Thursday, 31 December 2015
The Rise of the Phoenix
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Anger, Apathy and Avoidance
http://newconnexion.net/articles/index.cfm/2010/11/Conscious_Complaining.html
- I highly recommend the practice)
Saturday, 26 December 2015
Perfectionism and the Inner Critic
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Rooting out the Truffle of Truth
This being human is a guest house.
The dark thought,
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Nightmare
Thursday, 3 December 2015
Monday, 23 November 2015
Love Addiction
Full of highs and lows
When we are together
A river of ecstasy flows
Distance is the killer
That's when the darkness comes
Anger and resentment
Are what my life becomes
But this love is a false love
A fantasy that grew
Where unconditional love was lacking
Addiction did ensue
Friday, 23 October 2015
Nonconformity
Isolated I stand,
against the growing monoculture of human kind,
laid bare in winter she looks forlorn,
She merely rests to await her time.
Wednesday, 21 October 2015
A Work in Progress
Remember if you woke up this morning feeling broken, a thousand shards scattered, beyond repair, do not loose hope. Pick up the pieces you can find and work lovingly with them. Reshape them, add new ones and in time you will become like a beautiful glass sculpture. As you grow a little each day your light will begin to radiate outwards; a beautiful rainbow of colour. You can heal, you are the artist, become the sculpture of your lifework. Work with love to create something truly beautiful.
Tuesday, 20 October 2015
Soul Searching
Devoid of vibrant hues and tones,
Lost beneath an impenetrable freeze,
Darkness has come to bedeck my home,
Takes no prisoners, no slaves,
And my defeated soul, long tortured, retreats,
To the place where demons grow,
I do not die,
I sleep and dream of Spring,
And glimpse those vibrant colours that reside within.
https://www.facebook.com/Graham-Wallace-Art-278319268894770/ |
Sunday, 18 October 2015
Fake Friends
Fake friends are like a fake tan; they're all over you, very superficial and don't last long. Don't waste your investment on a fake bake.
Friday, 4 September 2015
Aylan
Monday, 24 August 2015
Secret Lives
You on your keyboard, me on mine
Through silence our words are spread
Communicated by fibre optic thread
Perching like birds to chat and tweet
A heart to heart in the early hours
Allows our relationship to flower
And I recall last week's amazing trip
Unbeknown to you delivered by needle tip
Off Course
Off Course
Lost, aimlessly drifting
No place in mind
Pulled, pushed
To then fro
Like the shifting sand
No destination planned
Sail torn, untethered
Beaten by the storm
Shredded
Hanging heavy
With no energy to give
Destined to remain adrift
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Does Your Poem Suck?
WORD UP: For Beginner Poets: How to Know If Your Poetry Suc...: Written by Ami Mattison Poets at all levels of experience worry about whether or not our poetry sucks. Often, as we contemp...
Midwife of Words
Tuesday, 18 August 2015
Giver, Taker, Matcher, Faker
Adam Grant on Givers, Takers, Matchers and Fakers. An interesting podcast that discusses why we should all strive to be givers.
Who Are You?
In life
There are Givers
There are Takers
There are Matchers
There are Fakers
Which one are you?
Me?
I've been all four
And the doormat
At the door!
Almost a Quintilla
Out walking this morning I felt the first breaths of autumn upon my face and as I contemplated it's arrival it whispered a poem in my ear. Four syllables less a line and it would have been a quintilla.
The Hawthorn Tree
I feel the chill of autumn faintly here and there,
Whispering lullabies within the morning air,
Go find your golden robe and stunning crimson dress,
And as a final touch, certain to impress,
Sow rubies in your fading emerald hair.
Monday, 17 August 2015
Unlocking the Poet Within
My relationship with Stephen Fry is improving. I no longer feel like hurling him across the room accompanied by an ode of expletives!!
Clutter by the Metre
And now Clutter hopefully abiding to the rules of poetic metre!
Clutter
Detritus of modern living,
Seals me in, fast, unforgiving,
Each day another claim for space,
Card city grows at endless pace,
Spilling throughout the white walled room,
Harbinger of impending gloom.
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Clutter
Back to my own unique poetic writing style a poem about a subject a little too close to home!!
Clutter
Trapped amongst the detritus of human life,
a battle is lost, chaos resides,
Empty boxes like skyscrapers rise,
and unfiled papers fill space,
where dinner once presided
Each morning ever more junk arrives,
deposited by postie's daily incoming tide
Materialism, consumer driven,
creates more waste, to fill
that once uncluttered space.
All Metered Out
I'm all metered out, struggling with metre and foot!! Think I might have to stick with my own unique style and develop a new blog - badpoetry.com. I'm going to follow the advice of this site - http://www.newpoetspress.com/writetips.html which is basically write what my soul wants to sing. If my words sing to your soul too then that's great and if not, no matter. They are after all an expression of me and not you.
The Craft of Poetry
I've been exploring the craft of the poet with the help of Stephen Fry. Today my journey has taken me into the mind boggling realm of metre. As metre is all about beat it's quite ironic that I should choose my poem Time to measure against the yardstick of metre. Lol there's an interesting conundrum - measuring a metre with a yardstick!! Anyway without more a do here is Time reworked so it conforms, I think, to the rules of metre. However upon further reflection I think my stressed and unstressed syllables maybe somewhat awry.
Time
Clocks are ticking
Seconds clicking
Hours are passing
Days amassing
Memories made
Years on can fade
New births, first breaths
Last gasps, sad deaths
Life's for living
Love for giving
C'mon make haste
Create not waste
Saturday, 8 August 2015
Time
Time
Clocks ticking
Seconds clicking
Hours passing
Years amassing
Memories
Of ceremonies
Of new births and first breaths
Of growing old and sad deaths
A lifetime to live
With love to give
Time
Make haste
Too precious to waste
Friday, 7 August 2015
Hidden Love
Behind a thousand locked doors with no key
Beneath the ice for a lifetime's sleep
Oh where do you keep your love
At the bottom of an ocean fathoms deep
Within a well no vessel can ever reach
Oh where do you keep your love
At the top of some inaccessible lonely peak
Behind fortress walls unmeasurably thick
Oh where do you keep your love
So I can feel its warm embrace
Your tender kisses upon my face
Tell me, where do you keep your love
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Saturday, 11 July 2015
Death
To bid farewell, to say goodbye,
Death, that final chapter, awaits us all,
Like autumn leaves we each succumb and fall,
And those footprints we leave across the shore,
In time will fade, to exist no more.
Sunday, 28 June 2015
Hidden Depths
I loose myself again, and again,
And drifting on unchartered seas, where each tear shed adds to stories fathoms deep,
I think of all those precious memories I keep,
Of love and joy, of loss and grief,
A myriad stories that bring torment or bring relief,
Like the fisherman's net that trawls those vast and unforgiving depths, I plunge, I sink,
And there beneath those dark still waters, pearls of wisdom I do seek.
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
Feel It, Write It, Don't Think It
Sadness
Thursday, 14 May 2015
The importance of being mindful
Saturday, 9 May 2015
Inside of Me
Thursday, 30 April 2015
Call of Home
Across seas of green and urbanscapes built on coal and steel
Goback, goback, I hear you call
to bridge of blue and riverside roar
Goback, goback, I hear you call
to stone walled dale and purple moor
Where we talked of youth and years apart
and dreamt of love and shooting stars
Transporter blue and Ayresome roar
we spent our youth by river and shore
Until we grew and fled the nest
and left our roots for pastures new
Goback, go back, I hear you call
to bridge of blue and riverside roar
Goback, go back, I hear you call
to stone walled dale and purple moor
Where we loved and lost but we never forgot
Our love of home and our Boro red
Bride of Woods
crisp to the touch, washed in autumnal sun,
I spied a fleet of silvery masts,
still amongst a purple mist, that oh so softly clung,
Like fleece jettisoned by flocks of passing sheep,
who roamed the fells and vales beneath my feet.
once sailed forth on an October day,
In their millions they'd drifted there,
wave upon wave, borne on autumnal air,
To colonise an ice scoured sculpted land,
where masts of oak and ash would fail to stand.
I marvelled at the patchwork scene,
the undervalued birch bequeathed,
A pale skinned beauty, Bride of woods,
with silver robe and purple feathered hood,
She came and broke the Cailleach's spell,
to tame the bleak and barren fells,
Now where many had feared to go,
a multitude of species grow.
Autumn Robes
carved stone jewels scattered across a once verdant scene,
Your autumnal wardrobe has finally arrived,
with rich warm colours that slowly, gradually, subside,
Maybe later ermine will again be in vogue,
as days shorten and darkness brings the winter rogue,
Stealing colour, light and heat,
a pure white palette as colours to the earthy depths retreat.
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Bad Diet
It chatters, it positively purrs,
This story is good my monkeys spin,
My negative thoughts are set to win,
The diet I feed really does not appease,
It wounds my soul and creates dis-ease.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Clear Water
I cannot see, I trawl,
I dredge but my hands are empty,
I cannot see, I cannot find,
I'm empty, barren,
No seed lies within me,
Lost, lost for words,
I'm blind, nothing to find,
But as I sit there is a clearing, a settling,
The silted waters so long swirling still,
They clear, the well begins to fill,
Up it rises, higher, higher,
It laps the brim,
No bucket needed to dredge the murky depths,
There is an outpouring, a richness from within,
My wild woman is manifest.
Selkie
of waves breaking upon the shore,
would waken me from my daytime sleep,
And as I paused and sensed those shifting sands beneath my feet,
the sirens would begin to sing,
An ancient almost forgotten song,
calling pleading from deep within,
I dreamt a thousand ways to escape,
this net long cast that held me fast within my living fate,
For I longed to swim and dive those depths,
and feel the salt, wet, refreshed, upon my selkie skin.
Home
Across Tees and Tyne and Tweed I hear you call,
Across seas of green and urbanscapes built on coal and steel,
Goback, goback, I hear you call,
And I feel the pull of stone walled dales and purple moors,
Where we talked of youth and years apart,
And dreamt of love and shooting stars.
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Shadow Play
Lovingly, compassionately, you watched it grow,
With your tender light I saw the shadows play,
Romances, tragedies, battles, day on day,
The puppet actors I met them all,
Athena, Medusa, Venus, I watched from the stall,
You see they all reside in me,
Waiting for that moment to break free,
Too long imprisoned in their dark cage,
They're desperate to seize the centre stage,
To cast their shadows for all to see,
Accept them, love them, for they are me.
Monday, 9 March 2015
Bridges
When I stand and gaze upon a bridge,
I do not marvel at its beauty
Instead my thoughts are those of love
Love spans the rift that lies between us
A connecting thread reaching out across the void,
melting hearts and opening doors,
Its warm embrace can even crumble walls
And where love can truly flow,
empathy and compassion will grow
So lets not build one bridge but many
Its time to cast our love further out
If we each build bridges to a few,
a net will form linking me to you,
and you, and you
And as the bridges grow and love is spread,
a peaceful world we'll build instead.
Saturday, 7 March 2015
Rift
The rift is too deep the walls too high,
Your fortress, impenetrable and cold,
Shields your wounded heart and soul,
The thread that linked us lies severed, shredded,
Those loving strands we once wove together,
Separated, perhaps forever,
Unravelling there before our eyes,
Dramas, stories, even lies,
We weave such pain within our lives,
Why? To make each other cry?
But within my heart love still resides,
It does not hate, it hopes, it waits,
To heal that rift, that cast us so painfully adrift.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Medusa
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Word Weavers
The sacred blessings we pray,
Those phrases we decant,
Those mantras we chant,
Remember you wound or heal,
With those words that you deal,
It's your karmic wheel,
How do you feel?
Sunday, 18 January 2015
Stuck
We cannot move,
Held fast like glue,
We are stuck,
Locked in the past,
Trapped, held fast,
We are stuck,
No flow,
No get up and go,
We are stuck,
Inaction feels safe,
We are stuck,
No risk of offence,
No need for defence,
We are stuck,
Oh fuck! We are stuck.
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
The catharsis of poetry
Minotaur
I am broken, so broken, shattered,
a thousand shards scattered,
I am beyond repair,
lost in my darkness, my despair,
It rains,
a ceaseless never ending pain,
Burning, scolding, unrelenting,
demon tears forever tormenting,
There is no place to hide,
in this labyrinth where fear resides,
Blind ends, closed doors,
I finally meet my Minotaur.
Poetry and the state of being
Sunday, 4 January 2015
Winter Trees
There is an inherent beauty in the starkness of winter trees. Uncloaked of their leafy apparel the bark of bare trunks and branches resonates a true raw beauty. Outside my bedroom window is a stand of poplars. They are some sixty feet or more tall. In autumn before the heart shaped leaves cascade down I have on occasion bemoaned their height as they blocked out the last hour of golden autumnal sun. This morning however I find myself full of remorse for such a thought. Brushed by the palette of the rising sun the stand is a blaze. Flaming tongues of red reaching upwards to lick a clear blue canvas as if to taste and melt the frosty morning air. Over the past month I have been entranced by these poplar silhouettes and nature's ever changing palette. Earlier in the week after a long lie in I was greeted to a vision of pure gold embroidered on a cloth of finest grey. It was the calm before the storm.
Peace
- One that makes peace, especially by settling disputes
- A person who establishes peace, especially between others
- A conciliator, make-peace, pacifier, reconciler, go-between, intermediary, mediator
I also discover to my amazement and revulsion that a peacemaker is a belt-fed machine gun capable of firing more than 500 rounds per minute; used by United States troops in World War II and the Korean War
I ponder the last point, a gun called a peacemaker. Does a gun really bring peace or is it what my long suffering English teacher would have reliably informed me was an oxymoron. Yes I would agree that after you have blasted every living thing into oblivion you could argue you have removed all animal and human threat to your survival and peace may reign but at what cost? Sat amidst the bloodbath of the massacre you waged in the name of peace are you truly at peace? History has taught us that war rarely brings prolonged peace.
The peace we win is merely a manifestation of our own inner landscape. How long will peace reside there? Can you live with what you did in the name of peace? Have all your fears and negative thoughts finally been eradicated? The reality I suspect is that peace will only remain as long as you permit it. Once you allow the next toxic thought to take root in your inner garden and you tend and cultivate it with fear you are once again in danger of manifesting your own inner reality. The cycle, the gestalt will begin again, you have not learned the lesson of unconditional love.
So how can we maintain peace? I hear some smart arse, well in my case a demon monkey in my mind, helpfully suggest I turn the gun upon myself. How will that help? What sort of energy will that send into the universal consciousness? Time for some research into the practices and teachings of the ancient eastern civilisations and the realms of meta physics. Another step on my own inner journey.
Our Stories
that casts us oh so painfully adrift,
It's not the words we fail to say,
or loving deeds we struggle to convey,
No my love, we reside in different books,
Lost in our dramas we're not free to look,
I can't see you and you can't see me,
We only see what we wish would be.
Friday, 2 January 2015
Lessons Learnt
As 2014 drew to a close I started to think about what the over riding lesson was that I had been trying to learn during the year. There is always one I reckon, the one you keep repeating over and over. You would think we would notice that we keep finding ourselves in the same situations, having the same thoughts, repeating the same patterns but no we frequently seem oblivious. It's as though we are asleep.
Rather than ruminating over all the negative situations I had found myself in over the past twelve months, a sure recipe for getting lost in my mind labyrinth, I decided instead to think about my poems. Why? I'm not really sure, perhaps it was what my good friend Peter would call pre-symbolic thought - the thought before you squeeze it into words.
So I reflected over all the poems I had written during the last year and paused at each one for a brief moment to feel what energy resonated within me. What was I doing? I was looking for the one poem that triggered something in both my heart and my solar plexus. The heart because I wanted to feel with my soul and my solar plexus because this place is linked to my sense of self, my ego, It is connected to both power and fear. It's that spot that triggers those mind monkeys. The pesky little fuckers who pop up every now and then to help you do such an excellent job of self sabotage.
Well it didn't take me long to find the one poem and I had to laugh at the synchronicity and irony behind the title - Letting go.
Sometimes in life things aren't meant to be,
as it is with you and me,
And though lost and hurt in my despair,
a shattered heart, bleeding, aching, for repair,
I'm not the missing piece of which you speak,
I cannot make you whole, complete,
You see my love, you are already whole,
all pieces reside within your soul,
The lesson for me is letting go,
and through this act peace can grow,
My love for you was always meant to be,
but not to hold you fast, no, it was to set you free.
Yes 2014 had been very much a lesson about letting go and as the year drew to an end I found myself thinking about how tightly I held on to things that were no longer healthy, that did not help me grow. I'm surprised my knuckles hadn't turned white with the extent of my clinging. Well it's time to give my knuckles a well earned rest and to stop prolonging my suffering. Why do we do that? If a friend was suffering we would have compassion for them but yet we struggle to have compassion for ourselves. I'm not a big believer in setting New Years Resolutions, probably because I fear failure. Well maybe this year I should at least put out the intention to be compassionate to myself and when I don't quite hit the mark give myself a big hug and not let the demon monkeys beat me too hard with a stick.
Wishing you all unconditional love for 2015 xx.