Self-Harm

Burnt red sears through ripped cloud;

Blood seeping through sliced skin.

 

Tides of Doubt

Doubts surge in,

wave upon wave.

Ebbing poison.

They drag into their depths all I know

and regurgitate a mangled mess

of the truth

I no longer recognise.

I scramble in the sand.

Left kneeling on the beach,

in a swamp of uncertainty

no rock to ground me.

 

Sky on a cold night

The cold bites and snaps at my fingers

with rotten, jagged teeth,

as yellow streetlights massage my eyes

with their comforting glow.

The lonely pavement

welcomes the soles of my shoes,

invites me to take a walk.

The stars throb above and beyond everything,

Silently, beautifully judging all that they observe.

Like gods watching their creations,

doing nothing for them.

Guiding? Radiating hope?

Only when needed.

They are not always looked upon,

except in times of boredom or search for direction.

Orion’s belt has been a landmark through time.

I’m not so far away from my past,

but these eyes are not those

that once looked upon the little

cosmic constellation.

The dark, black sky cloaks me in a warm embrace

as my hands grow numb

and blood freezes over.

I am alone with nought but my thoughts,

And the evanescent lights of a passing car,

Dazzling for a second,

Then lost, for eternity.

 

Hunger

Icicle legs tremble in the wind,

fumbling past the elderly gentleman

slumped against cold stone.

A skeleton wrapped in a bundle

of unwanted clothes

damp and ragged,

soaking up the water

the pavement donates.

Flux

No moment in time
is the same as the last, or the next.
No moment in time
has the same texture as another.
the same touch
the same scent
the same brightness
the same dimness
the same sound
the same feeling
the same context
the same emotion.
No moment in time
is the same as the next, or the last.

Saturday

Saturday;
The day between days.
The limbo
Between last week’s achievements
And next week’s goals.
The space between places.
The conjunction in a sentence.
No meaning in itself,
And yet it’s there.
The untimetabled day.
The day that is not quite reality.
The day where idleness prevails.

Thoughts in London

The trees in London,
they line every street, exhaling
their oxygen to keep our flesh animated,
like oil to machines
that march and labour and toil, day after day
Towards some indeterminable purpose
centuries old yet still elusive and unknown.
They tried to grow nature back
into the man-made monster they’d created,
but does man feel the soothing peace of nature
on a walk along Shaftesbury avenue?

Evening in London.
As shadows lengthen
and the sounds of the city seem to change.
Loud, always loud.
The morning laborious and strained,
the day long and hot.
But after the long marches of peak-time home-time,
as the sun sets
and the street lights begin to cast a sickly yellow
across the tarmacked streets,
the gut of the city stirs.
It grumbles and growls and groans,
like some disturbed beast,
awakened from the dark
by the sounds and flashes
of the city being erected out of stone.
Warped and formed out of natural material,
made straight and square.
The city is now slave to the beast of its belly,
which cannot be pinpointed nor silenced,
not until the very walls of civilisation crumble and collapse.

And yet I seem to recall
one afternoon of early July,
dozing in a park by Brunswick Square.
With so much distraction on the streets
people forgot to look to the skies.
But my gaze extended beyond the mere pathetic heights of the rooftops,
up through the leafy canopy
of the oak tree leaning over me;
I thought I detected some inkling
of how we used to be.
A haven of peace in the heart of chaos.

Sirens sirens sirens!
Scream, echo, scream, echo.
Fade, fade, fade…
Piercing to the very soul;
the sound of some unpardonable sin being committed,
justice flying to the scene, or else
some soul clinging to the flesh
as paramedics rush to
prevent the separation of body and soul.
Should we not be glad of it?
They fear the unknown.
Even pain is better than unfamiliar darkness,
within which any manner of thing could be lurking.

Redemption

I awake in a gasp,
my spirit shuddering.
A fear worse
than that of a thousand dark prison cells.
My very soul is trapped in the claws of hell.
I have sinned.
I felt no pain for it, no guilt.
But in the sea of dreams,
truth flows into our hearts.
And I saw a place worse than the realms of death.
But as my mind was dragged
from the depths of unconsciousness,
as I resurfaced and gasped,
thinking with all dread that I had drowned
and my soul was lost forever,
there you are.
A picture on my wall,
no bigger than a postcard.
There you are,
enshrouding my quaking heart
with your wings of love and mercy.
There you are,
my shepherd approaching in the distance,
to seek me, your lost sheep.
There you are,
my Lord, my Saviour,
the Redeemer of my soul.
There you are,
Jesus the Christ.

Thursday night, Edinburgh

Half past eleven,
in a glimmering Edinburgh street.
The snow scrapes my eyelashes,
I hear my echoing feet
and students hailing cabs,
the bassline a pulsing beat.
The heartbeat of the city,
its life support through the night.
It’s early yet.

Old men shouting ‘scuse me love!’
girls asking for a light.
For a second I wonder
whether they crave nicotine
or a guiding light out of hell.
I glance down dark alleys,
wonder what shadowy secrets they hold,
what sins they conceal.

Quick! No time for philosophy.
The ride home beckons.
Off back to reality…
Or am I leaving it?

Faith in the Dark

I do have faith I do!
I cry in the dark.
kneeling, pleading.
I search my soul.
I see the seed, I feel the spark of faith.
but the call of the world beckons,
pulses, beats, sings in my ears.
a siren.
to warn of danger? To urge me to flee?
or to lure me through murky waters,
onto treacherous rocks.
temptation;
I see it swirling behind my eyelids,
I feel it dancing on my skin.
I cry in the dark,
I cry in the dark.
I cry. In the dark.