I wish that I was born a thousand years ago. I wish that I’d sailed the darkened seas. On a great big clipper ship. Going from this land here to that — Lou Reed ‘Heroin’

https://www.calaverasarts.org/blog/art-of-our-ancestors-competition-winners

Today tears cloud the inside of my eyes
my view is metamorphosed into a blankness
that pervades my waking hours, retreats only
in sleep.
Mood affects an autistic demeanour that spits at me,
then leaps into a confrontation with my quieter self;
my wealth is in these words that tear me open
like russian dolls discarded, hiding layers of the self,
revealing a tangled mass of contradictory
intentions, inflections, dissonances that chime
right back through the DNA of Viking, Saxon, Celt.
This rhyming mind of mine filled to the brim 
with all their savage wisdom, their dying consolation.
Lacking their brutal dignity, I press on along
this long and false road of quiet conciliation.

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