I find myself in a barrow,
Caked in dew and ash,
I know not how I found myself here,
And yet I hold the shovel,
In my personal astronomy,
I’m at my nadir,
Bedrock,
No longer illuminated by lunar,
My eyes are asteroids of ice,
And no stars rest behind them,
My zenith is now obscured,
Hidden by clouds I myself painted,
I know not why,
But even now I hold the brush.
You say underrated,
That I’m unfairly overlooked,
But that would require hidden worth,
A trove of treasure undiscovered,
Let me say this truly,
There is none,
I am simply a feeble writer,
Playing at greatness,
A mouse among skyscrapers,
Scrabbling,
Reaching.
If you could see into my mind,
And witness my imagination,
The cerebral alchemies at work,
You’d be both mystified and sickened,
Perhaps alarmed and inspired,
It’s a funhouse with no safety rails,
All ice creams and guillotines,
Clowns and lilies and landslides,
Horror and wonder beyond my eyes,
It’s a nirvana within a nightmare,
And vice versa,
But it is where my palette resides,
Harvested from the very fields of my wit,
The darks from gloom and hopelessness,
And colours flowing from my oddity,
All of this ink is required,
Regardless of its source,
To force this imagination on to the page.
I often think,
We are bundles of hay,
Fashioned by unseen hand,
By stitch and Hessian jute,
Into vaguely living things,
Soulless effigies,
Voodoo dolls,
With vacant button eyes,
Existence is a witch,
And she casts spells through us,
To create breath through herb and cloth,
It’s a curious form of magic,
Unpredictable yet sympathetic,
She often pierces us with crooked pins,
But it draws no blood,
For we are but poppets.
When the sadness encroaches,
When the skies are violated by fog,
Not all hope is lost,
For I can return to my art,
That beacon of inspiring radiance,
A lighthouse,
A port in the storm,
Built of written word and ballads,
Bonded by ink and stanzas,
A structure as vital as my own blood,
A sun at its apex,
Versicolour in its gleam,
Burning away the void of the world,
Drowning it in lyrical hues,
It’s a haven,
A sanctuary of poetry,
So no matter the malic of the twilight,
The light burns ever on,
The art shall ever flow.
I dreamed I was set upon by wrongdoers,
They wore masks of my own visage,
Incarcerating me in my own den,
Setting about butchers work upon me,
Slicing and beating and burning,
A transformation by gore,
Replacing my veins with barbed wire,
Restitching the whole,
They plucked out my eyes,
Garnets set in their place,
Azure shifting bloody,
They screwed horns into my scalp,
And forced fangs into my gums,
As well as a Chelsea smile,
I shed no tears nor cried out,
I was merely a spectator,
An observer to the scalpels and needles,
I had been mutilated,
A slaughtered scrap of meat,
But there can be no doubt,
I finally looked without,
As I am within.
There come dark times,
When the words come flow,
When the quill won’t incise deep enough,
And the veins runneth only with dust,
In these hapless moments,
He comes to me,
Across grey matter and stars,
My other self,
The clown in my head,
It’s an intervention by oneself,
The man in the top hat,
A hand resting on my shoulders,
And a swift bat on the ear from his cane,
He speaks new hopes into my hands,
Baring every positive I won’t allow myself,
Filling my veins anew,
Ratifying my creative soul,
In his usual unhinged style,
Through his words I know,
When I struggle to push forth,
He’ll lift my hand to the page.
If there is one thing I’ve learned,
Existing in this grey world,
Being oneself is paramount,
To follow the drones,
Is to run cold,
And risk the soul freezing in irrelevance,
To the world I say,
Withhold your brands and pigeonholes,
Save your derision,
Let the weird be weird,
Let the artist create art,
Allow them their eccentricities,
That freedom,
It can set a spirit alight,
Igniting the cosmic symphony within,
A supernova of myriad chroma,
A big bang,
Birthing a new universe of their art.
I thought we were enlightened,
My countrymen and allies abroad,
That we were better than this,
Moulding these sculptures and monoliths,
Red paint and hateful idols,
Closed fists and xenophobia,
Such a supposed beacon of good,
Should never mass-produce such artwork,
Why has hate propagated?
Can we no longer sketch with empathy?
Former heroes are called dissidents,
Victims of war regarded as tyrants,
I don’t want to believe we hate like this,
Tell me which is more loathsome,
Picket lines or corruption?
Makeshift boats or bigotry?
Do we so readily hate the desperate?
Loathe the weak?
Scorn the refugee?
Is this some twisted renaissance?
One where the art we’ve mastered is hate.
After each squandered day,
A recurrent occasion,
In my bed do I lament,
Am I wasting my time?
Is it too late to have achievements?
Am I too late to change?
The moon softly consoles,
A sad piano in her voice,
For she has seen this many times,
The gate is slowly closing,
And my panic claws at its timber,
The sand runs away,
And my bloodshot eyes weep at the loss,
But this was all my doing,
I tied this blood-red noose,
Many moons ago,
And with each sundown it grows tighter,
The portcullis edges lower.
WorldofHarley 