It’s been a while
Since I felt the pull
Of an empty page
My callous has softened
The ink-stain dulled
To a faded bruise
As if this were not
A tattoo
Of my own design
The leaking pen
And over-tight grip
Leftovers from childhood training
As emotions spill out
Between the lines
To blur their way
Toward the clarity of words
Where thoughts begin to take shape
And letters form
Exposing my inner turmoil
With the cool logic
Of too many cups of coffee
Too little sleep
And an over-abundance of sugared memory
I return to the paper and pen
A criminal haunting
The same scenes
Scribbled by heart
Until I am cleansed
And nothing
Not the rain in August
Nor my endless nostalgia
Can keep me down.
empty
A secular paradigm
Let me not feel more than may be borne
For others’ troubles, cares and strife.
I am too young to be thus forlorn,
Too old to hope; to love; to wife.
Give me but coin, my span on Earth
And lend me not another’s fear;
(I’ve precious little left of worth
Still less to broker bargains here).
I promise, but to do my best
And nothing more may take from me
Those greedy souls, whose “Fie!” on rest
Would wrest what time I, false, term ‘free’.
I cannot speak, but as I find
All else would be as empty air
What use, my hand, my heart, or mind
When weighed against such meaty fare?
And fair or foul as all may be
At moments suited to their mood
I can no more deceive than see
Through blackest darkness; I’ll be good.
Stream of Unconsciousness
Sitting in the passenger seat
Watching you drive my car,
Drive me, to places I’ve not been.
Foreign, fresh territory,
Countryside-open or big-city-closed;
I watch the people pass, with strange faces,
Search through the streets
Looking for something. What?
An ending, a beginning?
An answer to the unaskable?
My mind wanders, I lose the map.
I close my eyes and sit back,
Comforted by the mindless noise
Of a badly-tuned radio;
The buzzing static in tune
With the humming void between my ears.
Keys to the kingdom
The inner world I know so well
Yet not at all, tho’ there I dwell
Has many paths, I skip or run,
Or crawl in terrors and in fun.
The sky can change from grey to green
And back again though I may dream.
This landscape meets my every need
Though horrors I may seek indeed.
I find therein, my peace, my all,
Yet nothing’s really there at all.
My kingdom fair in my mind’s eye
Can make me laugh and make me cry.
It heals me of my passing woe,
And changes my opinion, though
I rarely see, within those lands,
A single evidence of man.
Fanning the flames
Time and again I tell myself
‘You would do better on the shelf’
For saucy romp where once was lust
Is hard where one finds now but rust.
I feel for you what should be felt,
I try to force my heart to melt,
But finding love where there is none
But brotherly, is less than fun.
Thou wooest me, thou plead’st thy case,
And lie with me, I know thy face
But yearn for one of old, Alas!
A Jack who is ne’er coming back.
So here we sit, in comfort sure,
But stale and dry, and not of yore.
And hence I know mine enemy,
Greatest of all: my memory.
To fight a foe within my mind
Is quite a chore I now do find.
But choose I did, and choosing well
Have thus consigned myself to dwell
Within a hell of my heart fashion’d,
Barren life, lacklustre passion.
You, my love, with whom I live,
I gave myself, I must forgive.
For loving me is all your crime,
Not knowing lust from love was mine.
Katherine Shirley 