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Rob Rutledge Jan 23
The Sun was late today,
Claims she was stuck in traffic,
Surrounded by clouds that
Would not give way.
She apologises nonetheless,
For any inconvenience caused
The delays and/or distress.

I suspect she simply overslept.
Based on the smell of ethanol,
Cigarettes upon the breath.
Half popped packs of paracetamol
Left discarded on the desk.
The good mornings softly spoken
That show the will is bent,
Not broken.
Ignoring token take out coffee
Cups of renewable confessions.

It's quite the sight to see,
The one that's always early
Arriving this time dishevelled,
Disoriented, unsettled.
She stumbles through yawns
Stretching out the groans of dawn.
Still she manages a smile.
So the world begins to brighten
At least for a little while.
Rob Rutledge Jan 16
There are few absolutes.
Even less that speak as true,
To the golden hues of bygone ages
Or savage whirlpools of our youth.
We were born and we shall die
Shackled to these certainties
Eternal pirouettes of life.
Yet in the doubt we are alive,
A parable of the possible,
The probable or the just might.
Existence in the absence
Between two points of light.
In the uncertain we survive,
A ripple in the darkness,
A dream within the night.
Rob Rutledge Jan 3
We woke one morn
To the song of storms
And the iron grip of fever.
Torn between the call of war
Fleeting dreams of Patagonia.
The afterglow of horror shows
Shadows left upon the mountain.
Nightmares rise from water falls
Sanguine spectres in the fountain.
Preachers drink long, far, and deep
While prophets speak of profits reaped
And treasures yet to be found.
Among andean condor calls
Those who seek live weak to greed
Forever bound enthralled.
Rob Rutledge Nov 2023
It's a slippery *****,
I hope you know.
Said the Solipsist
To The Fly.

Who was itself
A somewhat suspicious
Deliciously conspicuous,
Most likely maleficent,
Manifestation of a mind.

A specimen meant just to define,
A shade that shall not live,
A shadow that shall not fly.
Designed to be a metaphor,
To make its point and then to die.

Invested only to be digested
By imagination and an eye.
Where within it lingers lonely,
Solely stoic for a while,
For a time.
A casualty of entropy
Out of place,
Left behind.
Or maybe out in front,
Depending on your point of view,
However long thought takes to stew.

The Fly nodded sagely,
Behaved as if it knew.
Nonchalant with confidence,
The epitome of cool.
Giving all the right impressions
These digressions were understood.
As it landed ever closer
To sit upon the madman's shoulder
To show this silly, pseudo ******
How little he really knew.

That being said,
If all that is lives only in your head.
Could I trouble you for some of that stew?
Rob Rutledge Jun 2023
Under a sullen, unloving sky,
Caught off guard by the searching rain,
She flees to shield like canopies.
A pilgrim on the path of shadow
Ever tethered to the flame.
Enslaved to the way of fire
Sycophant of the eternal blaze.
Condemned to spend the end of days
Wandering wastelands of the Sun,
Forever exiled from the shade.

In the darkness she would remain,
If only she would have her way.
Cocooned in shells of memory
Fogs of war,
Ill explained.
Though the forest chatter
Never quite sounds the same,
The pitter patter
Pauses,
Secrets encoded in the rain.
Her frail wings lay broken
Breath comes barely when spoken,
Offspring away upon the wind.
Though they took no time to notice
The darkness roars forth and shows us

We have our own fires to attend.
Rob Rutledge Jun 2023
You can rest now,
Sooner than you think.
For your legs are tired
Mind is mired
By past events.

It has not all gone your way
Nor has it gone too far astray

You may walk that corridor
Past haunted portraits
Hung skewed upon the wall.
Each one faded,
Canvas scratched
By the history of memories attached.

It took years to build these walls
From the remnant of a childhoods fall
The first and last line of defence
To halt invasions and consequence.

You can rest now,
Sooner than you thought
You fought the battle,
You lost the war.
Rob Rutledge May 2023
Come,
Walk with me.
Through nature and the wild.
To the precipice of shadows
Where no mortal has defiled.
Past the last bastion of light
Death throes of the civilised.
No remnants of sentiment
To the trees, we shall confide.

So we will journey, we shall go.
Travel to where the maps won't show.
Embark to where here dragons lie
Neck stiff,
Head tilts toward the sky.
Each pinprick becomes a question,
The void another lesson,
Constellations, a reason why.
Then as those final embers mellow,
Residual engraving on our eyes.
We turn away, heads high and bellow,
That which lives will never die.
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