Christmas

Driving home from Christmas
Cars are few on the road
People limited, kept into houses
And the only drivers those who
Travel from their families
People wave happily,
Smiles upon faces that
Will last some.seconds before fading
But they are truly sincere
As they say goodbye for another year
No snow lies on the ground
Yet the fog is thick and greying
Like an old man with hot mulled wine
Mist caught about his beard
Lights stop us briefly
But no one crosses before the cards
Save those dedicated to their dogs
No shops at open
Save that take away 'Barbecue Kings'
With saddened hearts eating within
Some have no company for Christmas
And when they drive they are alone
They are not leaving homes
Instead they instill the façade and pretend
They go for food or other means
And say that today was another day
Another time, just the same

Poetry

The power of this individual word
Can change a life if you allow it
Allowing the verbs and tenses to
Freely flow from the tip of your pen
Or finger as you trace these letters
Upon lined paper or on a screen
Tapping out the phonemes
Breaching the realms of ordinary pace
Punctuation becomes but a memory
Marks of pause, sometimes never used
Deliberate. Focused. Sometimes ...
Meaningless.
Often ... Forgetful. Rarely ... Stupid.
And thus together this poem comes
Together, a thousand strings
That create a symphonic orchestra
Notes empowered by filled lungs
That later will repeat these words
In the terms of a requiem, or moral
Commenting on what was written
And what has been said, out-loud
To the beat of an imaginary drum
Every phrase deliberate,
Pleasing to the ear, fine and sweet
The audience, every member
Takes from the poem what they will
What they desire, what is wanted
By them, they can consider the poem
Written just for them entirely
As it speaks a meaning that has never
Been thought or uttered before
Because
*Dramatic pause*
Fuck what the writer thought
Fuck what his intentions were
The death of the author comes
It reigns where and when you want it
You are the reader, you have power
A critic and a genius are you
Let the purity of every nuance,
Every sound, rhyme and heart
Full you with confidence and be
A reason for living

Happiness

It's that feeling of elation when you are finally able to claim the fact that you have a masters' degree
It's that feeling of satisfaction when you finally close the last page on a quintology that had your heart racing throughout its thousand pages
It's that feeling of peace as that heavenly expensive dice set you bought rolls from your hand and gains you a critical success
It's that feeling of marvel as you watch the children finally understand what the difference between a noun and a verb is
It's that feeling of wonder as you watch a tree's leaf begin to turn brown and tight, wrinkling as the season's sun is stolen away
It's that feeling of joy as you watch a child smile at you after you have shown them a world they never knew existed
It's that feeling of love that you feel between the story of two people who have been searching all their lives for someone, and only just found each other in their sixties
It's that feeling of devotion as you cling to your husband's hand through the night, knowing that for any nightmare you have he will be there
It's that feeling of pride as your close friend gets that job she deserves despite all the other mistakes, trials and errors
It's that feeling of amazement as you find that missing chapter of the bool you are writing that essentially was the core of all the action
It's that feeling of acceptance as you understand that though life is not perfect, you have gotten far with what you were given
It's that feeling of hope that you feel when you are told that it was not your fault, that you could not have done anything more to make the job last longer
It's that feeling of goodness as you realise God was watching you all along, and he's been there since the beginning
It's that feeling, that, as you read of their death, and though you knew them so little and so long ago, that you were part of their lives
It's that feeling
And that feeling only
That is needed to make life worth it all

Man in the throne

There's a man and he sits
In a leather bound throne
Behind an ancient desk
Made of wood from a ship
He sits in a temple-like house
With a cast iron fence
And a neatly trimmed lawn
And the colour of the house - white
White like the skin beneath his fake tan
White like many of his nation
But his heart is as black as cold, hard coal
And his hair is bleached, like his truth
He imagines he is a king
And he imagines he has a queen
A family and a country who love him
But he's mistake through his own
Messed up dream
He's a man stuck in his own delusion
With narcissism, obsession, tantrums
Staring at women in so many wrong ways
And though the media speaks of it
Nothing is done
"You voted for him," they cry
"He got in, so deal with what you have."
But they shake their heads and regret
That this orange man
With windswept hair
Has power tremendous in his childlike palm

Wing

Caked in dirt and dust
Weathered by the last two days of brilliant sun
Part of you lays there
Sprawling, outstretched
As if reaching out for pity
Sixteen long finger-like feathers,
Crying out for help as it lies
Detarched from your body
And you are gone, far gone
Alive or dead, I cannot tell
But by the evidence given here
I must confess I have little hope
That breath still leaves your lungs
Once you would have flown high
Perching in the concrete rafters of the bridge I am under
You were one of those demons
Who spoilt the green grasses with white pellets
Going where ever and whenever you pleased
But then
You were part of nature itself
And now nature has reclaimed you back
As your wing lies there
Lined with bootprints
Squashed into the land
Individual fibres standing to attention in haphazard rows
Like soldiers on a field day
And the muscle
Those twists and turns of flesh
That adjoined this wing to your form
Before it was so cruelly ripped away
It curls before a dandelion
And in that moment I drop a tear
But then continue on my way
Because you are not the first dead bird
I've seen today

For you

For you
If I could
I would pluck the stars from heaven
And combine them in an exquisite bouquet
For you
If I could
I would fly to the farthest corner of the sky
And take the silver linings of clouds to weave them into a blanket
For you
If I could
I would swim to the darkest depths of the ocean and find the source of the Bermuda horrors
And bring it back as a wonder
For you
If I could
I would climb the highest mountain and pluck a single snowflake
Then carry it back in my frozen palms, perfect and preserved
For you
If I could
I would pause the concept of time
And let the world rest for a while so that we could stare into each other's eyes for eternity.
For you
If I could
I would capture the sparkle in a child's eye
Holding their imagination in a single idea and present it to you
For you
I would pluck out my heart, all bloody and dark and bruise
And hold it out
Dying
Suffocating
But, my dear, it would be
For
You

Guns

In 1996 my country was shook
A young man walked onto a school and took
Two nine millimetre browning HP pistols
Two wesson M19 .357 magnum revolvers
Then horribly, shockingly, eighteen lives
Of a teacher and children age six and five
And then himself, and he died, suicide
Changing the country with that single moment

I ask America if you think it's still right
To arm teachers, to look down the sights
And aim it at the killer, an ex student
To see them as a possible murderer
I ask you if you if you know you hold
The record for the most amount of deaths told
In many graphs, and each by guns
Be it school shootings, murders, terrorism

No, it wouldn't have made a difference
If this shooting was in an NRA conference
Because lives are still lost and gone away
They will never come back again
You say Israel taught and armed their teachers
And in forty four years have had two features
Of school shooting - but how can you compare yourselves to thaf
The war-torn, strict gun controlled nation

Israelis can have only one gun at a time, with mental health checks
Yes, less strict than the UK, I'll allow that respect,
But - they do not complain like you do day and night
Going on about your amendment rights
What you need to have and need to achieve
You need to stop and you need to breathe
And think of the human right to live without fear
What you force many children to do ever daty

Guns kill people, people kill people, I've heard
I do not mind living in a more socialist world
Because I feel safer having children today
Than I would have done in 1996
For the good of the many, for our sanity
Let us be together and not fake bravrity
Let us live in this era of increased pain
Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe, many more to name

The twenty second school shooting of this year
Is your second amendment worth each tear?
To you it may seem we are controlled
With incidents happening as Alfie Evans
But compared to your healthcare, child deaths
Black arrest and reoffending rates, the rest
When is it time to wake up and say
We no longer want to live in this fucked up American dream

Trina

When we were young we were something
Our lives were only limited by our imaginations
We had wings with which to fly and escape
Our frigid lives and our situations

You had your family and I had mine
Close knit in small communities
Yet still we became the closest of friends
Enveloped in each others certainties

Together we had strong faith and wit
We talked about our lives and beyond
You called me "Blenny," and you were the, "Gobi,"
We were two fishes in a great pond

The stories we were going to tell together
Ranged from the obscene to strange
But through it all we laughed and sighed
Didn't care when they called us, "deranged."

We were friends when no one else would have us
Then, when others did care, you remained
A bright star in the constellation of my life
But life never truly remains the same

Instead we grew distant as we went our ways
Our own paths diverted as did our lives
You became a world traveller, inspirational
As I became an academic and a wife

Our friends were what kept us bonded through
Though not talking, you were still in my mind
For though we never met or embraced
There was still those years of kind

After that we stood - the six of us
Upon St Andrews beaches white
The last time we were ever together
What a day it was, a glorious sight

And that memory of that day I will remember
Forever and until the end of time
For even though you are not with us, Trina
Even though you could no longer stand
The pains of every day life
Know that for you, I would have gone
To the ends of the earth

Dreamer

I'm a dreamer
Like my father

Equality gone wrong

"Should a man hit a woman if she spit on him."
A woman sits in a bar, touched the way no woman should be.
Unwanted, uncalled for, shockingly and without reserve.
Harrassment.
A man waits at a street corner, turns and mistakenly looks
At a woman's backside, breasts, lips.
Harrassment?
Then that woman, she slaps him.
Justified?
We talk about equality, like for like, measure for measure.
An endless cycle of discussion and "Time's Up" and black dresses to the Baftas.
The fists rise into the air in solidarity
People leave their jobs for the sake of gender pay equality.
But does equality mean that measure for measure should enact?
"Should a man hit a woman if she spit on him."
Yes, because if equal, then equally treated they must be.
Yes, as if you want to be the same as a man, then punished you should be.
Yes, they cry, because I'm not going to hold the door for you anymore.
I don't have to be a "gentleman". 
Don't have to offer you my jacket if it is cold.
Shouldn't be expected to pay for meals on dates.
Should not be treated as if any look is a case of harrassment.
"Should a man hit a woman if she spit on him."
...
Perhaps the woman should not spit in the first place.
Perhaps the situation should not arise.
Perhaps different questions should be asked, such as, "Why don't we all open doors for each other."
Or "lend your jacket to all out in the cold."
And "do not spit, hit, hate."
And "do not hit back, whether you are male, female, black, Asian, white, gay, straight, old, young, Hindu, Muslim, African, Austrian, blue eyed, brown eyed, an idiot, a genius, left voter, right voter, evolutionist, flat-earther ..."
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold.
Perhaps we should never have written the recipe.

Geode

Light glistens from these crystal rocks
Like the stretches of sun upon the sea
Great curvatures embrace them
And hold them still with volcanic arms
Cracks in the earth split wide
Under the pressure of a quaking tectonic
They reveal the sparkles of treasure beneath
And a myriad of colours to be entranced by
The first time I heard the word geode
I was within the museum wondering past rocks
Words like 'phenomena' and 'stratification'
Echoed around me like I was in
The very chambers they were found
Now I see them again and my heart
Is filled with passion and delight
What I would have just glanced over
I can now appreciate more than just a trick of the light
I can wonder at the planet's mighty roar
As I remember your description of the way they formed
Your fascination and passion focused
Enthusiasm tumbling from your lips as an avalanche
With my eager ears listening
And now I am here again in that place
That place where we began
I see the light like the speckled waters and I think
Of you and all the delight of the mighty world

Refusing

I take back
Everything that I said
Everything that I wrote
At that time
In that place
I
Only wanted to help
Only wanted to extend
A hand
And say
That I am still your friend
My friend
That I am still your friend
But
You spited me there
Took all of my fears
All of my bad words
And declared "No"
You
Said you did not want me there
Said sorry if you "inconvenienced me"
Said no to every compromise
You ignored every surmise
You did not realise
That they
Hate you now
And all I was trying to do was
Help

Prose

There's a thing to be said when you're the first one in a room. You take a seat and then slowly, in drips and drabs the other people come in. You sit there for some time, waiting for others to sit beside you, and slowly the room gets filled but.
But you are left alone. The closest person is a seat away. What did you do? You know these people, some of them are your friends, but. But, that is it. Always it. No one. Left. Alone. Did you do anything? What does your rational mind tell you? What do these words of prose poetic verse that sounds more like a ramble, but is in fact a deep-seated, emotionally-charged, betrayal-fueled, self-loathing, whisper of text and meaning.

Information literacy

Going through the casual world
Understanding what is and what can be
Looking at bais and their possible strategy
What they want from the text they write
What their agenda is with you in mind
Navigating these paths that look the same
Of Google, now a verb as well as name
Becoming information literate is a constant
A constant struggle, of figuring out your want
What you want to know, and what you should
Considering what is right and what is not
Fact checking, always remember to fact check
Especially when an idiot is a president
Fake news, the evil establishment
That wants us to know an exact thing they like
But not the other news, from that other place
Aka, those shithole countries, Haiti etc.
Information literacy can be a chore
But with an idiot as president you have to make sure.

Pain 03/91

Pain is here
Pain is real
I feel it every day
My heart races
Then it stops
Like I am dying
Everyday
Giving me joy
And give me cheer
I ask
But instead I
Get tears
Because pain is here
And pain is here
I feel it every day

Lacking 02/01

Life is short and lacking of promise
The baby dies before it can breathe
A man is run over five times
Then gets up
Only to have a heart attack
Life is short and lacking in promise

New Year 01/01

When I looked into the new year
I saw paradise and cheer
My hope was high, my smile clear
My mind filled with festive cheer

But even as we start the year today
Nothing bad has gone away
There is still a mad man to keep at bay
And the many things that have gone astray