Brick Wall

(Rambling late night verse – not my finest hour)

Banging my head against a brick wall.
An endless glut of profanity builds within.
Nonsense, wrong tense, grammar and vague comment.
Rubbish reason, essay treason and fragile talent broken.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another with them.
I’m losing all faith in their ability.
It’s harsh, but true, start afresh and renew.
If I continue to thwack my head against this brick wall, maybe some blood soaked grey matter will spray onto their conscious mind? Thought not.
I will, definitely, persevere.
I will, hopefully, succeed.
I will, probably, break.
We’ll carry on smacking away at that wall.

Sixteen Two Thirteen

For Rachel.

Five times the air,
Breathing a million times.
Five times the earth,
Endless miles before us.
Five times time and space,
Forever is all we are.
Five, the number of now.
Ten, fifteen, numbers to go.

Always and forever,
Five times my Lion Girl,
Numbers to the future.

Cemetery Stone

A jungle of empty white lines.
As my feet cling to the grey concrete, I find my eyes gazing
Towards the poppy field, the flowering lamppost, the sea of ashes.
Endless spray carnations, fixed to a point in time,
A place where each timeline ceased forevermore.
Shifting nervously, my feet find the path to the petal;
It’s is flowering with fresh grieving.
Wives and husbands,
Mothers and fathers,
Sisters and brothers,
Daughters and sons.
Eventually my steps lighten to find
The vast green expanse,
No bigger than his hospital room.
Crouching feels appropriate,
Speaking doesn’t.
No urge have I ever had to speak
Beyond the soil and stone in front of me,
Nor have I ever envisaged an omniscient presence
That can be reached like a takeaway deity.
Bearded ressurectionists or biblical optimists
Bare no sway in this way.
Sitting here feels like resolution,
For myself, for my father, for my mother, and my brother.

A Twitter rant

Unseen by all, felt by no one, but conceived by one: angered by the ironic moaning of a ‘primrose princess’.

Eyebrows

This poem will only affect around 20 people, all of which were present when the idea was first developed. They are both the inspiration and the purpose for this piece. At least, they seemed to enjoy it.

Painted expressions of faceless crimes.
She is traditional in today’s photo frame.
Criminality brushed on, to accentuate the person inside,
Locating its centre in how the others view you.
I am sorry though, as a figure head that dreads this.
But, you know that, no that, no not that, that, yeah that, and that.
Well, that’s not allowed.
I’m sorry, but them’s the rules.
Honestly I am.
I means, I realise it’s stating the obvious, seen as everything else is spelt an smelt out in this place,
And I don’t just means this, it’s more then this, it’s this, that, them, and the other thing we won’t discuss.
I digress, but I just want to say,
You, and they, and I, are ours,
Our own and ours alone.
Don’t let them take that.

Time Snatcher

Submitted to OpenLinkNight with dVersePoets on Tuesday 4th December.

Bags of time sag endlessly over the mind’s eye.
They cloud every aspect of a day, and they still try
To eat into the insects infested in the lesson, lunch, tea break and sleep.
Muggy, grey clouded aura.
Smiling politely, nodding silently,
Recoiling towards a blissful clam,
Sleep and darkness, away from the dazzling aches of the day.
Self-infliction of self reveals a true identity: a true picture?
Or a matisse inspired manipulation, accentuating fault and shadowing praise,
Cross-hatching your peceived confidence.

Late House

Ours is a late house,
Driven by plasma screens.
Ours is a late house,
Caffeine injected dreams.
Ours is a late house,
Motionlessly ‘sleeping’ fiends.
Mine is a late mind,
Streaming the ashes of the day.

Sinking

It has been a month since I last posted on here. Yes, you’re thinking, “Thank you Martyn for stating the obvious.” Well, today I was trying to rationalise why I have not been able to mould any new pieces. The answer: time. Looking back over my earlier pieces, I thought over this particular piece and my inspiration came flooding back. Why should time be allowed to stop us from anything? Why should we just happily ponder over how little time there is? Get up and do something about it. So I have.

Time is leaving us back at the starting blocks, just like that kid we all knew; the one who was never really great at anything, but tried so hard to just be something for a day, someone for a second.

How often do chances come our way: the ones we know will make or break us; define our recent history and shape something so fundamental, like your confidence to even walk out the front door, or pick up your pen and scrawl the words you cannot say.

Sometimes you know, that feeling won’t ever leave you. A fundamental feeling to live in everyone’s shadow; the background in your favourite picture. Often, it can be rooted in the most mundane feelings of happiness, but why? Happiness in silence; contentment in isolation.

That sinking feeling.

Day

My head falls back onto the soft cloud:
I am awake.
The morning sunlight breaks through my window,
Stirring my sleeping eyes into consciousness.
The blissful silence is broken by the sting of the alarm bell.
Day.
I fade through the 14 aching steps to find a vessel for my Frosties.
Tea fills my blood with enough energy to stand and I make broken movements back up the stairs.
Dressing takes its regimented form: Suit. Tie. Shoes. Door.
The journey is as it is: a winding meander of the breaking morn. Clio steps up to third before the work door descends.
The day passess as the day always does: endless rambles of fascinating gambles.
Pupil trials and each with a smile break the monotony of any day.
The hum of my daily excursions is now noticeable as I retire to my chamber at evening light.
My pen finds its way to the vandalised tree, scraping the questions of progress and praise.
Night falls as every other: blurred optical zooms in eyes bruised.
My head falls back onto the soft cloud.
Tomorrow? Day, again.

For You

I was challenged to write a poem for someone who claimed to have never read or heard a poem that he enjoyed. This is the result.

So, you don’t like poems?
They don’t grab your attention?
You don’t appreciate the subtlety of an enjambment
Or the frailty of a perfectly sequenced iambic pentameter?
You don’t autonomously tap along with a crescendo rhythm
Or laugh heartily at a whimsical limerick?
Well, this one is for you:

There was a young man I know,
Who thought he’d give poems a go.
Well I’ll tell you straight,
You won’t get a date,
Until you rhyme like a poetical great.

Are you listening yet, yes?
Have I grasped your attention with this?
Help it in the palm of my hand like a God?
Abused it like a spotty geek abuses COD?
Twisted it round my freckled pinky
With my wonderful word play and whimsy?
Well, here’s the clincher;

Now I know that you said you don’t feel
That this poetry lark is for real,
So here is a ditty,
To make you feel pretty,
Hang on. That’s a bit too far; sorry sweetie.

So that’s it, the poem to grab your attention;
Challenge accepted, extended and delivered.
The wager is a dairy delight:
If you can honestly say that this ode
Did not float your boat,
Then revel in its chocolaty textures.
However, if you were in the least bit moved,
By the way I used the spoken word
Then the chocolate is mine,
To have and to hold, in sickness and in health,
Until my face devours it.