Tell me who do I see?
When I look in the mirror.
Cos I don’t know,
Feels like the boy I was,
Is looking at the man,
I swore I’d never be.

©  Nick Strong 2014

When I waxed poetic,
And compared your eyes
To emerald stars that breached
Their spheres, you said,
     Can't you just say
     You just like my eyes?

I don't listen, so
I compared your full red lips
To two blooming roses
On a singular stem.
     Man, you said,
     You mean you
     want a blow?

Not paying attention,
I compared your *******
To ripened melons
Waiting to be peeled.
     You like my ****?

I realized you were no poet.
So, I remarked,
     I like your gorgeous ***!

     Must you be so crass!
I heard.

I've stopped trying to see the logic in any of this
What logic is there in looping a reel of moments so devastating I have to literally shake my head
(As if the attempt at giving myself a mild concussion will rid me of your visage?)

I can't escape. My only solace is between another's legs.
My longing for your skin is matched only by my desire to **** something beautiful just to get you out of my head.
Is it wrong that I feel this disequilibrium otherwise?
Something just feels constantly off.
I can feel it in my bones
Like a storm you anticipate
But all you sense is discomforting quiet

I was never the sort to waste energy on hopeless things, until I became one,
Until I realized that I no longer remember feeling satisfied on my own

I'm a prisoner in my own head
A hostage to a heart run amok
And I just wish I knew
How to break free

I miss slow dancing
awkwardly in musky
jr high gymnasiums
with lame hair cuts, and shoddier shoes
from payless

but in the dark
limitless future
when hands trembled at hips
and lips quivered at ears
when perfume broke us
like picks
at a bottomless a quarry

was that not heaven?

when hard-ons rose like spears
and we talked on phones all night
on our backs peering into moons

I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                
As I clung to the picture of you approaching over the horizon                                                                                                                                            
I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       As I clung to your mother’s hand with you kicking your way into life
I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       As I clung to silent sleep on wooden benches waiting in a corridor                                                                                            
I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      As I clung to your crib and your mothers peaceful sleep of bearing a son unto the world                                                                      
I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I will cling to pictures of you smiling as I cling to the shade protecting you from the rays                                                              
I will cling to hope                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Watching another dawn for you of the Highveld sun      
Watching you toss and turn as if your dreams are mine and to this hope you clinging too.

I will cling to hope as I cling to you.          

W.Arends

Dear Me,
            You ask only others if your work is good, you never actually trust in your own judgment. People have told you your writing is beautiful, so why don't you believe them? It must be the same reason you don't find yourself beautiful, because when you read your work or look in the mirror you wish it were different. For others to enjoy something even more the maker should be confident, so why aren't you? I hear you telling people who love you, you have no worth. I hear you telling yourself in the mirror you hate what you see. I hear you crying at night because of all the hate you hold for yourself. I hear you sitting in your bed gouging your heart out every night because you wish to be different. I've wrote to tell you to stop! When you do this you're hurting me the most, for I am the only one who's tortured by these sounds, for I am the only one forced to hear them everyday. Please stop, for you are killing me! I don't want to suffer anymore...... Please, I can't take this pain much longer. I know you're stronger than this! So please, please....... Please......just stop.

A kindly comment
Or a deadly thought
Can equally be delivered
But take a moment
A pause of time
To remember
How each one felt
When dealt

"Learn to write by doing it.
Read widely and wisely.
Increase your word power.
Find your own individual voice
through practicing constantly.
Go through the world with your
eyes and ears open and learn to
express that experience in words."

PD James (1920-2014)


I took a little trip
To the Isle of Write
There to find
My muse
My light...

I went to a wise man
On a Himalayan hill
For to find
A poem to quill...

I went right
I went left
But the write
Was still bereft...

I went here
I went there
Couldn't find help
Anywhere...

So I sat down
Pen in hand
And thought about
Those foreign lands.

To describe them
I painted with ink
It was hard
But made me think...

Hardly did a day go by
When in frustration
I did not cry...

But at last
The words took flight
I told tales
Of sadness. Fright...

The pen took on
A life of its own
The lines like scalpels
To the bone...

No more struggle
No more strain
I had the write stuff
In my brain...

Now the page
And pen don't thwart...

... the poetry is in my heart!

I stand in a room full of people,
And want to shout your name,
But can't.
My throat frozen in a,
Two thousand year scream.

Sightless eyes, surveying,
Trying to catch that knowing
Wink, uncertain smile,
With no way of telling,
Whether it’s been seen.

Memories of times gone by,
Caught between whispers,
And a silent scream,
From a silent tongue,

Frozen in alabaster.

© Nick Strong 2014