Tag: Poetry

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Finding Portals

As the calendar closes on this final day of the year,
I don’t feel anything other than a numb indifference,
In a personal review of everything I have created,
A sustained enthusiasm for creativity was evident,
My output declined, I felt, and still do feel quite lost,
Like being encased in an airtight concrete bunker,
Lightless and inescapable, suffocating and restraining,
Surprisingly, writing gave me the most creative sustenance,
My private notebooks became illegible, their imagery manic,
Many pages were illustrated with such violent force,
Pages punctured, torn and replaced, screaming scrawled texts,
All aggressively wrapped in an explosion of coloured madness,
As though multiple Me’s were all erupting at once,
Uncontrolled, unrefined and absolutely lost in confusion,
A new year is the one opportunity to find myself,
Where my mental walls are not confines, but portals,
Allowing me to access a journey that makes me feel complete,
I need to rediscover the path to my wellness.

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Seasonal Abnormality

For me, the end of the work year brings internal changes,
All creative endeavours feel virtually impossible,
The urge to do something imaginative is strained,
It takes time for the scars left by the year to fade,
Time is required for the anxieties of life to ease,
This is a dangerous time for the imaginer,
When the fires of the creative engine feel all but out,
It is important that some creativity must still happen,
But a passage of time being unproductive must also occur,
A period of zombified browsing, grazing, or dozing off,
Reconnecting with the imaginative core, laziness,
This behaviour must be indulged to allow regeneration,
A time to heal, rest, reinvent and renew interests,
Before another year begins, these are dangerous days,
Caution must be observed to avoid a terrible complication,
Where a psychological blackhole, the void, opens,
It’s vast and can completely engulf a creator, obscuring hope,
Negatively affecting the entire upcoming year.

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Earworm

Dear Mr Earworm, nestled in my brain-meat,
Spinning those songs that I dislike,
Like some god-awful DJ stuck on repeat,
Over and over, but never the whole song,
Just parts that earworms like,
And you see, that’s what is wrong,
If you played the full tune, it wouldn’t be so bad,
But you tease with a few words,
And this drives me mad,
Next time you feel like partying with a tune that I hate,
Spare a thought for your home,
My brain-meat, that you constantly frustrate.

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Silent memories

It’s a couple of weeks before Christmas,
And I sit thinking about years gone by,
Closing my eyes, I can see smiling family faces,
Those of parents, grandparents, siblings, children,
My memories feel like short silent movie clips,
The faces, now colourless and blurred with time,
They feel like they belong to someone else,
As a grandfather myself now, I contemplate the future,
Will I be smiling when my seat at the table is empty,
Silently existing in someone’s distant memory,
Imprisoned in a blurred grey thought released once a year,
Or have I really been that way all along?

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December

I don’t seem to be able to connect lately,
I feel like I’m unable to communicate effectively,
I’m irritating myself every time I open my mouth,
This makes me feel tired, a term I’m sick of repeating,
People exhaust me, even when seen in moderation,
I don’t have the energy for it all right now,
My words come out awkwardly, and I feel like an alien,
An outcast on an island of beige repetitive tedium,
It feels like there’s a heavy weight on me,
I have the kind of exhaustion that avoids sleep,
I wake up tired, I struggle through the day, then at night,
When I lie down, I’m wide awake for hours,
It’s also the time of year for that annual socialising dread,
Everyone looks so happy and full of excitement,
Either that or they’re about to win an Oscar for best actor,
If you’re like me, hold your head up; it doesn’t get much easier.
Don’t pretend, just let it happen, let it all flow past you,
Conserve your energy, because you’re going to need it,
Merry Christmas, the war with the mind is never over.

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Xenolith

Embedded in a dead landscape,
The stone monument stands,
Piercing the stony earth, but not of it,
Ancient, smooth and pitch black,
A tall shard reaching for the stars,
It is said to vibrate on touch,
And to have driven men insane with whispers,
Its northern, sun-facing side is featureless,
However, the southern side is cast in shadow,
This cold stone face features ancient carvings,
Of an unknown, unearthly language,
Some say it pays homage to an entity,
One of unknown cosmic origin,
Who will rise from the earth when summoned,
And lay waste to the land,
Until then, it slumbers beneath the southern sands.

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Fireflies in the morning light

I recently used AI to animate old family photos,
I was unprepared for how it would affect me,
Old still photographs that I had looked at countless times,
Came to life, they breathed, they lived again,
And then, like fireflies in the morning light,
Their lives faded out once more,
It evoked such a powerful sensory response,
For six seconds, ghosts came to life on my screen,
For six seconds, I felt their embrace again,
And for six seconds, my heart wanted to believe the lie.

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Liminal Space

There have been liminal spaces in my life,
Where I found myself transforming internally,
Becoming someone or something else,
Shedding a virtual armoured exoskeleton,
Immediately afterwards, I’m left vulnerable,
This is a time for caution and self-protection,
Because whatever sneaks beneath my guard,
Becomes a part of me, trapped beneath my new shell,
Embedded until my next transformation.

Man clutches at his exoskeleton realising something has crept inside.
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The watcher beneath the waves

Far beyond the dying waves that make landfall,
Within the dark depths of unseen mystery,
A watcher in the water observes mankind,
With deathlike white eyes, unmoved, but all-seeing,
An ancient enigma waiting below the surface,
Formerly of cosmic residence, now held in a watery cell,
The watcher enters dreams, accumulating secrets,
Existing beneath the dark waves for aeons,
Ready to arise when summoned,
To spread madness and doom upon the earth.

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Bright Stars

The stars in the sky are like the people around you,
The dim kind are many, and the bright kind are few,
Some stars only shine brighter in their galactic abode,
Surrounded by dim ones who watched them explode,
So, create your own place in the night sky above,
And fill it with bright stars, the kind that you love.