Ulysses
79/M/Melbourne, Australia
I am an Australian and live in Melbourne. I am an Art Therapist and Psychotherapist. I love reading and writing, especially poetry, but I also read psychology, philosophy and sociology. I have very few, but beautiful friends, and am a solitary soul.
You are so ready to help others
Escape their dark labyrinths,
Only to be abandoned
On a lonely island,
Where you wait
To fall into the arms
Of yet another drunken sot.
Daughter of a cruel king,
High Priestess
Caressed by sacred snakes,
You gave all this away
To follow a man
Who promised you everything,
Then used you heartlessly.
Now another approaches,
Will he give you what you want?
No! You must recover your lost snakes,
Your mysteries and power,
Begin to believe again
In your sacred rites,
Re-build your temple
On your solitary island.
It may seem bleak,
But it is yours.
Do not give it away yet again.
May 24, 2020
May 24, 2020 at 4:05 AM UTC
Have you ever tried to sail
against the tides?
Heeled into the stiff wind,
with the jib straining,
the rigging humming,
the bow cleaving the waves
and spray cascading over the fore-deck,
you seem to be making great headway.
But a glance back to the shore
confirms the truth.
Something about that island
you are trying to leave
seems to be holding your ship
in its thrall,
as if an invisible rope
stretches back to the shore.
But it is not the island's gods
preventing your escape.
It is nothing more than the tides.
You have started your voyage
at the wrong time.
You must give up this vain attempt,
furl your sails, drop your anchor,
and go below.
You must sit this out
and wait for the tide to turn.
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 5:58 AM UTC
When you said the awful words,
What I thought was real,
That beautiful sky
Which seemed to stretch away forever
Into distant poetic and dreamy landscapes,
Began to crack,
And the Abyss,
The dreaded pit of nothingness,
Broke open with a terrifying shriek,
And as it gaped
A wind rose up,
And all that was beautiful,
All that was joyful,
All that was lovely to the soul
And delightful to the eye,
Was swept into the hellish maw
Leaving only dark despair behind.
When you said the awful words,
What I thought was real
Was revealed as nothing
But a beautifully painted surface
Covering the too grim truth
Of emptiness.
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
If only,
I could find a crack in that canvas,
Pry it apart
Peer through,
And see the other painting
I know must be there,
The painting that has to be more real
Than the one in the gallery,
The one you painted,
That deft piece of forgery,
The painting that everyone passes by.
If only
I could find a crack
In that canvas
On which you painted my portrait,
Maybe someone would stop and take notice.
Mar 17, 2018
Mar 17, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
The danger of writing...
allow a single word
to appear on your blank screen
and it will call up its associates,
many of which will not be your friends,
and like mobsters,
may take you on a journey
you would rather not be having.
The danger of writing...
especially at certain times,
times of vulnerability,
when a particular image,
like this image that now confronts my mind
- that of an empty double seat overlooking a river -
might evoke a provocative word.
I know where this is going...
Do not allow a single word to appear!
Keep staring bleakly
at the empty screen.
But the word appears
on the screen of my mind,
impossible to avoid
at five o’clock in the afternoon,
the winter sun descending,
the biting edge of cold dusk
settling into my soul.
Emptiness...
Life passing relentlessly,
second by second,
a river that never stops.
The curse of consciousness...
its inescapable loneliness.
The river...
painful past to the left,
anxious future to the right,
the present
moment
drowning in its cold swirling waters.
The emptiness of another evening
of another empty day...
the comfort of a drink,
and then another.
Mindless chattering of TV voices...
voices of ghosts,
illusions,
disconnected
from the warmth of a body.
The warmth of a body...
the empty double seat.
A passing car...
silence.
The cat...
padding across bare floorboards
wanting food.
Wanting...
the empty double seat,
needing the warmth of a couple.
Needs...
harshly exposed,
like a line of naked corpses
waiting on dissecting tables.
Longing...
for a woman to sit beside me,
to contemplate a shared river.
The empty double seat...
The river flowing away
as relentlessly
as a poem of desolation
started by a single word.
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 11:39 PM UTC
Our books are mingled,
Hers and mine,
Messed up
Between each other,
Some never opened,
Their pages still pristine,
Some dog-eared and *****
My biography of Plath,
My Byron,
My poetry and art,
Are hard to find
Between her ****** fictions
And coffee-table tabloids
In lurid colours.
Her crimes and her romances,
Lying evidence
Pushed hurriedly
Out of sight
Between the covers,
On which is inscribed
The name of the one
She nominates
To take the rap,
As if 'She'
Had never authored anything.
And these left
Lying around the house
For me to pick up
And put back
In the same place.
One day I'll bin the lot!
Oct 27, 2017
Oct 27, 2017 at 4:18 PM UTC
On a windswept beach
Someone has been tied to a stake,
Abandoned to the sea and the elements.
His eyes are squinting
Against the harsh light.
He has been stripped naked
And his skin is burnt and raw.
His lashings are biting into his flesh
As his body is battered by the ocean winds.
Scourged by flying sand and salt,
Every gale blows something of him away.
Every day, there is less of him...
Soon, there will be nothing left
But the stake and a tattered skeleton.
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 2:48 PM UTC
When the lights dim into darkness,
Then sneaks in on shifty legs
the Puppet-Master.
Curtains drawn the show commences,
On strings our limbs begin to ****
To the pull of unseen forces.
We become Punch or Judy,
Unlovable and unloved,
Unmoved to love another.
For when our souls
Are draped in darkness,
Love’s wisdom is lost.
Only when we wake once more
Are we able to remember
The remedy for this malady…
To open our wounded hearts,
For the Puppet-Master shrinks away
From the light of an open heart.
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 7:10 PM UTC
The least-loved actor on the stage,
She is as beautiful as the moon
... and just as pale.
She stands alone in the spotlight,
Surrounded by darkness
... with the courage to feel.
She is real, honest and truthful,
In this theatre of shadows and lies
... her tears are no act.
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 12:47 AM UTC
Driving in the dark,
Headlights on the road ahead,
Black night lies beyond.
My world is the car,
In the warmth of the cabin,
The instrument's glow.
The headlight's beam shows
The road streaming by smoothly
In endless long lines.
A tunnel of light,
Hypnotic pairs of cats-eyes
Curving towards me
Resonating with
The engine's harmonic drone,
Mesmerising me.
Night in the mirror,
And ahead beyond the light,
The unknown darkness.
Existence draws in,
To the road in the light's beam,
And inside the car.
The present moment,
Of the car and the lit road,
Is all that exists.
Driving in the dark,
Our cars never leave the light,
Stay in the present.
The rest is darkness,
There is no past or future,
Just imaginings.
Everyone exists
In the light of the present,
Driving in the dark.
Oct 8, 2017
Oct 8, 2017 at 6:08 AM UTC