Erudite Obsession

To this clownish drudge,
Writing is everything,
A hobby,
A passion,
But most of all,
An obsession,
A mania within these bones,

It’s not optional,
Not anymore,
If the words don’t come out,
If the thoughts aren’t vented,
They begin to chew me away,
Like maggots in a bloated corpse,
Like exsanguinating leeches,

This implacable need to create,
It’s the greatest gift,
But the most harsh of curses,
But the finest art is one with suffering,
A wordsmith must craft,
A writer must write,
I must write,

I must.

Diorama

The revelation was like a diorama,
A breath hanging in the air,
Clocks stopped in their tracks,
Shocked faces and closed fists,
A car crash frozen in time,
Unlike a table-top simulacrum,
These models are flesh,
The flushed cheeks and tears are not painted,
The vegetation is upturned tables and bile,
Art precluding a debacle,

This moment caught in biting ice,
It’s very real,
The next moment,
Won’t be so scenic,
It’ll be all rage and discordance.

Sketches

My mind was once such a sketchpad,
Paltry yet functional,
Full of images from the past,
Smiles and carousels,
Downpours and cataclysms,
Penned by revels and crises long gone,
I remembered them all,
The ink I thought was dry,

But pens sometimes leak,
The ink seeps out,
Or runs off the page,
So many faces and names,
Escaped into the aether,
Like so many convicts,
It’s nothing personal,
But my memory is only sketches,

Too finely etched,
And easily besmirched.

Idolatry

I see those priests,
Clergy of every ilk,
Bowing their heads before stones,
Golden saints and bathomet statues,
Friends that don’t talk back,

They’re speaking in tongues,
Evoking this name or that,
Vocalised necromancy,
Who’s to say if their prayers are heeded,
The idols don’t respond,

After all,
How could they?
What is idolatry,
But talking to ghosts?

The Masked One

Everyone wears a mask,
Crude facsimiles of paper and card,
The world is a ball after all,
A party with cheap cologne and lipstick,
Aost pass through without trying the hors d’oeuvres,

These veils,
Most wear them to shield themselves,
To fit in and mollify our insecurities,
But some wear them to hide their intentions,
Desires foul and machinations fouler,

I knew of one such disguised creature,
Innocent without,
And abominable within,
When she smiled,
A slew of adders followed suit,

Brunette locks and empty eyes,
A pure appearance with horns,
Fead animals left on doorsteps,
The mask barely grips on,
As if it regrets compliance.

Enamel Butterflies

She was not an artist,
Not in the traditional sense,
But she hated the drab streets,
So she sang in earnest,
Straight from the soul,
Breathed life into them,
There was chroma upon her tongue,
Every colour on her lips,
To make the world beautiful,
Colourful,
She painted butterflies everywhere she went,
Monarchs and stained-glass,
Stencilled in every hue,

As she serenaded the grey,
The town came alive,
Dancing in vivid enamel,
Full of radiant flying insects,
Miniature priests and heroines,
Beautiful,
Colourful.

We The Artists

Those who create art are unique beasts,
We creatures of colour and pain and surrealism,
And too often shunned like wild dogs,
Written off,
So I scribe here,
With an old quill,
A formal declaration,
For our affliction,

We The Artists,

The ones in dark-lit studies,
The ones confined to the cold outside,
Those who truly survey the world,
Authors and painters and sculptors,
Musicians and poets alike,
We are not you,
We are untamed and free,
Speaking ink and pigment,

Hail The Artists,

We’re observers,
Separate from your monotony,
Unassuming little eyes,
But a word of caution,
Don’t hurt an artist,
They’ll write about and paint you,
Showing the world the real you,
In all of your imperfection,

Fear The Artists,
We The Artists.

Land Of Giants

To be a poet is to walk among past giants,
To write is to scamper betwixt their footprints,
As they feast in their halls,
Subsisting on crumbs dropped from on high,
Vermin in their literary Valhalla,
A rat amidst their feet,

There is no beanstalk to their heights,
Shakespeare and Shelley,
Bronte and Poe,
Colossal wordsmiths and Einherjar bards,
They earned their places here,
I have not,

I came to climb to their zeniths,
Trying not to get stomped on,
Barely a flea in contrast,
To their elephantine labours of text,
My works are rock paintings,
Ink on seashells childishly spent,

In this land of giants,
I am but a neophyte,
I’ll likely never achieve the apex,
But why not keep climbing?

Inspiration

What inspires you?
Is it your experiences?
The scrolls where your life is written?
Is it the raw state of the Earth?
Notable or heroic figures?
Beings of fiction?
All of these are valid my friend,
Keep on being inspired,

As for me,
I’m inspired by the bizarre,
The strange and macabre,
Those whorls of the surreal I wade in,
And like psychedelic koi,
My ideas evade even my own comprehension,
Sense is a lost cause you see,
So I too shall keep being inspired.

Weird Guy

When I wake up in the afternoon,
I put my socks on my hands,
And it’s like having friends over,
Oh the conversations we have,
The guffaws we share,
A daydream in thespian method,

I’m a weird guy you see,
A certified eccentric,
A brain of butterflies and pendulums,
A clown in pyjamas,
I have a grin of ball point ink,
And a Cheshire cat in my chest,

I’m not normal,
Of this I cannot be ashamed though,
It’s a medal of honour,
Made of teaspoons and timepieces,
It’s insanity you see,
And that’s a mindset I cotton to.