Poetry: Skeletons, The Other Side of Hell, Among the Sleepwalkers, and Shopping for More
Poetry is fun
Here are a few recent poems I wrote.
If you’ve read my previous essays you know I have a bit of an obsession with Time, and particularly the passing of it.
Hence this first poem.
Skeletons
There is no time
the world looked the same
to a 36-year-old in 1532
as it does to you
And that person is dead
just like you will be too
Your hopes and dreams
will mean as much to future beings
as the thoughts that once filled the skulls
of rotting skeletons
now mean to you
(aka nothing)
So do what moves you
while you still have time
because one day
you won't
There is no time
there is no time
there
is
timePeople have a way of getting addicted to their miseries. Sometimes the hardest thing you can do is to let yourself be happy (counterintuitive but true).
This poem is about my experience with this phenomenon.
The Other Side of Hell
The worst thing about walking through hell
and coming out the other side
is that
sometimes
you miss it
I look back now
at the years I spent
inside my house
with blinds pulled shut
and feel a longing
A prison cell
starts to feel more like a cocoon
the longer you stay inside
The world is much simpler
when you shut it out
But then what would be the point?Some people think that spending money on nice things is always a negative.
But if you get over your kneejerk impulse to cry ‘materialism’, you can see that (sometimes) there’s something deeper and more profound behind your desire to buy.
Shopping for More
The sweep of a second hand
on a watch
The way a suit jacket drapes
across your shoulders
The glide of a fountain pen
across the page
(Which I'm experiencing right now)
Crass materialism?
or profound aesthetic appreciation?
A fine line indeed. We live in a post-literate society. Sometimes writing feels pointless. But then I remember the real reason I do it.
Write for yourself, always.
Among the Sleepwalkers
Sometimes
I look around me
and wonder
“what’s the point?”
When brains are rotting
A few words on a screen
is nothing;
mere text in an abyss
that doesn’t notice you exist
Sometimes I get pissed off
at the people on their devices
but then I remember
it has always been like this
The mass of the barely sentient
weighing down on the shoulders
of those who feel too deeply
and think too much
We use our words
to convince not the world
but ourselves
that we exist, and we are not like themIf you enjoy my writing you can also read my novel Your Life Does Not Exist, available in both physical and ebook editions.