The world is a busy place,
A billion souls crawling over each other,
It saps ones energy,
At times we must be alone,
To recuperate away from others,
Like slipping into a soothing mudbath,
Just you and the mire,
Recharging under the sodden surface,
Only bubbles for company,
Vitamins to the skin,
Minerals to the soul,
Being alone in this mud,
It’s not loneliness,
There’s therapy in the silence,
In the muck,
If only for a little while.
Humans are golems,
Not of stone and clay,
Sculpted by artisan hands,
But a patchwork of ordeals,
An amalgam of experiences,
Lessons and trials knitting flesh,
We are rendered sentient by our stories,
Line and verse within each vein,
They make us who we are,
Gearing our natures,
Augmenting how we interact with the world,
No tale is ever the same after all,
And stories are fireproof,
Even at the point of death,
Our narratives continue on,
Blended with those of our loved ones.
Time has trained us to go fast,
Too fast,
Too rushed,
Too occupied,
It’s a coach that’s pushed us too hard,
Accelerating each year,
Running over aspirations in its path,
Modernity is some kind of stimulant,
Petroleum to a match,
Sprinting towards our coffins,
Our lives have become skip buttons on LED screens,
Not slow enough,
Not carefree enough,
Not free enough,
The Earth is a blur of coloured motion,
We dismiss the small connections,
No longer feeling the rain or grass,
Only enjoying life in passing,
We’re too busy climbing the heights,
That we miss the sights.
When you gaze up at her,
Have you ever wondered,
Why the moon has a crescent?
It’s to remind us of the scythe,
That iron kiss we all imbibe,
Not as a threat,
But to remind us to live,
The moon is an attentive beholder,
With an ivory grin,
She rests high in the firmament,
And she sees all,
A thin veil of clouds like maids-in-waiting,
Frantically failing to cover up their queen,
Lest her form be compromised,
She is the more shy of the sky’s orbs,
Dame Solar exemplifies life,
While Lady Lunar venerates the dead,
Her message is just as vital though,
That death can come randomly and unannounced,
That’s what the crescent tells us,
Willed on by the night-time air.
On occasion,
There comes a time,
When a soul steps right out of a comic,
Cape and all,
Ordinary folk with extraordinary mettle,
A flesh and blood hero,
Perhaps they pluck an infant from an inferno,
Selflessly interrupt a mugging,
Or raise a fortune for philanthropy,
You see,
Heroism is the heroin of heroes,
They can’t help themselves,
Something ethereal urges them towards good,
And neither should they stop,
We need more Robins and Wonderwomen,
The world is villainous enough,
There has to be a redress of balance somehow,
So champion your everyday champions.
We are atheneae,
A collection of tales and tomes,
And we decide how that knowledge is circulated,
And to whom,
Not all deserve your stories,
The lore of your ways,
That is earned,
Let your mind be apocrypha,
Esoteric to the outside world,
A library for the few,
Only the steadfast should know,
Let others guess and conjecture,
They are just priests of control,
Inquisitors and book-burners,
You know what you know,
You are your stories,
Your canon is yours alone,
It is written upon your bones,
Protect it as you would a child,
Let it survive,
Let it be apocrypha.
In another life,
Another time,
I would have had a treehouse,
A quaint outpost in the woods,
The sun would unfurl,
And I would hide from the bad dreams,
The negative souls,
Secure in my arboreal fortress,
From up there I could see the horizon,
It would call jovially,
And I would breathe easy,
Nuzzled by the skin of oak leaves,
Those stuck in hate below,
They may throw stones,
Take hatchets to the roots,
But nature would prevail,
She always does.
It appears an invasion has begun,
An all-out assault,
With bayonet and landship,
The dark thoughts are coming,
They keep trying to cross the picket lines,
To poison the well,
With their gunpowder plots and their coups,
But the defences hold,
They have to this time,
My mind has been newly fortified,
With pillbox and barbed wire,
My mental core shall kill them in the trenches,
Never again shall I be occupied again,
Taken over by invisible negativity.
Despite being in the dark,
With a void in my thoughts,
I am on a sunlit path,
Twisting and coiling,
Aureate in its countenance,
As if even the stones are grinning,
I can’t see the end,
My finished product,
The sun blinds my minds eye,
She doesn’t want to give away the surprise,
But I believe in this summery trail,
The path is fulgent,
The future is bright,
The rays of the sun say so.
Don’t wake me,
Leave me to doze,
Leave me in this oasis of Nyx,
In this soothing coma,
Entwined in the dark,
Don’t let the day start,
Don’t let it get the hooks in,
I don’t want to lose the dreams,
The euphoria of those brainwaves,
Real life simply cannot match them,
The waking world offers no substitute,
Don’t wake me,
Please,
Just let me slumber,
Just five more minutes.
WorldofHarley 