Tag Archives: poetry from Liverpool

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)

They Use A Different Word.

It is almost as if scientists have discovered

a new subsection of Humanity

that never appeared in the growing pains

of the species between ape and man.

The new hailing stone of enlightenment

and information which comes our way via the mass

media in which the modern discovery was made

suggests that this scientific breathing wonder

that eats, sleeps, makes love and has the capacity

for great artistic endeavour

they found

crossing the seas in search of life

should not exist

and yet as they die in their hundreds,

They Use A Different Word. full post

(151 words, estimated 36 secs 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)

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)

Sharks.

I ignore it because I have to

for if I don’t the end

might truly come quicker

and I’m not yet prepared to meet my maker and look

Her in the eye and have the smile of contempt and withering

look of told you come my way.

 

I’m not prepared to meet Her because you don’t deserve

the honour of being the one to finish me off,

too make this pain in my chest, which I refuse

to believe is anything but my heart shouting abuse

Sharks. full post

(283 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

The Healer.

What do you do when Time has neglected to inform

that there has been an ache in your heart

which you never realised existed till the pain

hits you square in the jaw and rips your guts apart?

You can but smile and flash a grin, because you mean that emotion,

you revel in the mysterious and the unanswered question

for a short while until

Time has a habit of making you nod and securing a truthful exit

as you realise that deep down gnawing at your soul,

The Healer. full post

(287 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Going Home

The room is silent

but I cannot help but hear the sound

of Billy Joel extolling the virtue of keeping faith,

the Piano Man with the tender voice that packed

several punches with each octave and tremble

on his lips, implores me to listen to the sound

of nothing there at all.

 

I head towards a home, one of many I have had

but one in which I didn’t appreciate till

I had been there a couple of years and the argument

I had one winter’s evening still pains me to recall.

Going Home full post

(368 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)