Struggling for a gift again,
Every year a new idea needed.
What can I get an agnostic who has everything?

Another Tiffany charm
Won't do any harm.

A clay pigeon shooting experience couldn't possibly miss

How about Afternoon Tea...
With me?

Wait, an idea that's viable,
A personalised Bible
Where, rather than 'God',
Her name instead:
"In the beginning Doris-Ann created the Heavens and the Earth"
Right through to:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord Doris-Ann"

What a revelation,
A new gift to sweep the nation!
A personalised Bible
Whose sales will rival
The good book itself.

Such a gift might be great,
Until, at St Peter's gate,
Doris-Ann might have to explain
That she was once God on Earth
And that should be good enough
For an agnostic not to be rebuffed.

I love the warm smell more than baked bread.
I love the old stories flooding back through my head.
I love the middle-age chatter, with child like mutters,
finding old favorites in old familiar covers.

I love the personalised fountain-penned message,
carefully scribed and meticulously dated.
I don't care about the number of dog eared pages,
or the tell-tale signs of well worn aging.

Tea stains and small tears - they don't bother me,
each tell a new tale beyond what I can see.
I love the weight of the years sitting in my hand,
I love the tether to past lives multi-second-hand.

With memories of libraries with warm worn carpets,
wall to wall adventures and sun faded artists,
battered yellow seats, shooshed conversations,
quietly spoken protests at the books being rationed.

I stayed past closing, riding trains of free thought
with Tin Tin, Asterix and old Mrs Pepperpot.
I'm still drawn to the pages and the feeling inside
second-hand stories where memories reside.

Briefly entranced
by a swish of hips
as they sashay past a doorman,
he takes a breath, approaches
and asks to get through.

"Sorry sir," the tall man says,
"your purchasing record suggests
"that you dislike jazz.
"I think you'd better move along."

Of course, of course,
what was he thinking?
A narrow escape, that.
And on home through the empty streets he goes,
Untroubled by the wide wild sounds,
the horns and pianos,
the reckless freeform blast and chatter
that might ruthlessly have smashed through
his carefully constructed identity.

Safe at home,
his television allows him to watch
a comedy he has seen thirteen times before
and so must really love.

Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
Who tells you there won't come a time he won't be around,
But as the days turn to months and the months turn to years,
As you choke back your tears while you drown in your fears,
He is nowhere to be found.

Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll find 100 different ways to say that he loves you,
Each one sweeter and more heart-tugging than the last,
Watch him use them for his own manipulation,
Up until he decides that this is it, that his "love" has come to pass.

Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll express how he hates seeing you sad, making you cry,
But like a stubborn child, he never learns from his mistakes,
Protecting his ego and his sense of pride,
when all you wanted was to see him try.

Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll need you to know that he thinks you're a goddess,
And oh, will you believe his overdone flattery,
But realise this: once he's done and he's gotten what he came for,
Every single flaw and secret will be made into a mockery.

The same voice that sang you praises,
will be shouting words shaped like knives aimed at your heart.

The same tongue that formed you personalised spoken poetry,
will lash out at you,
further crumbling the pieces he promised to put back together.

The man who's good with words rarely means them,
He's mastered them because they are all he has to offer, all he has to bring to the table,
But still you need to fall in love with him and his words,
So you'll know how to treasure the man who doesn't need them.

I'm your poet, I'm your pain
I'm your forever never was
In the black chill lake
Right at moonlight
Listen as I hide my scream
Dressed as a ballad.

I'm your sculptor, I'm your sanity
I'm your always and forever
Colorless hallucinations
A nostalgia induced sight
Hold me gently in a second
Then vanish before I wake up

I'm your painter, I'm your dream
I'm your never looking back
Blinding lights of evermore
Baggy jeans and icy grins
Baby we were an eclipse
Ephemeral like my wish.

there are still surprises

for you to be surprised

a way to pull you out

unexpected, from your mind

there are still surprises

coming for you, on their way

personalised, just for you

there are still surprises.

stone monuments are big here
circles and chambered tombs
monoliths, stone houses.
Folk from the stone age
building stone age stuff.
Thousands of years of
history.. going way back.
We moderns will leave
our own, personalised.
The graveyard for granite
headstones, wonder how
long they will stand.

Can you really label it as self harm
           If it saves you daily
                     From a detached
                                      Senseless
                ­                              Dazed
                                                   Abyss.

Crash! Kapow!
You call yourself a hero?
You don't know the meaning.
I run, your personalised ball-boy,
The Dark Knight and his shadow,
Trailing behind, holding the coats,
Each day the same, never seen
Just a sidekick
...
Now I have grown,
Exchanged that emerald gear,
Black trousers, a polo neck,
No longer need to be seen,
People no longer stare at the man
who followed, the man who tagged along,
Getting into trouble and causing havoc,
I am who I am,
Holy Robin Redbreast! Scream tabloids
Have I said too much? The mask holds
Identity but what if that got lost?
What if the Robin opened it's beak,
the Bat would have nowhere to fly.

A Poetry Journal for people with any kind of health condition, disability or visual impairment.

Depending on the person's condition as the parent, carer or professional you will know them, as you would be working with the person to support their individual needs.

Words are very powerful however not everyone can express themselves using words or be able to form a sentence and speak it into words.

Communicating with the person in the familiar way in which they communicate is the first step to creating a personalised poetry journal. Asking their consent is also paramount that they agree for you to support them in making a poetry journal.


Expressing thoughts and feelings through textures and materials is a fun and tactile way,
for a person to express themselves using textures. Prompting a sensory experience while supporting them with their poetic expression.

Examples:

If a person smiles and is happy touching a certain piece of material or a piece of a tree bark then this piece of your expression supply can be added to the personalised poetry journal with a word expression.

Examples:

Materials that are different colours
Yellow for the sun
Brown leaves for Autumn
Orange warm and happy
Deep blue paint, safe paints or crayons. I am not feeling well today. Finger mark with the paint.

You could have a seven day poetry journal
It could also be something that is once a week or once a month individualised to the person's needs.

Children and adults will discover creative expression, relief, peace and fun in finding different natural supplies, to aid words that can be used to express thoughts and feelings in a poetic way.

After creating a few pages the word or words expressed with the materials can then form a piece of poetry. Which the person can read through their person-centred communication aids or you can read it to them, which will give another form of expression as to their thoughts and feelings.

Creating poetry is for all ages and abilities in the process; well-being and holistic health along with expression is part of the experience of creating a personalised poetry journal.

© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney

"It's been a long day without you my friend,
and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again." - Wiz Khalifa, 'See You Again.'

I think of you every day. There hasn't been one day where you haven't stomped your combat boots around the darkness of my mind.

Yesterday was a bad day where everything especially reminded me of you; you, who shot himself in the head earlier this year. I woke up this morning frantically searching for my phone to go on Facebook in a panic because I had a very real-feeling dream where another friend killed herself, too. I wanted to hold her hand and kiss her sweet face. I wanted to ask her why she didn't tell me. I wouldn't have stopped her, I would've held her hand and jumped off that bridge with her.

I woke up feeling like my chest was collapsing and I found out that it wasn't true, but I am still without you and
I don't know what makes me sadder, the fact that I can't let you go, or the fact that I'm still ******* here. Even my body rebels against me, against my attempts to strip this universe of my existence.

I don’t know what makes me madder, people, or having to act like everything is okay.
I go through the motions, I follow routine, but there's nothing inside. (The lights are on, but nobody's home.)

You are a ghost, but you are the man that I love most. Try as I might, but I can't let you go. It's been 9 months, minus 2 days and I have missed you for every. single. moment.

It's not fair. 19.5 years is not long enough for a good person to live. What have you endured that has broken you? Are they like what has broken me? There's so many unanswered questions, you robbed those you left behind of their answers. There's so much of life you will never see. You'll never get that house with the white picket fence, no dogs or cats, no kisses or impromptu late night walks to nowhere, no wishes of 'goodnight's and 'good luck's (Hell, no one even got as far as the last chance for 'goodbye.'), but then again, neither will I.

You haunt me. I would ask--I would beg--if you could please visit me in my sleep, but I don't sleep so much anymore.

// (I don't believe in any biblical Heaven or Hell, but if there is somewhere good people go after they die, I hope it is each person's personalised halcyon. I hope you finally received the freedom, happiness, and love that you did not in this life. If you are short, I will see you soon, and I will bring all of the third.)

You leave the only way you know how to
In the dead of the night
No explanation, no note
In the morning there will be a hunt
There will be excuses made on your behalf
'Must have gone for a jog'
'Would have left to buy orange juice'
It takes a while for reality to settle
It takes a while for your clothes to be thrown out of the closet
It takes a while before the house loses your scent

Some people take it a step further
They leave with no trace of their existence
No pictures on the mantle
Beds perfectly made as if they had never been slept in
No shoes at the doorway
No stray hairpins or guitar picks or socks
You begin to doubt your own memory
You are left wondering if you loved a ghost

You leave the only way you know how to
With tearful farewells
And eloquent goodbye speeches
You stuff personalised letters into their clenched fists
You leave parts of yourself in their pockets
Beg them to never forget
You make sure that there is no more pain than necessary
You make sure that you are only gone physically

Some people take it a step further
They fill bathroom drawers with their soap bars and lotion
Their notebooks with half finished stories
Are left open on desks
They give themselves a reason to visit
A reason to stay for a couple seconds
Then for coffee
Then the night
When they move half way across the country
They will still call you home
You are left loving an unstable traveller

You leave the only way you know how to
You make it a week long affair
There will be screaming
Ceramics flung across the room and picture frames smashed
Blame passed around like a relay baton
You run a race nobody will win
You leave making sure your car is chased until the end of the road
Apologies dispended as if they are public announcements
There is no silence in your absence
Your voice still echoes in the hallways

Some people take it a step further
It takes them months to pack their bags
Sometimes years
There will be days shrouded with hatred
They leave in parts
One strand of hair at a time
They steal one heart beat at a time
Leaving you cold and numb in the end
They threaten to disappear so many times
That when they finally do you cannot believe it
You are left unable to love again

Occasionally, somebody comes along and unlocks
a part of me, that I never knew existed.

Sometimes, I am okay with that,
welcoming, the rush of warmth that floods my body.

Then occasionally,
more often than not,

I mess up.

Time, and time again -
never learning but always loathing.

I have changed though,
yet it appears it's too little, too late
and those that could have been an option for
joy, those who could have held my very own
personalised key to happiness,

have left already.

They sold Jesus on the cross with neon letters for flare
I wound up in the gutter when I went searching for answers there.

The poor stay poor or so some say, the rich get rich or some stock markets claim.

I spray paint the Vitruvian Man on a the side of City Hall,
Only to have it removed as vandalism, if we are Rome surely we shall fall.

I lay down in the limelight and perform for the masses,
The show goes on and soon is forgotten, it’s true what they say about absolutes;
Death and Taxes.

I watch the city burn, I may have fanned the fire.
If we are to ash, gather round and celebrate our own makeshift pyre.

The times keep on moving and we’re all trying our best to stay afloat.
The rules keep changing to fit the voices of the few but everyone is something,
With so much difference no wonder we can’t agree.

Sacrifice individuality?

Drive the nails in deeper and cut out their tongues,
The thought crime fits the punishment.
Don’t think- about it.
Don’t- think about it.
Don’t- think about- it.


Sacrifice individuality?

I wrote a personal manifesto in the sands of time, only for the waves to wash it away.
I chiseled a poem in stone only for time and weather to whittle it down,
It was then I learned that nothing lasts forever
I chased time like a hound after a hare,
I killed time for an hour
Then was jailed in a prison for abuse of a metaphor.

I felt the pity of a mother,
The anger of a parent,
I held onto the bars of my cell,
This was the pit and personal pendulum
Torture is best when it’s personalised to make a singular hell.

The halls of Humanity were so brightly lit that I forgot the basement I now explore.
Dim, cold and wet.
The dregs of the past lurk along the catacomb walls,
The rats chatter in the shadows, they sound like mocking laughter.

I travel through the cellars of time, history gone by.
The records are scrolled on papyrus,
The cave paintings show how life once was,
The broken weapons of armies old, litter boxes and tombs of kings and leaders,
All their stories and lives have been told.
Grave robbers snuck in under the cover of darkness, left what couldn't be moved
The rest has been sold.

Sould out, which is why I feel empty, staring at what remains and what may be of our current history.

We’re on a timetable of power, and it’s shifting ever faster.

Never aware of the dangers of yesteryear, so we work and build tomorrow today
Because by the time tomorrow is today, we’ve already outdated it.

I wander these cold Halls of Humanity,
Far below the current.
I rifle through the scar tissue,
I sing to the skulls,
I drink wine with the poet ghosts.
I hear the secrets that they hold.

the questions he asked held no relevance 
he took notes and I looked out the window to the office 
opposite

another room with cabinets
people & computers 
water coolers
a broken printer
drably personalised work spaces with kids drawing and motivational quotes spat over an inspiring landscape of mountains or soft still lakes

dust settles and stays on the leaves of plastic plants

 (  disgruntled secretary, 
floor two, has her mothers ashes stored in a Russian doll on her desk and a draw full paper clips and staples ) 

I didn't get the job
they gave it to a man who likes fat woman to sit on his face

A pair of heavy, darkly-polished oak doors swing open, throwing moonlight across a wide expanse of pale marble hallway, veins in the stone winding like sinews into the shadows beyond.

Gilded in silver light, I enter. The steel tips of my heels click out a dreamy staccato, treading in the footsteps of princes, duchesses, rogues and queens. Their faces gaze down upon me from the high walls. Immortalised in oils, their traditional, inscrutable countenances reveal little of their passions, furies and secret obsessions.

I turn towards a chair in one corner, letting the heavy coat damp from the night air, slide from my shoulders. I lay it carefully over the velvet upholstery, shivering slightly in the chill, unmoving atmosphere inside the house.

I move toward the centre of the hall. Click… click… click…. click. My heels tap out an intent. Upon a small table, a crystal vase holds a single red rose. In rude bloom, the rose has let go of three petals, they lie as perfumed tears upon the table.  

An envelope is propped against the vase. Unsealed. Unnamed. It doesn't need to be addressed for me to know its content. Virtually every goodbye I've experienced has been unaddressed: I can't bear them any other way. A personalised parting ladens the heart, eventually rotting away to leave a brand in the exact shape of its pain.

I reach out a crimson-nailed finger and lightly stroke the envelope. The action pulls at the cuff of my silk shirt, exposing four rows of pearls circling my wrist. They gleam mellowly in the moonlight, exactly the same colour as the skin on his back.

I hadn't wanted him to leave, but I was compelled not to have him feel indebted to me. His love was weighty, dense like hard-packed snow and he wore his sadness like an overcoat. A good overcoat, and one which suited him, with deep pockets of melancholia and often-visited regret.

A cloud sails over the moon, veiling a fleeting wish for his return. The moon knows when to place a finger to the lips, lest foolishness begin drumming insistent fingers against our better judgement.

I turn and walk back toward the doors, pushing against their resistance, closing myself off to such thoughts.

In almost total darkness, the sound of my heels echoes again. A determined, resolute tattoo upon the path of my own better judgement.

Unseen, the rose drops another petal.

strategically placed reminders
kind of personalised post it notes
set around the space I shelter in
remind of the long term plan
the one I think I would like
the one I would like to come to fruition
keeping in check the tension between getting there and accepting nothing is certain beyond today
and the ever present fact of being on the way, through the choices I make.

moving effortlessly in and out of varying realities
the mind is a personalised spaceship
and I am not sure who has the controls, or even if they exist.

She lived like a smudge.
Nothing defined her yet somehow, everything did.
She was hard to comprehend and easy to spill.
Her ink well personality confused all, most of all herself.
Prominent and invisible she liked to tie things up with words.
Writing poetry and imagining new worlds.
No one quite knew what was wrong with her and few dared to ask.
She got used to living with lies, she got good at making her own.
Weaving and watching she tailored her mask.
If she let you in, she would be your everything,
observant as a hawk and shy as a mouse,
she would steal your thoughts and morph them with her own.
Mirror face she reflected everything you wanted,
a personalised friendly home.
If she wasn’t so complicated and sad,  
she would be unitive.
She could be anyone but no one distinctive.
Slowly the lying and hiding started to break her mask,
melting like candle wax her brain began burning.
She couldn’t hide any longer
when she tried it was too obvious.
people stared raw and obnoxious.
Medusa exposed she tried to hide.
She hated life and it showed.
Her brain taught her ways to cope,
and some days it whispered, “just don’t”.
Nihilism is too subtle.
Her life quickly became about survival.
Trying to get to heaven seemed the most viable option,
hell had lasted long enough,
She put her life up for auction.
She never saw if heaven existed after all,
She decided if I am to live, I will live for love.