You must know,
So you shake the ball,
Hoping for some foresight,
Some validation,
But that little porthole offers little,
Only half-truths and vagueries,
There is noise within,
It emanates from the internals of the orb,
Malignant laughter,
Padlocks and chains,
Sloshing with answers unsaid,
Mockery in every movement,
It knows all,
Everything kept in those inky waters,
But it’ll never elaborate,
It enjoys the secrecy,
Many say the ball is a plaything,
But it easily toys with us.
It is the mourning period of the last night,
The early hours of the morn,
When foxes cry and frost descends,
I’m cloaked in the velvet breeze,
Lapping softly against my cheek,
This witching hour,
This twilight,
It is a meditative time,
When the sky burns its many candles,
Even as lethargy rears its head,
It is pleasant,
But it’s the calm before the storm,
Something appears on the horizon,
That eerie blue glow,
It is as beautiful as it is foreboding,
For I know what follows,
That which burns the eyes,
And wearies the soul.
With glassy eyes you ask me,
What I am,
I am you,
All of you,
I am that hunger in your breast,
The puppeteer holding your strings,
I am the primordial ooze from whence you came,
I am that voice in your head,
That which raises your fist to another,
I am the dark shapes in your periphery,
Those whom make your pulse race,
I am each butterfly wing removed,
I am no theory,
I am intrinsic human nature,
Call me chaos.
She was truly dazzling,
It cannot be denied,
But a fiasco nonetheless,
A car crash with mascara,
A shark-tailed siren,
A fiend with perfectly painted talons,
An armada of red flags,
A beautiful disaster,
For you see,
Beauty is not worth in itself,
A person needs more than that,
Her most of all,
What of kindness?
Or wisdom?
Are they not worthy of pedestals?
Does superficiality supersede all?
Looks rot away,
Souls do not,
Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder,
But an eye can’t see within.
There was a man,
Who appeared to lack emotions,
Or at least the comprehension of them,
His face was grey and blank,
Almost reptilian in temperament,
Like a mannequin in the best makeup,
Looking the part but not grasping the role,
Giving no hint of sensation,
A stone wall against all,
He would act,
Often brashly,
Regardless of the effect on others,
He would pay them no mind,
And no more to right and wrong,
There’d be no expression upon his face,
Only two orbs staring,
Analysing,
But not feeling or understanding.
We all have addictions,
Our personal highs,
They’re the best sedatives for the world,
I think we all have that one thing,
That prime compulsion,
That siren attraction,
A chime in the back of your head,
Do you too hear this call?
Is it the rush of nicotine?
The bottle or keg?
Maybe it is the pixels onscreen?
Perhaps the euphoria of narcotic oblivion?
Or the praise of brownnosers online?
As many fixations as orbs in the sky,
We all seem to hold a facet of this blight,
It’s a human defect,
There is no shame in it,
Not really,
We endure in our own ways,
That compulsion is a crutch,
Though it too can destroy us.
This work is complete,
Another night at the forge,
Though I remember naught,
As if rising from a trance,
My vision returns to clarity,
As I gaze at the page,
Assessing the words that I’ve spilled,
I don’t recognise myself,
It is like somebody else wrote them,
Some imposter in my midst,
Slicing my own vellum,
Dripping my own ink,
A man in my face painted inhuman,
Wielding my hands like props,
Raising these poems like the undead,
Though if I can’t recall my own art,
Could he be the true artist?
This imposter,
And am I the fraud?
I finally escape sleep,
The sun gave me the key,
But some things did not escape with me,
Those things I called my wits,
Straight lines and connections,
Knowledge and logic,
Those things that make sense,
Lost to the nights ice,
Still captive to the dark,
On droll mornings like this,
My head is empty,
A fool has been spawned,
And oh that sorry dullard,
He is me.
I do wonder,
How does a church tower make you feel?
They are undeniably marvels of architecture,
Centrepieces of the county towns,
But they are more than stone and mortar,
Do those spires inspire fear or reverence?
For some they are houses of the highest order,
Chapels and shrines and cathedrals,
Timeless communities for the faithful,
A shoulder to cry on,
An attentive ear to listen,
And allegedly the ultimate moral high ground,
Others see them as nothing other than cults,
Denouncing them as archaic,
Icons to injustice and control,
Harking back to worship being weaponised,
Where once were censers and sermons,
Are now bone piles and ballgags,
So now,
My dear reader,
I must ask,
Are they vice or virtue?
Or perhaps indifference?
How does a church tower make you feel?
Why is it,
When the sky finally smiles,
When fortune finally curtsies,
I’m preparing already for the next gale?
Am I just jaded?
Seeing everything through cynical goggles?
The conductor in my brain disputes,
In his emerald tailcoat he says,
There’s a problem for every solution,
A puzzle box for every paradise,
It can’t be right,
But the argument holds water,
Why is it so hard,
Despite all the evidence in the world,
To trust in a good thing?
WorldofHarley 