often i am plagued with sudden perspective shifts into realisations of my poor behaviour
in this change I drearily daydream of a sudden departure from all those who surround me
off on a personal journey of self betterment
a transformation into a far more admirable human
far and away from the impulsivity and naïvete of my current existence
for i have always felt subtle change shocks none.

how precisely this metamorphosis occurs I haven't yet learnt
yet the final goalpost is clear
I return to collective awe from my friends
the weight of my poor eating habits gone
the doubt that choked me replaced with confidence and self assurance
and a burning heart ready to set the world on fire with its unapologetic love.

but as I rub my eyes and awaken from this vision
comes the bleak fact of where I am.
the starting point I always have knelt at, ready to bolt out of the gates
sans the knowledge of how to arrive at the end
perhaps this time I'll shed my gung-** nature first
and i will choose to carefully walk to my destination.

These words don't come as they once did,
What once flowed like rivers,
Misery expounded onto page, ripped asunder from the mind,
And placed somewhere remote; far away.

Was I myself ever the poet, I wonder now,
Or was it simply those miserable thoughts,
Guiding the body to explain the mind away,
This is what concerns me most, now.

When before I could write, and write, and write,
About any small pain upon the weary heart,
An expression of these taut emotions, played by a coarse hand,
Not at all concerned with truth, or with what is best,
Simply expression, no matter how destructive, or deluded.

As I sit and write this now I am not fully convinced,
Even still these words are rooted in a pain,
The anxiety of the self, looking inwards,
Pondering if the space within is occupied, or vacant.

How do I begin to pick up a pen?
How does a thought take me to Neverwhere?
They never can ever tell us the reality
of the realest questions
and, for some, it’s just fine.
The rest need more.
Something? Not a thing.
Someone? Quite plausibly.

Won’t let go the tap tapping
or drumming or the pokey poke.
It’s there. But, you keep your head in the game.
Cuz, ya know, what else is there around here?
Spiritual desert with no substantive food.
Like biting into a juicy hamburger
and tasting sawdust only.
Only if those ones
could just keep their blinders
in proper position,
proper place to look and stay
and march along on
in single file lives
to mark one existence onto the next.
Who though?
All for who?
Or, what?
Surely,
God needs no marching ants such as these?

They who can’t see
will surely deny the real world
you know is here
and call you a blind fool. Ha!
Jokes on jokes on yokes
of jellied stroke marks.
Get off my back and let me live
how I see. Not through your grimy,
filthy, streaked and yellowed seeing.
But with clear and pure eyes
you hadn’t touched yet.

What happens to those ones?
Where have they gone?
Looking, looking close and away
and all eyes sense
is dust mountains and cave dwellers
and absence of light.
Where are the true ones
filled with the light of the rising Sun?
Come home!
The place with the voice pointing out cracks
is singing a song so longing and sure
and cannot look away.
Not with COVID and all of this world
awakening to see what they -
the blind ones -
have done while the rest have been sleep.
Blinders melt in sunlight
and aren’t needed
by the light of the moon.
Here one finds the way by heart.
Here one sees for real
where we truly are. And then?
Ah! And then,
what else can one be except
free.

I thought of myself
As a phoenix
Set aflame

Now
I'm just
Ashes and Dust

Look at the mess that I've made.

Today, we sketch ourselves.
Draw a circle for the head.
Two dots for eyes,
One for nose.
Draw the mouth.
Truer than the mirror.
No narcis-stick needed.
No Leonardo or Sigmund.
A self-introspective selfie.