You’re testing my patience
and this veneer of civility
is erasing different parts of me
an insult in one breath
A smile and a helping hand in another
You’re a gaslight in the night
drawing on my self-esteem
I was built by those before you
who carved their initials into my bark
your name among many
who scarred my heart
Poetry
Advent calendar 5: Sunday wordle
Too much chatter with each beat of the heart
anguish laced with anger a match striking against the grain of us
and so we burn along with the edges
our role unknown
like domesticated felines
just choking the world into a black hole
men with guns for fun
not for want of food
and my soul cannot take it
in this haze of all this smoke
looking for a sign
but seeing only the curse
each of our footsteps a roar
upon the earth
silent like a secret
so we can’t see the destruction we birth
and though the world is a hive
in which we live
we damage it from within
predators of the earth
and in the future they say
we’ll be among the stars
consuming worlds out there too
Advent calendar 4: No face
4th December
I saw myself erased in their minds
a faint memory imprinted
but with no face
just an intuition
of something remembered
a vague hollow nothing
that couldn’t be returned
Advent calendar 3: Hushed
December 3rd
How can all this be overcome
when we’re always on the run
the debris of our rush
hanging from the trees
plastic dreams
tied in string
and all the little things
we let go to the wind
Calamity ahead
tangled wings
trapped in plastic rings
consumed and inside everything
the debris of our rush
the world being hushed
Advent calendar 2: No translation
December 2nd
It was our houses that were the aliens
we became the invasions
and I am no less guilty
needing these things as much
as any man if not more
lest the cold get to my troubled heart
the birds sing of things we couldn’t
we’re animals lost in communication
in which we still have no translation
Advent calendar poetry 1: The woods
1st December
In the woods
grounded in rugged boots
stripped from our alienation
we stand
in communion with the others
their tails waving and teeth chattering
and beaks opening trailing out winters breath
Bills drilling, tongues rolling
snapping up a woodpeckers delight
nothing is quite the same
once you realise
even dead trees are teeming with life
Sunday wordle on an actual Sunday
No one is free I thought
the wings of truth split
into papers
cogs in the engine
shredding that to which we bear witness
turning what we knew
into something shiny and new
to fill this emptiness
Sunday morning lie-ins
our only day in which we don’t have to strive
and I thought this, this is the price
people think they have to pay
for freedom
and so I ask
What is freedom anyway?
But some elusive dream we’re free to chase?
Sunday wordle on a mundayne
Shh…
Wipe over the dissonance in turquoise
to rid us of this tension
Shh…
Release us from this and into Eden
stay easy with your breath now
No one is the one
but one part of the whole
Shh…
Silence speaks volumes
our alienation seeking absence
The roots of us holding onto this earth
seeking solace in natures theme of rebirth
Sunday Wordle: Brew
My breath trailed out before me as light as a feather
and a breeze blew through the enchanted forest
and spread the richness of autumns gold
like a clue enlightening desire paths
scented with that nutty earth aroma of a seasons transition
in which storms are brewed
just a stone’s throw away
from empty streets
and bounties becoming few
A teacup awaiting winters brew
The skeleton of prey
They laughed me out of my own body
they laughed me out of my mind
they pecked and pecked
and gobbled up all the parts of me
that left myself behind
They lit up and smoked me down
the butt of jokes fizzled out in ashtrays
poured down the drain
and through all this they bonded
a pack of wolves with their prey
tearing me apart piece by piece
and now the people stare at me
‘why can’t he be more like me?’
Because I am the decay
the left overs
from a feast
the skeleton of prey
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