Bonus December poem was written off the cuff after reading comments online.

You know all the things
you know everything
you can read between the lines
people like me are just blind
I know, I know
The government is incompetent
and it’s also pulling off the greatest conspiracy
of all time
Don’t you know?

And I know, I know
what you’re gonna say
‘you’re a sheeple, yea, you’re a sheeple’
well I guess it’s got the same syllables as people
but you’re just robots
dreaming of the sheep

And you keep saying you’re having a great time
unlike us, you say, as if you know
oh
Go ahead and have the greatest of times
I really don’t mind
but in the end….

you’re still….

a fucking…..

twat.

Advent calendar 6: Gaslight

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

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 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?