Poetry, the reason we are all here.
Writing words that we hope someone reads and hears
Hears in the sounds of the words, them coming alive
Vocally there is a potency to written words
Say them out loud, hear them, feel them form in your mouth
Soulfully continue this aged tradition of story telling
Poetry, is known globally, it transcends diplomacy,
it reaches souls, hearts and minds.
Like a minority,poetry is seen as weak and bleak,
but then life is not a bed of roses, there are thorns.
Reproachfully it is scorned, 'poet? Try writing a novel'
Wrongfully seen as the poor man to a novelist, poetry
at its best conveys, more in a few verses than a thousand
pages of a novel. Lonesome is the poet, that sees truth.
There is merit in poetry, the continuation of odes told by
the fireside, Viking, Persian, Celt, all historic bardic civilisations.
Purity in poetry leads down a path least travelled these days
but tales of yore still prevail, and Beowulf still roars.
Canterbury tales still elicit smiles, cries and woe.
Shakespeare, Dante, Poe, Neruda, Thomas, Petrarch all Poets with soul.
So, you tell me, and all of us poets are we the novelists poor relation?
Or, just reclaiming our station in life as the purest storytellers?

Take my hand, as we walk this terrain.
To the place where upon a branch a woman was hanged.
For stealing grain to make bread, ensuring that her children fed.
Look upwards, crane your head, a woman killed for baking bread.
Now, take my hand and look overland, where grains of sand make up this barren land. From barren life hanging in a tree, to barren sand eroded by sea, come to me. Come away child.
Let's build a sand castle and forget the fear in grains and sand.

I am afraid
I am alone
I am unknown
I am labelled

Labelled 'Damaged'
Did I damage myself?
No, fate did that
Can I atone?

Atone? For what?
A disease that differs for one and all.
I know what I am, but choose not to
take the moniker, 'sufferer'.

Yes, I hurt, I tire, I cry, but
I cannot explain, and you,
you cannot empathise, you
don't have MS, the broken smile.

I look whole, but I'm a jigsaw
with a missing piece. That piece is
peace. Peace of mind, peace for my
loved ones, peace for me.

I know I'm a person, I know I have MS
I know I'm loved, I know I'm a *****
I know I'm part of a family, daughter, sister,
aunt, niece, cousin and most importantly Wife.

I will be whatever the fates decide.
I will not be a sufferer.
I will not give up.
I will be loved.

"Are you lost?" Said no one to the ******* the bus.
"Are you cold?" Said no one to the figure huddled in the doorway.
"Are you hungry?" Said no one to the hollow eyed man.
"Are you scared?" Said no one to the child with the bruised face.
"Are you safe?" Said no one to the family in a squalid room.

"Please send a donation to the human race. We've lost our humanity"

Pretentious
Meaningless
Semantic
Gibberish
Jargonised
Words
One
D­oes
Not
Understand.

Trends come and go,
friends remain forever.
Friendship transcends love.
Family, are genetically bonded.
Friends, are experience bonded.
Both are needed, both are loved.
Family and friends both pay dividends.
Richer to be loved by friends that become family,
than hated by family that pretend to love.

Fine rain falls and blankets the ground
blurs the images so that it resembles an impressionists scene.
Staring out the window lost in the fine lines of life.
I feel you across the line of time,
I hear you vibrating on the universe's string
I see you in my minds eye
I taste you on my skin, in a snowstorm, in a deluge, in a breath of air,
and I gasp, the only sense lost to me is touch.

You're gone.
You're only here in my memory when I cease so will you.
The scene below my window has moved on apace.
I know not these images, I know only you.
Day after day you return to me,
Day after day you fail to see me.
Day after day you sit and drink.
Day after day I watch you disappear.

This space above the daily pace of life was mine before yours.
I opened the door for you, yet you never fully entered.
Alone you came, alone you remain,
a pity though, for should you cross the string of time
your soul will see mine.

Oscillating timekeeper ticks and tocs.
Pendulous seconds bumping time forward on the face of a clock.
Father Time, that Patriarchal chronometer
that martyr, master, commander and observer.
Watch the clock, it's moved forward, did you notice time moving?
Father Time so old, and bearded, a scythe by his side waiting to cull.
Waiting is dull.
Time is a lull, a lullaby before you die.
Cronus never steps back, always marches forwards
and we the human race, suspended in time, and space
watch the clock, wishing more time away with regret,
whilst watching the clocks face.

As we start this solemn slalom towards a day that ends engorged,
with stomachs bloated whilst we gloated and toasted a perfect day,
let us remember that December has more days than the 25th.

Mass consumerism has voided homemade, love made gifts.
Orange? In a stocking? That is shocking,
the kid asked for an X-box bundle.

Now, I'm not from the distant past, just the 1970's/80's
Where Christmas carols played alongside a Wham's 'last Christmas'
as we ate our immense repast and pulled a sad ******* or two.

Now, gifts are tiny (but show immense expense)
Most perplexing is this new time of year that Kris Kringle
Would undoubtedly mingle slamming a tequila or two!

Now, kitted out in new underwear
(Ironically cherubic rhymes with *****!)
it's time to offer salutations to the incoming year
with no backward glance or hindrance
We say "Happy New Year"

Oh, just one glass, can't hurt
Complex decision made.
A fermented drink to suit my mind
Red for blood
Bacchanalian ecstasies
Dionysian depravity
Ritual madness and ecstasy
A fermented grape
A fervered mind
Freedom, intoxication, liberty
The cult of souls to those who know Dionysis
The dead are fed blood by his maenads
Vampire women
Maenads a nymph, immortal goddesses of natural manifestations;
Maenads the extremes of pleasurable emotions and actions:
***, rage, inebriation, frenzy, and dance, original Manson women
He the bull, the ivy, the serpent surrounded by Satyrs
Sated, Satyrs offer another glass of wine;
Oh, go on, one more glass can't hurt.

I'm sat at my window the snow softly falling,when I hear the telltale "clickity clack" of a pair of heels.
I imagine the wearer, tall by the time lapse in clicks,
wearing warm well cut clothes, due to the weather.
Her heels beat a tattoo, loud in the night time silence.
Echoing into the dark.

Hush, do you hear it? A softer step, masking its existence in time with her heels. No? Listen at the deep silence, stabbed by the staccato stilettos,
there, a soft crush in the snow. Her heels have quickened their tap,tap, tap on the pavement, the snowfall has also quickened, and so has the soft crushing steps of a man.
My heart imitates her stilettos, dread clutches at my core.

There it is the muffled scream that stops the stilettos,
snow is voicing a struggle, it's fresh crispness creaking and crying.
These noises are not new, they're why I sit at the window,
listening for the female, the male, the footsteps, the scream,
knowing that in the morning the news will feature the man dubbed
"The stiletto shredder".

Me, go as a witness you say, how?
He does what he does outside my window knowing I can never tell,
I'm his perfect witness,
I'm blind.

To use a quote that encapsulates my feelings right now,
“I'm tired of this back-slappin' "isn't humanity neat" *******. We're a virus with shoes.”
― Bill Hicks

The Poem

Originally I thought I suffered from irritability,
irritability of the human race.
Then I realised whilst looking at my face, it was hate.
I told the Doctor I'd thought of suicide, then realised
I wanted to commit mass homicide.
Become a hermit.
Mankind, womankind I hate you, people think me nice, fair,
and kind, I know the truth, I am a *******, so you must be too.
We as a race need a cull.
Do I like the human race? No. What's to like?
I even dislike people that purport to be friends.
I intricately step my way through this world of vermin.
We defile what is beautiful and true, hate because we
are taught to. Ruin, start wars, cause pain, then moan about the rain!
We as a race are quite crudely put, a pile of ****,
but even **** has purpose, a role.
What role do we have? To hate one another?
If so please make it equal and adhere to political correctness,
by that I mean, Hate Everyone equally.

Weariness screams through my mind.
Sleep barely seems here,yet
Sweet dreams
creep through my subconscious,
Bewitching my inner mind with
images of love.
To keep this love that haunts my
Smitten mind I submit to unconsciousness
Willingly, night after night.
Dream after dream
Ranging from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre.
Frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, ******.
As the dreamer, the events in my dreams are outside my control
Dreams are a sense of inspiration.
And beauty.

You left under the cloak of night, again.
To return with your excuse as to why you are late.
What once was harmless, is now unfair, unjust, heartless.
Not on me or you, but her, the one that truly loves you.
I'm the harlot, the iniquity in your life, wickedness personified.
I remove your garments, deal with your hardness and
send you back to her, the promise you made to her broken.
I listen to your moans and return you whole to her.
I'm a social worker, a lover, a comfort, a *****.
You are a client, a bore, a job, a *****.
Our consciousness of what we do is monstrous, yet we do it over again.
I don't love you, you don't love me.
I'm a night deposit banking facility.
You drop off a deposit, leave, and go home.
What lies do you tell her?
Does she believe you?
Is paying for me cheaper than a divorce?
We both are heartless under the cover of darkness

From the cradle to the grave
We're manhandled and manipulated
Manoeuvred like chess pieces
Arranged in columns, in  statistics, in order
Our worth is determined by skilful orientation
Influenced by others, employed by others, used by others

Faceless, nameless, featureless, utilisers that
Make sure we are kept within our boundaries
Yet, all these words have one thing in common MAN
Unscrupulous influence unfairly deployed
Ensure that our managed manhandling is exploited by the MAN.

My words are my armour, my blade, my security.
I use their definitive purpose to strike, to wound, to ****.
I have no need to use an actual knife, my rapier bladed tongue
cuts with an accuracy of a surgeons scalpel.
If you have no parry, or riposte, I'll Épée a thrusting word like the sword.
Your entire being is a valid target, I cannot fight with fists, I cannot crush
you physically, but mentally I will make you my target for words.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones! but words will never hurt me"

Oh, but they will hurt. Long after a scar has healed, a cut has scabbed,
words will linger, haunt and remind your every waking moment of the day you picked a fight, a dalliance if you will with a lexicographer.

Rain patters on the window
hurricane winds whistle round about
my mind.
I hear the rain, amazed that the sun's rays
still fall to earth, warming and nurturing

Cocooned in a throw, I look at the room
I've lain in for three days in a pain of my making.
I've become a cliche, the madwoman in the attic
lamenting lost love, lost life.
Cruelty knows no bounds, yet it binds.

Rhythmically the rain batters at the panes.
I don't want praise, I like my malaise
I feel real when I feel pain
I lie slain on the floor, amidst the wreckage
of a marriage.

I've died over and over these last three days
I want to get up and comfort you
To tell you that your life will go on
Mine had to end. I'm sorry you found me
on the floor, tablets strewn everywhere.

Baby steps now my love
you knew I was broken,
there's only so many matryoshka dolls in the original
I'm still here my love, it's just better that
you don't see me, but I can watch over you.

Your heart is broken, filling with rain and tears
my heart and soul was broken when the ink was dry
on the paper declaring us over.
When I get up from the floor, I want you to listen to the rain and
know it's me, my ghost knocking at your door.

When I close my eyes,
I picture your lies.
Vivid colour, bursts from your mouth,
lies painted by your tongue.
'Work kept you late'
'Traffic was a state'
'You had a headache'
When I open my eyes,
I see you mixing a drink,
I've had time to think
'Do you want one?' you casually ask
I shake my head no, plaster a smile on my face,
lace my fingers together and feign interest.
You suddenly jolt, grasp at your throat,
I sit and wait like a dutiful wife
as you gasp and try to keep your life.
You're out of time my 'darling'
Thallium has been quietly seeping into you,
growing and building inside.
Just like my baby, growing in me, one you'll never see.
Our girl with sapphire eyes

The wine glasses stand sentinel,
to last night.
Candles burnt out,
wax cold pooled
on the dining table.
Remnants of the supper
testament to our hunger and
for each other, as lovers.
The house is cold now
like my anger.
Last night,
You told me we were over
You'd fallen for another
younger lover.
Last night my anger was red like the wine
in the sentinel glasses.
Now cold, daylight brings a clarity,
time to start the cleaning.
I'll sweep the table's items into the bin.
I'll keep nothing touched by him.
I'll then take a bath to recover and figure out
what to do with you.
You can't lie on the floor forever.

H.P. Lovecraft's most famous quotes about the horror genre is that: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S.Eliot I. The Burial of the Dead


As a child I was never fearful.
Not of the dark, spiders or ghosts.
In fact I was wilful.
Hard hearted, cold.
I liked that about me, it was a barrier to the outside world.
I was the loner, the malcontent, the strange spooky one.
I loved it more as a teen, embraced the Gothic, elevated the bizarre.
I smoked, it was cool, I drank, it was cool, I was nihilistic, it was cool.
Popular meant conforming, how that repulsed me.
Why? Because conformity meant no individuality, no soul.
My Grandmother said once "be careful what you read, it becomes you"
Yeah right, look I'm Pennywise the clown!
But she was right in a way.
I became repulsed by myself.
I had no compassion.
No true love to call my own.
I was alone with my fear, my fear of loneliness. Irony.
I had no true identity, I hid in horror, then became horrified.
I didn't know what was coming, where I was going, who I was.
I was afraid. Truly afraid for the first time.
Afraid of my shadow, of not knowing, of returning to the grave.
Fear is a loathsome creature, devouring love and hope.
Yet, know this, we are born to die, the clock runs down, no appeals.
So fill up on love, fill up on warmth, for Hell maybe hot, but alone,
it's cold*.

If you looked into a human face, you would see them slowly dying.
Hair turning grey, wrinkles etching deeper.
The body's shell frailer day by day.
A bag of dead and dying cells.
A body doomed to die.
A meat bag held together by bones,
frail, brittle, breakable bones, bone china skeleton.
You would also see a human trying to defy death's clock.
Botox, facelift, eye tuck, tummy tuck, implants.
Makeup and perfume to mask the stench of death.
Shame.
Why fight the inevitable?
Dying to look young.

Hot summer nights have come around again.
With them my memories of you.
The way you squeeze me close
The smell of your clean sweat and aftershave
The way you look after a hard day at the office
The way you forget to get a haircut
The way you run your hand through your hair
The way you twist your fingers in my curls
The way you taste after a beer
The way you howled in pain at putting our dog to sleep
The way you always know I'm feeling bad
The way you calm me after my rage has taken hold
The way you never argue
The way you dress me, wash me, love me
The way you deal with me, my moods, my MS
The  way you'll stay with me until the end
This I'll know, even when I start to forget

Darling, Do you think of me when you **** her?

Did I love you when we first met?
No.
That sounds cold but, truth is often painful.
Was I looking for someone like you?
No.
That is a brutal truth.
Were you persistent?
Yes.
Did you win my heart?
Eventually. With roses? No, with chocolates? No.
You won my heart, by accepting me.
You won me by being you.
I love how our love grew.
I wasn't looking for love, it somehow found me.
Did you write me poems?
No.
Sing me love songs?
No.
Did we have anything in common?
No.
But, love grew, desire bloomed.
We needed each other, we still need and want each other.
Over coffee, Monty Python and a gentlemanly kiss on my cheek
I knew that love was real, it crashed into my heart like a wrecking ball.
Is love like the movies?
Is it *******.
It's more like a Wile E Coyote cartoon.
You bought an ACME love boulder!
Meep meep!

NO**
You shout this to the world, and the world turns still.
How dare the rain fall, a relative call.

How dare the earth turn, while you still yearn
How dare they laugh, while you still ache.

How dare the sun rise and night fall,
while you have no relief from the grief at all.

The wreaths are dead.
All has been said.

Anybody literate can read and write.
But do they understand?
Can they see and feel the deeper meaning?
Do they hear the poets words?
Emote along with the writer?
Find a chord striking them within?
Gasp at the beauty in the imagery?
Hold their breath as the poet weaves magic?
Inhale the scent of sweat the poet gave?
Jump at the twists and turns?
Keen to learn the ending?
Laugh and cry along with the poet's words?
Mope at the end?
Not wanting to let the words go?
Opining their views, not the poet's.
Positing assumptions not the poet's.
Querying imagery, syntax, metaphors and similes.
Robbing the joy from the poet by making grand assumptions.
Seeking to emulate the greats, and join the canon.
Taking what they need from the words written down.
Utilising the poem as a learning tool.
Venerating  the poet and their work.
Words speaking to them from afar.
Xanthic coloured complexions, as they read into the night.
Yanking at the pages of the book.
Z**ealously impassioned by the poet's conclusion.

Every breath I take reminds me I'm alive
My uniqueness survives my weakness,
my illness has given me a strength, that,
I never knew existed.
My health is deteriorating, failing,
day by day, but despite these facts,
I can say "******* MS" I'm staying
at least a while longer!
I'll never give up, or give in, without a scream, or a fight.
You have stealth, I have a wealth of love
You have insubstantiality, I have no regrets
You have pain, I have gain.
Through my pain, fatigue, depression and laments,
I've gained a friend, ME.

Sweet fragrant offbeat smells and sounds
accost us as we wake in the oversized bed.
Sheets have been crumpled and creased
thrown to floor in a white pure heap.
Your warmth next to me is almost too
much to endure, I can see the sheen of sweat
coming from your very pores.
Sweat created by the Spanish sun and our Spanish fun.

I look around the suite, and sweet memories flood
through me, the heat of the night as we arrived,
dishevelled yet ready to concede with our pleading
bodies. We cannot retreat just surrender to the crisp
white sheets, inviting us in.
How we tried to be discrete, but it was too sweet
we tried to contain our passion, but it was a lost cause.
This was a country used to the rhythm of repeated pleas.

I run my nails down your sweat covered torso
here we are complete, we are one in this, the Spanish sun.
You turn lazily to look at me,I see the fire is still burning
I know I'll get another treat, Latino fiery ness has emboldened us
In this anonymous suite we compete with each other's affections
Like a matador and a bull we display, and play with each other.
Broiling in the sweat covered sheets we concede defeat,
we fall asleep not by the moonlight, but by the blaze of the sun.

A coldness creeps through my body,
enters and, seeps with its icy fingers
down, down into my core.
Clasps my heart and takes hold,
glacially traversing my mind, body and soul.

I feel, wait, no, nothing. I'm in a dream.
Induced by drugs that calm and hold you down.
I'm Alice chasing the rabbit, but the rabbit is bold,
and I am cold, behold your cold frigid Alice!
Frozen, addled brain, makes no sense of the dream.

I'll stay awhile in this winter wonderland,
this, emotionless, frosty, heartless land,
and dream of sun, and hope and gold.
Upon waking the dream will dissipate,
leaving a shivering, controlled me.

We are broken, were broke,
barely whole when we started.
We, became one, thought as one,
we were whole for the first time.
We gave and received love,
we gave and received our bodies,
we made a religious act from our one-ness.

I should have been aware that into all happiness,
a snake entwines around a heart.
Envy, caused it.
Into our sanctum it slid, and never left.
All by myself in what was once our haven,
I made plans. Cut the head off the snake and it dies.
But my heart still bleeds, you cannot un break a heart.

I cloistered away feelings, allowed you your freedom,
martyred my sanity in the name of our withered love.
Anchored my memories to our sanctum,
took refuge in the knowledge that I strongly held
the belief that we were still one.
And, we are my darling, still in our inner sanctum together.
I in the many rooms, you in the basement.

Fitting I thought, since 'base' desires took you.
Took you away from our sanctum.
But now your back.
The snake is now headless, actually she's more quartered,
and placed on four parts of the compass.
You see darling we are stronger as one, we are whole,
even if you are in the hole in the basement*.

Like an albatross around my neck it sits in the room.
Devoid of warmth, lacking a purpose.
It defeats me every time I enter.
The clean white sheets greet me with a mocking crispness.
Clean, virginal, untouched, unused sheets.
My energy and resolve are depleting,
what I nearly was is fleeting.
Time to concede these empty sheets are never to be filled.
Time to retreat, concede defeat and take the cradle apart.

Tears of joy
Tears of anger
Tears of irritation
Tears of frustration
Tears of laughter
Tears of grief
Such emotion in a drop of salty water.

Never be ashamed of those tiny droplets
they reflect all emotion in a single fall.
Sensitivity, frustration, anger and hope.
Never hold back, and never stop crying at someone's behest.
Tears clean your soul and releases all unhappiness in you.
Tears are your pearls, of wisdom and experience.
Tears, hot coming out, cold going down.

The oceans are all the saline tears of our earth.
Tears, are all our actions and words in an action.
They are words our heart breaks at hearing,
images our eyes cannot bare to see.
Feelings our mind cannot fathom.
Tears are the truth of a sensitive soul set free.

I'm sleeping, dreaming, suffering sensory deprivation
Inhibited, relaxed, circadian rhythms coursing through
REM, renewing cells, awaiting the terror of the night.

I wake, here you come, slowly, announcing your presence
Until you stand over me
I cannot move, immobile

I cannot scream, mute
I cannot fight, struggle or defend
I feel you, looming above me

Thrashing will only alert you to my knowing of you
I calm my breathing, relax my posture, think of the coming sun
Advertising my lie that I know you are here.

You lean forward I smell your foul, fecund hot breath
Your infertile want of me by you, but I want him
You are not him

Slowly, you pull the sheet down
I remain still,knowing that you do not exist
A memory of long ago, of my helplessness

He, is asleep beside me unaware of you
Of your torment night after night
I want him to turn in his sleep

To face me, take me into a lover's knot
Show you my tormentor that you failed
Failed when I was 18, and will fail now I'm 39

But, he sleeps the sleep of the innocent
You keep trying, night after long night
And, I will keep eluding you.