Archive

BLUE EYED BUNDLE OF GRACE

Aleesha Faye, you caught us a little by surprise
When you launched your premature escape
From your amniotic cocoon to coo’s and sigh’s
And entranced eyes, as your mother gaped
At the sight of you, exhausted and overjoyed
Whimpering; helpless and bare
Handed to your father, one of those celluloid
Moments. Timless. Precious. Rare.

Aleesha Faye, our lives will never be the same
Now that you’re here with us
Sleepless day’s; midnight feeds and nappy changes
But we think you’re worth the fuss
Because you give us so much joy by simply being
In the same room and breathing in
The same air, smiling; stretching and even seeing
With squinted eyes, makes life worth believing

Aleesha Faye, it’s nice to meet you, my niece
You maybe newborn to this world
But you’ve already stolen a little piece
Of my heart, when you curled
Into my arms, laying there happily asleep
Arm raised over your face
Shuffling and smiling in a dream so deep
A blue eyed bundle of grace

SILVER SCREEN OF MEMORY

Reality is a world of dreams
Some broken; some unfulfilled
Played to us on that silver screen
Of memory that’s not yet stilled

There hope and regret perform for free
In the head and for the heart
One promises great things to be
The other mourns what must depart

Dreams of plans yet to be
Reflections of love gone by
Join in uneasy matrimony
Behind the floodgates of our eyes

Trodding the tear ducts of sorrow
With footsteps from history
They dance slowly to the flow
Of the ‘hard knocks’ melody

That plays frequently in our heads
With the beat of the drum
And tells us our dreams aren’t dead
Until our time on earth has run

Written by Ken Hume
10/09/09

UNFORGIVING SUN

It’s a sunny, Sunday afternoon
Inebriated bones are slowly stirring
As we slowly emerge from our cocoon.
And the coffee machine begins whirring
Like our heads, the heat makes us swoon

As we gingerly make our way outside
The fierce morning sun unforgiving
Of last night’s escapades, as our dark eyes
Squint for mercy, and we’re driven
For the only place where we can hide

And converse about whatever dumb
Things we may have done, but can’t remember
Think it all went downhill after the rum
Like that crazy night back in mid-September
But all vices look brighter under the sun

It’s okay though, we always have Facebook
To see if we were caught on camera, tagged
In some state of compromising debauchery, look
There we are, our pristine reputations dragged,
Through the mud of intoxication, think we’re stuck

STOP TRYING SO HARD

Stop trying so hard my son
You weren’t made to walk this path alone
Stop thinking you’re the only one
Who knows what it’s like, pick up the phone
Call a friend and let them know
What’s going on before you go
Stumbling over hurdles you didn’t see
Because you were trying so hard to be
All strong and self-sufficient

Stop carrying that load my son
You weren’t made to hold this weight alone
Stop thinking you’re the only one
Who knows what it’s like, pick up the phone
Call a friend and let them know
What’s going on before you go
Falling under the weight of it all
The weight of the world
You have on your shoulders

Stop fighting the world my son,
You weren’t made to throw those punches alone
Stop thinking you’re the only one,
Who’s been beaten down, pick up the phone
Call a friend and let them know
What’s going on before you go
Walking into that knockout punch
Because you acted on a hunch
That someone else was against you

RAMBLINGS OF THE AGITATED

Park bench ramblings of an agitated girl
Lost in some animated conversation
With close friend from another world
Seems strange on first observation
As her head has another twirl
From side to side in jerky rotation
To see if anybody is looking at her
Or is it all in her imagination

CHORUS
So she has another drink, she has another rant
Has another argument, all because she can’t
Cope with reality which seems stranger than fiction
Back to reality just feeds into her addiction

Bar-stool mumbling’s of an intoxicated man
Complaining about everything that’s wrong
With the world, to anybody who could stand
Listening to him philosophize for as long
As he could hold a drink in this hands
And mourn about his marriage that’s gone
Didn’t work out as he’d planned
So instead he’ll save his country & sing another song

CHORUS
So he has another drink, he has another rant
Has another argument, all because he can’t
Stand the disappointment, loneliness and the shame
Of another day on the dole, on his own, oh the pain

Back-seat grumblings of an adolescent kid
Angry with everything and everyone
He meets, is struggling to keep a lid
On the melting pot of hormones that’s come
Bubbling to the surface, can’t keep hid
All these strange emotions, so he starts to run
With the wrong guy’s, steal a 100 quid
Throw another punch and come undone

CHORUS
So he has another drink, has another rant
Has another argument all because he can’t
Cope with the changes he’s facing inside
Mope with the strangers to places he can’t confide

WORDLESS CONVERSATIONS

Wordless conversations on a barstool seat
Between two men who’ve never met before
Sharing an unspoken bond in this fermented retreat

Wordless conversations on a canal-bank line
Between an ageing father and his son
Fishing for the perfect words, pulling on borrowed time

Wordless conversations on a crumpled marriage bed
Between a jaded husband and his wife
Mourning silently for a love that has long been dead

THE COFFEE SHOP AND ME

The coffee shop and me
Met some years ago
When I was walking
It’s portal to another world
The sweet smelling aroma
Grabbed me by the nose
And dragged me inside
To sample it’s caffiene delights
And now, we’re best of friends

The coffee shop and me
We meet together anytime
To conspire, to commune
In reflective caffeinated bliss
With my notepad and pen
People come and people go
We listen and observe
With outstretched senses
In this coffee shop of ideas

The coffee shop and me
We get together any day
That I am looking for
My wardrobe to poetic Narnia
Will my cup fill me with
The lyrical courage of Aslan
Or the cold; wordless touch
Of the wily White Witch
Where will this cup of coffee end?

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

A conflict of interests, a conflict of desires
Between my faith and craft, wrapped like wires
Around this oft-divided heart
Strangling poetic thirst, spiritual hunger
And anything else it can find
On this much travelled dirt track to my soul
Littered with tainted convictions; unspoken prayers and weary hallelujah’s

Threading cautiously the minefield of split affections
Never sure whose side I’m on, but won’t risk a defection
Now, for I fear that I be
Betraying heavenly devotion, creative longing
And everything else in between
This chaotic battleground called my mind
Strewn with bloodied thoughts; broken ideas and dying dreams

Standing still in the midst of chronic indecision
Get’s me caught in the crossfire of someone else’s vision.

SKYSCRAPER DREAMS

Scraping my up closer to the sky
One brick of dollared mortar at a time
Escaping away. No sir, it’s no lie.
I believe if I climb higher, I’ll find
Myself nearer to heaven, or hell if I fly
Out of the burning window, gravity unwinds
As I plummet into smokey nothingness, why

Do we chase these skyscraper dreams?
Only for them to come crashing down in a heap
Beside us, in a bloodied rubble of ambition
A lonely place for them ashen clowns of commerce to keep
On juggling our happiness
In their burst; muddied bubble of monetary attrition

MYSTERIOUS GEL

Dear Mum, I have not much to give you in the way
Of monetary value or clever sounding words to say
How much you mean to me and the sun kissed rays
Of patience; love and compassion you give out each day

For 3 score years and ten since the year of your birth
And somehow you still find a way to unearth
Depths in others and in yourself, you see their worth
Dust down their shelves and look beyond the dirt

Stained moments from their guilt-ridden past
Cobwebbed closets of hidden secrets that last
No longer when you begin peeling away the mask
Of layered smiles and platitudes, soon they cast

Aside their crumbling walls, made of sand and paper
Defenses which soon fall when you take the rapier
Of His Word to their hearts, their excuses soon taper
Off when they start to grasp it’s no self- indulgent caper

For, no shallowness exists in the deep well of your soul
More hallowed is the myst-erious gel in which you hold
Your family together and your friends whom you console
With your listening ear, open eyes and wisdom which you unfold

For my Mum’s 70th Birthday

FREEDOM IS…

They say ‘you don’t know what you got until it’s gone’,
But nothing about if you never had it to begin
Did they say if they know what it’s like to go so long
Without your basic human rights being treated like a sin

Born into poverty, the kid never had a chance,
At a young age, he had learnt how to dance
Between the bullets and the punches
Thrown beer bottles; no school lunches
Drug pushers and teasing friends
People traffickers and a world of dead ends

They say ‘you don’t know what you got until it’s gone’,
But nothing about if you never had it to begin
Did they say if they know what it’s like to go so long
Without your basic human rights being treated like a sin

But, he’s not the only kid who doesn’t know
What freedom is or where it goes
But only how to get by each day
How to survive and not get played
Freedom is sleeping in his own room
Not coming home to rest in a wooden tomb

They say ‘you don’t know what you got until it’s gone’,
But nothing about if you never had it to begin
Did they say if they know what it’s like to go so long
Without your basic human rights being treated like a sin

August 14, 2011
The Lady & the Wasp

A high-pitched squeal shakes me out of my prose induced trance
I raise my head up to see an elegant lady in an unelegant dance
Between the seats in a phobia induced panic derived from a wiley wasp
On it’s last legs, buzzing it’s way through the open door, it’s on the cusp
Of death, soon it’s ducking and weaving between a folded newspaper
Aimed in it’s direction with deadly intent, the excitement soon tapers
Off, after the creature meets his inevitable end, squished between
The paper and the window, the mood slowly returns to the serene
Soothing slumber of a Sunday that it was before.

WHAT HAPPENED

What happened is the tears dried in
To my tired and thickening skin
My heart gave out, but did not give in
As my mind teetered on the thin

Ledge of erupting emotions and functional sanity
From the dormant volcano of pent-up humanity
Rivers of boiling lava unveiling the man you see
Sweeping away the shelter of self-composed vanity

Now the mountainside of my soul looks incredibly bare
Stripped down to its roots, like it was never there
No time for sentiment, no place left to stare
Except for the smoking remains of my once fair…

Youthful idealism and bubble-wrapped innocence
Religious fervour and divine coincidence
mournful ruminations on avoidable incidents
Now let me evolve from the ashes, but only in increments.

August 9, 2011

CARPET OF SNOW

Leaving the cosy confines of the sitting room
And the raging open hearth fire, the heat of which
Has embraced my very soul, I make my way
Slowly to the door, the last line of protection between
Me and the hostile winter cold that awaits outside
Bitter; fierce and unfriendly, bu t I push the handle down,
Open wide and thrust myself out into the freezing onslaught
And I become intimately acquainted with a snowball
Friendly intentions, but leaving a ferocious imprint
My face reeling from the icy impact, my cheeks stinging
From the blow, I look to see where it came from
And I spot the familiar; sweeping smile, peering out from
Behind the snow-covered bushes, michievous; bequiling;
Irresistable, I suddenly forget what season I’m in
And propel myself myself out into the snow, thick carpets of it
Crunching underneath my feet as I run towards her,
Gathering the magical white substance into my hands
As I go, condensing it; shaping it into the seasonal ball
Shaped missle of un that it is. She tunrs one way,
Then another, giggling and laughing, her wavy brown
Hair catching in the wind, until I catch her by the hood
And…. then a shot rings out!
I stop dead in my tracks, unfortunately she stopped too
Dead and lying on the ground, color squeezed out of her
Another color, red, now seeping out from underneath
Her jacket and staining this thick carpet of snow.