Darker Days

You were my dearest friend
How could you fail to know
I'd bottled your sadness
To go the distance with my memories
Assisted when I'd etch out your ways,
Recorded your nightmares,
Sketched your darker days,
Within my mind, longing to find
A time when we could set them free

So have you learnt a better day?
I'd scripted it just for you...
Through the long and fervent hours
I'd devour imagined prosperous times
Filled with health and happiness
Fiction set to become greater than true
But now I need to know my friend...
Will you play your part too?

I've never known a person well who hasn't had a darker day. These poems are predominantly inspired by those around me who have experienced perhaps a few too many darker days. I don't even know whether their world is as bleak as it used to be. I hope not.

Unfortunately I have had many a friend succumb to drugs and promiscuity in the past. I have known much unrelated suffering myself. I can pick suffering a mile away now.

Sometimes it only takes but a simple small sign to inspire a thoughtful poem...

Cold and dark
and You
Too true
The history
a mystery
Was he Elvis reincarnated?
James Dean with out his flesh?
An enigma;
Gatsby all alone
Contemplating his last
moments of time
I never knew them
but I tried to learn
Shared their shoes
Walked their blues
Or was it just my father
Whom I knew forever less?
I'd hazard a guess
but for the pain.

|~| Troubled? |~| No Fixed Location |~| I'm Scared |~|Just Holding On |~| The Making of Yet Another Help All But Self Victim |~| The Muddied Sky |~| Your Death |~| Accidental Anger |~| Dissolved Courage |~| The Poison |~| Unforgivable |~| Unlearning & Forever Indiscerning |~| Again |~| My Father the Man in the Moon |~| Dealing |~| Untitled |~|

With worry lines running deep
To furrow your never-ironed brow
With in built ultra-sensitive trouble radar
Catching problems and not prosperity
With just one line, hour after hour
He can hook you all with the wrong reasoning
Self-satisfying, materialistically pleasing
But when it's gone along with the world what will be left?
Look past that which sparkles with superficial lustre
Yet is dull within
To that which lights with truth
Guiding further than possession to true peace and passion
Having concepts other than gain
Remember that your treasure may not appear as its true worth.

|~|

Lost and wandering
Are you waiting for a ride back home?
But not knowing the address
For you've no fixed location
No settlement in mind
You'll always be running, checking out
Because stillness is too confronting a find
You own only wrong doings
But we'll always have you back
Along with your frowns to freeze the warmest sea
Weary worry lines stretching like the latitudes
Across your global nomad head
Plate tectonics etched and grinding in your mind
Remember the words your wise mother said
She spoke sensibility to grey the black and white
That he screamed that night and always,
Spitting and erupting his torrents of pain and spite
He's now dead and buried
But you're still here … there
Floating, dislocated
Please come on home
Where you belong
You've been away from those who love you
For far too many long years gone.

|~|

You must sense that
I'm terrified
You must surely smell the swell
Of fear in my mind
Leeching its awful breath
From my world
And into your arms
With the endless flow of years
Pouring out the petrified regret
The fossilised remains
Of dreams
That seem so old
Now newly changed
As fast as a diagnosis
Of death
Fades the essence of life
As quick as
Your future wife
Turns to dust
I entrust
My lost years
To yours yet to be
Please my love
Promise you'll always remember me.

|~|

Slats in my mind: shutters always opening, never closing
Yielding countless sleepless nights
Without even the familiar, comforting sheep
Of other unchosen insomniacs' device
I must suffice with
Supersonic props in my eyelids
Electronic sensors in my sleepiness radar
To curb the curve of the tell-tale eye-lid droop
Bullets of determination rip through night silence,
Shattering the still of too many cosy thoughts
Of quitting to yield to the easy life
Of knitting long eventful moments
Rather than perpetually catching chaos and pain
For a hopeful one day dream
That more often that not seems
More than a life-time out of reach ....
Beseech the will-power to remain strong
To recreate earnest smiles to reassure their needs
To hoist that fantasy mask a little higher in defiance....
But at least you should know, the terror that lies beneath

|~|

This poem is about my life as a student with a disability. Sometimes it all seems much too hard and I wonder what for? I come so close to quitting on a daily basis. I'm sure that revelation would scare a lot of people around me! If I didn't want to have kids in the future I would just be content to live on a very low income, working in what ever capacity I am capable and continuing to do what I enjoy best -- writing average poetry and painting/drawing. BUT I know I have responsibilities and must get through this Masters. The how with so much pain is the question. I don't seem to have found a particularly suitable answer yet aside from doing things slowly with much sleep deprivation and pain-killers!

So tell me what's the prize?
The ability to sort
Truth from lies
To harness runaway wrongs
And then tame their evil ways
To light-bulb the dungeon stairs
And break-in better days
Change a circle to a line
Set a path to something better than fine
And what about my life? My happiness? My joy?
When can I capture the time
To make pleasure a reality of mine?

(Ownership of life --
Are we born with this free-growing prosperity vine
Flowing richly with the red juice of being?
Or are we granted it within weary others' time.)

|~|

Looking through the window
To the muddied sky
Nothing is clear
And nothing seeks to meet the eye
To reveal its past or future
Just stuck in limbo land
To eventually disband
And stand alone forever more
Washing perpetually up onto the forbidden shore
Wave after wave
Even after signalling a final good-bye
I'm still in a deathless grave
Staring into the muddied sky
As my feet sink further into the invisible quick-sand
Dragging me deep down below
And suddenly I finally know
This is not the place that my soul needs to go.

|~|

Close my eyes,
Chance to dream by night
Yet sleep to toll,
Reminding me of your unrest
Through pessimism’s plight
Name plucking by random,
Calling your fate
Through broken promises
Shattered dreams patiently await
A reality even more distasteful
Of what you had become
A someone
Both you
And I eventually wept to forget

In dreams by day
A fantasy world that is far away
Recklessly confounded
Eternally hounded
By the truth nearer to home
Those tragic events that took place along my ghostly road,
Leaving an even more lonesome spirit to roam,
In death and through incurable denial,
Both of us forever helplessly bound
To be alone.

|~|

Tearing up the bitumen
with a vehicle fasted for years.
Wound up --
to grind this way and that,
then sky beneath feet.
Eyes encased in metal shards,
teardrops of glass falling all around
and whispers of death to mask the sound
of sirens long into the night ...
And the next
And ever more.
The knock on an uninviting door
echoing too many times through the recesses
of a weary mind.
And will the pain ever leave
the good memories behind?
Delicate rose petals fragranced sweetly forever -- dried, crumpled and floated too easily away,
too young, too soon.
Major deviation from a should-have path
with a wrong turn in a road of being ...
To leave a lonely forever aftermath,
with the lights ablated to yield
only black.
I'd give any thing
to have your radiant love and life back ...

I'd give anything to have my own, before-that-night life back.

|~|

For Lia W. & her dear friends who have never recovered from the disastrous events of the one night that they never expected would impact forever, where 'I ' implies the thoughts and suffering of those who still can't come to terms with the three and a half year old loss.

Sleepy eyes
The tears she cries
Swollen and red
Choking instead
of breathing in calm
ignoring his residual charm
banishing his being
She knows she should never again see him
Where's the courage she needs
to carry out the good-bye forever deeds?

|~|

As the hours cease to count
Eyes only reflect dull light
As a corpse-like reminder
Of one person's poison
Consumed through out a solitary night
Whilst all around the music rages with swell and surge
Sweet fragrances well prepared
Close bodies with the urge
Wanting smiles
Then sick and churn
Rise and burn
Misdirected passions turned sour
At too early an awkward hour
Now cold and alone
Comforting thoughts only of a warm home
And where are they now?
Do they really care for more than what they can take
For how long ... and how?
Poisonous fluid
Blood red
These creatures will bleed you for their gain
Until you are long past dead

|~|

Stuffiness in my soul,
Venting time and love,
Ebbing to then float on by
Snagged on a sigh,
In remiss of your kiss.
A song of what will go wrong,
A player by day and night
Compromising better judgement
Confounding perceived plight

Regret to wake
But scared to sleep

Living randomly expires
So present actions
May impact on what transpires
Tomorrow and therefore possibly ever more

Yet to forgive you, of that,
What for?

|~|

How many times have you been here?
Too many?
Not enough?
To know better would be too simple
Lavishly pleasing
And embellishing upon relief
But instead fence-sitting of a tease
Rocking back and forth
This creaking way and then that creaking way
All around grinding in despair
Knotted and contorted with pain
Confused yet mechanically bemused
A mouse-wheel around and around
And never touching the solid ground
Just daintily, tentatively dipping your toes
Is it cold or luke-warm down there?
We know where it began but when and where this charade stops
Nobody but yourself knows.

|~|

This is an edited version of part of a poem that I first wrote in 1995 about an issue which too many women still must endure in silence. This section is about the recommencement of owning one's life.

(Part of Part II. follows...)

I'll river the past, with strength to flow with the never,
subsiding rush downstream.
Knowledge; yes I do know better than to ever,
battle upstream again.
I can't fix the past, can't fear and avoid,
The world, the future, just in case it's null and void.
I'll take control, won't flip the coin for inspiration and guidance.
I'll stop looking to others for answers I already know,
I'll trust myself, and take time instead to learn and to grow.
I could read every book, transverse every land,
Read the palm of every stranger's hand.
I could be any thing I wanted, achieve every goal ever set,
Touch the stars, claim the heavens,
and yet,
I still wouldn't know why?
The hardest lesson learnt, to let the question with no answer pass unattended by ... bye.

|~|

My father the man in the moon,
Not intending to succumb to Earth any time soon,
Head in the clouds,
Always too proud
Unconquerable, your love unreachable,
Stretch and strain to accommodate your whims,
Malleable daughter of the most promising kind,
Incompetencies, failures, an unexpected find,
A mere mortal borne of
An infallible super-hero
Home demon with the street angel disguise
None of your fans have ears to hear my cries
Entrapped by your persistent light,
Never resolving the truth,
Beating wings ceaselessly in spiralling flight,
Upon your demand
To fulfil every perilous command.

Man in the moon, will I ever see your face again?
I wonder of you now and then
Of how you have aged with lines carved from long tears,
The pain of lost daughter years?
The reality of facing denied fears
In a world spinning recklessly beyond your control,
Of which you can only look down upon in shame,
Continue your misinformed commentary of everyone's wrongs,
Whilst you remain unworthy of blame?
Righteously deny my name.
With justification?
Of how we'd let you suffer?

And what of your evil provocation?
That sent your family fleeing by the cover of day,
Leaving behind only the tattered and lonely remains
Of your twisted mind games.
Now devoid of players,
Are you left perplexed?
Whose sights,
Whose dreams,
Whose soul,
Will you capture next?

|~|

A plague of brain-tissue locusts
        came preying today,
To desiccate my memory space
            to take my pain away,
    Stole the good memories tainted with the bad,
             history consumed,
                Too impure to be rescued,
                    my past violated,
                    my future seemingly doomed.

A frightful ghost stirred,
    stepped forth without asking to be received,
Clanging his keys eagerly,
    and wandering uninvited
        through out my creaking, twisted mind,
Came to rest at heavy doors, standing blind,
Challenging me with threats to unbolt the past
      to any amount of horrors that we may expect to find.

A sickening laugh of the mad to contemplate upon,
Was it he
        or me
            or a memory
    of times seemingly recent but longer gone?
Paused to ponder whether better to leave the doors locked for an eternity,
Or opened wide to greet a rush of unknown but imagined adversity.

Which doors? How many to open at once?
    Too much noise, grating, screaming, tirelessly, until I cannot hear...
        Anything but everything,
            Too much to fear
A life of disdain,
Seemingly uncontrollable
Suicidal suffering.
Inconsolable.

|~|

Here you see:
These are the lonely pieces of me
Faded, creased and worn
Though hardly ever recovered from the depths
For use or abuse
Scrawling ink perfected for you
Now mere faded memories of better days
In a chocolate box of odds and ends
Treats of fantasies a world away
I could be any one
You'd wanted to meet
Any flavour of the month
Any colour you'd wished to see
In this world and beyond
If only he wouldn't post me away again today
In that old envelope
They had handed him those photos in
Too sorry, too long ago
But now it's the only one I'll ever know

|~|

When 14 Was Old

My cupboard was lavished
With expensive new wood
A treat for my new world
A much better proposition
They said, than you

The walnut stain curls the
Tiny little hairs hidden in their nostril beds
To raise their heads momentarily
In recognition of a familiar smell
Sending signals to tell neurons
To remember you

And alike the smell
of the stale mothballs within
They keep the old renewed
For my eyes; within my heart
Drumming the solitary but poignant
loss of you

The shirt hangs
from its equally dusty hanger
Like an aeroplane wondering
When it shall find its wings
Today brings the time
To refind those old ways --
It's checkered black and grey
Flannelette was cool back then*
But as it happened
it was only a fashion for too few
The life-style of the wanton night
Veins throbbing with fright of greed
Told your of your need

Once encapsulated with laughter
This material now captures run away tears
Soaking up the salt of yesteryears...

When 14 was old.

---
*We used to refer to these shirts as "druggie shirts". It was seemingly just a fashion trend to me at the time but I failed to realise how many of my friends were actually delving into heavy drugs. I'm amazed at how it was too easy to hide from me for too long.

|~|

This is my book
I purchased it at the down-town market
From the lady in row ten who has the beady eyes
Of a snake in disguise
Decorated with goods and treats
Ladening the streets with enticing worth
As the siren lulls its final victim
Did she know my intent?

This is my story
I'll write it how it is
Not how it should be
How he made it
However sad it may seem
For me... or for him
Depending on who you may be or know or see
The end may not be satisfactory
There is no substance of gloss
No gold to be told of
Just a bitter woman
Dusted with the dull ash of loss
And the truth of revenge
To ruthlessly divulge
The conscience of none
As justice is finally done.

|~|

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