“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”― John Milton, Paradise Lost
___________________­_______

Consider the mind
in whose deep caverns find
scatterings of memories
prismatically displaced.

Red recollections
that still incur wrath and venom,
arguments long forgotten.

Green recollections
emanate warmth that kindles
innocent times recalled.

Blue recollections
mauling at this bogus tranquillity,
scratching and tearing,
leaving oozing welts that fester
into melancholy.

Now hold this mirror shard
to these memories’ light:
watch the beams discordant
ricochet, obtuse, acute,
chaotically flaring into momentary awareness.

Consider the mind ...

Stand on the edge and look down ....

























It is so far down that reality blurs
into an abstract haze.

Is it solid ground,
soft verdant green
that will envelop you in its caress as you land?

Is it hard concrete that waits
to shatter-splatter you into a liquid pool?

Is it that empty eternal void
you tumble into night on night,
as you clutch at your throat,
as you gasp for that last, lingering breath?

Perhaps it is Death
that awaits you in his welcoming grasp?

Stand on the edge and look down …















The ground is giving way beneath your feet.
Your heartbeat rises to a crescendo in your chest.
You cannot breathe.
Frantically, you grab at the cloth by your neck.
Your legs are weak.
You feel the earth crumbling away.
Your eyes stare wild and wide.

A scream echoes ghastly, panicked,
reverberating around you
in a maelstrom of despair.

Is this your voice?

Stand on the edge and look down …

















only scant seconds remain.
What will you do?

Dare you step back?
Can you will your shrieking mind to comprehend, to obey?
And if you do,
are you safe?

Reach behind you,
go on, you can ....

Feel it?
The wall, rough and damp?
Touch it,
grasp at it,
your scrabbling fingers
shredded and bleeding from the sharp rock
it doesn't matter.

Find a purchase
and drag yourself towards it,
rest your clammy face against the rough-hewn stone,
caress the damp rock with your cheek,
ignore the ****** tears that course down your face,
breathe again;

Your chest heaves,
your mouth agape
drawing in draughts of cold air.
The pounding of your heart lessens.

Now close your eyes,
sleep, sleep ...

a moment ago:
I was born,
gasped my first
lungful of air.

a moment ago:
I took my first steps,
uttered my first words.

a moment ago:
I realised I could
disagree
with what I was told to know.

a moment ago:
I began to doubt
my own hypotheses.

a moment ago:
I loved you
with every sense
and every emotion.

a moment ago:
you rejected that love,
casting me to despair.

a moment ago:
I realised I could never trust
those who feigned to care.

a moment ago:
I left this life
to its bitter devices.

a moment ago:
you expressed regret.

now the moment has passed ...

I wrote a poem on a bus
but to hear it you must
climb to the top
of the bouncing metal stairs.
  
Slither snake-like
past the rail
and sit
on the rainbow nylon bench.
  
I'll be there
at the top of the bus,
reciting my rhyme,
written as we ride along,
past shops and houses
with musty nets
and peeling paint
on dingy doors.
  
There's the old woman who
lives in a house no bigger than a shoe box
who had so many children she didn't know what to do!
But they've all grown and flown now and she's all alone
with no-one to talk to but herself.
  
Look at that kid: grimy smile and mischievous eyes,
skateboard-scuffed knees,
darting out from the roadside.
Screech!
As we stop and angry words.
The kid glances back and tosses a vee
leaving just his smile behind.
  
The bus lurches on
at a snail's pace and stops at a stop
for a giggle-girl-gang
to chatter up the stairs
with a clatter of feet and voices:  
weekends and boyfriends,
music and laughter.

The bus trundles and sways
past shops all shuttered,
old folks gathered by doorways
talking about people
dead and forgotten ...
except by them.
  
Into the town now:
a river of road-rage
as our bus ambles onward
toward car-parks and markets
and rat-racing shoppers
  
And stops by a brown pigeon-stained temple
of public philanthropy,
a gift from a long-dead civic leader
and now proud home
to dogeared tomes of PC persuasion.
  
Our bus, like some Trojan horse,
disgorges its riders
who spatter and scatter
like rays of dawn light
to shop till they drop.
  
So, just me and you seated
atop the steel stairway
and you say to me sharply,
“So where's your poem then?”
I look at you strangely:
“It's happened around you,” I tell you quite curtly.