Poetry For The Soul, A Five Course Meal4 min read

A small collection of poetry by me for you.

A Made Headache

My brain sits in a brewing fog,

a simple soup of nicely sliced worries,

some chopped meats from the folds of my cerebral stress.

Add a dash of uncertainty for a peculiar taste,

sprinkle of stretched spirituality,

served with fine drained wine as crimson as human blood.

Dinner is served, I feast begrudgingly.

My Handwriting

My handwriting is terrible,

a gnarly collection of scrawls.

The hand of an ancient, anxious elder.

No pious, no grace, 

just an ugly hurry for all the words to meet my paper before my mind forgets how to think comprehensively.

Professors sneer, peers leer

Nothing of mind would be read if print didn’t exist.

But then I see, my handwriting is also a key,

A deciphered language only by me,

The secrets of the world,

Only my eyes hold everything.

Love Songs

I could never relate to love songs.

I hear them with an empty head and a polite smile,

swaying with feigned grace.

The songwriters think they’ve made something out of me,

with their sweet symphonies.

But I have never suffered from a broken heart.

It’s quite intact,

Strongly beating under the skin on my chest

And harbouring in no foreign cavern that is not my own.

There are people who give it away and people who happily take.

My love song is that of dignity and self-preservation,

with a compelling fear of its possession over me.

Purity

There was a time when I felt pure,

not the typical purity,

not the likes of white angels and meek voices,

but a time when I lacked conviction.

A time when my mind felt like a blank slate.

The tabula rasa of Descartes,

a thick sheet of undisturbed snow upon a damp meadow.

Now everywhere I turn there is loudness and static 

framing the corners and caverns of my mind.

No place to properly sit in my head.

Like an office full of scattered books, 

pages torn from their bounds, spineless stories I’ll never tell.

There is no pureness in chaos unless it is the fire of the phoenix that comes to wipe away all anxieties.

When I was young, I could think and daydream for hours

now when I travel a dull pain rises to my temple of replayed fantasies.

It burns like a hot mug in a temperate stuffy cabin

which not even the pressures of my forefingers can relieve. 

Like the fiery flames that burn so hot I grow blue with cold. 

I need that mythical bird to take me to the center of my earth,

so I can melt and turn molten, so I harden into something new, something reborn. 

Fashion me in your earth Hades, 

crystallise me into the rare stones that adorn your deathly kingdom, 

let this suspended trial of pain end. 

I tire of the cycle of these games.

Tin Mailbox

I memorised the tin mailboxes up the street from our condo,

right across from the community pool.

How visitors keys would jingle and jangle

and handles would clank when yanked.

The blue night light spotting to heed the receivers’ arrival 

on the wet street beside it.

The pigeons, a cold grey aluminum safe box for the quick-footed messenger,

to deliver a gift, a bill, a three worded letter from star-crossed lovers,

an ad for a newly renovated two-story family home,

surrounded by a white picket suburban neighbourhood up north,

far from here.

It was on the other side of my fence.

Far on the other side.

We did not share the same fence,

the fence that had holes in their diamond-shaped wires,

the porch doors that rotted with stubborn termites.

They made it their home,

like I made the cracking black asphalted cul de sac my own

It wasn’t so bad,

I enjoyed skipping along the stream

that led me to the prison of sewage and tough plastic tunnels. 

I imagined a lot of journeys and adventures there. 

I’d arrive home, sweaty and tired from duelling pirates,

flushed from falling in love with them.

I’d get sent back before evening could grace the moon

as my original task was to get the mail, 

which was four hours ago.

I’d arrive by the same side Hermes would make his descent

and rummage through what news he had for me and my father that day.

Nothing but unpayable bills, 

and advertisements for mediocre five-dollar pizzas. 

The snake bearer has become awfully commercial this point in the era. 

Humanity has caused his demotion or corruption.

Photo by Yannik Mika on Unsplash