Threads VI - Writing

Two separate primary school teachers told my parents that they thought I was going to be a poet when I grew up. I certainly have a fondness for writing, though haven't made a career out of it, more of an emotional outlet. Here's a small collection of my words:

Lyrics

Can't Get Too Deep

Today, I decided to reduce my density,

Float to the top,

Slide around jovially,

I made myself smaller,

Have tiny feet,

Like a pondskater,

Can't get too deep

2019

Lolwuut

You don't get,

You don't get that,

My life flashes by and I don't care anymore,

I can't take it when the day feels like a chore,

What's the meaning?

What?

What?

What's the meaning?

2016

Needs

Tea for two?

I've tried to fill the void, Ma'am,

Animals, television, endless lists,

They're fine for a while,

Until they rattle,

I hate that they batter about,

Like empty bottles on the floor of the last bus home,

Skinny latte?

I'm sorry, we only do semi-skimmed,

Is that ok?

I put my head in my hands,

New-born baby hands,

Born from soap suds and mop buckets,

Brave little digits, soft,

Like the cigarette papers, they rock to sleep,

"My latte's not hot dear, it should be hot you know? It's not hot"

I return the bastard with stretched lips,

Onto the table beside the western morning news,

And idle dribble,

No problem,

No problem, Ma'am,

No problem

2016

Poetry

One Day

One day, in pure tranquillity, I’ll wake up,
And it won’t be raining rocks anymore,

The oceans will have ceased spitting on my pillow,

Resuming a slumberous cocoon of the great provinces,

One day, the stories I tell won’t be of checkmates,

Of sand in my eye, in my blood and bone,

The wind will have given up on such unreasonable whittle,

Its fingers instead, stroking sheep on the heathland,

One day, empty pages will stop bleeding in my hands,

They’ll be content, ordered, lined, and bleached,

The soils and mulch will have released their cadaverous grip,

Only to return, with a gentle embrace, to the dead and the worms.

2015

Going Full Kate Bush

Uproot, clothed in knotweed,
Departed, Vacated,
Into winter postcards,
Endless, warm rays on white,

Little boy, red snowsuit,
No child of mine, embrace,
Tears and chocolate, I wipe,
Not one handkerchief pure,

Angels regaled, golden,
I broke news of my exit,
No more, the handkerchiefs,
I’ve heard he still cries,

In the thicket, comfort,
I’m fully extended,
With terra firm, one,
Earthworms and roots are we,

In these woods, soul was lost,
Messages in bottles,
Grasping the outer world,
With keys of black and white,

In soil, decayed, I wept,
In the dirt, prisoner,
But now, behold, I brush,
Long mycelium locks

2019

Creative Writing

Past the End

With its filthy engine groaning, the bus lurched along the marred tarmac of the country lanes. A golden, spring sunlight dazzled and flitted through the trees, softened by a thick haze in the atmosphere. Fractal like fingers of trees, still naked from winter, grasped loosely at the clouds. They sprawled past, silhouetted against the deep, blue sky. The bus chugged lazily over the brow of a hill, revealing a thick spread of buttery daffodils over the slope. Although she’d travelled this road frequently, she’d missed this journey, only a bus could travel slow enough to really enjoy it. The dirty windows created an authenticity, a familiarity, like an old photograph.

The journey wasn’t complete without music. She reminisced of her college years, before they changed the bus route; when there was long enough to lose herself in an entire album. Head nestled in between humming cans, she had time to mull over things or simply fall in to a meditative trance. She’d got good at floating away, too good.

Her wide eyes wandered back inside the bus; an old lady placed a tissue in a PVC shopping bag decorated with cats, a plastic bottle rolled to and fro as the bus swayed. She gazed down at her boots, still encrusted in mud from the weekend. What a weekend. Over the years she’d seen some pretty shocking and insane things but nothing compared with Saturday night. It really was one of the best and worst days of her life and nothing could have prepared her for the aftermath. She glanced up at the bus again; the mundanities of life had never looked so beautiful, felt so important and been so comforting.

2011

Wrotograph

Today I saw a man who had his eye too close to the sun. He writhed and rolled, grasping fingers and nostrils flaring. I stood and watched a while, my white knuckles rooted to the hem of my knitted jumper.

I stood and watched his silent struggle. There was no point in talking, he was lost in holy lights now. A single tear fell from the minutest of scars, from my retina to the cobbles before us, both, the man and I.

As I stared, and clenched, and stared, every hand I could sculpt with my imagination reached out to hold him. They stilled him, they washed him. 

Atlas looked over me, from a nearby doorway, as I broke my gaze. "I've seen him bathing in this abyss before, I can't reach him" my lips barely separate. Atlas smiled "Have a good evening, take care of yourself".

2016