Look

I am feather upon the wind

Drifting with the currents

Now high and into the sun

Now diving desperately down

Into the dank, black valleys

Where no shadow dwells

For all is captive darkness;

Would that i could

Surf the climes between the two

Wherein light and dark

Are both in view

To take control

And glide the places I choose,

What a thing this would be

what?
what is this place?
where am I?
how did i get here?
contained,
pressed into this skull,
like infinity in a jar;
it never feels natural,
like having one shoe
smaller than the other;
there’s something wrong,
like the bit being pulled
to hard to the right
and we’re moving in circles
until the ride is done
and the bridle is removed.

What do you write poetry about

If not love and loss

Perhaps pastoral settings

The deer in the field

Or maybe the birds

That fly above it all

But who would read it

And why…

No it’s death and betrayal

Or nothing at all

It’s been a while

Since I’ve been drunk;

Like fall down, throw up

So you can drink more,

Black out drunk;

A sort of

Let the chips fall

where they may

Maybe I won’t survive

Kind of drunk;

The kind of night that mixes

Hot knives, hash, and cocaine

After five or six beers

Kind of drunk;

It’s been a while,

But somehow, ironically,

You never forget.

There wasn’t supposed to be an end

The days would go on and on

And you would be there

Like you were in the beginning

A presence holding it all together

More than family, also friend

And i always thought forever

Was supposed to be longer

I always thought that life

Was supposed to be stronger

mum would have been 77 today
but she isn’t
and she never will be

why do we feel absence
so much more than presence?
when a person has gone
when a heart has moved on
it’s like a knife has carved
a gaping wound in your chest
a hole that never heals
leaving you bleeding
all over the world
all over the close ones

i wish she was still here
the things i would tell her
no one defended more fiercely
with that killing kind of love

this is what loss feels like –
it is sitting in the middle of a burnt out home
the charcoal ruins smouldering around you
pretending the walls are still there
imagining a roof still over your head
feeling sorry for yourself
and sick of the self-pity
until one day you stand up
stop your heart and say
people leave…this is what they do
mum, this is me, and i miss you
but talking to ghosts doesn’t help
it’s time to move forward
savouring fragrant memory
as it fades into the past
leaving you on your own at the last

There will come a time
When memory is erased
And every good thing
And every bad thing
Will be as nothing
Anxiety, worry, joy, love, grief,
Laughter, heartache, happiness
Will be swallowed up
By the reality that you are
80 years in a 14 billion year old universe
Which is 14 billion years
In the vastness of eternity
Making existence zero in the grand sum;
So what are you in comparison?

You are a mirage in the desert
A brief flicker on the horizon
That makes the traveler wonder
If you were ever really there…

You were not.

This is not to despair
Let it take you into the welcoming air
To dissipate as the mist in the morning sun
That which once was, now undone.

Night comes like a blanket

Pulled thick over my childhood head

Hiding me from every threat

Promising quiet and warmth

But i worry about the unseen

And that’s all you need to know

To really understand me

I have pursued feelings

Like sugar for children

Ephemeral as spiderwebs

Glistening fragile at dawn

Torn apart by passing breeze

Consumed like a drug

That wears off with use

And requires

MORE MORE MORE

With each and every passing day

What should be sought rather?

Flesh and blood and bone

Let us seek, let us gather

To build something permanent

That will stand against it all

A home that will never fall

And i will store my feelings inside

Safe from being washed away in the rain