Tag: sadness

Phantom Hands

Grief casts complex shadows
over the wilting body
You feel the fingers grasping
as sirens rise again
This fatalistic ritual
an energy made negative
and stomach knotted up
by such unhelpful thoughts

Pain rips at your sails
thunderous and wild
is it the body breaking down
a message poorly translated
The shrieking of absence
cuts deep into the gut
those hands twist and grip
the cycle begun again

Skidding down the rabbit hole
of mystery pain and anxiety
hyper real and burning
it’s eating you alive
Those phantom hands rewiring
your mind only to worry
assumptions dire and grave
all roads lead to that place

These misdirected signals
all those black and deadly things
speak with knife-like voices
plunged into your chest
Taking you to a place
maybe part of you would like to go
to be proved right
your fears bleakly justified

Those phantom hands
threaten to poison everything 
but they will not take you 
Where can we draw the line
Which hell is the body
and which is in the ailing mind
My real hands catch the tears
falling from my mother’s eyes…

[2023]

Thanks for reading.

We Should Be In Love

The strange places I wake up
dank bedrooms, mouldy stairwells
always hoping to be by your side
I am alone, or much worse
making pathetic, transparent excuses
when we should be in love

You’re off chasing some pretty model
around the backstreets of Shoreditch
photographing graveyards
painting your nails green
not thinking of me
when we should be in love

When it all goes wrong
I’ll still be the one…

I met you at a summer party
you seemed afraid to talk to me at first
I smiled and said ‘I don’t bite, you know’
you purred ‘I only like the ones that bite’
O beauty, why do you do this to me
when we should be in love

And to the city you chase your prey
I lie in my bed, my grave
six feet beneath the sheets
unappealing, yet constant and surprising
waiting patiently for you
when we should be in love

When it all goes wrong
I’ll still be the one…

Why must you be drawn to the bad ones
they look like cartoon characters
but “shit always gets too real”
and they crush your heart with steel toecaps
here, I persist in my grounded daydreams
and we should be in love

Don’t you want someone who knows how to love
someone with experience of longevity
who can love you from afar and up close
melt you with their lust, drown you in their trust
sit silently absorbing
the beauty of your complexity
O, we should be in love

I’m still the one…

[2010]

I was not the one. Thanks for reading.

If you fancy it, pop on a playlist of some of my recent poems on Soundcloud…

It’s Winter There Forever…

Curious, sometimes
I go walking back
through old photographs
eyeing the dusk snow
with fresh feeling
Reimagining that old way of things
to get lost…

A teenage heart pumped through
though I was older
A teenage longing ran right through me
though I should have known better

I find nothing in the snow
always the same
I find nothing I didn’t know
and it’s winter there forever…

Seeing those photographs
sometimes, I wonder
seeing those photographs now
I feel a little pity

Those old stars, that ancient map
was it leading me here all along
What was with those long dark nights
endlessly reflecting

You can’t live inside a photograph
no matter how it pulls at your heart
yet I dive, sometimes I dive, backwards
and it’s winter there forever…

[2016]

Thanks for reading this old poem.

Purpose

My car stands motionless in the driveway
but I don’t know how to drive it
That guitar is propped against its amp
but I don’t know how to play
and my lover
she lies there in the bedroom
but I…

My chess set’s collecting dust upon the shelves
but I don’t know what the rules are
That fishing rod looms above the bait box
but I don’t have the technique
and my lover
she lies there in the bedroom
but I…

What am I for
when I don’t know how to love her
when I don’t know how to let her
love me back
What am I for
What am I for

So, I’ll keep buying toys
and promising I’ll master them
When really there’s no joy
in anything, anymore…

[2007]

Thanks for reading this old poem.

Our Home Cannot Be Here

I lit a fire on the beach
you were feeling beaten by the wind
no, we can’t hear anything in this weather
but the waves and the crackling wood
you don’t speak anyway
we have nothing we care to say

Our human silences amid nature’s screams
fill me with a loss so unforgettable
Our human silences amid nature’s screams
fill me with a void so inescapable

The sky goes dark and the sea slides away
time is huge and our movements tiny
I wrote my address on the back of your hand
but you reached into the water and it vanished
I can’t imagine a life not anchored here
as you turn slow to dive from me

The answers come only with soft punches
a milked stone, I lie folded and bruised
how could we ever know this lost romance
your whirlpool eyes cry tears of understanding
I dust the sand from my baked face and frown
there’s no warning of love’s swift decay

Our human silences amid nature’s screams
fill me with an ache so all consuming

Moon reveals the night’s black heart
you say you love me, as you leave me
you say you care for me, as you go down on him
there’s no favour you can grant me anymore
there’s no connection to the blood in my heart
just open your palms, expose our withered bonds

The rain rages fast and hard across the sand
we tussle as broken wings on some sick bird
finality comes to me, its decision absolute
your hand slips away and swings clear for all time
I fall back into the water, exhaling slowly
‘Our home cannot be here…’

[2010]

Thanks for reading.

I have a new book… ‘The Ship-wrecker’s Lamp: Selected Poems 2010 – 2020’ available now.

I Fear Winter

These stunted days, these freezing nights
compress my thoughts
The year’s impending ending
forces me into reflecting

Winter lets breed a fear in me
fear for the furry little lives
fear for the torn out pages
And so, for warmth, I write…

These forgettable phrases form
These liable little lines laid out
These humble homeless honesties
These intangible inky inches

The outside world is shrunken and cold
all the best times are defined by people
and who was there, it reflects exactly
how deeply those memories carry

Curtains closing for the final time today
fearing the endless chill of white
I’ve got all the things I badly needed
and trapped indoors, so much to write

All I know to do
is to give thanks
for all that came my way

These woozy words warmly whispered
These spidery sentences slowly spun
These drunken dark descriptions detailed
These nosy noisy nothings noted

All thoughts are forced into a verse
by the impending ending of a year…

[2010]

Thanks for reading this old poem.

Deeper

It’s easy to blur the picture
slip the lead of life
A stray dog
running wild
No duty to reality

In truth, I wander lost
fighting to make sense
of all I’ve got
Can I dive deeper
Can I really reach her

Such superficial urges
with such urgency
swell up in me
As if I’m bound always
to beauty

She pushes her hand into mine
When she licks those lips
and presses her tongue
so sublime
how could I decline

But can I let her
throw herself into
this shallow sea…
Her perfect body
into this shallow sea…

I’m staring out
restlessly
Peering back into me
But no, not deep enough
Looking out
relentlessly
back into me
And no, not deep enough
not deep enough to dive

Can I let her
throw herself into
this shallow sea…
No, no
not deep enough
not deep enough to dive…

[2010]

Thanks for reading this old poem.

Renee By A Thread

Down the corridor, comes a scream
Was it physical pain
or the horror of finally learning
the way this game is turning
They took your clothes
gave you a gown
there was nothing to do but lay right down
Now, the machine breathes
for you
hung by a thread and leaving soon

Faint flashes behind tired eyelids
recalled moments from a busy life;
the night before your wedding
barefoot kisses by the Seine
The tentative first steps of Child Two
A shaking hand, a ‘thank you’ card
from the family of one you saved
Now, the machine breathes
for you
hung by a thread and leaving soon

The ache, it came and spread like water
the fever burned, the cough, it worsened
they hooked you up, you knew the drill
the butterfly, the slow sure drip
and then it seemed to ease a while
The bed you took, brought guilt at first
your hands no longer helping
Then suddenly; your quick decline
Now, the machine breathes
for you
hung by a thread and leaving soon

There’s a feeling in your chest
and that sixth-sense you sometimes get
the dawn tomorrow, you will not witness
Nurses come, their voices hushed
gloved hands hold, always too briefly
you don’t like the letting go
The room is quiet but for the wheeze
as the machine breathes
for you
hung by a thread and leaving soon

In the chair beside you, that loving face
waiting at end of every nightshift
You know that he will raise them right
Ah, but which patient was it
which desperate hand you gently held
which reassuring words you shared
with no fresh mask to wear
Now, the machine breathes
for you
hung by a thread and leaving soon

The family grieves
a nation grieves
for you
gone
needlessly soon…

[2020]

Thanks for reading.

Give your eyes a break and listen to some poems

The Truth Is Sadness

Decorated lives
shuffling onwards
towards inevitable darkness
we cloak ourselves
in the hood of love
cover the cage
deny the sky above
the truth is sadness

Tiny movements
helpless gestures
elliptical orbits
around the heart of happiness
an argument
with a river
convinced of our control
tilting the rudder
towards hope
the truth is sadness

Fold the patterned sheet
around your sleeping child
know they’ll close
the carved casket
someday around yours
all you’ve seen
or done or sung
is gone
the truth is sadness

Zoom out, zoom out
and it’s clear
every story is a tragedy
what came of your argument
with the river
did you learn to love
that strange beauty
the truth has always
been impermanence
ephemeral experience
an end
to all things
the truth is sadness…

[2019]

Thanks for reading.

The blog has been a bit quiet recently. So, to spice things up I’m going to repost some old work every day for the rest of February (my birthday month). I hope you find one you enjoy…

River’s End

Some nights, I can’t sleep
so, I go out walking
following the river
in my discomfort and anxiety
All too aware
of where we’re heading
winding towards that war
no one can win

I pass bonfires of guitars
funeral pyres of pianos
strings all snapped
Art must be rationed out, now
There’s a faded memory of a song
from long ago
that hopeless refrain, lilts
‘these are our final days’

The cities seethe, swollen and diseased
remnant governments siphon off our blood
all the schools are barracks
hospitals lick flames from every window
Kids wear shrapnel like fast-food crowns
landmines pop like party balloons
Lorries scurry the broken masses
from one smouldering ruin to the next

A hatred crackles between the people
the rusted blade edge of civilisation
I feel helpless and heartbroken
panic surging behind closed eyelids
As humanity divides
the two sides meeting twice
once in their compromise
and again at the extremes

The river rushes ever higher
the floodplain quickly vanishes
I mourn the poetry of seasons
the grave of tenderness is washed downstream
I meet a woman, burying her daughter
From an old matchbox, I offer her
the thin stem of withered hope, I nurture
she waters it with her tears

“These are, these truly are
our final days”

When we reach the river’s end
the night is at its darkest
just then a thousand suns light up
this fractured northern hemisphere

Waking in my bed
I realise my dream
But is all this hell
still yet to come…?

[2023]

Thanks for reading. Happy new year! Don’t have nightmares.

Under The Old Whale Bones

If you can find your way back here
let’s meet
under the old whale bones
this place that we each love
Where we look out to sea
or back towards the sleeping town

One day, we’ll stand together
and unbeknownst to us
it will be
for the last time in our lives

Whichever of us, must go first
let’s make a promise to meet again
under the old whale bones
Hearts filled with feeling
and the beauty of the harbour lights
reflected on the water

The hem of night is chasing us
with its rude goodbye
as it claims its prize
and lays us down
as we close our sleeping eyes

One day, we’ll smile at one another
and unbeknownst to us
it will be
for the last time in our lives

Mum, dad, when you
slip into that endless blue
or if I am gone before you
Let’s find some way back and meet
under the old whale bones

We’ll pose for someone’s photos
ghosts that chatter
or ghosts that silently
contemplate the sea
under the old whale bones

We’ll stand together
and look out across the sand
stretching as wide
as our smiles…

[2021]

Thanks for reading.

All my poems.

Day of Death

The neighbour’s cat
brought a mouse into our garden
four limbs twitching
And from that jaw, those claws
I performed a rescue
but it was all for naught
and I tucked that little life
on the compost stack
hoping it found a comfy spot
to shuffle off

Out walking that same afternoon
on the pavement, on the path
a squirrel who’d tried to fly
but kissed the curb
such a sad sight
as I strolled on by
I hope it was quick
an instant goodbye

Later on that ramble
A pigeon lay on the lawn
insides brought outside
in the shimmering sunlight
Fallen and discovered
by nature’s tiny accomplices
all busy reducing and reusing
a cycle completing

All that death in one day
Was the universe speaking
or is life always busy ending
Nature is not so sentimental
and we’ll all meet those jaws
we’ll all kiss that curb
and complete the cycle
That day of death
comes to us all

While I still draw breath
there are many ‘thank you’s
so many ‘I love you’s
many ‘how can I help you’s
I still need to speak
and so I pray ‘not today’
like we all pray
‘please, not today’…

[2022]

Thanks for reading.

There Will Be Birds In The Morning

Hit play to listen or right-click and ‘save as’ to download.

There’s a girl in tears
upon the cathedral steps
as I walk to work
the rain
a mist that swallows us
leaves blowing by
I want to wrap my scarf around her
and say

There will be better days
there will be lighter times
there will be happiness again

And there will be birds in the morning
singing for you and me
singing for you

There’s a boy in a phone box
framed behind glass, he sighs
as I’m passing by
his call has ended
the last call of that friendship
I want to get him a beer and say

Don’t forget the love you have
don’t forget those faces
it will be bright again in time

And there will be birds in the morning
singing for you and me
singing for you

And the rain comes down
and leaves blow by
all the busses look so busy
I laugh quietly to myself
wondering
Do birds even sing
on winter mornings?

[2019]

Thanks for reading.

Oct 2022: Reposting again (sorry) – audio remastered with clearer vocals.

Featured in ‘The Ship-wrecker’s Lamp available now.

Like Someone Who Knows Me

Click play to hear the poem read aloud.

Through the bitterness of winter
life crawls, so lingering and lonely
and hauling your battered heart into
the shelter of some place holy
Your mind swims with the terrible things
those hands have groped toward
The grit of guilt and shame conspire
to serve as your reward

Such troubled thoughts reverberate
as they echo up into the arches
Gathering their mass and falling back
they’ve now swollen to a chorus
It’s to the ivory king atop his wooden cross
your hope will momentarily cling
but in the deafening silence he lets ring
you’ll sigh your stuttered hymn…

“O, hold me
hold me
like someone who knows me
for there must be
one…”

Caught between the ribbons and the frills
of a hired friend in a rented room
Her garments kiss the mottled carpet
as she beckons you from the dimming gloom
You’ve lassoed all your longing
gathered up your greed
but all is tarnished by the arrogance
of succumbing to this need

To feel her fingers, small and slender
as they rouse your self belief
A patron of the pornographic sweatshops
with nothing beyond this fleeting relief
Your hands suddenly feel so cold
There’s much your body is aching to confess
and your tears of lumpen coal merely exist
as you whimper at her breast…

“O, hold me
hold me
like someone who knows me
for there must be
one…”

The dance of waves like hungry knives
metallic in the floodlight moon
This freezing clifftop is haunted
by the remnants of a family ruin
And strobing images of numbered girls
divorced from name and age
You torched everything that mattered
for a compulsion you could not assuage

The trouble swells, you’ve lost control
it’s from yourself you now must flee
Still your wings, they have no feather
it’s a long way down but then you’re free
Soon you’ll slip between the stars
a fragment of that timeless beauty
as the sea rises up to carve your body
you exhale that broken plea…

“O, hold me
hold me
like someone who knows me”

Yet there
were
none…

[2022]

Thanks for reading.

All The Forgotten Novels

I watched you
wrangling those sensations
turning your heart
upside out, inside down
And dipped in ink
kissed the page
I heard your words fall
articulate fictions collected
spelling out the world
filtered through your eyes…

I sat, awe-struck
at those flippant phrasings
pouring from your pen
Truest lies, the lying truths
splattered accurate
clinging to the pages
I believed the textures
you carved in open air
the spoken honey of your prose
a world seen through dark eyes…

All gone and gone
time laughing at us
It’s all forgotten
time mocking us
all for nothing
like rain at sea
Those sparkling lines
those beauties bound
all forgotten
like rain at sea
like rain at sea…

[2013]

Thanks for reading. I have no memory of writing this one but I quite like a couple of the lines so thought I’d share.

University Payphone

From the depths of a damp October
you called me daily
The auburn street outside
so unfamiliar
That new city
didn’t yet feel like home

“I just called to hear your voice
and ask when you’ll come to visit?”
Muted tears falling
on the university payphone
And the scratch of coins loading
asking if I missed you

And every day, I do
of course, I do
Every dusk into the winter
our daily phone calls
It was so hard to hear
those secret tears

Two months crept by
and now there are other voices
I could hear you smiling
and it’s so good to know you’re happy
new friends surrounding
fewer calls, less often

And every day, I do
of course, I think of you
Every iced spring morning
I miss your phone calls
it was good to hear you happy
but sad to know
you no longer needed me…

[2022]

Thanks for reading.

https://linktr.ee/tomalexwrite

Trust

Playing in the garden
watching films together
as you nestle into my arm
learning each other’s language
You trusted me, eventually
became part of my family

I loved to watch you
explore the world we shared
sunbathing on the rug
or endless pats in the living room
Your fur and the quiet purr
of little teeth grinding

What I’ve been dreading
now, it’s happening
You’re still you
but your legs no longer work
yet you look to me
with such affection in your eyes

I’m so happy we were alive
at the same time
I’m so grateful your life
aligned with mine
and I can’t measure
the happiness you brought

As the tears clear, I can see
I’m doing the right thing
and yet it sorely stings
to watch you slip away
Such trust in your closing eyes
as we say our last goodbyes

All I ever wanted
was the best life for you
You’re skipping now forever
through the meadows
and the vegetable patch
of my fondest memories…

[2022]

Thanks for reading.

https://linktr.ee/tomalexwrite

Under This Maudlin Sky

Two lonesome figures
under a maudlin sky
Two friends trying to speak
to understand something
The wind whips up
clouds of stinging sand
It’s so hard to look ahead
both momentarily blind
under this maudlin sky

So many miles, we’ve come
so many times we laughed together
Now, the future feels so small
every outcome seems so brutal
I try my best to steady you
when your steps waver
‘one foot in front of the other’
the only advice I can muster
under this maudlin sky

These moments are dense
with a thousand universes
Thinking feels infinite
limbs so heavy and useless
I can’t put my arm around your shoulder
I can’t manage that quite yet
So, we walk with all our questions
tentative with every step

I wish I could fix this trouble for you
but there are things you can’t undo
Late at night in your lonely room
dark matters at the heart of you
Are you still the friend
I thought I knew
under this maudlin sky

And I want to ask you why
but I know that you don’t know
and I want to ask you why
under this maudlin sky…

Are you still the friend
I thought I knew…

[2022]

Thanks for reading.

This one one of the poems I wrote in August when I forced myself to write a poem every day – unedited and raw.

Morphine

All the faith carried in your soul
and all the morphine
lightening the load
they play a strange sad game
spinning lies in devilish ways

I listened to your doctor speaking
as you read from some ancient tome
yes, you know your body well
but pain isn’t the cause

This belief takes its small toll
the colour and the hope draining away
defeatedly, you feel
you’re failing

But you’re not fading
you’re not going anywhere
I take your hand to emphasize
you’re not slipping from this life
you’re falling into morphine
warm and wide
with those tired eyes

You say to me
‘Son, He is waiting
will you pray for me?
I feel Him come for me’
but even faithlessly
I know he’d not be ready
it’s just the morphine murmuring
as you try to start our last goodbye
I smile, say ‘it’s alright

And you’re not fading
you’re not going anywhere’
I look deep into your eyes
say ‘you’re not slipping from this life
you’re falling into morphine
warm and wide
just sleep tonight’

In this windowless room
you’ll see no blinding light
come for you in the night

You look at me and say you’re ‘sure’
think I’m angry
because I ‘can’t bare to hear’
I’m just frustrated
by those velvet hands
rummaging in your brain
and your absent God

And all that morphine
wet and warm
you’re wading through tonight

I love you, mum
and you’re not going anywhere…

[2015]

Thanks for reading.

https://linktr.ee/tomalexwrite

The Things We Lose

There can be no knowing
there can be no honest understanding
until you are standing there
empty-handed, broken-hearted
Suddenly, all too aware
of all the things we’ve lost

You can try to estimate the feeling
you can approximate a sense of things
The hollowness this ‘now’ rings in your bones
swallowing any beat of happy thought right up
every moment speaks only in shrieks
of all the things we’ve lost

Attempting a prediction will always miss
for the things that cut are too small to see
You never think to gauge
the imperceptible absences;
the smell of her hair, a contented sigh
This silent lack of fragrance screams
of all the things we’ve lost

Sitting there talking of this happening
neither of us could have comprehended
the way this withered world seems to laugh at us
the endless bleakness of glacial lonely nights
All the saddest songs we can find to play, singing
of all the things we’ve lost

You must expect the end to hurt
you much accept no one is spared
yet, there is simply no preparing for this moment
as things you’d never noticed capsize all around
squealing out the saddest sound
of all the things we’ve lost

The truest happiness we’d ever swum in
the deepest friendship we’ve ever known
the warmest love we’d ever felt
the greatest thing we’ve lost…

[2009]

Thanks for reading.

https://linktr.ee/tomalexwrite