I made the choice, many months ago,
to write for me, my life, my soul;
not to give my words to a critic so cruel
as to conjure a devilish snarl.
Yes, a red pen has been my roaring trade,
but I administer it with disciplined charm,
not with a stroke of disenchanted rage
whose aim is to destroy and disarm.
Yet my words need an audience to feel alive,
though I don’t need approval, applause.
If I write for others, they own my work:
why on earth would I sell my heart short?
If I look at my work through my father’s old lens,
I can only see fatal flaws.
If I look at my work, check down and not up,
I’m only fit for a crippling critique.
If I view my work through his envious look,
I can sense his blue eyes go glazed:
his look can melt my cast-iron talent
to a wobbly, kiln-broken mess.
But the lens through which he has cast his spell
has been buried five years and ten.
At what point can I say ‘enough’ to his hold,
and deny his dream-hogging blitz?
My real dad’s been dead a decade and a half.
But the inner one just can’t let go.
OK, so I’m loyal to my daddy by birth.
But there’s a time and a place for loyalty and guilt.
Instead of looking down my father’s old lens,
perhaps it’s time to write my own script.
My thoughts are grey and hurried.
My heels click a pavement rhythm
that’s awfully fast and fed-up.
My true self easily gets buried
in the soil of daily hum.
I often forget to look up.
But why always so worried?
When I lift my eyes from my glum,
I see yellow and smiles erupt
with petals and hearts a flurry.
They’re the sun I yearn to become:
my game plan now feels upped.
When they choose me to take from,
there’s a part of me that’s diminished.
Like sucking from a mother’s breast,
they take and take ‘til I’m finished.
I feel pulled upon, resentful. Empty
of reserves.
They feast upon my desserts,
my mains and my hors-d-oeuvre.
Although their hunger’s not mine,
an essence from me they seek,
some form of mother nurture
that in denial they sleep.
But, just like Old Mother Hubbard,
my stocks are growing bare.
Time to close the cupboard and
say no, if I dare.
The mists o’er the Loch
are breaths, they say:
breaths o’ the lost,
prolonging their stay.
The blue mist seeps
into grateful bones.
Within these deeps
I’m never alone.
I think when I see
something done with glee,
it’s a crime not to enjoy your talents.
A charming backstroke
with a winning touch point.
What a shame not to swim your talents.
The flick of your paint
elevates canvas to saint.
It’s a sin not to colour your talents.
But the angst over words,
will always occur,
when writing’s your heaven-sent talent.
We all change and move on.
I know that’s a fact.
So why bother to maintain
those friendships with cracks?
Is it to keep those pals
who give you big follows
on social sites?
To spy on their lives;
dazzle
with stories bright?
To delete would hurt
both them and you.
Or would it?
If you don’t like them
and they don’t care,
why be so polite?
There are ‘friends’ in my life
who don’t give a damn
what I feel, where I go,
how I roll, who I am.
Yet I keep a pretence
of wanting to meet.
And when I do,
it’s myself I cheat.
The paint is thinning
on my fake-friends tableau.
The question is why
I just don’t let go.
Do what you love
and the money will come.
That’s what we hope
when we chuck it all in
for a new career and life
and fulfilment’s great charm.
The pursuit of money.
Is that really what life’s for?
Or realising a dream,
a do-it-or-damned score?
I know what I want
before I bid goodbye
to my breath.
That’s to publish and be whole.
To bring openness to heart
and hope to the soul.
My girl always checks
for tear-stained flecks
on my middle-aged cheeks.
They don’t play hide and seek,
because those tears that fall
don’t make me feel small.
They’re not drops of doom
on a melancholy costume.
There are two types of tears:
one regrets time; one gains years.
The first cries for loss of self,
the second cheers for spiritual wealth.
So when I see my little girl swim,
my happy tears fill to the brim,
because she’s doing what she came here to do.
So I leave bitter tears for others to rue.
Synchronicity’s a word I love
And a concept I adore.
I know I’m on the right path
when coincidences knock at my door.
My love of words and symbols
to heal and help renew
broken hearts and spirits crushed
is a calling of the few.
How to bring this to the world
my intuition now will drive.
But the power of storytelling
is what makes me feel alive.
inktuition 