Tag: prose poem

audio, blog, poetry, short story

Inktober 27 – Coat

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dead-trees_Free-Photos
Image by Free-Photos via pixabay

Listen: 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by

It’s quiet, always. I miss birdsong more than almost anything else. Can’t be completely certain but I’m surely getting close now. There’s a salt tang in the air unlike the sour stench of the towns and the damp, gloomy forests – what’s left of them, anyway.

I hack and spit rusty bubbles beside tattered boots. Humans were made to move, but this slow trek is nothing like running and going nowhere for fun. Now I walk, escaping nowhere and carrying it within.

Rest is death.

Behind me, blasted trees stretch gaunt black limbs skyward, twisted and shrieking in the endless wind. My coat barely yields to the breeze, its fabric thick with secrets and stained with unbearable memories. There’s too much knowledge for one man to contain.

I should go on.

I settle on a fallen trunk and cough. Pain spikes hot in my chest.

Maybe we could never have proved ourselves worthy stewards of the universe when every call for caution was ignored, drowned by the triumphant roar of all the other wishes granted to man in his pursuit of mastery. The genie will never return to the bottle, because he exults in his freedom and terrible power to remake the world.

We were our own nemesis, and we refused to believe it. I look up, try to believe the sun still shines, high above the sullen clouds. If it has not forsaken us, why can I not feel it?

I hack and spit red. Red used to mean love. I could curl up here – find solace hidden between roots ripped from grieving earth – dream of all I have lost, and all that has been snatched away. I could rest.

Just a little further.

This desolate greying hill is the last, I’m certain. I will come to the sea, to the end and the beginning. My pack lies empty at my feet. The tighter I clutch my past, the faster it disintegrates in my hands.

What’s a man without a past? What’s a man without a future?

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Poetry excerpted from Sea Fever by John Masefield
Thanks for reading!

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

sea glass season

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sea-glass_treenabelle
treenabelle via pixabay

Every year it comes again, this subtle sense of loss — a missing piano note. I’ve erased and rewritten our story so many times over that the memory now is ragged and blurred. Too much clings to the fabric. There’s no space to start afresh.

Sharp edged criticism and disappointments have mellowed, tumbled over and over in an ocean of days and tears and never minds. What was once harsh and bitter turns soft and hazy. Perhaps one day even these will disappear, all the corners worn away until nothing remains.

I wonder if she ever heard me cry, holding jagged shards to my heart instead of comfort.

I cannot bear to wait for an echo that remains silent, so I do not sing the missing note. It sits inside my chest, bound and shackled.

Each early summer season it tries to escape. My throat is barricaded and I will not.

The past is veiled for my protection, bubble-wrapped in half-truths and semi-plausible explanations. We do our best and it is not enough. One always wants more than the other can give.

A never ending game played out across generations. Rules are unclear and the dice are loaded.

One day, my daughter too will cast the wishes I unknowingly broke into her private sea, hoping fragments will wash ashore smooth enough to hold.

blog, creativity, poetry, productivity

Making my way

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StockSnap via pixabay

It’s getting cooler now, autumn truly setting in as what’s left of summer fades away. Rain trickles down the windows. I stare out at the grey sky, and I don’t know what I’m doing or why.

I begin work.

Sometimes nothingness and oblivion are far more appealing than they should be. Have I had a good life, someone asks. I’ve been good. I’ve done good. Followed the rules. Not made a fuss.

I don’t know if that is a good life. If it is good for me.

I keep working.

It seems futile, shouting into the void, scratching symbols on the sand for the tide to wash it away. Hurricanes blow away human constructions, suck the very ocean from the earth. People talk feverishly of end times, booking places in the lifeboat of faith. They know they will be saved. All seems futile, all comes to an end, why not here?

I have not come to an end. I wake, and it is another day, and I go on working.

There are lean times, and times of plenty. There are droughts, and oases of green. There are things made of grey, and nothings made of black. There are places where all these co-exist, a Schrödinger dimension of ideas. My head is one of these places.

In the midst of death and endings, my fingers sprout new lives and beginnings that never were. I build word bricks into sentence walls and so construct whole cities of fanciful notions, airy and insubstantial and leaden. If I don’t spit them out they weigh me down and I drown in a sea of tears.

I must work.

Fly my pretties, out into an uncertain world of indifference and pain. Let me birth you one by one, sit gasping and bleeding in the road, then catch my breath and move on, never looking back. Another cuckoo grows within. I sleep, and life comes to me again with dawn. I rise, weary.

The work compels me.

If I have material or if I have not, it is the same. It is only the work, the creation, the what if spur in my flanks, that gives meaning to the day. I may turn my back, but it is always there.

And so I’m doing the work.

 

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

September’s end

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autumn-tree-leaves-red-63614
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com  

 

A breeze blows still, cooler and sharper than summer’s soft sigh, an edged whisper stealing beneath my ill-advised layers of silk. I should wear a sweater, perhaps. It’s almost time, but I cling to the dying summer as a drowning man cradles the last hopeful flotsam to his chest. It’s not enough, in the end. But it will do for now.

Vibrant spring greens gave way to lively grass greens. Varied hues fade in sunlight that promises much from behind a window, but delivers less than wanted in reality. Here and there, wine red blushes leaves while others flicker orange and yellow, a final bonfire of colour to warm the season’s end. The green of life retreats to its source. We know the dark is coming.

Not today though. Today energetic clouds bustle in cool blue. Scarlet fruits bob and sway. Nature keeps her promises in generous bounty. And in the imperceptibly shrinking day another voice hides. Now you see me, then you won’t. But the world turns, and brings another, harsher time. Gather in while you may.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

individu[al(one)]

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man sitting in cell_Free-Photos
Free-Photos via pixabay

He is at work. Wednesday comes.

Hey, we’re off to the pub. Coming?
Sure. Why not.
Football scores. Office politics. The girl in the corner wearing blue.
Nothing to say. Sips a beer. No response to desperate glances.
Must be getting home or there’ll be hell to pay, right?
Right.

He is at work. Friday comes.

TGIF, am I right?
Right.
She’s got my weekend booked up, shopping and a BBQ, groan. You?
Nothing much.
I wish.
Three beers and Netflix. Pizza delivery. Quiet bed.

He is at work. Monday comes.

So busy this weekend, didn’t have a minute to myself. How about you?
Oh, you know. Quiet.
You’re lucky, time to yourself.
Yes. Lucky me.
Friday can’t come quick enough, am I right?
Right.

He is quiet. No trouble. No drama.

No sun. Engulfed by eternal cloud, muffled, numb.
Rain drips icy fingers down his neck, freezing his bones.
Invisible, lost, a lone wolf.
Teeth ripping at his own heart.
A final scream, choked. Unheard.
None to sing his elegy.

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

Tell me a story

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book_butterflies
Alexas_Fotos via pixabay

listen: 

Tell me a story. Give me tales of a thousand nights, warm scented breeze on my skin, sand in my shoes. Take me to the farthest pole, blue-green fire dancing in the sky, breath clouding in crisp night air.

Tell me a story. Let me taste salt sea tang while sun beats down on wooden decks. Show me dolphins, flying fish, whales breaching white-topped waves. Let me glimpse bright eyed merpeople watching deep under the surface, waiting.

Tell me a story. Carry me on red and silver rockets to vast silent space stations where the stars never go out. Show me galaxies born from cosmic dust. Bring whispers from strange aliens and stranger, once-human creatures.

Tell me a story. Lead me up the mountain, rocks skittering away under exhausted feet, lungs screaming for oxygen. Describe that joyful promised land seen only from the summit, take me there on wings of faith.

Expand my horizons. Play my emotions. Cloak mindless chatter, soothe unthinking wounds, only with words. Let me shed this skin, be someone else, somewhere else, sometime else. Give me distance, just for a while. Let me lose and maybe find myself.

Tell me a story.

 

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

Consumed

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book on fire_StockSnap
StockSnap via pixabay

He tasted her mind and realised he was starving – unknown

listen: 

Dancing girls twirl bright and golden, limbs lustred to slip through the hands in a whisper of scented oils. A brilliant array, spread out to tempt a prince mired in jaded expectation. Perfect sweetmeats, empty glossy promises on the lips.

Bright. Gold. Red. Gone.

She is silent, an insubstantial shadow in the light of her better favoured sisters. Eyes lowered, plain garbed, unremarkable, she vanishes behind another dream confected in jewelled feathers.

He rises, leaves the orgy of consumption behind him, seeks her in the forgotten labyrinth of the palace. His hand stays her flight. Understood.

And so to a perfumed chamber. Purple and maroon, silk and velvet, secrets and lies.

Apparently submissive, her hand slips into a pocket. But when she raises her head, fire blazes defiance from her eyes. He steps back, hand on sword.

I do not refuse my esteemed prince, asking only that I might read to him first.

She opens the small volume, gold letters glowing on its spine.

And the universe cracks open and explodes before him. Questions, answers, songs for eternal ages, ancient wisdom and otherworldly beauty. His desert heart blooms, cool rivers quench parched lips. Her voice swathes him in clouds and galaxies and everything that has not yet come to be. Time sits at her feet and listens.

The prince savours thoughts, feasts on ideas, nourishes his soul, gobbling all. The moon sets; she does not stop reading. He is drunk on limerence, enthralled by wonder.

 

He wakes alone, faint afterglow of her words in his ear. How could this lyrical banquet leave him so hollow with longing? He did not know true hunger till he tasted her mind.

He had not understood.

A lifetime might not be enough. He searches still, for his hidden spirit with the phoenix burning in her eyes and dragon flames dancing on her tongue.

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

Judas

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alone_AngeloMazzotta
AngeloMazzotti via pixabay

listen: 

I have only myself to blame. And you of course, but you’re not here, are you? I walk alone with my thoughts and self-recriminations.

You fell in step with me and we walked a path, uncertain but less perilous because we were together. I believed we were equals.

I should not have listened.

My history, yes, I thought that sack of stones was behind me, sorted and catalogued, stripped of hurt.

I should have remembered.

A pat on the back, a smile, a confidence shared. Comrades, or so I thought. A friend’s blow unseen until the final moment, sharp blade sliding into exposed skin.

I should not have dropped my guard.

(A gasp, not a scream, because this cannot be happening.)

Ruby drops pump from my scandalised heart onto stony ground. No pain, just numbing cold as you step away, carelessly wiping my blood from your hands.

Now you seek a safer harbour. Take your traitorous smile and self-serving machinations, go where you will.

I am the strength that protected you, but in the end you gave me nothing but a wound.

Another scar. I walk on alone.

One day, I will learn.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

sky/light/deep/dark/blue

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Creative Cafe Creative Challenge #48.5

man-blue-destruction_intographics
intographics via pixabay

“Depression is being color blind and constantly told how colorful the world is.”
— Atticus, Love Her Wild

 

This is a good day.

Hardly a cloud to mar a sweep of sky blue, warm winds sigh against my skin and tug at my sails. Hardly a shadow, with the sun near its zenith. Up here in the wide above, birds call and all is bright. The sea glitters blue and silver, reflecting sunbeams. Anything is possible. Viewed through the positivity telescope, the horizon beckons.

 

Another day.

Plenty of steel blue sky, but more grey clouds now, not yet weeping fat raindrops. Time to batten the hatches and haul in my sails against gusting winds and imminent storms. Water shivers in the air, cool against skin goosebumped despite my thin coat of hope. The sun hides. It is still there, I think.

 

Days go by.

I crouch in my frail boat, tossed on angry swell, shipping cold uncaring wet. The sky touches the sea and all is grey, colour washed away. Torn clouds shed raindrops to mingle with tears on my chilly face. And when the giant wave finally snatches me into pitiless ocean, I am not surprised. It was always coming.

 

Time passes.

I drift endlessly. No map or compass, no lifebelt. Helpless to fight the long slow slide, sinking deeper into the blue, I lose the last vestiges of light. Down, and down. Eyes blinded, nothing to see. Marble skin, numb to feeling. I could shout at the void, but there will be no reply. The blue darkens still more. It is the black shadow that has chased me every day of my journey.

 

Swallowed in nothingness, I lie resigned on unyielding ocean floor, a certainty of sorts.

Help isn’t coming.

first published in The Creative Cafe on Medium, 8 November 2017

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

Flying free

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rainbow kite child mother
Shlomaster via pixabay

 

Listen to this prose poem:

 

We take our son down to the beach, enduring sighs and cries and stops for water and wee-wee shortly after and kicking the back of my seat and then we arrive, unload the car, careful with that and don’t forget the sunscreen, before trudging down the path down the steps round to the left, find a place among the rocks and did you remember his hat,

let’s set up here and wait, you need sunscreen and okay off you go but stay where I can see you, the sun nicely warm but it still can burn even through clouds, there’s a doggy but don’t touch he may not be friendly, glad you brought the chairs even though they’re heavy and a pain because I don’t fancy sitting on this sand, it gets everywhere,

there are a few clouds scudding along and that means it’s time, get out the kite and assemble it while he helps, no don’t put that pole in there, okay you can hold it but we have to finish it first, the doggy can’t help, we can have a snack after, sandwiches and juice in the cool box, okay have a little drink first while I fix the tails, and then off we go to the hard flat sand, not a bad day at all for a kite, come with me, hold it tight, run out the line, Daddy will let you have a turn in a minute, wait,

hold it up and when the wind is right just toss it into the air and there it goes, bright fluttering rainbow and long tails, he laughs and points and claps his hands, forgets to beg for a go just yet, and we are three in a big wide world, checking the weather, holding the line, one grounding him, one holding him and then giving him the right push at the right moment so he can catch the breeze and fly high above the mundane earth, looking back at where he came from, looking towards the sky’s blue horizon