Pendulum (a poem about hope)

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What I’m trying to say with this poem is that hope exists in different ways. We talk about having high hopes, and low hopes but what does that really mean?

If hopes are low, what is there to look forward to? If hopes are high, potentially there is something great on the horizon. Hope, intrinsically is not a statement of promise or achievement. It is a wishful word and one that keeps us dreaming. Whether those dreams feel reachable or impossible, can depend on which state of hope you are experiencing!

With that being said and pondered openly, I hope you all have a wonderful day!

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Left.

Starting high,
the centre is a drop.
Right and up to expectation,
before falling
back again.

Hope.

I suppose,
is a pendulum.
Controlling time as it
swings left and
back to right.

Daybreak.

Until night
falls and when
12 hits 12 chimes call,
refreshed facing
new days.

Stop.

But it’s
Never stopping,
It re-begins, repeats again
gently sways my friends
I suppose

Night,

is dark.
And it’s easier to
reflect with low hopes
from a day that
felt hopeless.

Hope,

alternates but,
the alternative is
far worse for if we stick
to just high hopes,
nothing is

Right.

Buddleia (a poem about knowledge)

My heart is becoming a buddleia.
Irresistible to butterflies and bees.
Each coloured flutter carries its own allures
irresistible indeed, each to me.
Choosing to follow just one creature
would be to fall into a linear trap.
I’d rather have my branches bent,
observe them all at once, and adapt.
There are too many beautiful distractions,
to be fixated solely on one.
And I wonder if that’s where my troubles stem,
I enthuse too wildly for roots to run.
Oh but I’d rather flower in a thousand directions,
and overshadow the pot plants next door,
than be groomed into uniform topiary,
splendid presently, remembered never more.

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Curiously, perhaps even dangerously, I have (for as long as I can remember) been interested in absolutely everything…at least to some degree. Perhaps this is a thirst which is instilled in every one of us over time, as our complex developing brains take in more of the great world we inhabit.

Why buddleia? Well, buddleia is a plant that fascinated me as a child. I’d watch the many different species of butterfly flocking to the giant plant in my garden, and observe them tasting the nectar from each tiny purple flower. At the time, and even now I find this natural phenomenon to be magical in its splendour. And, metaphorically akin to the buddleia plant, I leave my mind open to as many visitors as possible, some may flutter away as time goes by, but the newcomers always bring more pollen with them!

Have a beautiful and thoughtful day whatever it is you are up to, and wherever you are!

Towers

We come back to this,
home, but not a place that I’d miss.
Merely the shelter in which we exist
but, it’s a starting point I suppose…I insist,
And once you get past the graffiti and hallway piss
the boarded up doors and stench of stale spliff,
there’s 3 flights of stairs up to demi heaven, that’s the twist.
In our mouldy sanctuary, a hideaway where we kiss,
where I return with my monthly pittance, and you write your thesis.
I’ll gain experience through mind-numbing shifts,
and you “just keep swimming” my brave little fish,
so we can move far far away my love, and I promise…
We’ll never, never have to, come back to this.

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Home is where your heart is, and if your heart is elsewhere you’d better find a way to follow it!

For R.A. (A specular / mirror poem)

You were everything to me,
at 15, I could’ve had no finer inspiration
and so I suffered deep that separation.
That illness took you so gradually.
You fought through so many operations, but
concealed any deterioration.
A soldier to the end unquestionably, you.

A soldier to the end unquestionably, you
concealed any deterioration.
You fought through so many operations but
that illness took you so gradually,
and so I suffered deep that separation.
at 15 I could’ve had no finer inspiration,
You were everything to me.

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This week, thanks to the inspiring bunch of writers I’m lucky enough to liaise with most Tuesday evenings, I was reintroduced to the rare and complex ‘specular’ or ‘mirror’ poem. A challenging write indeed! There are a few different techniques to writing such poems though we were encouraged to write 2 verses which mirror in the middle:
E.G.
Line A
line B
Line C
Line C
Line B
Line A

The challenge here was to write about something which was so important to us that requires to be said twice. Upon digesting this idea, I took a deep breath and my late grandfather appeared in my mind’s eye. A truly talented and remarkable man who inspired me with his skills and encouragement, and continues to do so in my memories even now!

Thanks for reading! And have a beautiful Friday everyone!

Peacock. A poem about the tired sky.

The sky parades
its chromatic prowess
with flamboyant shades
of turquoises and teals
blending to indigo.
Where the heavens
meet the Earth
and trees there emerge
as black feather spears.
The beauty in nature’s
loneliest peacock,
brings me to tears.

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A poem about that magical moment between sunset and full night fall when the sky turns a million shades of blue and my soul is filled with sensations of magic, hope, and warmth. Perhaps I am nocturnal after all, for under this sky I feel most alive!