Caterpillars making pockets of hope
Wings awakening
A revolution sowed
as if death and us is forgiven
For the terror we’ve torn
through these landscapes
Humanity
A winters dream
Author: Matt Johnson
What have we done? NaPoWriMo poem 11
The wind whistles against the fences
That we put up to hide the menace
The birds sing, and the trees whine
Against the barbed wire trenches
As if we were at war
And on the other side is no man’s land
In our houses built from bricks and mortar
We’re without
And perhaps we are immortal
Shunning all that is mortal
Under illusions that we are moral
And as we hurtle towards our great demise
Some look out of their windows
And come to realise
More death has come
All while we’ve continued to shun
And they get to asking
‘What have we done?’
Wound NaPoWriMo poem 10
Tired beyond comprehension
The world too full and empty
Nothing to be awake for
No desires to fulfil
But for this thirst for something
not quite resembling anything
Just a pain
festering in an unseen wound
A sigh NaPoWriMo poem 9
A sigh
Sadness exhaled
Lungs full of empty
Tired to the bone
of myself
Butterflies NaPoWriMo 8
Caged inside my head
Ghosts of butterflies
Snapped up by the tongues of neurons
Before they could fly
Gossip NaPoWriMo poem 7
Your eyelashes flutter
The blink of a butterfly
while you try to pry
for gossip
to fertilise idle minds
Remembrance NaPoWriMo poem 6
The music can’t sustain
the fragments of you that remain
Like inextricable impressions
behind my eyelids
Fracturing any semblance
of memories of any remembrance
Seeking you still
but knowing you’re gone
An emptiness that expands the lungs
and stops there
as if my breath stops too
In remembrance of you
Who am I now? NaPoWriMo poem 5
If I could start again on this carousel ride
I’d tell you to fuck off before you got into my mind
But here you are living rent free
On this empty landscape of mine
Not even useful like a weed
You’re just invasive
Scarring my heart
As you till and dig the dirt
Agitating every part of me
Growing your narcissistic supply
Killing all that was native in me
Sometimes I wonder aloud
‘Who am I? Who am I now?’
Agony: Poetry 4 for NaPoWriMo
The tears make bokeh of the headlights
Careening around this corner
This is the only time we felt alive
Our skeletons waiting to discard this flesh
And death didn’t half look dashin’
The way he danced and took our breath
And when your lips fall from their hinges
In shock and agony
When the anguish rolls across your face
And your lungs expand with empty space
Know this was the ferocity
That pulled us to our knees
And we were only ever sorry
We couldn’t make it to the other side
Of the storm
Poem written ‘off the cuff’ ‘in the moment’ for poem 3 NaPoWriMo
You tell her she’s butchered her body
Without regard for compassion
Though you say it’s from that place
you say your words
Even though they’re said in haste
Without a thought to the hurt you place
Upon another’s shoulders
All because you don’t understand their way
You say you don’t hate
You just don’t see her how she says
And you will bend at the whim
Of your own emotional reaction
While saying facts don’t care about feelings
But neither does her dysphoria care about yours
So fuck your hate
And shove it up your arse
Those feelings are your own to contemplate
