The published discarded tweet
The sunken dimple not the ****
On your back not on your feet
The shadows are the light

The clouds creep on the ground
Still hidden after being found
A deafening absence of sound
Midday becomes midnight

This screaming riot of tranquility
Molding impotence into ability
Odds on to a far flung probability
Courage born from mother fright

Lost in an unfamiliar home, deep inside a book
In the comforting glow of that lamp that stood...
Standing to attention in that gloomy nook
The words jumbled & spun on that page
So I slammed shut the book

Above me burned a coil of tungsten
Blazing bright
White
And from it
Every angle burst its miracle of light
Beams/ waves destined for far off places
But shackled by the shade
Mocked by the tasselled trim
Harnessed by the braid

My mind wanders...
It is a marvel of our age
That we choose to create lamps so bright that they need a shade
That they need to be shaded
Those lamps can't shine so bright
For without the shade the dark won't creep in and we wouldn't be aware of the night.

I step outside
Into that night
Shadows cast by the city street lights

Down that dank alley
Lives an uncelebrated man
In a tattered box with faded damp
Barely noticed
Camouflaged
To most he's just another jaded *****
If only they could see
He
They
We
Individually tailor the shade for our lamp
Privately (inside translucent shields)  we all burn bright.
Shaded by fear and notions of what's wrong and right
Right and wrong
Wrong and right
Creations of those that had the strength to fight
Not by the humbled, battered and bruised
Too shaded to raise a blazing revolutionary fist
Too fractured, hungry and confused
Afraid of the attention caused from cries for any justice
Instead
Inside my head
I imagine I have my own bed
A good book
An cosy reading chair
And a lamp standing to attention with its thousand-yard stare

Staring out to the ever rising seas

Cometh the great submerging eviction
Mass migrations fleeing war, famine & filthy camps
Oceans rise and tears fall with whispered benediction
How many of you will become degraded tramps
But we just keep insisting that it is farflung fiction
Back to my box and its faded damp

Silhouettes of four impatient horses appear on an windswept horizon.

This false paradise we live in with its twisted ergonomics?
Should we really sit and wait for the catastrophes to appear?
Surely we are collectively able to create a smarter economics?
Or is it just easier continuing to accept living in fear?
Because when all is accounted for
All the pros and cons have been weighed
What matters most
Is not the brightness of your lamp
But your choice of shade.

I wish someone had
told me to stay away
from poetry
I wish I had
known it's an addiction
that won't let me rest
I wish someone had
showed me another way
to get burdens off my chest
besides dumping the shards
sealed in bags of vocabulary,
I wish I hadn't fallen
too deep in love
to find solace in words
for this sums up how much
my addiction rewards

A lost cause that doesn't want to be found
hunter in the wild tracking without a hound
tethered to slavery,toiling in vain for a pound
I'm the loudest noise of a world without a sound
I'm a dedicated preacher without a bible
a hopeless soul still fighting for survival
a journey man desperate and far from arrival
a ready fighter in a ring and life's my rival
I'm a wounded bird soaring with broken wings
the first light of dawn and the chorus it brings
a trampled bud which struggles as it springs
I'm those dumped sad engagement rings
I'm the lonely path that was never taken
the chocking inspiring words never spoken
the many charming promises that were broken
I'm the dead unburied hearts,the ghosts awoken
I'm those thirsty flowers struggling to grow
the wandering souls unsure of where to go
the deadbeat and shattered,those feeling low
the tired refugee expectant mothers escaping war
I'm the hunted nemesis, bullets seek my blood
the homeless who lost their home to the flood
the internally displaced and raggedly clad
everything grieving, dead and living betrayed by the world
I'm the bitter truth that will never be told
the beautiful country and its people cheaply sold
the wrinkled malnourished children trapped in cold
I'm everyone, silent or spoken, black or white,young or old

Bring back the wolves, nature's balance has gone astray
The ancient flowing water is carving a new way

Reds and Roes are rampant, stripping blade, stalk and leaf
Diversity is dwindling, the knife is in its sheath

Bring back the wolves, not those that shoot for "sport"
Untame mother nature with her sharpest retort