The Poetry Marathon

Calendar glances – pages to flip,
Renewed morning hope fall into worn grooves,
Frenzie under heavy wet blankets,
Dashing off must escape moment,
Dodging all my accumulation,
Taking years off profiles ’cause nothing to show.

I’ll do something special, just have to wait for it to come.

Mainline endorphine potency release,
Dark coin-side of joy still empty,
Thin scaffold filling unfilled temporal,
Wit meant to be applied somewhere,
Repurposed around to hide this vacant,
Faculties of meaning refashioned debauch,
Festering alone, shackled, addicted,
Hope sands seeping downwards.

I’ll do something special, just have to wait for it to come!

Juggler standing on the devil’s head,
Tiny motions of unused limb,
Unseen exorcism of shadow foe,
Hailing the tiny territory,
Leg bent capsized hanging,
Unpeeled sight of elusive arrival.

I’ll do something special, just have to wait for it to come?

First, take what survived germination,
Salvaging senses of self,
Sieving out tempers and traumas,
Smooth fractured surfaces,
Compact all together for the next stage.

Second, place on the lowest shelf,
Wait protracted periods to notice a rise,
When sinking occurs wait longer,
Be careful lest ingredients turn on themselves,
Not every mixture makes it past this point.

Third, notice which form is being taken
Poignant possibilities or none at all,
Casino kitchen bordered with fate,
Some change and some remain,
Nothing looks like the book’s examples.

Fourth, now some can begin to split off,
Luring and enticing variety into its mix
Such a composition, volatile at best
Changing it forever or spreading too thin
Yet fermenting a crust to show outside.

Finally, the process is always too quick,
Mistakes build unexpected taste,
Recipe is fixed and too late to change,
Carrying off with garnished presentation,
Never able to explain the steps you put in.

Those dressmaking scissors
Heavy to hold and never to be used
Fashioning costumes hiding in
Won prizes every year
Slicing words interspersed nurture
Continuum of dialog
Too early to filter
Dressmaker programming those undressed.

Heavy sinking in
Car journeys
Her and I alone
Unfinished house
He came back so late
So much shouting
English green agoraphobia
Never a good child.

Exotic from abroad
Yet xenophobia for all
Able to create anything
Yet mind turned sharp
Told how special I was
Yet demon you couldn’t handle
Amazed with everything looking so skilled
Yet cradle pushed, no secure base.

Beholden to what puts it in motion
Markings strike stars shards and sparks
Reflected sameness, unclear heritage
Conceptual inheritance with maternal sins
What talent, like you, without foundation
Secret love for those with your face
Hostile hypersensitive and unsafe
Trying to find your love in hers.

So long walking away,
Leaving me, eyes through letterbox torment
More than the hardest times
Holding hitting never sure what to do
With only one of you,
How would another bring me?
So much, subtle profound parts of you
Laying roots far enough to survive.

Setting a mark in the sand before my first marathon.

I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger and trying to get through many difficulties of early life. I was inspired to come back to writing in the past year and it has been a witness to myself since.

I trained as a psychologist and then went on to focus on psychoanalysis. I have also had a life-long interest in esoterica and mysticism. I lived and travelled in many parts of the world, and my default medium for expression has been oil painting. My writing aims to blend these interests. I am interested in how emotional lived experiences can echo in a hermetic fashion a yearning for the sublime, played out in the diversity of the world around us.

I am intending to focus during the 24 hours on a broader range of themes, than I have written about lately. I was once told that a lack of sleep was a ‘cheap gnosis’, lets see where that takes me from the 15th hour onwards.

I posted some previous works before if anyone has an interest to see them.

Desert worn weaves platted through,
Silk soft with cactus pricks,
Covering tapestry and promises to fly
In places disintegrate at touch
In others bare fist galvanized rough
Such a foreigner to this landscape,
Not sure what ground will meet my step,
Months of cloud covered silence gave me a gift,
Deep inside I feel this call louder than ever,
Like a madman being the only one who can hear,
Ignoring the pleas of all those close
Knowing an oasis blooms beyond where they can see
Dowsing rods cross over that open wound
Cards blow fantasy across me
Even precious metals meant for gems is but a rock
Such a rock there is, but inside a greater splendor.

Am I the only one who reads all those word maps?
Reshaping verbal shards into a whole,
Projecting puzzles in aerial signs,
Am I but one of a team pondering every clue?
Seeking to find a way towards an inner grail beyond,
The more I tread the more I am alone.
Who else examines small markings
Knowing that this creature does everything deliberately,
Why leave marks no one else will ever grasp
Or care to grasp
And even if they grasped would be unmoved.
It waits for one who is meant to see
Each test just meant to show they truly are.

They all drank and thrust at the river in the sandy valley
Still nothing compared to where I went
But still they come and drink and do not see,
They drift and pass and still I remain,
Everyone around thinking me quite deranged,
They don’t see what I do, and I cannot even explain.
Such a wonder as only luck in a whole life can bring.
Waiting for failed goldpanners,
to retreat after a month of mere stones.
Knowing not what they truly seek,
they sift and sift then move to other pastures
I drank at every source I could,
I can only think of that one sweet taste
The only place I want to bath
Even if it be the hardest to reach.
Unlike every other,
the taste only grows stronger from yearning.
Nothing sadder than drinking another,
Chidded by bitterness and pretending it was the same.

I lay out right beside that creek
First the beetles came and stung at night
Then the snake intoxicate my blood,
Leads me to the precipice
Yet as the fool I did not fall
Held up by forces I dare not admit
Then the wild sides snarl and gnash
The more the forces thrown to push me away
The more they betray how precious they guard
Another day and more suitors roll through
Now I learned to not even see them,
They take what little they can actually see,
None touch the part this star struck location offers
Alone knowing that the whole valley quivers
In time with my breath my thoughts and my release.
Knowing now having stared so long
That it thinks of me as much as I of it
No matter where I am since I first stepped foot
I am present basking in its wonder.

One day I will open my veins
Laying back in that gentle stream
Let it seep out my life’s potency
Embracing its fluids with mine forever
Then there will be no distinction
We will flow and settle together
Only there can my worn body be washed out
Transformed and pulled under.
Then will it know every word was real.

Thrusting faceless hidden in hair
Why are you here with me
Forgetting who is laying moaning in front
Replaying moments I was inside you
Her grip cast myself inside you again.
Why months later is it still like this?
You cast every feeling you had inside of me.
Opened me to violation through disregard.
Are you condemned to fantasise about
Those men who heartlessly violated you?
Your every desire spoken to me
replays what they did.
Take me in my sleep
Take me in the shower,
washing my hair.
Take me doing homework.
Slip my clothes to one side
Tell me to be quiet
Hold your hand over my mouth.
Sell myself as she sold me.
Make me feel worthless
Use me totally – disregarded.
Exciting to raise adrenaline
Putting pressure on a wound.
I wanted to meet you here
To be gauze to your hurt
and bridge to your SELF.
I refused to leave and disregard
Angrily you cut me off
The pattern must continue.
Cocaine plaster building a wall.
I am left holding that savaged child.
Loving in the darkness
Contaminated for you.

My beloved
I know you want to go away
I will love you from afar
So many wounds drain you
Dates haunt you
The whole world of harm
Has taken on my face
Yet I have my own selfish blame
You tell of so many plates spinning
One falling will bring them all down
Forgiveness is a task too far
In my sleep I cradle that little girl
Tomboy strawberry blonde
More like a twin than a sister
Cast our two seven-year-old souls
Bags in hand off to explore a river
Camp with knives away from the hurt
Safe in our imaginary games
Which continue behind these heavy suits
Only there will you reach for my hand again.

Such a letting go occurs when you are away
Empty staring into my imagined possibilities
Does little potency of mine impact you there?
No longer a passenger on the train
Left at the station lost luggage around
Experiences and tastes not mine to know
Joined in love yet distinct utterly rendered division
Your life flows to its own orbit, conjunct for only mere moments
I know the gravity between us is stronger than most
Yet many parts of your whole deny me thrice
Other devilishly want to break all
Do those miniscule things beckoned not to
Seduce the innocent and smash down our diminished state.
Rage and rave and rip away – we did so many before we met
Now we are quite distant what difference can it make
I know niggling inside is the warmth we share
That heat continues and evaporates untouched.

… about giving all control away. Being a passenger not having any say in where the car goes, how fast it goes, which route it takes to get there. Full surrender.”

Purified ebony in musk polished calm,
as sky and liquid carries off without distinction,
No motions of air transgress a hulled cast vessel,
Without light perforations adorned shadowed firmament,
Encased verging entombed yet womb-like-comfort,
Be it Styx or Tiber outstretched my limbs do go,
Sinews loosen as all regard rendered needless,
One last mere choice in renouncing,
No mere float yet no sought glide,
Yielding faining reliance entwined submission,
Drift along provocation of welling tranquility,
Softening compulsions to prevent whatever may be,
Facade of self dissolving through the division in hourglass halves.

Semi revolution of eyeballs upwards glance,
Fractured being looming up above,
Physical presence containing nuance,
Differing momentum inside conflicted dynamic,
Calm curiosity as to which can show,
Transitional responsibility of unbridled rule.
Laying down totally exposed allow the animal free reign
Yet this uninhibited freedom to strike brings forth a lick,
Wondrous gift like a marital bed no barrier to love or harm,
Trust being constructed on an offering of mutual risk,
Reflections crystalise possible when movement ripples cease,
What we see determined by we have known,
Past violation ripped autonomy like new babe from mother,
My current state drifting like a mobile to calm the same.

Unturning unhandled shovel digging for me
No finger raise towards the sky as the dirt falls down
What will be will feel like an end here down below.

Chisel striking downwards
Every motion quite light
Together eroding much
Individually each cut make sense
Yet together evaporating all.

Constant tide washing against
Unravelling all buried beneath
Exhumed and exposed
Still I stay washing away
Not sure where else to go.

Apologies croak throat too dry
I found there is indeed a limit
Which I seem to reach now each day
Every breath so chastised
Threaded into a constant dark.

Cloaked behind every peck
The cockerel crows three times
Continually expendable
Everything wrong done for me
Striving pitiful to remind the good.

Broken in, ridden for show
Prize pony trained to be sorry
Hope you feel safer now
An endless outlet here awaits
Throw all you have, and see me remain.