Trust vs Fear: the creative writer’s dilemma

Posted on 14/04/2015 by inktuition

Fear:

I creep around, spying other’s glory

through shrouds of envy and spite.

I stress, I spew belligerent bile,

I despoil what feels my birthright.

Trust:

If you only knew what your heart could spill.

If you only could allow

those creative gales to transform your gall

into work that makes you feel proud.

Fear:

That gale just feels like a deadly whip

that will beat my words to a pulp,

reducing me to a limping pace

while the rest of the world can gallop.

Trust:

Gallop implies a race to somewhere

while your journey is yours alone.

Pick supreme, your heart’s main theme,

and you’ll romp to the place called home.

A poem for Day 14 of NaPoWriMo 2015: A dialogue

holding on to innocence

Posted on 04/04/2015 by inktuition

It’s the way the bag bounces on her back

as she runs the alley to school.

Late again, but determined today

to stick to all the rules.

I don’t get it right all the time –

if ever. Yet she forgives me with her hand

that reaches out to curl around mine

before she sinks to dreaming land.

It’s the smile she saves to seek me out

when she wins her latest Gold.

It’s the hug she gets, win or lose,

for being so brave and bold.

It’s the trust she has in her big round eyes

that I’ll treasure in my box.

She’s about to grow, to become her own.

For now, she truly rocks.

A poem for day four of NaPoWriMo: love without saying love

the promise of my new-old writing desk

Posted on 03/04/2015 by inktuition

Leather inlaid, you’re a classy thing:

stole my heart the second I saw you.

Early Victorian, I’m told by the man

who wooed you first, then shone you.

Who knows what charming prose

I’ll produce, posed as Victorian lady:

sitting demurely, fountain pen dipped

into secrets that emerge from maybe.

stars in disguise

Posted on 02/04/2015 by inktuition

The melancholy moon, with a

bite out of its side,

does a smiley for the stars

surrounding.

The constellated night jewels

catch my breath,

lining up for their sightly

performance.

Minor. Major.

Who cares what key

they play their twinkly

chords in.

Their well-placed face,

their bling, their show,

will make the dark more

bearable.

Yet the brightest one

I only have eyes for:

It squeezes my heart’s

accordion.

For Day Two of NaPoWriMo: a poem about stars

what my anxiety doesn’t know

Posted on 01/04/2015 by inktuition

It doesn’t know boundaries.

It doesn’t understand when it’s appropriate

to flush my cheeks and inflame my chest.

It doesn’t know how to hold back

when my thoughts start spiralling

into a whirl of destructive what-ifs.

It doesn’t know it’s devouring me,

and all those around me,

with its catastrophic clauses.

It doesn’t know it’s not in charge

when it rages like a bull

in the china shop of my mind.

Even when the red rag starts fading,

it doesn’t know the exhausted angst

that still rampages my dreams.

For Day One of NaPoWriMo 2015: a poem about negation

facing my dreams of denial

Posted on 11/03/2015 by inktuition

My dream images

Knew better than me

Grassy ground I refused to sit on

Just as I stayed in denial of death.

Sixteen years after my dear dad’s passing

The grass from my dreams tripped me up

Now all bumpy and countrified

I lay on my front,

felt the ground and cried.

what we learn from who we hate

Posted on 17/02/2015 by inktuition

The person I hate

is like a piece of sellotape:

stuck to my fingers

and won’t let go.

A voicemail vitriol

is like an online vicious troll

even from a woman old

enough to know better.

My buttons pressed

I’m trying to guess:

is it what I resist

continuing to persist?

I fear that her tone,

all imperious and throne

is what I’m like when cross.

Hiding loneliness and loss?

my ambivalent feelings for snow

Posted on 05/02/2015 by inktuition

Oh, when you’re meant to be there

you don’t bother turning up:

(Christmas).

The whole world grinds to a halt

from two millimetres of you

(London).

You rock up when we don’t need you

and kids want to throw you around

(school run, 30 minutes late).

When you grow old and dark,

my heels and tyres slip warily on you

(icy reception).

Yet the fragility of your freshest flakes

makes the air a magic twinkle

(trees and fresh snowprints).

And being snowed in for days

while annoying, is freeing

(sound of your silence).

the empty screen

Posted on 20/09/2014 by inktuition

You’re blank,

you’re empty,

you’re scary.

A feeling of dread snakes up my spine.

The hand of fear grips my guts.

Nausea sits in the back of my head.

My dizzy eyes look anywhere but

the punishing screen in front.

I’m blank,

I’m empty,

I’m scared.

the deadness that lies beneath

Posted on 04/09/2014 by inktuition

The deadness that lies beneath
any anxious, depressive days
is worse than any mayhem,
any stress or mild dismay.

It stinks beneath the floorboards
lurking like a snake
that slithers in insidious ways,
reminds me I’m a mistake.

I’d no idea what I was defending from
when I partied teenage nights,
or worked so hard and pushed myself
up those well-paid, giddy heights.

But the fall was swift and brutal
and it keeps on bashing me blue.
There’s no respite from relentlessness,
just many more reasons to rue.

And so I’ve looked into that abyss
when I’ve felt I’ve had enough.
Weighing how I’ll escape it all.
How, finally, I’ll be snuffed.

inktuition

writing my life and soul

Category Archives: writing