Today I enjoyed walking
The slowness of it
Giving me time I needed
Even wanted.
The surroundings help
People walking by help
Not literally
But like characters in a movie
Other stories in motion
Most likely never engaging with one another
At least not in my case.
I don't mind,
I make friends with the buildings I pass
And the song in my head.
They're company enough.
Category Archives: Poetry
July poetry: a cities people
Sirens scream past
like and ice cream van
looking for the spark in
children's eyes
when he hands them
over a sense of joy
packaged in a pyramid
of cold, sugary bliss.
Birds carve the skies above
like the butcher artfully,
following lines in the dead animal,
lay in front of him.
It's blood
a river
flowing off the wooden workbench
full of etchings
that falsely portray
the presence of nature,
yet only reveal the use of a
cold,
sharp, metal blade.
A taxi cab,
turns off its glowing sign,
telling the world
it is once again full of purpose
although the sigh from the
driver would suggest otherwise.
A life long education
of street names and landmarks
makes him the closest thing
to the City,
not the men in suits who sit
in powerful huts
and navigate their post code
pretending to do good.
A chef wipes his hands after another shift being done.
He spent most of his day
in one spot, one location,
hesitant to break from his role
whilst
tomatoes from Cornwall,
truffles from Italy,
cuts of meat from Argentina,
all passed underneath his own very nose.
He would have the world at his
fingertips,
although his feet refused to move
more than 5 meters away,
the occasional pause to
fill his lungs with smoke.
The ingredients in his kitchen
were forever at his mercy
yet they were more well-travelled
than him.
July Poetry: why passion?
why do I get teary when I eat good food?
why do I get emotional when I hear a wonderful piece of music?
why do I get overwhelmed when I see something beautiful take place on the screen before me?
passion.
simply put, passion.
that glimpse into someone’s soul.
a snapshot of their most
ideal self.
their best creation.
where body, mind and countless of hours honing in that skill comes into
play.
into fruition.
it lays before you in whatever form
it belongs to.
it says
“here I am”
“this is me”
all at once
in a nicely packaged,
consumable form.
if the person on the receiving end
has the capacity to admire the beauty that lays before them,
then that results in something
equally as profound.
acknowledgement.
a response
“I see you”
we say back.
not directly.
more often than not,
through a lack of words.
sometimes we miss this.
we walk past it.
a man playing a violin in the underground,
we catch the distinct smell of an extravagant dish,
we aren’t present enough,
to acknowledge its beauty.
and that’s okay.
the world is full of missed opportunities,
just make sure that when you
feel it,
that overwhelming,
profound beauty,
just sit with it.
let it stir inside of you,
let it draw out any emotions that
it so chooses.
surrender to it.
or choose a life without it.
July Poetry: Underfoot
I hope to see the hills. I hope to see rolling hills. Ones that seemingly never end. Ones that I can't find the words to describe. I know there exists such feats of nature out there. I've seen it with my two eyes. Where the land has been untouched by the ignorance of man. Where I feel lost to time. Yet cannot seem to spend enough of, round these mountains that wind. I felt the hills below me, Undulating, Without sin, Innocent as the cries of a new born child. I felt all that and more, Simply under my feet. What more could I have gauged had I lay down, Peering into the blue skies above With an empty stare. It is there that I know what it is to be human, Where things made sense. I hope to see the hills again. I hope to see them rolling.
June Poetry: An Upset Uber Ride
I cried in an Uber once. It seems silly thinking about it now. To be honest it was years ago. I probably wouldn’t do the same anymore Or so I’d like to think. Why didn’t I just walk home? It would have taken about an hour, roaming the streets of Bristol In the dark didn’t usually scare me. Why the quick journey home? Subconciously my mind was looking out for me I suppose, street lights and emotional instability aren’t often the best of combinations, unlike a glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day. Maybe a glass of lemonade would have solved all my problems? They do say ‘when life gives you lemons …’ Nonetheless I ended up in a strangers car, One I pair for funnily enough. He noticed I was leaking water from my eyes, ‘Everything okay?’ he asked softly. ‘Not exactly’ I replied. ‘Don’t worry, everything will be alright’ A slight chuckle finishing off his sentence. I always remembered this moment, Almost three years later. That is the most vivid memory of that night. It is almost as if he’d seen this exact thing before, whether or not he, the uber driver had lived this feeling out himself or that he had been through the same experience with this previous customer. Or perhaps he only picked up those who needed consoling? I wouldn’t have been surprised, not only was his driving smooth but so was his demeanor. I remember getting out the car, feeling cured, less leaky from the eyes and more present in the moment. The confined space of the car forced our two opposing energies to balance out. I can’t remember his name, I wish I could. Whoever you are I’d like to thank you. To tell you that what you said was true, Everything will be alright. So the next time, (if there is a next time), I’m crying in an uber, I will say those very words to my future self. A self that once again has forgotten how alright everything is.
June Poetry: a gust of thought
Fleeting, often times my creativity is there one second and gone the next. You follow the fluttering wings of a butterfly and try to capture it in your small, youthful hands only to open them and find it’s not there. Did it ever exist? The question floats off much like the butterfly. If it was even real. You stick your tongue out pulling your waterproof hood back as you do so, finding a lack of water droplets available to bounce off the edges of your lips, opening your eyes you see the sun shining bright unlike it was just a minute ago. These quick changes of state happen all the time, forever around you. Who are you to criticize the direction of the wind? merely adapt, embrace this change of direction and of thought or cease to exist in a world full of life and creativity. With each face of the mind, make sure you look it in the eye, no matter how quick its glance.
June Poetry: The Fearful City
The City seems to drag me down, it’s grey and big, and leaves me with a frown. I try and smile, for those around, but that just drives me, towards a sound, a noise that I can seem to hear, a noise to make me disappear, into a background where the rest dare follow, because no one likes to be swallowed. They walk in Suits and all, hoping they too don’t fall, for the City is not too kind to those, who are so rude and turn up their nose, they are so brash and some even daunting, unlike the shade of red who seems to be flaunting, her God-given right to look cool and suave, She sticks to her own lane, And paves her path, for the City cannot reach certain ones, who know their own worth, who stick to their own guns, so keep your head up and look onwards, as the city can see those who look downwards, you’ve been here a while, you do belong, the city is listening, so sing out your song.
May Poetry: Emerald green Eyes
Ecstatic, an emerald green, shone so bright, but your vision remained unimpaired. A soft white noise echoed in the dark so unheard that desperate for some recognition, decided to do the most monstrous things. A creature still and breathing eyes fixed on a spot behind so looking through you, it ignored all the pain and red flesh that bridged the gap between it and its target. A smile crawled up onto your face unworried by the danger ahead. Too many scars had left you numb to the lifeless eyes that had looked through you all your life.
May Poetry: A touch of Sea Water
She dived into the water not knowing what lay below, but the fun was in not knowing; the unexpected. So much of her life had been planned. Meticulous. That’s how she would describe her childhood, which was sad. She chased chaos, almost threw herself at it. She knew why, which made the act less crazy. Or so she had convinced herself. Emerged in the deep blue she was safe again, something she had unfortunately had to learn on her own. Her parents were never absent, yet at the same time they weren’t exactly present. Floating there her eyes shut waiting for some form of contact. A nibble from a fish Or the brushing past of a shark. Maybe the Sea wasn’t the right place to look for embrace.
May Poetry: what does love sound like?
What does love sound like? He asked Recalling a series of smiles and intense eye contact that would often beckon back and forth between the two. They’d sit there for hours letting the shadow move across the raggedy carpet that clearly needing changing but was clinging on for dear life. So often love didn’t Sound like anything. Perhaps the gentle breeze or the distant conversations from passers-by as they rested their heads on each others shoulders. A comfortable silence, One which allowed them to observe the world together without saying a word. It was a chance to let their Mouths rest Whilst their bodies constantly communicated feelings of that were too complicated to describe, those feelings would hang there, suspended like drawings in an art gallery conveying so much in the confined space of the frame. As they sat there taking in the view of the city they were, for a moment or two belonging to the beautiful landscape themselves. If only someone had recognised the painting they were living out, things may have stayed the same.
wear shoes, write poems 