Clumps of empty sand,
masquerading as firm rock.
I stumbled those years.
Tag: People
She reaches forward now
Bitter, the pills slide down her throat
recalling the shock of months ago.
She thought she’d buried it, good and gone,
but they said she has to face it now.
She cannot keep running on a tape stuck on rewind.
Mind seeing what was, not what is.
She’s being broken down to atoms
so she can be rebuilt.
Possible, but outside of time.
The Great City
The stench of the city is a tangible whiff
cutting into nostrils, goatees, wigs and quiffs.
The factories as they churn out smoke
Make the ladies clutch their handkerchiefs and the gentlemen choke.
The procession of children from the workhouse in boxes
Goes unnoticed by the gentry as they hide in shadow with doxies.
No, not doxies, my mistake – unfortunate women –
as if anyone cares to give them safer work for more than a shilling.
Name yourself
You are the voice whose edge is diamond
You are the voice of the waves and the swell
You are the voice whose call always wakens me
You are the voice of the people who fell
The King’s Observations
The king sits at the edge of the road
dressed in beggar’s clothes
to behold all those who nearly ride him down
without a thought or care for his woes.
The king sits at the edge of the road
his finery all to be seen
and notes as his subjects come scurrying by
to ask how best he can be pleased.
As seen through a round tank of water
Fill up the glass tanks, wear them on ours heads like giant fish bowls. If we spill any, we lose our worth and have to crawl on the floor with those dressed in rags, furiously mopping up after others and trying to fill our bowls once more.
The rags disintegrate, we are naked and no no-one cares. We are filthy and no one cares. We are hungry and no one cares. We have brains and no one cares. We have no glass tanks and everyone stares.
We craft our portraits
Out of old exercise books
Cinema tickets, favourite books
Receipts, flyers, posters
and dog-eared photos taken with wind up cameras
Knowing that no matter how many
Parts we add,
We can never get close to
Who we really are.
Buzz
Excitement thrums in my heart.
Excitement and fear beating it out, neither winning, neither losing.
A new scenario. New faces, big voices, open ears.
With words only,
I calm them
And hold their attention as heartily as a new-born
Taking its first breath.
Flower clippings
My heart is not a muscle,
it is a flower
blooming fully to catch every drip drop of sunlight it can
to help me stay nourished and grounded.
It attracts a lot of attention
and people often try to measure its petals,
guess what genus it is,
try to deceive it by pushing me into darkness.
They clip it, scrape it, startle it,
seek to tint it with rainbows of dye,
yet it refuses to wilt.
Yes, its petals may fall.
Yes, it may close at times.
But it will always open again
in the right environment.
Overture
Evening draws in,
the half-moon observes
your passage home.
Hours drip by heavy,
oil falling in water.
Unmixed, always a separate entity
to those wandering past.
Cigarette butts on the ground
avoiding the traps especially set
on waste bins.
The smell of energy drinks
left on the bus two seats down
marring the truest scent
of night.
Door unlocked, house is silent.
Signs of life everywhere
that need to be tidied before morning.
Before mourning.
Of what might have been.
Not of what is.
The aftertaste of what is
is natural,
no added sugar.
Treeshallow Musings 
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