Industrial frights, smiled-through scares –
as if the night’s not dark enough as it is.
Boo, how scared are you?
Do we suffer so much
that we must
quench our fear with laughter?
Trick or treat or have you ever wondered
how one day
all of it will end?
I fear no puppets jumping out of boxes,
but the springs that coil inside us.
I fear no faces clad in plastic masks,
but what skulks that hidden shadow’s ring.
I fear no night that lay in October’s end,
but the terrors our new world brings.
Did the brute of Neanderthal,
as he lay awake in dark of night,
pray for mighty mammoth’s fall
so he’d rise in ranks and be paid more
in higher rocks for higher walls?
Did he think, the Viking man,
as he plundered England’s shores,
of team cohesion, project plans
or the hurt his raids might do
to the image of the brand?
Did that Templar Knight of yore,
as the pilgrim road he trod,
heavy find his shield and sword
and fret if he’d make enough
revenue to please the Lord?
Where have the Snowdens of yesteryear gone?
Where’s that whistle which once was blowing?
Who stifled my protests, once sharp and shrill?
And where’s the hero I longed to be,
standing true on highest hill?
Such questions make poor company
to the weary and worn, little me;
and beyond my door they stalk, sickly and sore:
all my hounds, crying for war.
I wrote down your names on paper scraps
and still felt none the wiser.
Like a child, I wait
for the better day
they promised me.
.
The Future is a fever dream,
a majesty, the Sweet Supreme:
and we’ve endured in silence,
trudging heavenward
to salvage what we may.
.
If longing was water, I’d be the ocean
and each day is one closer
to the melting of the polar caps.
Wanting something to happen is not to want to say it.
Wanting to say something is not to want to talk about it.
Wanting to talk about something is not to want it to happen.
Guns don’t kill people, suicide does;
you sold your eyes so long ago
that you’ve forgotten what Detroit looks like.
Well, it looks like a ruin
and we leave it at that:
we kings and queens
of digital thorns in digital sides
in computer space where limits are lost
and I have lost my remote self-control.
My inspiration comes from here and there
but mostly from here.
Let’s open up like empty coffins,
let’s not fold like a 2-7 offsuit
but play this hand even when we fear the end is bitter.
And no end is as bitter as the one you enter willingly
or who knows?
Maybe you do now.
I want you to keep my secrets
and to be one of yours
I want to be the reason
your standard slips
I want you to wonder
if I wrote these lines about you
White were the walls and the thoughts so loud,
as white as the writing on that wall;
that one last line I can never make out
of how temporary is all.
I set cups on the table and I watch them fill
with wine and water, with truth and time;
and truth is that one day each cup will spill
and that’s what was written on that last line.
Ain’t this life just a Trojan horse?
Soon as you let lax, second you give go
it opens hellgates
and thousand-strong they pour out
pouring you out of time, of water and wine,
of reason and rhyme, of matching lifestyles,
of hatching hope, of music too loud to talk over,
of lightless corners to take shelter in,
of purpose, of choices
POINT BEING they pour you out of you.
Who do? They do. We do. I do.
We each guilty as fuck. We all filling in for someone better.
We all just playing the part. We all faking. We all giving, none taking.
And no offence and none taken. We all static noise.
There are no weekend addictions:
you either need something or you don’t.
Gathered in your arms
piece by piece
as I throw myself into a scream.
Life can go one of one ways.
I cannot go on like this.
“There might be ones who are smarter than you,
that have the right answers, that wear better shoes”
“Al le my gemoedstoestand so blou
sal ek altyd die berge kan onthou
Die poel water weerkaats
die flitse die riete
die beloftes van liefde
wat die wolke geheim hou”
“It’s an unspoken heartbreak, a heartbroken handshake
I take with me where I go”
“Slow it down, Angie, come back to bed”
“It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all
the opposite of love’s indifference
so pay attention now: I’m on your porch, screaming out
and I ain’t leaving till you come downstairs”
“There’s some things that I should never”
Songs quoted are, in order of appearance:
Bloc Party – Sunday
Fokofpolisiekar – Prioritiseer
Passenger – Patient Love
The Lumineers – Slow it Down
The Lumineers – Stubborn Love
The National – I Need My Girl
All song lyrics have been used under the principle of fair use and with utmost respect to original authors. I do not claim any copyright on individual lines nor suggest original authorship of them in this instance. If you wish to have your original content removed from this work, please contact me at wroteapoemtoday@gmail.com to request for the partial or complete removal of your original content. Thank you to all the original authors for creating art that has inspired me, moved me and mattered so much to me in certain times of my life.
I wrote a poem today 