POEM: Clearer in Haiku

I once knew someone who,

when asked for better clarity

on some instructions they had given,

which hadn’t been understood,

chose to respond in the form of a poem.

The poem didn’t work.

It was not best suited for clarity.

The person who received it missed the memorial service in the end.

They couldn’t find the venue,

despite the perfect rhymes.

I sometimes wonder if that is the problem with social media?

That we are using it,

too often,

to attempt to have conversations,

in a format which makes such conversations

impossible to have?

A medium unfit for purpose?

Like a heckler at a comedy club,

Trying to share the meaning of life,

To ears disinterested and eyes focused on someone else’s spotlight.

Right sentiment, wrong stage.

Somebody show them the door.

Comedy’s all about the timing

And this ain’t the time.

Or the place.

This is not a conversation,

This is self-harm as team sport.

Not every chrysalis leads to transformation.

(Although we can waste a lot of time

waiting for change in the dark)

A void that yells back remains,

nevertheless,

a void.

When I asked my poet friend why he’d opted for his strategy,

even though it demonstrably failed,

he told me he just liked writing poems.

When I said I didn’t understand

He said it might be clearer in haiku.

POEM: A Lesson Learnt

My mother was weeping,

again,

when she told me teaching was like

spending hours in the kitchen,

preparing a careful feast,

with love,

for a table of ungrateful eaters

who scoff the meal down,

without thanks,

and leave you to wash up the dishes,

alone.

So many weekends and evenings lost

for children who couldn’t care less

about classroom activities

which took hours to prepare,

and only seconds to destroy,

with a single roll of teenage eyes,

or a loud, exaggerated, yawn.

Leaving cruel laughter instead of wonder

and replacing wisdom with empty snark.

When she got her diagnosis

it was one of the first things that she did:

filling a skip with all those folders and box-files.

Shutting the door on disappointment.

Her legacy of recipes,

cooked only to leave her cold.

No longer needed

now that time was too precious to waste.

When I started my own journey,

and began the same hopeful sacrifice

of evenings and weekends,

to cook nourishing meals

for mouths that refused to open,

or that swallowed glumly,

without thanks,

I felt my mother’s presence

as I slaved over that same hot stove.

The one she had warned me not to touch.

I wish she were here still to tell

how at least one of her offered lessons -

one more meal she cooked with love -

did not go unappreciated

(although it seemed so on the surface,

when I told her I knew better).

That it nourishes even now.

And I can smile with every eye-roll,

similar to my own,

and feel ok,

despite my disappointment,

after every wasted night,

because I,

unlike her,

do not cook in my kitchen alone.

No appetite for a meal served at the time;

we might creep back for leftovers,

later,

under cover of darkness.

Illuminated only by the light of a fridge,

which comes on only when we choose to pull it open.

Or,

the meal taken when given,

but gobbled

too fast to taste,

without pleasure or savouring,

might be thought of only later,

when the gnawing ache that yearns for more,

discovers it cannot feed itself.

Pearls thrown before swine,

(as she once threw them before me)

glitter still in their abandonment.

To be noticed and picked up again,

later,

by any pig who finally notices.

And in their tenacity they remind me,

that she wasn’t always wrong.

POEM: Not Working

When all of us are working so fucking hard,

and yet nothing ever works,

we must ask ourselves

who this is working for?

POEM: The Oven

I wonder if the oven knew

that nothing had cooked?

Just set to pre-heat and left on by mistake.

A changed mind; a different dinner.

Switched off forty minutes later just as it was switched on:

Empty.

Enough time to heat up a meal,

using the same amount of energy,

but nothing to show for the effort.

And if the oven doesn’t know

when its time has been wasted,

and it’s purpose left unfulfilled,

do we?

POEM: Losing Me

It’s been a year at least since I slept the whole night through.

And when I concede defeat and swap blankets for coffee at the sound of the alarm,

I pretend everybody wakes up with their stomach in knots.

That breakfast is a meal best served choked.

And that if I play my music loud enough,

I’ll learn to smile through my commute.

Parking the car my feet feel stuck.

My hands don’t leave the wheel.

And I imagine turning around and never coming back.

Before I sadly turn the key,

Slowly open the door,

Succumbing once more,

To the monotony of cowardice.

But one day you will see;

My secret power is my power to say no.

POEM: The Choice Was Clear

The choice was clear:

Hope versus fear.

And I’m still shedding tears 

(as the wrong people cheer).

Which maybe sounds too “them and us”,

For those of you feeling conscientious

About desperately finding some silver lining

In the clouds of this apocalyptic end-timing.

But right now I’m feeling nothing but hostile,

And it really will take me a very long while

Not to see undeniable division

Between how different people came to their decision.

Because there are consequences to their crosses,

And the inevitable life losses,

That their quivering hands delivered

As their empathy lay withered.

Pretending somehow they didn’t know

Why the lines for food banks grow

So many families unable to eat,

Many more sleeping out on the street,

Communities lying ravaged

As their services have been savaged,

By a rapacious drive for profit

With no one brave enough to stop it.

Deregulation, welfare cuts

Dead in a ditch, no ifs, ands or buts

Get Brexit done at any cost

It doesn’t matter what we lost.

Immigrants once more scapegoated 

To justify the way we voted 

Wrapped in a flag of sovereignty

And lofty dreams of being free

They sold the future of the many

So the few could make more pennies.

As the discourse loses root

From anything resembling truth

Outright fraud will get rewarded 

Verbal bullying applauded

Rights and protections now eroded

Another dog whistle encoded

I cannot meet my neighbours eyes

Nor can I say I’m that surprised

Only that I’m disappointed

With the liar they’ve appointed

Substance swapped for sloganeering

The clueless crowds continue cheering

I cannot stand a thing I’m hearing

As the ship of state is steering

Towards an iceberg we all see

But dismiss as fantasy 

A fake news conspiracy

Our unsinkable economy

Meanwhile some of us can’t sleep

Because the worry’s gnawing deep

Of when our country lost its way?

And if we’ll ever find our place

And feel again like we belong

When so many are so wrong?

And fat, fingered, base and greedy

The many sacrificed the needy

So the few could keep their money

Like flies to shit-smeared honey

Feet stuck in their mistake

It starts to dawn, but far too late

That they’ve sabotaged their fate

As they slowly suffocate

Beneath the weight of propaganda

Which wove gold from shards of slander

The winning strategy

Was to repeat it frequently

And add some false equivalency

Until anyone can see

Unless, of course, they are insane

That all politicians are the same

Even when they’re clearly not

And it’s a genuine choice we’ve got

Because the choice it was so clear

A vote for hope or one for fear

And we chose poorly in a landslide

As some swam against this harsh tide

Impossible to stop the torrent

Of the selfish and abhorrent 

Drowning as it overcame me

Election night forever stained me

Crying out into the dark

It broke my misanthropic heart

And I picked up my poet’s pen,

Without country yet again,

Wiped my eyes and took a breath;

And came to terms with culture’s death.

POEM: Something Good From This Awful Day

When I was a kid

I dreamed I killed myself

A kitchen knife against the throat

Nothing turned black

Everything turned blue

A loving shade

Welcoming me into the warmest nothingness 

And when I woke up I cried

Because I was still alive

Today, at your funeral, I learned that’s exactly what you tried first.

Slitting your own throat.

Just as I learned we were at the same Green Day concert back in ‘09

My dad your Godfather

Your name shared with my grandmother

More in common than I ever knew

Except when you woke up your blade was real

And weeping in a hospital bed

You soon remedied your tears

With your next, more successful, attempt

The priest asked us all to take away

Something good from this awful day

Reflect on you and think of a way

You’ve affected the person we are today

Ash to ash, dust to dust 

I read from John, Christ was the way

Then dropped dirt onto your grave

I watched the hollow faces of those who loved you left behind

And in their sorrow, my gift from you I then did find:

Gratitude that my great blue childhood hug was just a dream

And that I did not listen to that warm, seductive scene

That those who love me still have me driving home to them tonight

And that the only tears I shed now are tears for your lost life

POEM: Finding My Brave

I find my brave as others find their house-keys,

Find their shoes and jacket,

And walk straight out the door.

While they are halfway down the street,

I have yet to cross my threshold.

Catching my breath,

Considering my options,

Thinking of excuses,

To avoid another encounter

With the uncertain world outside.

Daily doing battle,

With the unseen terrors in my mind,

I Sellotape a smile across my trembling lips;

Tell myself the story:

“You survived this yesterday you will survive it again today.”

And with vampire’s peril I step into the sunlight.

Put one foot in front of the other.

And pretend it doesn’t burn.

POEM: The Beautiful Blank Page

The beautiful, blank page wept as it was wasted with thoughtless scribbles.

Another child’s tossed away homework.

Another rough idea – half realized and incomplete.

Shopping lists.  Numbers never called.  Messages lost and forgotten.  Poems left un

POEM: The Lottery

Why do we think it likely

To not only beat the improbable odds

But by an order of magnitude?

Birthdates, anniversaries, the number on the door of the first place we lived;

Wrenching destiny from entropy we personalize our disappointments,

Playing narcissistic numbers for rich cash rewards

Fated for someone else.

POEM: A Pre-existing Condition

As I lay coughing in my bed,

I thought upon a book I’d read.

A fairytale story of a faraway land,

Where healthcare was free and centrally planned.

No one denied coverage, no one turned away.

A fundamental right not dependant on pay.

And I thought of that land with a tear in my eye,

An ache in my head, and a pain in my thigh.

And I thought of that land and I started to cry,

As I lay, without medicine, waiting to die.

POEM: Isolation 1-5

POEM: Gothia Towers

En route to the city where my father died,

half watching Dylan, half listening to the Fall,

the plane too hot, 

the bus too bright.

But I was too paranoid to sleep; 

vigilant for the next stop.

Not expecting the name in lights

of the hotel where he died

across the street from a theme park.

Glass glittering its welcome into the night:

the boogeymen just a building,

unaware it was the symbol for so much pain.

As the bus, unconcerned, drove on

and I was moved beyond it, at last.

POEM: That Was The Room (Upon a Visit to My Old Childhood Home)

 That was the room of disappointments and success

That was the room I always kept such a mess

That was the room where I had great ideas

That was the room where I developed my fears

That was the room where I first heard punk

That was the room I vowed straightedge, not drunk

That was the room we always knew was haunted

That was the room whose view was most vaunted

That was the room whose walls I did hit

That was the room that was never well lit

That was the room the builders fucked up

That was the room that would never shut up

That was the room where I wrote my first song

That was the room that always felt wrong

That was the room where we brokered the peace

That was the room where their marriage did cease

That was the room that never brought comfort

That was the room where I learnt how to subvert

That was the room where we had the big fight

That was the room where we stayed up all night

That was the room where I lost my virginity

That was the room where I rejected the Trinity

That was the room where I fell in love with reading

That was the room I got bandaged when bleeding

That was the room where I last threw up

That was the room where I finally grew up

That was the room where we found our cat dead

That was the room where the family was fed

That was the room where dad told us he was leaving

That was the room where, when he died, we all started grieving

That was the room where the Christmas Tree stood

That was the room where we learnt bad from good

That was the room where I wrote my first poem

That was the room where I knew where I was going

That was the room where a policeman once sat

That was the room where we pissed, showered and shat

That was the room where we loved and we hated

That was the room where we were devastated

That was the room where you binged and you purged

That was the room where our personalities emerged

That was the room where we got our hearts broken

That was the room where great truths were spoken

That was the room where we hid a surprise

That was the room where we told our best lies

That was the room where we put on our shows

That was the room where big choices got chose

That was the room I lay scared and awake

That was the room where I made a mistake

That was the room where I heard Bowie and typing

That was the room where I hide when they’re fighting

That was the room where I dropkicked the door

That was the room – but it’s not that room anymore.

POEM: The Week

The week began in darkness

Rolling thunderclouds

A gun inside a nightclub

Terrorising crowds

Fifty humans killed

Because their love was unaccepted

Still the calls for gun control

Will once more be rejected

We are all Orlando

Until the next one comes along

And then we’ll all be that one too

The cycle carries on

Mass shootings in America

Just part of daily life

Just like homophobia

The fear of men without a wife

And women without husbands

Making love with the same parts

Bigots only see disgust

Where they should see loving hearts

And sometimes bigots pick up guns

And take them into crowds

The week began in darkness

Draped in funeral shrouds

The week before was hotter

Glorious sunshine

The sort of week you just assume

The world will turn out fine

But people like to take the wheel

No matter how impaired

And drive around out of control

Because they think – who cares?

Until the thud, the sudden bang

That sobers them right up

They see the blood, the mangled limbs

He isn’t getting up!

Just a kid crossing the road

A kid who looked both ways

The medics did all that they could

The kid could not be saved

Grieving family devastated

The ones now left behind

Trapped inside a horror movie

They cannot rewind

Dead at only 19

A kid I used to teach

The week before was hotter

But no-one thought about the beach

The next day brought the rain

Cars blocked flooded streets

An MP with a surgery

And constituents to greet

A mother and a wife

Making the world a better place

A life in charity

And then her one electoral race

Campaigns to stop child soldiers,

Protect women from rape,

Fighting for the poor

So poverty could be escaped

But somewhere on the internet

Angry fingers clicked

Racist memes were shared and liked

And trigger fingers itched

“Britain First” the slogan screamed

He bought a gun and knife

Outside a public library

He took the woman’s life

And so for our democracy

We once more have to weep

The next day brought the rain

But blood had stained the streets too deep

Next week the outlook’s hazy

With fear of the unknown

Will we keep our union

Or go out on our own?

To leave or to remain?

A question for the ages

Except we’re choosing blindly

Having dumbed down all our sages

Europocalypse now

We’re uncertain for the future

This referendum’s is a wound

For which there is no suture

Never thought I’d see the day

When in a Manifesto

The winning party advocates

That human rights are let go

Alleged fight for sovereignty

From “Brussels Bureaucrats”

Masks losing sovereignty much more

From backroom trading pacts

If we make a Brexit

We may wish we could atone

Next week the outlook’s hazy

But I can hear the storm winds moan

POEM: Brighton Beach

The clock has counted down

And with a kiss you break your promise to me

That you wouldn’t promise anything

But soon you are gone again

Although our lips are still touching

The darkness hides the loss in both our eyes

And by flashing siren light

The senseless makes sense

As an angel preaches that love can be rented

We are wished a happy new year

Whilst under bloodstained sheets

All dreams born there are soon to die

For a different bell tolls later

As I sail away to Singapore

For an unfamiliar reaper

With a different kind of death

One with too many futile resurrections

That leave it hard to remember

Just who was fucking who?

Only that it felt good while it lasted

Like a sugary donut

Bad for you – but what flavour!

And on a train full of people

I felt so alone

As I remembered how when the clock had counted down

With a kiss

I broke a promise with myself

POEM: Visions of Change

Jenny turned twenty

And the clouds stayed as grey as they had been for decades

All the change that she

Thought she’d make had been swallowed and chewed up to nothing

So she packed up her dreams in a suitcase

And tossed them out to the sea

Edward came of age

He put down his rage, picked up a suit and a salary

Got his hair cut short

And his life, as a heart attack killed him at thirty

He drank to ignore how much he had changed

And died because he couldn’t forget

See the animals

Strutting with pseudo-importance

Feathers puffed out

See the flashy cars

See the lives that look so good on paper

But feel so cold

Dave was talented

Everyone knew it; he painted pictures that seemed alive

But they didn’t pay

For his rent, so he forsook the art for an office job

Lonely paintings got covered in dust

And his passion got burdened with rust

Kate tried changing things

Until she realised that nobody was listening

Sold her protest gear

Shed a final tear and settled down into acceptance

Did what she was told to instead

‘Til she put a bullet in her head

We got compromises

But no idea what it is

We compromise for

We’ve got proper ways

Of doing things and we don’t question

What makes them proper

It’s not that we’ve got no future, it’s worse

We can have whatever we want but we want to sacrifice meaningful life

For the comfort of this stultified status-quo

And a semi-existence as slaves to an uninspired blueprint of misery

And a child is born

Slapped about and thrown in amongst sharp-toothed conventions

From cradle to grave

Mentally enslaved

Into this corrupted culture

Another lamb brought to the slaughter

Another cog in the machine

And I lie awake

Full of questions of what hope I see for my species

And I don’t know why

But my questions leave me the hope for which I was seeking

For while many fall down by the wayside

There are more of us all lying awake

With visions of change

POEM: Finding Me

The soil slowly shudders

Worms and spiders flee

Disturbance from below

As fingertips emerge

Grasping from the grave

And seeking hidden daylight

That’s me every July

As I finally take off the tie

Worn like a leash since September

Take off the suit and try to remember

Who it is I used to be

Before this job devoured me

Bursting from the grave

My hungry lungs drink deep the fresh air

I zombie-wander for six long weeks

Looking for me

Finding myself

Piece by piece

Until finally I feel human again

Just in time to be forced back down into the earth

Buried alive for another year

POEM: Another Fucking Sunrise

I don’t remember feeling normal,

To the point that normal is unwell,

And bleary eyes and pounding head is all I know.

I just need to get some rest.

It’s easier said than done.

I close my eyes and wish for sleep.

That maybe this time I’ll fall deep.

But it’s 3am and I’m lying in the dark;

Familiar to me as the dawn’s dreadful chorus.

Sunrises aren’t beautiful when you see them every day.

Jealous of my cat and wife who sleep the whole night through,

I try to still my mind

With techniques that never work more than once.

My deficit is in decades not days.

Five years old and lying awake

Thinking about cartoons too early yet to air.

I moved my bed around that tiny room

As if it’s placement held the key.

A different pillow? A newer sheet?

Empty or shared, in bed I’m always alone.

Same wide open eyes.

Same taunting bird call.

In this battle with consciousness

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Though even then remains the fear:

Awake again at 3am

Restless even in the grave.

Another fucking sunrise I shouldn’t have to see.

POEM: I Am My Patterns

My old notebooks and journals

Look too much like the ones I’m writing in now.

Though words are different,

I’m older now, of course,

And people and places have changed,

I am just as fucked up as I ever was.

Doing all the same old fucked up things.

Just in marginally different ways.

A reboot barely even trying to feel fresh.

A sequel that reminds us of all the worst bits of the first one.

The background of a sprinting cartoon.

I am nothing more than a pattern of behaviour and thought,

Replicating and repeating.

A childhood trauma fossilised in amber,

Wrapped and repackaged in new clothes,

Pretending to be all grown up.