Time on my Hands

Sorry for the Silence

Forgive a poet who is content

when his pen is dry and words are spent,

when there are no problems to be solved

and no cast of villains to be involved.

Forgive a poet who can freely smile

when he has no troubles to compile,

when his sad songs have carried out their chore

and he does not need them anymore.

Forgive a poet who put down his pen
when he struggled to find his voice again,
when his words became all soft and sappy;
forgive a poet when he is happy.

Autosarcophagy

If I could eat through these walls of hard bone

to find an exit from my dingy cave

then my jaw might clamp onto some unseen zone

that leaves me with fresh strategies to save.

I know that soon my gnawing teeth will yield

when they start to pierce the layer of thick skin

that's worn so thin it can no longer shield

my empty vessel from the mess I'm in.

I've come to terms with my fruitless escape

now that I've noticed I'm my own jailer

and if this prison is one I can't reshape

then I will remain wrapped up in failure.

But I will still keep biting at my skull

for my restless stomach is never full.

A Change of Routine

A change of routine

new sizes in shadows

I step into open skies.

A loss of lush green

no singing of sparrows

Summer has seen her demise.

I'd usually mourn

a farewell to flowers

and the beach days that have been

but all is reborn

and within my powers

is the chance to change my routine.

Corners

Half-light
            l i t t e r e d
e      m      p      t      y
                                    cor
                                       n
                                       e
                                       r
                                       s
like fingers on metal bars
and seeping in, you
illuminated the - idea -
of a world passing by
                                                                    outside,
awaiting analysis and accentuation, like the
cor
n
e
r     of my room.

Bled Colours

Primary manifestations

of secondary thoughts,

my colours all bleed into one.

Letting the sun's heat saturate

the pondering of pores

and the contrast of thought is gone.

Such is the richness of colour

I have no want to mix

but to bask in vividity.

Yet a citrus drop on my tongue

in nectar hydration

heightens my stroke's lucidity.

So I let the tool fall freely

as the waves roll in eights

and the skimmed stone ripples sixes

but then a cloud conceals the rest

and the tide's creeping in

until all my colour mixes.

Repetition and Alteration

Repetition is a constructed lie
but one that allows us to thrive
for it's a variation improved by
the new moments had whilst alive.

Alteration in the familiar
is a route to a rout of rights
through perfecting something similar
and subsiding all of the slights.

Lexical Addiction

I've got a craving

to succumb to that lexical addiction;

to allow those words to control me

with what little fix their diluted form still holds.

My subconscious control comprehends

that it's a habitual utterance

and yet with each delightful dose it demands

a little more value in its validity.

And so I let you overcome me

despite my weak-willed protests;

it strikes me that this isn't my usual poison

and yet the purest form might be positive.

I've got a craving

to succumb to that lexical addiction again

and with the utmost understanding

it is uttered.

Merry Mess

A damp explosion
     blots to the bottom.
             Peeling erosion;
                     rancid and rotten.
            Daudling it drips;
     crusty and creased.
The page it dies—

                                                        the words

released

Thinning

My attempts

to inject vivre

have been in vain

so I vociferate

the vitality in my blood

until it all begins to wane.

Late Night Reading

The glass of sea in my right hand

obfuscated the light that the window

did not confiscate. These black bleedings

of thoughts that time had spat out.

The bowling blues of green sea-hues

turned beneath the waves of sheets.

The Captain called for his ail,

as I drank my fill of refuge and seaweed.

Still

People are a distraction

both from ennui

and motivation

which is why

I feel so distracted

from the motivation

of a useful attraction.

...

A                             r                               t

both compliments and compromises 

the condition of the human soul

——mine——

lies waiting for a muse to perfect it

and so too does my soul.

Train Carriage Confessions

I find it no coincidence that you seat yourself here,

beside me,

when there are empty rows available.

Equally apparent, is that I am caught by the same instinctive attraction—

my attentive gaze greeting your curious glance

towards my pen

then

into my eyes.

Neither of us, with our timid temperaments,

have the intrepidity to initiate a decisive action of discourse, and so

I sit here

half-wishing your peregrine eyes

would pass over my obstructive shoulder

and read these confessions,

knowing them to be as true

as the light I can perceive inside of you.

Estuary and the Ebbing Light

Forget my thoughts floating down the river,

let the bank pick up stray reeds and algae

like an unrestrained dog owner with boundless and bundling

love. Let there be darkness,

allow the mouth to open up and pour brackish water

into a grey pool of jagged generations.

Clasp the sky's air, wiggle your dirty toes,

splash your knees, sing to the birds, tell my thoughts

to stop swimming upstream, where they might

find the source to be furiously underwhelming.

#Ink

Carve something graceful

into my chest meaningful;

so to kiss and clench.

Spillage

Nobody realises how much they piss

until they aim into a pint glass

and now all that I'm left staring at

is another sentimental spillage

that my body's cell can't sustain.

A Cat In Hell's Chance

A girl I know, or at least wish I did,

she had a certain way.

She always seemed to look through my skin

when I was out of things to say.

I'd make bland comments about the weather

and ask about her day.

She'd reply with an indifferent sniff

knowing my acting meek.

Her social skills had gained her fans;

my own made me feel weak.

Yet, despite myself, I unsheathed my tongue

and dared myself to speak.

She used well known aphorisms

to ward off romance.

But who condemned the cat to hell

and who gave that cat no chance?
I posed to her these ponderings
and asked her for a dance.
And so it was that philosophy
out-jostled social wit,
and even with the blandest badinage
you can be well read and writ.
There may have been no sunset fandango
but I'm happy with my lit.

On the Shore

Pressing through the unmitigated chaos

to come upon the calm shoreline-

a border to the ocean of my thoughts

whose waves are sleepily directed

by the whispers of my mind.

Lone as I am, standing on the grains

of my imagination's beach,

I cannot help but enjoy the humbling pressure

of discovering it all myself.

Yet I will not deny

that discovery is greater shared.

I keep looking for myself along the sand,

secretly hoping

that you will discover me instead.

Gazeless

My words may not mean much to you.

They elicit no response

and they will hang like stars,

which are always there.

You could wait until the night,

maybe then you’d see them

but you would still have to

choose to look up

and I don’t expect that you will.