Tag: poetry

thoughts

~ A Voice from the Wild ~

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“These days I’m a little more settled and stable, but I’m still shaking ideas out of my head that ‘shouldn’t’ be there. The voice of logic and reason is as clear as ever, the way forward so visible like a well-marked path through the forest. Meanwhile, faint voices whisper through the trees, calling my name, daring me to veer off-track and take a tumble in the wilderness. I look into that foliage and see the crooked branches, the thorns, the nettles, the slippery terrain, the red eyes peering at me from the shadows. It is the path of one who wants to be devoured and consumed by the unknown. Most would never even consider venturing into such an area, but it seems I can’t shake those voices tempting me in. They are there whispering to me as I go about the daily grind, as I put on my socks and shoes, as I attend to the tasks I am required to do. I can’t shake them out of my head as I look up to the ceiling at night in bed, as I brush my teeth in the morning, as I pick up things from supermarket shelves and place them in my basket. I look around at the others following the set path of sensibility with apparent ease. Do they hear the same voices too, I wonder? It doesn’t seem like it as I watch and listen to them. They are seemingly content people of stability and sanity. I know that their path can make my hair neat and my sleep undisturbed, but a vacant space in my soul tells me something is missing from such a life too. After all, what is this human experience without mystery and madness? Without adventure and exploration? Without risking it all to find gold in the darkness? What is this human experience without being totally alive to each and every moment?”

thoughts

~ I Don’t Care Anymore ~

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~ I Don’t Care Anymore~

Like many young people growing up, I was once full of inner conflict and at odds with the world. Resentful of my surroundings and feeling misunderstood, I sought to set things straight and take back some ground for myself. My blood was full of fury and a war raged constantly inside of me. The pain in my heart meant I was willing to go to extreme lengths to slay down everything I felt was wrong with the world. Maybe it’s me getting softer in older age, but the truth is I don’t care anymore. I’ve set down my sword. And thrown away my shield. I’m no longer charging into any battle, or craving some sort of victory. Things I once fought were worth killing myself for now seem meaningless. Something has changed inside of me. A stillness comes over me. Points of tension begin to relax. And feelings of anger begin to finally fade. After all these years, it seems this soul has found some salvation from the storm. I now find myself in a state of calmness, where I find that I have obtained the victory I always wanted – a victory where I can now rest and relax, because really it was just me stopping myself from living in the lands of peace anyway. And as the smoke of the battle begins to clear, I begin to see the sun shine, and the birds sing, and my soul smile.

 I don’t care anymore.

poetry

The Great Beyond

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purpose~ The Great Beyond ~

Out there in that space

My soul searches for something

Not available in these surroundings

My physical body walks these streets

I pick up things from supermarket shelves

And I appear as another person in the crowd

But really I’m sailing in a solitary sea

I’m scanning horizons for some sort of shoreline

To see those flags fluttering in the wind

Showing me the sign of a place

To finally call home.

I ain’t no great sailor

And my only compass

Is some strange feeling

Here in my heart

Propelling me ever forward

Towards something I can only feel

But not describe

At the end of the day, what am I

But another deluded dreamer

Digging for diamonds in the abyss

And searching the wilderness of life

For the light of existence

While trying to fight off

The waves of depression

And insanity

thoughts

~ Striding Proud ~

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“He not busy being born is busy dying.”

‘It was no secret that there was a great sickness in modern society. Sadness filled the streets and I saw the souls suffering around me every day. I saw the sunken eyes, the feet dragging along the pavements, the bitter words coming out of mouths. I saw the behaviour of frustrated and jaded individuals. The people staying in jobs they hated; the people neglecting their inner voice; the people dragging others down with them. It was all around me but I kept on striding and doing my thing. I made no apologies about my way of being. I was here to live my short life on this earth to the absolute fullest. If I disliked a job, I’d quit it; if I disliked a place, I’d move from it. I refused to compromise on any of this. Hell, there wasn’t time for compromising. Very soon I would be another dead person in the ground, my one precious life all spent and gone. And with that knowledge I set out to make every year of my life a great adventure. I set out to do things that would fill my soul with joy; that would leave my mind full of memories and my heart full of fire. And as the years went by and time aged me, I would refuse to let life grind me down like it seemed to do to so many walking down those streets. No, I would continue to stand proud, a straight posture, my head high and my eyes wide and open. Still looking toward the next horizon. Still chasing that inner bliss. Still discovering the beauty of life on this earth until the very end.’

thoughts

~ The Great Beyond ~

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~ The Great Beyond ~

“I sat on the beach facing the almighty pacific ocean. The waves crashed on the shoreline and the sun reflected off the water onto my face. I closed one eye as I downed my bottle of beer, thinking of memories of the past and my path to here. It was true: thirty years old and still living in the dirt, dreaming in the darkness, wandering the outside spaces. Maybe some thought I would give up this freedom fight, maybe I did, but there I was once again: travelling alone in Mexico, wandering through old towns, drinking in random bars and speaking to whatever stranger drifts into my course. I am a boat out on the ocean of the unknown, and by now I don’t think I’ll ever dock. These sails still catch the wind firmer than ever and the journey shows no sign of slowing. Stormy seas I have known, and my crew of weary sailors – whose blackened faces work the coal engine rooms of my heart – their eyes know the toil of that turbulent journey. Their eyes know this ship wasn’t made for safe harbours of stability and security; those anchors of mortgages and marriages, but instead to drift in the great beyond in search of some divine light of freedom and adventure and life and beauty.”   

thoughts

~ Just a Feeling ~

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“There’s nothing else to do but write. No job to work, no woman to marry, no reason to settle down. I see no meaning to it all anymore. There is nothing else to do but write. So here I am typing on these keys, and walking down those streets, and staring at the things that pass me by: the faces that tell a story, the dogs staring into space, the sadness and the madness of the suburban universe. I stare at it all and try to make sense of what it is to be human, to be here on this earth, and to try to get by in whatever way you can. I try to understand this all before dying so I can put it into words that might mean something to someone somewhere. This is what I have chosen. This sickness. This insanity. I was not gifted with many things. Hell, I’m not even too good of a writer. But at least it’s something that feels inherently right. And I believe that feeling is the beginning of doing something that makes your life one worth living. To find what comes naturally and throw yourself into doing it completely. To find what makes you feel as if the whole universe is working in harmony the moment you’re doing it. Surfboards and keyboards. Dancing and singing. Sex and love. These are the things. This is the secret. Like others before me, I am a devotee to the rivers of passion running through me, letting them carry me along, moving ever forward to the lands of some divine light.”

thoughts

~ An Inside Job ~

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Like others before me, there came a time in my life where I knew I needed to find something. Whatever that something was, it seemed to be not available in my immediate surroundings. Unsatisfied with my external world, I realised my journey was to become an internal one. One day my quest began. Digging into the depths of myself, I struck that spade into the solid ground. With force and might I pulled away the dirt with a driven and determined energy. I knew in my bones that something in those depths, buried away in the darkness, waiting to be uncovered. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I could feel its presence within, and soon everything else in my life centered around finding it. Naturally I knew there were those out there who would dismiss such an undertaking as foolish or crazy, but I knew that that something within me was something that would make me richer in most ways that people had experienced. So I kept digging away, breaking apart that earth, with blistered hands searching deeper and deeper within my own soul. And in that act of soul-searching, I felt assured that one day the time would come where I would stand with that great diamond in my hands; a man who broke through his walls, who stripped away his surface, who unearthed his treasure and let it finally glint in the morning light. A man no longer blind to what he possesses.

pricless pleasure

thoughts

What Will Become Of Me?

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“What will become of me? I ask myself this now in the summer of 2021, aged twenty-nine, with the world in a state of chaos and my life in a state of transition. I sit on the shore of a Scottish beach, staring out at the sea and the setting sun. The future looks unclear and often I don’t even know what I believe anymore. My mind feels frazzled and things I once knew for certain now seem murky. The morning mirror doesn’t show the person I once knew with such certainty. My path now seems more unclear than ever. There is an ache in my heart as I stare into those waters and ask myself: what will become of me? As time ages my mind and body. What will become of me? As close friends become distant strangers. What will become of me? As society changes in crazy ways. What will become of me? As my body accumulates more scars, as my heart is filled with more pain, as my soul struggles to shine its light. No, I don’t know what will become of me. Maybe I’ll be reduced to madness, that ranting maniac on city streets lost in his own mind. Maybe I’ll settle into a peaceful and simple life somewhere in the country. Maybe I’ll end up on a path that takes me to something I never knew even existed. As always, it’s hard to know what awaits in the unknown, and sometimes finding the faith to march on into that mist can be hard. But, as I sat there on that beach, I realised the only way forward was to just do what I’d always done before. I believed that the only way forward was to get up and keep following the heart, no matter which direction it led me. Inside I felt that was my only shot of making it through, of ending up in the right place – of becoming exactly who I was supposed to be.”

thoughts

~ What I Have ~

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~ What I Have ~

“No, I haven’t got that stable mind, that polished resume, those practical and pragmatic skills. I haven’t got many things that most people in this world have. But such is life and I have learnt how to survive my own way and by my own rules. Because I got those feet that march through the swamp, those eyes that lift to the horizon, that spirit that never quits. I got those values that never corrupt and a heart that can’t be tamed. And when the others lose their way, I have just enough madness left inside to pull myself up and continue on through the storm. These are the things I have, and although they may not be the things most people desire, I would not trade them for all the riches in the world.”

thoughts

~ The Same Old Feeling ~

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lifee

Now I’m turning 30

I’m about to be an age where the average person is supposed to have it figured out. The career, the partner, the place of residence. In all honesty, things haven’t changed much since my 20th birthday. I look at the world I am supposed to be a part of and still feel nothing but total indifference with it. It’s all just so beyond me. The expectations, the traditions, the system of living. I still read the job descriptions and feel hopelessness in my soul. Is that what a man is supposed to become? A business analyst? A communications officer? A marketing manager? I could never bring myself to even engage in that world just cause the very sight of it filled me with despair. Even just writing a CV made me sad. The robotic nature of it; the notion that my intrinsic worth as a human-being came down to some bullet points on a piece of paper. The depressing thought of sitting in front of an employer with a fake smile and speaking insincere words just to get a job I didn’t even want. Then there was the idea of marriage; standing all-dressed up at a pompous ceremony, wasting money on that event while having to engage in small-talk with people you didn’t even like. Kids, well, I looked at how crazy the world was becoming and felt only the selfish wanted to bring more inmates into the asylum. Owning a property also had no appeal; I looked at houses and was disinterested with the idea of looking after them and paying council tax and being tied to one residence. No, all these things still confused and depressed the hell out of me. My mind disregarded it all and instead toyed with far-fetched ideas. Riding a bicycle to Asia. Hiking through the Himalayas. Working on a vineyard in France. Writing poetry under the stars. I imagined myself meeting a beautiful woman and residing in a quiet little village somewhere in Spain, sipping wine as the sun set across the fields every evening. I imagined hitch-hiking around Europe, working season to season while meeting strange and interesting people. My mind was a gateway to a better place and I imagined myself living a life of purity and beauty, far away from the suffocating reality of a society which had taken all the life out of living.