POETRY
Despite not being a poetry reader, I have written several poems and have found it to be mildly therapeutic, almost as good as story writing.
An Open Letter To Society
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What do you mean understanding?
What do you mean safe space?
What do you mean it’s important?
When you’ve hardly embraced
What do you mean awareness when I’m still the square peg
What do you mean progress when the system makes you beg?
Some progress is better than none
That much I agree
Look how far we’ve come
Yet we’re still not free
The stigma still sticks no matter what.
How many really take it seriously?
How many support it for likes?
If you could really know anxiety
You’d be off on your bikes
How do you really show support
Inside the bandwagon careening off track?
How do you really understand that
“List your disabilities” means the employer won’t call back?
Some progress is better than none
That much I agree
Look how far we’ve come
Yet we’re still not free
The stigma still sticks no matter what.
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Yet stamina still stems no matter what.
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The cut requires a plaster,
Avoidance is imprudent
Take one moment to realise
All problems are areas for improvement
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Hard work, research and trial and error
The present moment is best to begin
Forget empty words and therapy
You hold the plaster within
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Management, not solution, is the ultimate proclamation
The beauty is always in the journey never the destination
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(Image by Mohamed Hasan on Pixabay)
Still Waters
I’m yards, miles, light-years away,
From that persistent every day gloom and grey,
Light at the end of the tunnel there wasn’t a ray,
Terrified to accept that forever there I’d stay
But in to that void, I moved along the tracks,
Hoping this damn life would cut me some slack,
Focused on what I wanted, forgot what I lacked,
And here I am putting this topic on a track
Mental health problems, life was jaded,
Turbulent Emotions created,
Discombobulated
Hyphenated followed by Waiting-To-Be-Exterminated
Tunnel walls black and grimy, I am the only train,
Track after track, slowly turning insane,
Depression, anxiety, too much pain,
This isn’t a reality, life is all about gain
This is an erupting war, I'm not talking about Ukraine,
A war with our minds and no one’s to blame,
Shift attitudes, re-educate, re-train,
Or else society loses the fight and we all get slain
Emerging out the tunnel, my life I take stock,
Any slap to the face I have the Will of a Rock,
True gifts within I’m ready to unlock,
“Still Waters Run Deep!” shout from the rooftops
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(Photo by Explore with Joshua on Unsplash)
Days Gone By
Before the Inception of my determination
A Terminator living in its own terms & conditions
Childhood fascinations with Aliens, robots and maybe even a Ghost
Imaginary worlds with more traps conquered than Indiana Jones
Watching Robocop on VHS while Home Alone
In stone age times with no mobile phones
But what memories remain in our current recession?
I’m feelin’ lucky, Punk, if I can count maybe Seven
The world seems to move with incredible Speed
No point Trainspotting you won’t get what you seek
A mass factory of media concoctions that pass you by
More dizzying than watching Superman fly
Shaken not stirred
Is what we deserve
Originality is always what’s preserved
Even if my tastes don't really fit the curve
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Never really liked ET or the one with the shark
But was mesmerised by the silver screen playing Jurassic Park
And if I got lucky
I snuck upstairs to watch Chucky
Or an episode of Unsolved Mysteries
Then spend weeks filled with miseries
Thunderbirds is what originally set my synapses alight
Quicker than Van Damme doing the splits during a fight
A peacock of creativity with the most ebullient plumes
Led me to fantasy land on many an afternoon
How funny it is the world changed after 2001
No Space Odyssey but a battle no one won
Terrorists, social media, politics ushering a crippling fright
They multiplied and strengthened, the worst kinds of Parasite
Halloween is my favourite time of the year
Born to write horror it should now be clear
I Saw it all from a tender age
Never affected but held engaged
Before I have a Total Recall
The Thing most important of all
Is how it shaped the imagination
Fascinated Lock Stock by combinations
Kicking down doors like Pam Grier in a blaxploitation flick
Followed by an Enter The Dragon style roundhouse kick
Battling any Predator the world set before me
And the thrill of special effects, all a Trick Baby
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Now an adult Breaking Bad habits
Vestiges of youth, I crush them to bits
Ready to Die Hard at any time
On a Rocky road with steps to climb
Not exactly a Family Guy, I belong in South Park
A little bit of civilised with a little bit of dark
Neither a Hellraiser nor a sweet angel
I mix with Goodfellas, a funny guy at the table
Mind you not everything today is average or a total fail
We have Gone Girl, Parasite and The Handmaiden’s Tale
But I miss the days of non-PC
When we guffawed to tears at Eddie Murphy
Where is the new Tarantino with the cinematic power of Dirty Harry’s Magnum Force?
True creative talents and geniuses ever so hard to divorce
Playing it safe never really lasts
Until the populace dreams and begs for a blast
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And I hope I am part of that change,
A beautiful mix of exciting and strange,
Layla's Room, Samsara and Black Storm,
Are my contributions to this artistic form.
Stifled
The kettle yearns to boil yet
Steam does not emerge. It
Merely shakes and trembles
with its might
Can it even boil?
It asks itself
Does it have the capacity? Perhaps the
Kettle has grown rusty and the cords
Leading to the power supply are
Worn out
What is the point in being a kettle if
It cannot boil?
And thus it reminisces the days and
Nights where it could boil so freely with-
-out a worry in sight
Being on
autopilot
as the water pours in
And that beautiful steam percolates out
To the room
Perhaps now in its tremors it can
Finally
Realise and appreciate the water within
For it never did before
Or the very fact that it could boil
Then a miracle.
The water, every molecule, vibrates with joy
An effervescence the kettle never knew
Why ever did it feel it couldn’t boil?
Every atom, every quark, every fractal inside it now knows it could
Perhaps even greater than ever envisaged
And in its eternal gratitude the heavenly steam erupts
At volcanic magnitude
Filling the entire room with gaseous gold, almost shrouding the kettle who is too joyous to notice
And as if by magic the windows open releasing it out into the vast world for all and sundry
The kettle now sits renewed,
with a permanent glow attached,
Power cords reformed anew
And a permanent grin to match