The past is haunting:
  heartbreaking memories, 
  unbearable loss, 
  scars, seeping wounds.

The present is daunting:
  deadly viruses, illness, disease, 
  affecting everything - livelihood, 
  relationships, life. 

The future is uncertain:
  climate change, 
  conspiracy theories, 
  political upheaval, 
  civil unrest. 

We ask why:
  amid confusion, 
  gleaning truth from ...

Read and leave comments (2)

I can feel you,
thick in my throat,
threatening to consume me,
slithering through my mind and body,
wielding your alpha power, 
making me weak. 

I curse you, drown you, 
in sunshine and sweet elixirs,
but you refuse to leave.

I am stronger than you think.

I order you and your invisible army 
of pain, heartbreak, misery,
away from my cosmic energy. 

I did not manifest you.
You...

Read and leave comments (4)

It seems yesterday the house was full

Nothing seemed beyond our reach

We dashed about with endless brio

Spent days on end at the beach

I recall how you laughed and cried

The endless smiles adorning your face

Years have brought changes to our joy

Now life seems such a different place

I loved your black ringlets

That brightened every day

Your hair grew old as ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair. *
She’s so sweet and loving.

I’m good looking for a man of my age,
with handsome gray hair – what there is of it – 
that girls like to pat like they pat a pet dog.
I can’t wag my tail like a dog, 
but I can flash a sweet smile.

My wrinkles portray character 
and the wisdom that comes with age.
Skin cancers between wrinkles 
betray my time ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Today has been a better day 

I wasn’t a mardy bitch 

I didn’t cry when something went wrong 

I ate food without nausea or gagging or that awful washing machine feeling in my tummy 

Today was an easier day 

I could talk without the lump in my throat strangling me 

I walked through university enjoying each rain drop falling onto my cheeks

or dripping through my ey...

Read and leave comments (1)

My scars have piled up like leaves on Autumn grass.

My knees are a testament to lake pollution

and MRSA.

My hands tell the story of a rambuncious youth

yearning for adventure.

My thighs are a roadmap of mental illness

and a fondness for razor blades.

My face bears the craters from a begone allergy

My mouth is the magnum opus of a poorly trained dog,

whom I miss everyday.

Read and leave comments (0)

The deal we get dealt

Can be heart felt. 

It can change our lives,

Create nose dives. 

The way we face our pain,

Is not for personal gain. 

It steals our health,

Affects our wealth.

It breaks our spirit,

Pushes us to our limit.

When we walk in the darkness,

It’s hard to raise awareness. 

We may feel alone, 

Lost in a friend zone.

Feeling judged,

Tears s...

Read and leave comments (0)

Mortality stalks me 
like a jealous lover.

Breathlessly follows me
wherever I go, incessantly
banging a gong, 

chanting, 

it won't be long, 
come to me, let 
the pain end.

My eternal soul sees
this game of mortal gods 

and challenges me

to go where mortals
fear to tread...

Meditate in silent space
past the black hole,

beyond illness,
depression, despair

to that ...

Read and leave comments (7)

A series of 11 short poems

End of a Galaxy

A blink

In the silent depth of night

As the last leaf of the beech tree

As the silent tear of my love

End of Harmony

I see her dancing on the sands

I see her                                     as she sees me

and in that moment

sand, sea, sun, surf

vanish in the vortex

until

Read and leave comments (0)

You try to escape the demons

But they latch on way too tight,

Their claws digging into my body

And mind, with all their might.

Fighting is exhausting,

It physically and mentally drains.

But still I endure it, hoping

One day I will finally escape the pain.

Read and leave comments (2)

While mourning his daughter Tullia, Cicero took to writing a book of self-consolation. Thinking himself the inventor of this type of self-help, he said, “Why, I have done what no one has done before, tried to console myself by writing a book.” (This is quoted by Han Baltussen in the Nov. 2009 issue of Mortality in an essay titled, “A grief observed: Cicero on remembering Tullia.”)

I certainly d...

Read and leave comments (0)

Failed Pills
I took pills all my damn life to cure this and that
None of them ever fucking work
So I write about my ailments instead
The way only I can words on the page
Putting my ills into them to free me
Who am I blooody kidding eh?
Myself to give me some backbone
And MAN IT UP NICK!
But that doesn't change how I feel
Nor take way the illnesses that rest inside
Waiting to get me li...

Read and leave comments (2)

Too much was lost in silence

too long the time that winds

between our words of love and passion

with communion only in our minds

Too much assumed in union

of our two souls' mute desires

but I did not see her inmost needs

or hear how quietly pain suspires

I should have peeped inside

while she nightly dreamed in peace

to glimpse her mind's apparel

as it dan...

Read and leave comments (0)

words

            no man should know

            or say

words

            no child should hear:

            parent, pray

            to be spared.

as he sat with his sons at home

and struggled to find

words:

he knew

            she will never return to us

he knew

            she is too ill

In a time when she was strong

for them

as her body weake...

Read and leave comments (0)

Time stretched as she faded;

Lengthened, folded in on time

Extended, never ended.

Eternity must have seemed

An earthly hell

Peopled intermittently by friends:

A nightmare dream of pain and daemons

What superhuman will

Kept her through those summer months

What need, desire or wish

Held death's sad end at bay?

In the end, fading faded

Light left, sy...

Read and leave comments (1)

The shock was solid as a punch

That left me breathless, faint, unmanned;

So obviously lost that chair and water came

And it was I – so very briefly – nursed

Until my mind began to grasp the truth it had shunned.

How could I not have guessed or known

The woe, the pain, the destruction?

After all these many years, my failure to feel –

My hiding from the very possibility ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Sick

An illness is vicious

Any can be frightful from pneumonia to cancer

It’ll make all of your loved ones suspicious

Now the worst isn’t the goodbying

Losing your roar as your fire burns out is

Or never being able to kiss your beautiful wife once you’re dying

Smoking your last cigarette

Your lungs fill with smoke and doubt

Your chances of living are to those of Rus...

Read and leave comments (0)

The day that she was told that she would die
she did a big shop for the family
and made the kitchen smell of baking bread.
she labled and then ladled into pots
then all went in a freezer fit to burst-
as meals that they could eat when she was gone.
Then, going up into the children’s rooms
she took some time to sit upon each bed
and chancing on a scattered shirt or top
she held them close ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Eyes snapped shut in the street-facing bedroom

lit up by the light of the Spar

that floods it's white plastic windows

illuminating each passing car

In her curled up hands a faded old photo

crinkled,yellowing,torn,

but the hands,once so gentle,that hold this mementoe,

are as cold,are as granite, as stone

In came Sister with a meagre tea tray

barging in,past...

Read and leave comments (7)

All the faith carried in your soul
all the morphine lightening the load
they play a strange sad game
they lie in bleak dark ways

I listened to the doctor speak
while you read some ancient tome
and, yes, you know your body well
but pain isn’t the cause

This belief takes its small toll
the colour and the hope both drain away
defeatedly you feel you’re fading

But you’re not fading
y...

Read and leave comments (1)

She drags tired heels

across a tainted floor,

poise slightly bowed

and her back is sore.

She holds on her face

a cold marble stare,

a hard life engraved

upon cheeks once so fair.

Her faulting movements,

once graceful; divine,

her aching limbs now

with guile, defy

her final performance

on this dark empty stage,

memories fleeting

of a much better age...

Read and leave comments (0)

How brave, in reality, is a ‘brave face’?

A facade shared, it would seem,

by the majority of the human race.

Beneath the flaking paint of a painted mask

lies a truth too long and painful to explain

no matter how oft you care to ask.

How long before the cracks become too wide

to conceal with powders and creams

and the crimson smile starts to slide.

How long...

Read and leave comments (0)

As a new day dawns and I open my eyes

I look upon a world in painless surprise.

A smile creeps across my hopeful face

as I lie in bed, my comfy place.

A tentative move; a testing stretch but

then comes a cough and my face is etched

with pain, like a stalker in darkened streets

as I grudgingly rise to my unsteady feet.

Reaching to grab at the windowsill and

hold...

Read and leave comments (2)

Afraid Of The Dark

what you can’t see
cannot hurt you
ghouls and ghosts
things of the dark
things you don’t understand.
close your eyes go to sleep
think of happy things and places
let your mind move on
be at peace child

the thing that scratches at the window
you know it’s just a branch
the creak of a floorboard
late at night
a cold chill that drifts
through a warm house
the un...

Read and leave comments (6)

Simply Time

With Crystal Ball, I might have found

Some way to weave my way through time

Instead, I played without the rules

Did it my way throughout the schools

Meandered free from guides or maps

Ate my meals from plates on laps

Camped and rambled, cycled too

My only aim - my love for you

Single till I sang your song

Wed while we were still so youn...

Read and leave comments (0)