Grace is full of knots
Ring it out, son
To find blood-splatter
Plenty here to forewarn
A man was drowning in despair
It’s like a self-fulfilling prophesy
That no one could do anything about
To save a musically-gifted soul
From his traumas
Drawing in the surrounding darkness
And forming a noose
For the reset was a drug too tempting to resist
And he was an addict of a sort
All his tragically short life
Category Archives: Loss
Remembered
Grandmother
I remember you fondly
A memory I cling to
Clinched in the fist of a child
Time you always had for me
Until we were robbed of our time
But this memory I still have
And I cherish it
For all time
‘Pebbles’
Ever since she left,
Pebbles have been drawn to my heart,
Weighing on me,
Like wet rocks stretching polythene to tearing,
I can think of nothing else but this weight,
And, I keep asking myself:
How can I have been this in love,
Without even knowing it?
A Child Again
News of a parent’s ill health,
Left me feeling like a child again,
Sitting on a parameter wall,
In my primary school uniform,
Swinging my lunch box this way ‘n’ that,
Waiting to be picked up;
With the feeling that no one is coming creeping in,
Can you be in your 30s and still feel like an orphan?
The world will not understand,
But, you may.
Bended Knees
From the moment you could stand,
A torrent of elemental forces have been eclipsed by you,
Resenting your audacity to defy their influence,
Every effort has been made to force you into submission;
Playing with your life like a casual pastime,
Rejoicing at your struggles as if they were a satisfying result by design;
Although your impact on them is marginal,
They remain determined- simply, because:
The manner of your existence has sought to rise above your station, and emerge nominally into theirs;
Wherein, from your perspective:
Tortured fables berate and assail ;
Like rapids over jagged stone,
Worn down to smooth pebble,
As the journey slowly creeps forward,
Crawling on bended knees:
Over barbs and broken glass of every description;
On scuffed knees and trailing blood-soaked,
Before the altar of hope;
Until health deteriorates,
Morale fragments,
Haunting you with doubt,
As you reach nearer the doors,
Will you be un-bent and undefeated,
Or a total spent force?
Counting the minutes in anticipation,
Bearing criss-cross scars,
Near-crippled,
Nursing open wounds, and more besides,
Both within and without;
Then stand-up on painful broken, deformed limbs,
No matter how pathetically,
And scream your defiance at your maker,
Or, whoever stands behind those pearly doors,
Your would-be-torturer-by-proxy,
And, decry:
‘You have taken everything from me i’ve ever had,’
‘Done your worst and then some,’
‘But, here. I. Still. Stand.’
‘Do your worse,’
‘For I have long passed caring’,
As you have become numb to all feeling, save one:
Revenge.
‘Hikikomori’
Predators among us roam freely,
In search of ‘prey’:
Making lambs at mercy of wolves and hyenas of us all;
Suppressed instincts that never left us;
Corrosive tides and difficult lives,
Washing away disguises borne of lies;
Sated by voyeurism;
A precursor to a revival of barbarism;
Or, their modern equivalents:
A meditation of the withdrawn for some,
Known as ”Hikikomori’ in the East, and “Recluse” in the West;
Outlet for boredom and over-complications,
Morbid fascination turned perversion for others,
When, abnormal becomes the new normal,
And, drawn-out silences are shattered by blood-curdling shrill cries;
A chorus too frequent to be isolated,
Ineffectiveness prevails,
And, what justice there is:
Is delivered at the end of the barrel of a vigilante’s gun.
Hole in the Heart
Watching you walk away;
In a stunned, shell-shocked hue;
Feeling like you’re leaving me nursing a hole in my heart in the shape of you,
Pain and memory work in concert, to remind me of what you were (or, were not) to me,
It can never be cured by any known medical ailment,
And, I will have to nurse and mind its crippling tendencies 24/7 to end of days,
A lover came and showed you a new way of being,
Now she’s walked away, it was almost like a visceral dream that’s left you longing and bemoaning;
It was good, it was bad, and it was in-between;
But it’s time to start over;
‘Cause, if you can feel anything at all;
You’ve got to get up and keep on;
You ain’t nowhere near the best, so you have to work harder than all the rest;
But, self-pittying means you’ve got more time than you need;
When, rest is for the dead, and you ain’t dead yet;
You’ve got to keep moving ’till you are.
Ol’ Nan to Little Pet (Part 2 of 2)
Forget me not, for I have not forgotten you,
Show me love and compassion, as I had once shown you,
If I could, y’know I would still be useful to you,
As it is, I am trapped in a palace of my own memories,
With a variety of heaven, foreboding and hell – snapshots from a lifetime of diverse experiences -, behind every door;
The barriers of my mind (that could once be trusted to keep my thoughts distinct and separate from each other) have somehow given way,
Forgive me if I can’t place you quickly or at all, for you – like all of my memories – are a jumbled maze,
This glaucoma-like blur clears less and less frequently, if at all;
Be patient with me – a simple human kindness, for any compassion you bear me;
Be kind to me, though I know (in your frantically stress-filled life) it is not easy;
The end is rarely pleasant, Little Pet;
But you must be strong throughout;
I am glad you are doing what you can for me, and that must be enough;
For only the rarest few achieve that sense of finality in life;
And, you and I (I’m afraid, my sweet Little Pet) will not.
‘Little Pet’ to Ol’ Nan (Part 1 of 2)
Streaks of tears flow from ol’ nan’s rheumy eyes;
Is it her tear ducts or is she terribly sad? I don’t know which!
Her face is an age-old mask of wrinkles and parchment;
Turned into paper mache-
Changing from haunted, stern, angry and sincere, each time I visit;
I can no longer read which is which,
She can’t seem to recognise me, I don’t know why!
It fills my soul with helplessness enough to suffocate,
Love isn’t enough to cure you Nan, and the realisation is tearing me apart!
A hard-working woman all your life filled with duty and warmth left virtually an empty shell, where is the justice in that?
Remember, you called me ‘Little Pet’, no one else does now or ever will again;
I fear one day I will visit you and you’ll be gone, and I’m not ready for that!
Please, Nan, show me that you can hear me and come back:
To see my growing family, to give you all the comforts you deserve, and a chance to say ‘I love you’ one last time!
I need that!