Every fibre of my being
Tells a story that is at odds
To what I’ve let on to the world,
And it is hard to exist in this state of dichotomy.
Wisdom cries aloud that there is relief
When the burden is cast down, or shared;
Yet there is also wisdom in protecting
What remains of my sacrosanct dignity.
For even the inviolable can be subject
To brute force attacks that defy norms,
And what is left in the wake of such as these,
Is a void – the word that rubs against an edge of this feeling.
I
I needed witnesses.
Wait a minute –
There were witnesses
Many of them
And they watched me
As I existed
In a state of utter shell shock,
Flabbergasted, dumbfounded,
All of that and more –
And they saw all of it unfold,
But my story, hasn’t been retold,
Not to me, and not to the world,
I had witnesses, yes,
But they were all devoid,
Of scruples, and of words.
II
I’ve built myself a room
Full of witnesses.
They are each ensconced
In earthern or plastic pots.
I stand back and look at them,
And for some reason, I’m pleased no end.
I needed witnesses,
And there are several now,
As there were then,
Just as silent,
Yet quietly observant,
And sheltering,
If nothing else.
III
I stand back and watch
My witnesses, with a touch of pride.
There is something to be said,
About watching something grow,
Even if contained, and not quite raw.
And then it hits me,
The sudden realisation –
They aren’t witnesses, are they?
For I have utter control,
On their wellbeing, their growth.
How could they not be,
But biased? Growing as they are,
Under what I’ve offered as shelter?
They would perish without a whisper
In a whisker
If I chose not to nurture.
Maybe it was the same
With the witnesses of yore.
Maybe they could not bear
To have the bond cut asunder,
Between them, and perpetrator.
Maybe that is how life unfolds –
When the witness becomes the attacker.
Everyone is in the relentless pursuit
Of shaping and telling their story.
You get to sit on the sidelines
And watch as these stories unfold,
Cheering them on,
Watching with wonder
In your dreamless eyes,
As they traipse through life,
Writing their stories
With gold yarn on rich red satin.
You are rooted in your spot
On the sidelines,
Refusing to get up and join in the run
To the finish line of grand stories.
You are far too tired
And winded from walking
To the halfway mark;
You would rather sit there,
On the sidelines,
And watch through dreamless eyes,
The dream catchers go about
Weaving their stories,
Into the fabric of life.
You tiptoe through your life,
Because it shares boundaries
With many others,
And you don’t want to infringe,
Upon what’s not yours by right.
You certainly don’t want
To make too much noise,
Or create an aura from matchless glory –
None of those things that rouse
Sleeping neighbours,
Much to their annoyance,
And subsequently, your peril.
No you don’t do any of this –
You choose instead,
To live your life quietly.
You take off your shoes
At the threshold,
And you tiptoe
On the wooden floor,
You dim your lights,
There is never any music.
And sometimes you wonder,
Just for a moment,
If you are still alive.
Nothing was stolen,
Nothing misplaced,
Within the house itself;
If it weren’t for the flower pots
Lying upturned in the garden,
And the fresh imprints
Of too big boots,
The lady of the house
Wouldn’t feel shaken,
But as it stands, she does.
“Nothing was stolen”,
“Nothing misplaced”,
They whisper under their breath
While talking to each other,
Or louder still, when offering her
Their sage reassurances.
She lies awake at night,
Not knowing who it was,
Nor even if they’d stepped in,
Through the open window,
And watched her as she slept.
Nothing was stolen,
Nothing misplaced,
On the face of it –
The dark circles under her eyes,
And the jitter in her being,
As she gathers herself,
To continue existing,
Speak louder than the footprints
Left in her garden –
They carry the burden
Of the footsteps that mayn’t
Have left behind
The imprint of a crime.
Scrooge and Grinch
Those two beings,
So utterly alike,
In their dislike
For all things Christmas,
And yet so different too.
Scrooge and Grinch
Those two beings,
Indeed, the patron saints,
For those that are
Christmas-averse at heart.
Scrooge and Grinch
Those two beings,
Who lend a voice,
To everyone who has ever
Felt out of sorts,
On a festive day,
And just wanted to stay,
Curled up in bed,
Or on a couch,
Lost in the web
Of shorts or their thoughts,
Striving to simply be.
We don’t talk about the things
That hurt us in ways we didn’t know exist.
We wonder whether we really hurt,
Or if it is just a vague discomfort;
Maybe one of those feelings
Akin to the itch one cannot scratch.
We talk about the happy things,
And we applaud them who share
The happy happenings in their lives;
We send our hearts, starry eyes and upturned thumbs,
For happily glowing, beautiful countenances.
But when someone so much as frowns,
We coax them into assuming a pretence
That all is spotlessly clean and well,
Because God, humans and every other being,
Love them endlessly, so they must stop moping.
So, we don’t talk about things
That hurt so much that we don’t even know it hurts.
I
If I grew wings and flew away
Into the darkness that stole the day
And hid its light in its belly,
Would the daisies weep,
Or the merry trout in the stream,
Or even the manky feline
I’d taken under my wings
Thence deprived of its twice daily meals?
II
Perhaps they would not,
And that’s a somber thought,
Right up there amongst all the others –
For there’s something to be said
About wishes that are dead,
Because they are so impossible.
They are perchance,
The soulful ballad,
Of desolate hearts
That haven’t known rest.
There’s a hope hanging down
By a fragile thread, off a moonbeam
Sending a faint but steady stream
Of soft, radiant light,
Into the darkest corner in this quiet town;
But the girl sat there, on a lonesome bench
Takes no notice of the light or the stench
From the open, overflowing drain
That carries more than just yesterdays rain.
She is lost somewhere, in a web of her thoughts,
Or perchance it is the void of those
That she finds herself sucked into;
Wherever it is that her mind’s flitted off,
She hasn’t gone there herself.
Instead she has chosen this godforsaken spot
To sit awhile, and ignore hope,
It has come too late, after the boat has sailed,
And for all she cares, it can go to rot.
If they could just keep quiet,
All would be well with our world;
It would rain sunshine,
And the fields would host unicorns.
There would be no crying foul,
No vague stories of bogeymen
Nor horrific ones of weapons –
Nothing really to be afraid of.
We would walk into our homes
That would look spotlessly clean,
And waiting for us there,
Would be a pot of warm broth,
Made of chicken and leek.
And if it tasted even slightly off,
Of course we’d teach them
Their right lesson!
And they would learn it,
Stifled sobs, unshed tears and all.
If they could just keep quiet,
We would have our say,
Just like in the old times,
Every time of every day,
And we would make merry
While we were at it.
If they would just keep quiet,
Our world would be restored
To a peaceful and happy space,
Where everyone knew their place –
By rank, colour and gender –
And nobody would complain!
Ah to have that idyllic world again.
Chasing Sunshine 