voices which swept

The cobwebs from our eyes

That hang now like veils across our hearts,

I watched you count those special days

And hang on those yet held

In infant arms,

Unaware of the quicksand which kissed your ankles

And seduced you as you slept

Whilst the snow fell like broken rainbows

And froze the party-promises,

Which we never truly held,

No song, no spell, no magic door

Ever rose beyond the mist,

And even though I saw you,

In silence and in chaos,

My hands still stretched forever

Grown tired with impotence.

 

 

© 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.

I Knew You Better

Tags

Creative writing, inspiration, Memories, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

I knew you better then

When days were younger and

Every door was open,

When the roads that we ran down

Were soaked with morning rain

But led to other roads,

And every virgin corner

Gave rise to something new

Something that we could hold,

Or lose inside our hearts

And evening’s journey home

Never crossed our minds,

I knew you better then

When every alleyway

Was dressed in blossom’s cloak,

When crimson veins ran rich

And pulsed with love unknown

Like corridors of hope,

When fear’s unshaven head

Stayed hidden far from sight

And never crossed our path,

And complacency of age

Swept over by time’s hand

Cast us in a shallow shell.

Two Worlds

Tags

age, creative, Depression, hope, inspiration, Love, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

There are two worlds

Inside my head;

One worn weary

Through the spinning

Of millennia

Gyrating ceaseless

And out of control;

The other,

New born as you stepped

Into my view,

Sings with the sweetest

Of melodies

A tune that no Earthly hand

Could pen,

Sets spark to the tinder

That lay for time unending

Dormant like poppy seeds

Awaiting the stirring

Of my soil-soul,

Now alive

And an ancient Sun

Rises with my smile,

A joy that cannot be

Extinguished or defeated,

A joy that brings new meaning

To every moment

Each stretching sinew

Each fleeting thought,

A joy that my deepest words

Could not come close to speaking,

So I shall breathe

My other world

A world in which

To be.