Tag Archives: poetry from Bootle.

Whisper!

It is the whisper of uncertainty that growls

softly next to my ear and throws punches that strike

between my ribcage and pummels the heart

over and over again. The shouts of derision

of the fear and loathing in the back of my mind,

whispering slowly, the crescendo damning with faint praise

and the suffering of the crested rejection never far behind

the swell of the tsunami breaking itself apart

on the polystyrene rock of my thoughts;

the erosion of Time left ever scared on my scared

and fractious mind.

Whisper! full post

(409 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Rose Coloured Telescope.

I find myself more drawn to the past

than I have found myself in decades.

The rose coloured telescope pinpointing with

alarming accuracy what I already knew

but was too deaf, to blind and stupid

to understand what could have been

if I’d had the courage to stay and not move

on once more.

 

The past, the illusion of fine weather days,

of fresh country air filling my lungs

and cleansing the stuffy headed inoculation

first given to me in a needle fit to burst

Rose Coloured Telescope. full post

(178 words, estimated 43 secs reading time)

In Darkness, My Friend.

The darkness of the night crowds in

and I’m left alone with grinning spectres

plaguing my twilight hours and my uncomfortable state

of mind, fragile, insistent, running so fast

that smoke billows out and only one idea in a million

sees the dawn and breathes deeply

at surviving

another unseen, obscure dusk.

 

I want to scream, so drawn to the darkness

that envelopes me, that barely a whisper of mortal love

for the shadows and the fog crosses my cracked open mouth

and the declaration of irresistible devotion

In Darkness, My Friend. full post

(267 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

The Gesture.

It was a small gesture of friendship

in which she decided to put into a clear shot glass

that was once filled to the brim, slightly on edge,

with the taste of Old Balvenie and which now

housed two small remnants of pavement grown

flowers, one opened and with its petals drooping

as it reflects the sunlight;

the other closed, frightened, lost and alone

as it remembers what it was to be a wall flower.

 

The taste of ozone hits the Waterloo and Crosby air

and the flowers take different paths,

The Gesture. full post

(183 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

A Summer’s Day On Holy Corner.

The sound of a gentle drum beat fills

the crossroads of Holy Corner as the onlookers,

buoyed by the return of a yellow ball of fire

and source of much anticipation of what it will mean

to the rest of the year, are amused to see one man dressed

in a sponge outfit and one looking like a badly drawn

rat square off against each other over pitch and punter

and the sound of fight, fight, fight, is overheard

under the breath of a radical student believing in secret

A Summer’s Day On Holy Corner. full post

(486 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

A Thirty Year Heart.

Nothing had changed save for the faces

being a little older than what I was prepared for,

nothing was different except the for the skyline

having been hijacked by a view that was out of place

and nothing had altered at all,

except for my perception of a world I hadn’t seen in three decades.

 

I looked around me and what I had left behind

and the sweat ran down my forehead, blistering

as it mixed with tears of regret, kept hidden

and just what might have been had I the courage to say no,

A Thirty Year Heart. full post

(248 words, estimated 1:0 mins reading time)

The Inappropriate Husband.

I may not have been the most ideal husband

that you could have had, baggage

galore and the wandering lust of the insecure,

not content in boredom and one who finds

it near impossible to dance. Married once before,

turned down twice more and the ignominy

of walking away from an Hispanic woman

who offered me the world, pompous at times

and stubborn as Hell when it comes to backing down

and the worry I have caused as I continue

to break down piece by piece by infuriating

The Inappropriate Husband. full post

(334 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

Dust Marks

…Yes, of course it wears you down.

It grinds away at you till at some point you forget

to breathe, you forget that there is more than one

emotion possible and you have to force yourself to grin

like one of humanity’s D.N.A. sharers and

spark life into your soul by doing something stupid,

in other people’s eyes, because you’re in danger

of letting go, and there is no one around to catch you

because they have no idea you’re going to fall.

 

Perhaps it’s not that life is to be lived

Dust Marks full post

(160 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Weakness.

The arms around me are so close

and I can smell the delicate squirt of perfume

that lingers around you as you invite me

to remain the fifteen year old boy

who was in love with you

and who thirty years later still crumbles

and goes weak at the knees when I think of love

as pure deliverance and a teenage angst poem

dedicated to you, unseen

hidden in the pages of a diary in which your name

appears scrawled over and over again.

 

With our youth all around us,

Weakness. full post

(159 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Selfless Junius.

May’s beauty is at end

but this is not the end of the year’s story

for as she wraps the string of pearls given

to her by Jupiter’s wife

in recognition for accepting what Tiresias could never

in either guise deliver, Junius’ further accession

to the pride of womanhood is to name herself

Queen of the northern isle again.

 

Her sister in the South is restless and blows hard

to turn the world on its axis, the diametric twins

of Junius and December

at odds with each behind

Selfless Junius. full post

(479 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)