Lost Souls and Experience

Think sometimes how it would be
to live in anonymity.
Free from ties, and truth and lies
and wondering what friends
will think in the end


Pestilential fear, oh noisome rat!
Of tomorrow and after that
Not in life’s music but the refrain
we learn the hardest lessons as we gain
experience just after we really need it.
No matter how hard we try to keep it
we lose the hope and faith of youth,
trying to distinguish between fact and truth

***

Where are the souls that have never been?
Did they never exist because they were never seen?
Never been born, not fated to die,
never been loved or told a lie.
Not a me and not a you,
not a them, or even a ‘who?’


Never seen the sky or heard a song,
never been shouted at or told they’re wrong.
Never laughed or been made to cry
or ever asked the question ‘why?’
If life’s a game we win or lose,
would you play if you could choose?

A meditation, of sorts

Be still you wrestless, wretched mind
There’s a tight knot of something we both can’t describe
Be still and you’ll find we can leave it behind

Breathe in through your nose; feel the cold air
Don’t give up, don’t give in
Keep trying and you’ll get there

You’re young and the future might give rise to sorrow
So please, become your own friend
So you can cope with tomorrow

Hold the air in for three, think only of counting
Your heart rate will slow
And the fear will stop mounting

I’m sorry you feel this, all on your own
So much sadness and horror
Breathe it out, let it go

Psoriasis Sky

Dandruff world, all soft and white
you keep commuters
from their bed at night

Delicate flakes, cold and clear
land on eyelashes
make mascara tears

When white drops pretty and pure
make traffic slide
across concrete floor

then does that which caused a thud
stay quite so white
or run red with blood?

Soft pale stuff are all your sins
always forgiven
for beneath you is spring?

As kids create with cold hands
cocaine canons to
pelt at every man;

I know spring brings warmer days
but through all the snow
seems so far away

Sunday Afternoon

When sadness and anxiety
are pushing down on me,
and I am gasping for air
it seems so utterly unfair
because it makes no sense:
it only makes me tense.
I wish that people could know
this is more than feeling low.

This curse
is so much worse
than worry and despair,
a head of unwashed hair,
inertia and grey skies,
cries, sighs and wet eyes.
Because it’s all this and more
and I can’t find a cure

***

It is:

Every mistake I’ve made
remembered and replayed;
every person who disliked me
behind the eyes of all I see;
guilt of the very worst kind
tormenting my tired mind;
everything in the world so bad
invading all my thoughts so sad.

At its best it is vile
making everything futile.
At its worst can make me begin
to want to claw off my own skin
as sheer panic of existence
wears down my resistance,
and terror, shame and sorrow
make me fearful of tomorrow.

I feel defined by angst and fear,
failure and pain so severe
I want to die; instead I cry,
yet when someone asks me why,
‘I’m tired’ I say, ‘just tired today.’
And they shake their heads and walk away,
imagining with some disdain
that I’m just sad about the rain

‘She’s melancholy- what a bore!
She wants to count her blessings more.’
If they only understood
I know I should, I wish I could
make my stupid brain behave.
These thoughts to which it is a slave
being impossible to explain
are forever labelled as ‘insane’

And yet this word
is so absurd:
too interesting, too ‘Jane Eyre’,
too Hollywood to describe despair,
isolation, guilt, and grief
anxiety, my mind’s cruel thief!
mental torture, thought’s recession
this is what they call ‘depression’

Birdsong

As the lights go off
my mind turns on
and the day’s fatigue
is suddenly gone.
My eyes feel sore,
my limbs wilt like flowers,
but I lie wide awake
counting the hours.
Tick Tock. Rustle. Creak
I think thoughts
I’ll never speak
Did I turn my phone off?
What will I eat tomorrow?
Will he return the DVD
That I let him borrow?

My head aches,
the thoughts go round
interrupted, at last, by sound.
Lying helpless in my bed
I realise night is gone
as I hear the noise I dread:
morning’s first birdsong.
Through the curtain I see
an early ray of light
I want to howl as I lament
another sleepless night.

Confessions

I like the glugg glugg of red wine being poured,
the clipp clopp of the boots that I couldn't afford,
the smell of cigars on men's winter jackets,
eating handfuls of Ricicles straight from the packet.

I sleep in the sun with no sunscreen on
and buy slimming tablets though I know they're a con,
don't iron my clothes and I drink juice from the carton.
I've got no savings and I like Dolly Parton

I spend time on Facebook but don't finish Persuasion,
eat too much salt and I smoke on occasion,
messed up my finals because I didn't revise,
whinge to my mum but don't take her advice,

don't practice the piano though I said I would,
never go running though I really should.
I hate seeing the Doctor and watching the news
and I buy a new handbag when I have the blues.

I get really cross about things that aren't fair
and worry so much that I pull out my hair.
I can't get to sleep and then I can't wake up,
I blow dry my hair and I wear lots of makeup.

I get disillusioned with daily drudge.
I don't lose my temper but I can hold a grudge.
I listen to music which I know makes me cry
and often exaggerate, though I rarely lie

I use the hard sponge on pans that are non-stick
and confess all my sins even though I'm not Catholic.
I criticise colleagues when they are shirking
then write silly poems when I should be working.

The Window

Look not through the window
at the view that you see
The view may be lovely
but the window is me