Poem for your thoughts

Strings.

A twinkle on a guitar

Like strumming on a star.

My giant.

Talks like he has the whole universe

In his hands.

I don’t understand,

I say it’s perverse

To allow yourself that much power.

I cower at the thought.

Swallow and blink

And think.

Perhaps such an ambitious vein

Is not for me.  It’s insane to see

A lion with a mouse,

Together, playing house,

Like one won’t eat the other,

Like the other won’t run for cover;

And then the arguments start.

Affairs of the heart.

My career.  My deaf ear.

I live in fear of the music.

My darling he says, “You have to use it.”

So one day, I did.

I took that guitar and abused it.

Smash. 

Up against a red brick wall.

Swallow and blink,

That made him think.

The last note strung out

Of tune

And he laughed.

Amused.

“Let’s get some perspective, shall we?”

And confused,

I followed him one last beautiful time

To the end of the Earth

Where he said, “Well darling,

This is my stop.”

And jumped off.

Sweet melodies did he take

In his wake

And singing, did he make

My heart break.

Just like the first time.

T.S Eliot, The Waste Land.

Analysing T.S Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, turned to regurgitating his clever words into a poem of my own.  He’s busy taking ideas from Greek mythology and Shakespeare so I saw no harm.  And besides, what better way to procrastinate?

A friend of the dead land
My heart was thriving on memory
And desire.  But I…
Had grown forgetful. Regretful.
Had I failed?
I wailed in the silence
of the ever darkening doors:
I knew nothing for sure.

(T.S Eliot, The Waste Land. Lines 1-6 and 38-40) 

Proper English Cider

Pee the colour of green tea you and me baby, this is forever.

Stumble, fall, giggle, dignity - you and me baby, let’s fight,

Because right now is nothing to do with ten minutes away.

On the street in bare feet you’re sweet saying, darling,

“You’re drunk.

Let’s just go home.”

And I push you I shove you I kiss you and I

Stumble, fall, giggle, dignity - you and me baby let’s fight,

Because there is absolutely no reason why we should.

You hold me and scold me because you told me,

“You’re drunk.

Let’s just go home.”

And it’s the morning I’m bawling and calling you and I

Stumble, wail, fall, dignity - you and me baby, let’s fight,

Because you “love me too much to see me like this.”

Over the phone. I should have known by your tone when you said,

“You’re drunk.

Let’s just go home”

That I’d taken it too far but you and me baby, this is forever.

Stumble, wail, fall, dignity - you and me baby, no more fights,

Because I refuse to change what I do just for you.

But who’ll hold me and scold me because they’ve told me,

“You’re drunk.

Let’s just go home”

…If not you?

Granddad.

I just can’t write anything

That sounds like you.

I can’t say anything

That rings honest and true,

Other than,

“We all loved you”

 - But the tense is all wrong.

It’s like the words of a song

Sung to a beat that is long

Since gone.

My darling Granddad.

Whose voice I play in my head for the joy

That I still hear it.

Whose kiss I remember on my cheek and smile

Because I still feel it.

Whose presence I imagine in a room and grin

Because I still see it.

Whose gentle, loving embrace I yearn for

Because I still need it.

And which nothing can replace.

So here I will write something

That is just for you.

Now I will say something

I hope you already knew.

It is simply,

“We all love you”

 - Future, present and past.

Our time with you was gone too fast,

But the memory of you will last

Forever.

A moment of melancholia for my lovely Granddad.  Eighty-nine years the world was blessed with his presence, I wish I’d known him for more than just twenty-one of them. 

Dusk.

Light Blue.

It’s a cleansing thought

To know that I fought -

Blue.

With all that I’ve been taught

To keep what I sought –

Navy.

And I ought

Never to have lost so I pulled taut –

Ink.

The strings of the sort

Of love I didn’t expect to be brought –

Black.

To nought.

I sat for a while at the desk in my new bedroom and thought a thousand things, all the while the sky got darker and darker and my thoughts got lighter and lighter as I put pen to paper.

Silence the Silence.

The first line is inspired by the sound of keys clinking back onto their hook in the kitchen, heard from my seat of solitude on the sofa.  The rest is up to you.

A clinking of keys

Eases the noise in my ears.

Distracted by the light

In your homecoming,

I miss my cue.

I kiss you, I hold you, I cry at your side

In my mind a million times –

“Baby, where’s the love?

Dreaming again – sweet girl.”

I run,

Like I’m catching a shadow

Or chasing yours

And in this moment,

Like so many before,

I am not sure you’ve been alone.

“working late, company’s in a state, I had to stay,”

what’s her name-

“what’s her name?”

You’re still in my hands,

In time and in space.

They’re wrong when they say

The thrill’s in the chase.

Is it too much to ask

To love an honest face?

Silence this silence,

Lying lover of mine:

How many lovers

Have you lain beside?

Five.

And that’s just this week.

I bite the smirk off your cheek,

Replace it with blood,

Push your shirt out in the mud

And I spit

And I close the door.

But we both know, darling,

That I’m still all yours.