"personalised" poems
I love the warm smell more than baked bread.
I love the old stories flooding back through my head.
I love the middle-age chatter, with child like mutters,
finding old favorites in old familiar covers.
I love the personalised fountain-penned message,
carefully scribed and meticulously dated.
I don't care about the number of dog eared pages,
or the tell-tale signs of well worn aging.
Tea stains and small tears - they don't bother me,
each tell a new tale beyond what I can see.
I love the weight of the years sitting in my hand,
I love the tether to past lives multi-second-hand.
With memories of libraries with warm worn carpets,
wall to wall adventures and sun faded artists,
battered yellow seats, shooshed conversations,
quietly spoken protests at the books being rationed.
I stayed past closing, riding trains of free thought
with Tin Tin, Asterix and old Mrs Pepperpot.
I'm still drawn to the pages and the feeling inside
second-hand stories where memories reside.
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 5:03 PM UTC
Struggling for a gift again,
Every year a new idea needed.
What can I get an agnostic who has everything?
Another Tiffany charm
Won't do any harm.
A clay pigeon shooting experience couldn't possibly miss
How about Afternoon Tea...
With me?
Wait, an idea that's viable,
A personalised Bible
Where, rather than 'God',
Her name instead:
"In the beginning Doris-Ann created the Heavens and the Earth"
Right through to:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord Doris-Ann"
What a revelation,
A new gift to sweep the nation!
A personalised Bible
Whose sales will rival
The good book itself.
Such a gift might be great,
Until, at St Peter's gate,
Doris-Ann might have to explain
That she was once God on Earth
And that should be good enough
For an agnostic not to be rebuffed.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 8:11 PM UTC
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
Who tells you there won't come a time he won't be around,
But as the days turn to months and the months turn to years,
As you choke back your tears while you drown in your fears,
He is nowhere to be found.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll find 100 different ways to say that he loves you,
Each one sweeter and more heart-tugging than the last,
Watch him use them for his own manipulation,
Up until he decides that this is it, that his "love" has come to pass.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll express how he hates seeing you sad, making you cry,
But like a stubborn child, he never learns from his mistakes,
Protecting his ego and his sense of pride,
when all you wanted was to see him try.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll need you to know that he thinks you're a goddess,
And oh, will you believe his overdone flattery,
But realise this: once he's done and he's gotten what he came for,
Every single flaw and secret will be made into a mockery.
The same voice that sang you praises,
will be shouting words shaped like knives aimed at your heart.
The same tongue that formed you personalised spoken poetry,
will lash out at you,
further crumbling the pieces he promised to put back together.
The man who's good with words rarely means them,
He's mastered them because they are all he has to offer, all he has to bring to the table,
But still you need to fall in love with him and his words,
So you'll know how to treasure the man who _doesn't need them_.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 2:30 PM UTC
i know what the problem with poetry is...
it’s like nick harper tuning the piano
or tenacious d playing the one note song...
it’s almost like
had i the grace (#d)
to fathom the craze (#d)
of each acknowledging stare (#a)
we shared: i guess i’d fare (#a)
much closer to the stardom (#b)
of what i can fathom (#b)...
lead
-ed
red
well fed...
ya ya yawn.
apart from the humanities subjecting an art via mutilating
the one original craft of spontaneity
with such excess of scalpel and anaesthetic
as “discovered” theory...
no expression of language has as many “grammatical”
words to define its learning / interpretation as poetry...
whatever verb has against pronouns to make us anonymous
by excluding a personal stance of nouns...
so has poet against verbs to make us anonymous
by excluding a metaphor personalised given the nouns.
well one note does sound “serene” giving the rhyme couplet
when in music just the same old repeat of the so called rhythm: of a church at 11pm, i.e.
poetry is ruined by rhyme... rhyme kills rhythm
of spontaneity... and i'd hate to make poetry
the ***** of predictability of £110 an hour £10 extra
for oral *** performed on her... enter the realm of rhyme
and you enter a cul de sac:
i was headbanging, unsure whether it was the music
that got me started or the echo of my head autographing
a brick wall as a way to find teeth in a woodpecker's beak.
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 9:13 PM UTC
there are still surprises
for you to be surprised
a way to pull you out
unexpected, from your mind
there are still surprises
coming for you, on their way
personalised, just for you
there are still surprises.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 11:38 AM UTC
Briefly entranced
by a swish of hips
as they sashay past a doorman,
he takes a breath, approaches
and asks to get through.
"Sorry sir," the tall man says,
"your purchasing record suggests
"that you dislike jazz.
"I think you'd better move along."
Of course, of course,
what was he thinking?
A narrow escape, that.
And on home through the empty streets he goes,
Untroubled by the wide wild sounds,
the horns and pianos,
the reckless freeform blast and chatter
that might ruthlessly have smashed through
his carefully constructed identity.
Safe at home,
his television allows him to watch
a comedy he has seen thirteen times before
and so must really love.
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 3:16 PM UTC
stone monuments are big here
circles and chambered tombs
monoliths, stone houses.
Folk from the stone age
building stone age stuff.
Thousands of years of
history.. going way back.
We moderns will leave
our own, personalised.
The graveyard for granite
headstones, wonder how
long they will stand.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
Crash! Kapow!
You call yourself a hero?
You don't know the meaning.
I run, your personalised ball-boy,
The Dark Knight and his shadow,
Trailing behind, holding the coats,
Each day the same, never seen
Just a sidekick
...
Now I have grown,
Exchanged that emerald gear,
Black trousers, a polo neck,
No longer need to be seen,
People no longer stare at the man
who followed, the man who tagged along,
Getting into trouble and causing havoc,
I am who I am,
Holy Robin Redbreast! Scream tabloids
Have I said too much? The mask holds
Identity but what if that got lost?
What if the Robin opened it's beak,
the Bat would have nowhere to fly.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 2:59 PM UTC
"It's been a long day without you my friend,
and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again." - Wiz Khalifa, 'See You Again.'
I think of you every day. There hasn't been one day where you haven't stomped your combat boots around the darkness of my mind.
Yesterday was a bad day where everything especially reminded me of you; you, who shot himself in the head earlier this year. I woke up this morning frantically searching for my phone to go on Facebook in a panic because I had a very real-feeling dream where another friend killed herself, too. I wanted to hold her hand and kiss her sweet face. I wanted to ask her why she didn't tell me. I wouldn't have stopped her, I would've held her hand and jumped off that bridge with her.
I woke up feeling like my chest was collapsing and I found out that it wasn't true, but I am still without you and
I don't know what makes me sadder, the fact that I can't let you go, or the fact that I'm still ******* here. Even my body rebels against me, against my attempts to strip this universe of my existence.
I don’t know what makes me madder, people, or having to act like everything is okay.
I go through the motions, I follow routine, but there's nothing inside. (The lights are on, but nobody's home.)
You are a ghost, but you are the man that I love most. Try as I might, but I can't let you go. It's been 9 months, minus 2 days and I have missed you for every. single. moment.
It's not fair. 19.5 years is not long enough for a good person to live. What have you endured that has broken you? Are they like what has broken me? There's so many unanswered questions, you robbed those you left behind of their answers. There's so much of life you will never see. You'll never get that house with the white picket fence, no dogs or cats, no kisses or impromptu late night walks to nowhere, no wishes of 'goodnight's and 'good luck's (Hell, no one even got as far as the last chance for 'goodbye.'), but then again, neither will I.
You haunt me. I would ask--I would beg--if you could please visit me in my sleep, but I don't sleep so much anymore.
// (I don't believe in any biblical Heaven or Hell, but if there is somewhere good people go after they die, I hope it is each person's personalised halcyon. I hope you finally received the freedom, happiness, and love that you did not in this life. If you are short, I will see you soon, and I will bring all of the third.)
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 6:55 AM UTC
I'm your poet, I'm your pain
I'm your forever never was
In the black chill lake
Right at moonlight
Listen as I hide my scream
Dressed as a ballad.
I'm your sculptor, I'm your sanity
I'm your always and forever
Colorless hallucinations
A nostalgia induced sight
Hold me gently in a second
Then vanish before I wake up
I'm your painter, I'm your dream
I'm your never looking back
Blinding lights of evermore
Baggy jeans and icy grins
Baby we were an eclipse
Ephemeral like my wish.
Dec 16, 2024
Dec 16, 2024 at 4:59 AM UTC
Can you really label it as self harm
If it saves you daily
From a detached
Senseless
Dazed
Abyss.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 2:04 PM UTC
You leave the only way you know how to
In the dead of the night
No explanation, no note
In the morning there will be a hunt
There will be excuses made on your behalf
'Must have gone for a jog'
'Would have left to buy orange juice'
It takes a while for reality to settle
It takes a while for your clothes to be thrown out of the closet
It takes a while before the house loses your scent
Some people take it a step further
They leave with no trace of their existence
No pictures on the mantle
Beds perfectly made as if they had never been slept in
No shoes at the doorway
No stray hairpins or guitar picks or socks
You begin to doubt your own memory
You are left wondering if you loved a ghost
You leave the only way you know how to
With tearful farewells
And eloquent goodbye speeches
You stuff personalised letters into their clenched fists
You leave parts of yourself in their pockets
Beg them to never forget
You make sure that there is no more pain than necessary
You make sure that you are only gone physically
Some people take it a step further
They fill bathroom drawers with their soap bars and lotion
Their notebooks with half finished stories
Are left open on desks
They give themselves a reason to visit
A reason to stay for a couple seconds
Then for coffee
Then the night
When they move half way across the country
They will still call you home
You are left loving an unstable traveller
You leave the only way you know how to
You make it a week long affair
There will be screaming
Ceramics flung across the room and picture frames smashed
Blame passed around like a relay baton
You run a race nobody will win
You leave making sure your car is chased until the end of the road
Apologies dispended as if they are public announcements
There is no silence in your absence
Your voice still echoes in the hallways
Some people take it a step further
It takes them months to pack their bags
Sometimes years
There will be days shrouded with hatred
They leave in parts
One strand of hair at a time
They steal one heart beat at a time
Leaving you cold and numb in the end
They threaten to disappear so many times
That when they finally do you cannot believe it
You are left unable to love again
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 5:55 AM UTC
Occasionally, somebody comes along and unlocks
a part of me, that I never knew existed.
Sometimes, I am okay with that,
welcoming, the rush of warmth that floods my body.
Then occasionally,
more often than not,
I mess up.
Time, and time again -
never learning but always loathing.
I have changed though,
yet it appears it's too little, too late
and those that could have been an option for
joy, those who could have held my very own
personalised key to happiness,
have left already.
May 15, 2017
May 15, 2017 at 7:00 AM UTC
the questions he asked held no relevance
he took notes and I looked out the window to the office
opposite
another room with cabinets
people & computers
water coolers
a broken printer
drably personalised work spaces with kids drawing and motivational quotes spat over an inspiring landscape of mountains or soft still lakes
dust settles and stays on the leaves of plastic plants
( disgruntled secretary,
floor two, has her mothers ashes stored in a Russian doll on her desk and a draw full paper clips and staples )
I didn't get the job
they gave it to a man who likes fat woman to sit on his face
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 5:42 AM UTC
strategically placed reminders
kind of personalised post it notes
set around the space I shelter in
remind of the long term plan
the one I think I would like
the one I would like to come to fruition
keeping in check the tension between getting there and accepting nothing is certain beyond today
and the ever present fact of being on the way, through the choices I make.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 9:58 AM UTC