What happened to the what’s? the why’s the where’s the wear and tear the “are those grey hairs?” that long empty stare as you slump up the stairs underground moving sound another screech lacking speech the please do not stare the “please mind the gap” the brief open air the scurry the grind a fresh cup of coffee that rush of caffeine in that static chair as you stare into a moving screen full of mice that are off for the cheese in tall towering traps suspended in the air soaring above for those soaring past underground tired but sound.
Category Archives: Poetry
Janurary Poetry: W.I.P
He’d often stare back at himself in the mirror, wondering who he was that day. He knew where, but as he grew older he found out that mattered less. The sun gleamed in through the frosted glass, warming his skin, reminding him of the human necessity for warmth. That first sip of coffee was also something he routinely enjoyed, almost as if anything birthed from the earth’s soil had an integral consistency. Even if, humans seemed to be doing their best to interfere. For now, the coffee remained good and as for him, things were a work in progress.
October Poetry: A Silent Room
She’d been sat in that dark room for hours, the streetlights creeping in through the blinds like ants. It would not be the first time she would spend an evening alone, the echoes were quieter that way. Reflections of a loud and jarring energy from her P.E teacher who was adamant on using the school’s megaphone at a constant rate. ‘The weakest are always the loudest’ her Mum would say. Why then did she always flock to the class clown, the brash, the cocky, the arrogant, the overly self-assured? Was she predisposed to like weak men? Her father wasn’t weak. If he was he certainly didn’t show it. He was a quiet man after all. The corners of his armchair slightly worn away, inanimate objects playing audience, the orchestra his fingers reciting any complex emotion onto the paisley embossed print of the chair cover. You could often tell a lot about a family by not what they owned but by the condition of what they owned. As a young girl she’d speak her mind when noticing the small details etched into the objects in her friend’s houses. No wonder she stopped getting invited over. Every time she did that family would end up arguing. She always thought that she had been cursed with the power of being overly observant. It had brought nothing good to her life. She wished she could choose when to notice things like everyone else. However that wasn’t the case. So she sat there, in that dark room, giving her mind a much needed break whilst her eyes were adjusting to the light, or lack thereof. It would only be minutes before the details encased within would whisper their secrets into her ear yet again.
September Poetry: large coconuts, small earth
The world’s not that big.
Sure,
it can take a while
to get from one side to the other,
but that don’t make it big.
The only thing that makes it
big,
are the people in it.
The ones who strive for a
happy life,
a simple life.
He would sell coconuts on the
side of the road,
the Pan-American highway to be exact.
On the border of Ecuador
he would see the various faces of the world
drive by.
Some would even stop for the green,
hollow things stacked up on his plastic table.
It was from a rickety old chair
his grandpa had once sat on,
where he would watch
it all pass by.
He had never strayed too far from the
four legged, wooden thing,
lay between his legs.
Too afraid he’d find the edge of the
world and fall off.
Grandpa would always say,
“Come back soon Nestor,
and for goodness sake make sure you
don’t fall off.”
Everyone used to think he was crazy,
they’d chuckle when he would
mention anything about the edge.
Soon enough
the same people who laughed
headed off in search for another
corner of the earth,
never to be seen again.
no letters,
no messages,
no nothing.
Soon people stopped laughing,
their ears pricking up every time the old
man would start
spouting wisdom.
People laugh at what they don’t
understand.
I used to do the same back then
and maybe too much even now.
However since he passed
I stick to the chair,
the coconuts before me
and stay well away from that edge.
The world is smaller
than its own stories.
The world is smaller
Without Grandpa and his chair.
September Poetry: Conflicted Movement
She said, “I’m upset you didn’t dance with me”, my englishness held me back. Reserved, too proud to dance. I stood there on the side lines watching the people have fun, fighting an urge, embarrassed to break the rigid paper mache mask I am still wearing. It is made of yesterday’s headlines. I remember hearing the local band, Humans together bringing the world something profound with their music. I was with my family, yet again I felt it, my soul being illuminated, my eyes begin to water as I pay witness to the joy of people feeling free. It’s part of the culture, accepting the bodies imperfections in how it sways and flings to the pulsating sounds of the music. “I’m upset you didn’t dance with me” I acknowledged this with a great sadness. She wouldn’t have known. We connected through a similar background, certain values ingrained in us through growing up. She moved her hips more freely, was this because she was a girl? a poor excuse. she’d been less exposed to the rigid culture that held so many of the brits back. “keep calm and carry on” “sit tight, it’ll be over soon” “stiffen that upper lip” How can I enjoy the freedom of salsa or the soul in cumbia when I have constricted my limbs of movement or my heart of expression? Flags are free to move however they so choose. The wind encourages them every day, but the long, white pole they hang off reminds them of the duties they must represent. The union jack dances the same way the peruvian flag dances in the wind. I choose to be formless, free to move but not forgetful of what, or who, I am.
September Poetry: a ziplock bag
For the most part,
he kept his heart in a zip lock bag.
That way less people would
ask him if he had one.
A question he grew tired of.
Course he had one.
Silly question.
It was like asking the sky if it was blue.
Yes, sometimes it looked grey,
but even the sky got tired
of being the same colour.
He would leave it
sat next to him
when eating his lunch
at the local park.
The pigeons would bob their head
and move in closer,
thinking if they lingered for long enough,
they'd get a piec;
his heart an escaped crumb
from a loveless granary loaf.
They didn't know any better.
Neither did the children who would
stare as they were dragged past
by their mother's hand.
'Anyone told you it was rude to stare'
I'd think to myself.
It was no use however,
Children were curious beings.
They probably wondered why
I was feeding my heart to
the pigeons,
the pigeons wondered why I
wasn't.
Regardless,
it sagged over on itself
looking disgruntled.
I should have probably
written my name on it,
across one of the semi translucent
white lines,
just incase I did ever misplace it.
How long could I go without it?
There are lots of people wanting
a replacement these day.
Suppose I never got it back,
that wouldn't be ideal.
What if the sky never turned blue again?
Would the birds refuse to sing?
One thing for sure is that
the pigeons would still be hungry.
August Poetry: Primrose Hill
The city lay in front of everyone,
a model village to them,
they had never felt so big.
A city that once swallowed them up
with its’ big skyscrapers and wall art
now seemed all so small.
“London eye, London eye”
a little child called out.
A large spinning wheel now
fit between his two fingers.
He tried pinching it, but it wouldn’t seem to
move.
A panorama of symbols
filled the landscape,
from edge to edge
a focus point merely blurring them out.
They would never disappear.
Sprawled out before them,
an extravagant banquet.
A feast fit for royalty.
often gobbled up by
those who sat
in quiet halls
in which ceilings remained
inexplicably high
along with their standards of life.
There stood as many cranes as there were
high-rises.
A future that pointed towards
the sky,
hinting at growth,
but only in the literal sense.
What was the cost?
Soon the skyline would be full
each building bigger than the other,
a concrete competition.
Yet,
the people wouldn’t change,
staying as they had been,
even shrinking.
An earth that could no longer feed them
through the greed of those sat in their vast spaces.
They would carry on starving
as the towers
would gorge themselves on
the sun that reigned above them,
casting a shadow amongst those
that built them,
that birthed
these monstrous
Giants of the sky.
August Poetry: Brazil, Books, Beaches
I dream of Brazil, I dream of listening to bosa nova music in a café whilst eating my breakfast. I lift up a cup of warm coffee, a taste unfamiliar to me more than a few months ago but one that now greets my lips like an old friend. The novel I’m reading is sat on the table, much like I’m sat next to it, resting yet again until I breathe life into it or more so, until it breathes life into me. My pulse tempers as I flick through the pages, my mind anywhere but here, any time but now. I place the book down, pausing to stare at the frolicking waves to my side. Out there, there is nothing for miles, no land for mankind. Good, keep it that way. Leave the fish to swim, whilst I finish this cup of coffee.
August Poetry: Brazil is Blue
The skies seemed
more blue
in Brazil.
The birds seemed
more flighty.
Unwilling to land
or even comprehend
the idea of closing
their wings.
To do so would be unjust.
To do so would mean that
they were no longer
souring.
A part of the clouds
Overhead and the
Fish that naively
swam below.
So many of the two legged beings
seemed happy.
static on the hot sand
that stopped the Sea in its footsteps.
To them being still was
part of life.
a life they so often didn’t question.
So few knew what it meant to Soar.
so few cared to find out.
They left the flying to the birds
and the dying to themselves.
The skies seemed
more blue
in Brazil,
but the people died all the same.
July Poetry: a misplaced sofa
All her life she felt like she was abstaining from something. the adult magazine that stood readily available at her local supermarket had almost guaranteed her moralistic downfall. She was young, too young, but she remembered how she’d felt. Perhaps she would have forgotten had it not been for her parents shouting, cold brother, constant slamming doors. Every day there seemed to be a ‘who could be the loudest’ contest at her house. it was too disorderly to be called a home, although it lay host to a whole heap of problems that imbedded themselves in the purple dining room walls and tht horrible green sofa that her grandma had left behind. It seemed so out of place in the context that surrounded it but still she felt like the sofa had more of a place in the mother’s heart than she ever could. Perhaps that’s why she never took to it like a new born baby sucks all the attention away from the older sibling. It wasn’t even comfortable, that was the worst part.
wear shoes, write poems 