No Exit

Step by step you walk through the door And into the impenetrable dark Your lantern illuminates little more Than a patch of wall, a stretch of floor Impressions only, no clear view Of where you are The noise of your footsteps is muffled They seem so loud with no other sound But your shallow, fearful…

The Form of You

Sweep up the pieces Make sure you get them all Use a good, solid glue Now comes the tricky bit Piece by piece Bleeding sliver by aching shard Begin your reconstruction Assemble again the form of you Defy fear and disregard despair Doggedly work on your renaissance Don’t think about how you’ve been here before…

The Last Few Steps

Ascending the rainbow stair Climbing the colours of sunrise Up on high, stretching to heaven I’m nearly there Even the birds can’t reach me When I walk the path of the clouds Riding the current of the whirling world Silence will greet me Saying goodbye to the earth Turning my face to the sky The…

Motley

A motley ghost A stitched together spectre Pieces of lives from long ago Walking the hallways Wailing down the staircases Clank a chain or two in the cellar Is it man or woman Wronged wife, murdered child Head of the house slain in battle Prisoner starved to death It is all of these Shreds of…

A Story of Creation

A story written in the patterns of the air Following the wind’s road in all its winding Over cloud and under star Looping back on itself and starting again A story scratched in earth and stone Following the winding of water and root Over rock and under soil Renewing and starting over again This is…

The Masks of Forgetting

Time passes and the world keeps moving Moving on without those we’ve lost We are shattered pieces on the floor But no one remembers Life will not wait for our pain And so, we pick ourselves up and pretend To those around us, to ourselves We place on our faces the masks of forgetting To…

The Party’s Over

They’ve all gone now Their presence just the echo of laughter in an empty room And wisps of music fading just out of hearing Streamers dangle limply from the walls Empty bottles and glasses line the table, roll on the floor I guess the party’s over After the hangover, after the cleanup What was it…

The Forest

Green becomes gold in filtered light Sunbeams and shadows jostle for space Restless leaves toss and turn As the insomniac breeze wanders through and through Last call for the birds Returning to home and roost with sleepy twitters While night-shift workers emerge from nests and burrows Ready to start their day Gold fades to black…

Synaesthesia

At the end of things We are all alone It’s impossible to truly share Experience with each other No one will ever understand How we view the world So we can only see/hear/taste for ourselves A synaesthesia of song/colour/flavour Remembering our perception is unique There has never been anyone like us Nor ever will be…

Colouring

Make it neat The right colours for the right pictures Stay inside the lines, don’t make a mess! Children know, they get it They splash the page with exuberance Green sky and blue trees Bright yellow grass under a purple sun Because why not? And lines, well, they’re just guidelines, right? Like a child colouring…