Poetry & Spoken Word

RATTLE

There’s a rattle in my bones
That comes only with time
It rattles still
It creaks and groans
And fights for recognition
It’s old age and experience
Kicking up a fuss
The screams and shouts of times past
Followed by the low hum
Of yesterday making itself felt

(September 2020)

THE MEMORY TRAP

I walk upstairs to get something

But by the time I get there

I’ve forgotten what it was

So I get something else instead

And go back downstairs

Only to remember

When I reach the bottom

It was exactly what I said

So I climb the stairs again

Only to realise at the top

That whatever it was

Is no longer lying on the bed

(September 2020)

The ghosts that walk inside us

These ghosts that walk inside us

Are silent reminders of what has come and gone

They wake us in the middle of the night

Yet to find A home

Uncertain

We are uneasy In their presence

Restless

Dark

Alone

We Reach out for their hand to guide us

We too are lost in the morning time

The sun rising

Leaves us out in the open

Until we fall back into a deep sleep populated by faces that haunt us still

Except there is no real peace in this stillness

In the folds of this forgotten place where space breathes in and out to a slow rhythm reminiscent of Emily Dickinson

It is here

In this IN BETWEEN space

We live and die a thousand times a day

Knowing that when tomorrow comes

We’ll have to do it all over again

The longing

The doubt

The loneliness

The sadness

The emptiness

The regret

This life that holds us ripe in its vengeful grip

This life that makes us try to hold on no matter what

This life with all its hardness leaves an imprint in our souls

The past, the present, and the future untied

Calling out to us

Fighting with us

Fucking with us

We scream and we shout

We wrestle

But still

There is no way out

Not now

Not ever

This voice

It lives inside our heads

RATTLING AROUND

REMINDING US

QUESTIONING US

AS TO WHY WE’VE SETTLED FOR THIS

Populating the subconscious with mischief

It's AS IF We’VE have become addicted to OUR OWN UNHAPPINESS

TO its silent whisperings

Soft in their conception

But constant

They know no fear

THEY KNOW NO BOUNDS

We are filled with the anxiety of its uncertainty

We know it’s there

We can feel it

Still

Unmoving

BUT WE CAN’T TOUCH IT

We remain in awe of its raw presence

This absent stranger who knows us so well

This ghost that walks inside us

And beside us

We reach out in sadness

For forgiveness

For anything that might make it stop

Asking them to be kind and gentle

Begging them to take us BY THE hand

EVEN IF deep down

we know there is no other way

That They are with us still

These voices will lead us home again

To the place where we can be

The very person we were always meant to be

Paul January 2022