A Feeling Of Cosiness

I sit with a cold heart, reminiscing over memories that tear apart

what could have been.

Such wondrous things that had to be seen

to be believed,

and yet were so innocuously in the moment.

From the moment we met, lesser people would just forget

conversations under a moonlit sky. Or that day you and I

just made love again because we could, and wanted to.

How it sends a shiver through me, as the thoughts break free

from long ago places.

What would just be faces along the path, fading in light from the hearth,

as you smile in my mind then begin to laugh….

Before closing my door, it returns to how it was before

I sat down.

To remain would only make me drown

for what was, those multitudes of minor memories because,

in the end they will always remain….

The greatest of times, of pleasure and pain.

Steve B 10/11

Amazed At The Maize Maze

I watched as the fire was lit.

Standing no more than half its height away, I’d got there early

wanting more than just the view over a dozen or more shoulders.

Creeping away, the intial radius of flame began from a single lick of fire.

Increasing in speed, until the moment was such that I couldn’t remember what it looked like

before it was ablaze. Taking only seconds to encompass the stacked up fuel,

or so it seemed, it must have been a short while….. At least.

Light and heat began to emanate, again it seemed in an instant. Memories of sticks and

marshmallows, red gloves on my hands and my brothers faces aglow.

For an instant the hubbub disintegrated, like the whole throng was existing in similar thoughts,

where words were less important than the sounds that brought  it all back to them.

Crackling of wood,  slow whoosh of convection and the omnipresent wind creating random sparks,

eddies in flames, fanning the extremities, whilst the centre slowly began to collapse in upon itself.

Tomorrow all that will remain is a large circle of scorched earth, and the memories of thousands….

Young and old, captivated and enthralled. Thrilled and frightened…. Awakening with a smile.

Steve B 11/10

Does Anything Really Change?

It’s physical, you just feel….. Notice and begin to remember what the days ahead will hold.

Days start mistier, everything seems to slow down a fraction, before warmer socks

and a thicker coat bring back a sense of mother nature’s bark being worse than her bite.

Mornings where the Sun still shines, but its affect is muted, fighting a losing battle

against the offset tilt our planet spins upon.

Then the afternoons start to draw in, bathing as we must in the orange, sodium glow

whilst we walk or drive, the darkness closing around the man-made light.

Natural colours fade from vibrant to dull, greens to brown, blues to grey, white to black.

It’s as if the world is shutting down, conserving the energies collected through the good months,

just starting a countryside hibernation.

A hibernation we no longer follow, driven by our creations to work and play through this Season

and the next, we see a change in everything around us. But what we do remains the same.

But no one likes getting up when it’s dark outside…..

Steve B 11/10 

Curvature Invisible

Do you know solitude?

True loneliness….. The kind which beguiles as well as diminishes onself?

Where no matter your surroundings, isolation traps you inside a transparent shell.

You talk, interact, work, play…… You live.

Exist, but don’t enjoy.

Age, but don’t feel wiser.

It’s like a everything is in echo, every sense not ‘feeling’ the initial experience

but picking up on the aftereffects.

Like you’re living 2 seconds behind reality, trying to predict what will happen,

yet still appearing as if you’re repeating the same mistakes

whereas the screams of the mind unsubtly prove you were just too slow to react to what came.

Knowing that all it would take is a little self belief.

Suffice to say we all believe in hope.

Steve B 10/10

Leather Bound but Never Found

It defied reason,

made no sense,

images in the mind,

but nothing in reality.

 

Of course moments of clarity existed,

but only served to create more fog.

Obscuring the truth,

hiding any sense of what was real.

 

So…… what’s the fulcrum of this mental inebriation, you ask?

Is it a person?

A situation?

A word spoken?

A choice made?

 

It’s all the above, and so much more.

 

 

You try to learn,

evolve,

understand,

and above all……..

show you can.

But it’s so hard, so very difficult……

 

To highlight all that is good,

whilst playing down all that is ‘bad’.

Some people can work with you,

can teach while you teach them.

Appreciate the winding border that exists……

 

That twisting line between towns and cities,

some close and sharing many similarities….

Yet under different laws and perhaps even language.

Some distant, but willing to put aside differences for a common goal.

 

Such is life, and romance……

Heart and soul,

people and places…….

Moments together, but forgotten through famililiarity,

moments apart, but remembered for eternity.

 

Who’s to say which is right, which is wrong?

What matters, what should be dismissed as trivial?

 

It’s simply about being willing to teach,

even if that means being selfless,

knowing that the flow of wisdom is more one way than another.

 

Because, in the end, feelings mean more than just a sense of belonging, or belief……..

Feelings show us what’s in our heart,

 

Perhaps i am naive, a romantic……. Maybe even a fool.

And yet I strive to enter into the heart, and hope the rest will follow.

 

I stand to gain so much more than I might lose,

even if each turn of the page takes away a little piece more

and the tome has barely revealed itself to me……..

Steve B 02/10

Fairy Liquid?

Calloused hands on a rock face,

dark and dirty, cold and oh so oppressed.

Surounded by noise,

machines and people.

Harmonious voices, a common goal.

Backbreaking and unenvied,

drilling with skill,

working together they pushed forwards,

filling sacks of cloth for the world above to casually throw on fires.

For the generation of light, sound and motion.

They continued, no sense of time or reality,

all focussed on earnings.

Not just those papery enchanges for good and services,

but so much more.

Raising families, maintaining a community, regulating an unnatural ecosystem

of houses, roads and communications.

A metaphor for a relationship?

We work and struggle, we toil without question.

Supposing once in a while, stopping to look around at the fruits of our labour?

Who dares to say if it should be easy,

that we should equate love and passion, desire and a considered future with say what?

A desk job?

Probably not, it seems incongruous to imagine that something so meaningful can be so trivial.

I want to feel like what we create leaves me with a harder edge, not sat on a cushioned chair.

Looking at the hands, I wonder.

Looking at my fragile heart I know.

The scars, the pain, the sense of being used to fear are all within,

a shell reinforced to repel emotional bullets etched with my name.

Yet my hands are still ever so soft.

Steve B 09/09

To Hull And Back

Words play tricks,

we know what we read, what they mean, how they affect and delight.

How they flutter between ear and mind.

What do visual images add, beyond trivial contentment,

light shifting shamelessly, but the thoughts are always the same.

Wanting to hear, showing her that which she desires,

that which she never realised, yet brightens places where flat angles connect.

 

Beauty is subjective,

we know what we see, what is there, how they move and dance.

How they waft over thought and space.

What do cheers and charity elighten, beyond memories intense,

belief welling up, but the reality is never quite the same.

Wanting to know, showing here that which is there,

that which she never vocalised, yet compells directions where anything is possible.

 

Time is contentious,

we know where we are, what is real, how they come and go.

How they enter dream and subconcious.

What do moments and emotion create, beyond true love,

arousal of every sense, but the reality still awaits.

Wanting to hold, meaning now is all we have,

that which she never embraced, yet is there within reach when she wants him to be.

 

Steve B 09/09

 

The Riddle Of A Shaded Sapling

What do you know, as you think about what was?

As you read vague, nondescript, generalistic whinings of star-crossed happenstance?

 

What do you care, as you wander embittered because life cast a stone too large?

As you feel ripples, waves, tumultuous onslaughts of cultivated seedlings?

 

What do you feel, as you push and push and push way a courageousness of desire to get close?

As you erect barriers, defences, solidified, tortuous, sheer byzantium cliffs so few dare to climb?

 

What do you want, as you put on a smile about what is?

As you twist, contort in an anguish no one else understands simply through your subconscious belief they can’t understand?

 

 

 

 

 

But he wants to. You know he does.

 

You know he might not be able to help. But you know he’d try.

 

Yet it’s fear which makes it too much, an argument against yourself want to win….. But never will.

 

Because despite all his strength, his will, and power….

 

His tears will take longer to reach the Earth, but the soil will gladly accept too many before a single drop of your own.

 

Steve B 08/09

The Feast On The Twelfth Day.

Emotional tides

ebbing, flowing…….

Cascading against those rocks we create

consciously,

subconciously, barriers to swerve the forces around

areas of population,

 

Emotional tides

creeping, rising………

Lunar gravity testing those limits we crave

intentionally,

uninentionally, sensations to elicit the highs around

letting yourself go,

 

Emotional tides,

rippling, sweeping……..

Heavens opening thoughts we forget

personally,

openly, passions to remind the synapses before

non-committal excuses,

 

Emotional tides,

hurting, bleeding………

Driving forces exploring moments the present subdues

happliy,

sadly, corruptions to shatter illusions before

bowing subserviently.

 

Steve B 08/09

Psychiatry?

He lay back.

Leather enveloped him, at once calming but also focussing.

 

He’d been here before,

once?

Or many times?

 

He knew, but if asked he’d be unable to say for certain.

That bugged him, as he felt the dragon-like sensation of where he was.

Both soft and hard, a supple fist which flowed around,

yet didn’t break upon.

 

Placid walls of gentle colour, interrupted only by staid pictures.

Generic images of working men,

fishing ships,

awnings supporting a livelihood long gone into history

with the onslaught of modern water-borne craft which render what was obsolete.

 

Or he thought.

 

Ah yes,

thought.

 

Solace from the reality of life,

a not so hidden palace.

Fortified, yet beautiful.

 

Wondrous, yet built only for one purpose.

To protect,

defensible.

Constructed of solid materials,

designed to offer resistance where other edifices succumbed.

 

And so it stood,

as his head rested on brown, studded and deep leather.

 

The disembodied voice asked its’ first question…….

Just one of many, experienced over time.

 

"good afternoon Steven, what shall we discuss today?"

 

"your soul is in pain, I can see it from here, why is it you rebel against my wisdom?"

 

He couldn’t answer, knowing he was trapped.

If he gave a reason, he’d be exposing himself to cross referenced

debated responses.

Words that were written on a notepad, long forgotten

said in the heat of the moment.

 

Spoken from a place the ramparts were supposed to protect.

 

A Holy place?

 

 

But now revealed.

Trodden under heavy boots.

Weapons in hand, to bring about a conclusion.

Force an opinion,

push the challenge into despair.

 

He closed his eyes, and listened.

Wanting to just pass on his thoughts,

his dreams,

his fantasies.

 

But he couldn’t, we can’t, no one can.

Words written, or spoken wouldn’t convey.

Might elicit a brief glimpse,

a widening of the mind.

And a smile, a recognition.

 

Then two smiles.

 

Then the time was up.

 

Like life itself, fleeting and ambiguous.

Drawn from the experiences of a life lived in torment.

From moments of happiness…..

Which contorts,

as they won’t be experienced again.

 

Good, because life likes to torment.

Bad, because we learn from mistakes.

 

Ups, because we all feel the Sun through a crack in the clouds.

Downs, because existence is unpredictable.

 

He stood up,

 

tried to peer over the top of the notepad.

But it was quickly angled away.

A slyly raised corner of the mouth letting him know he’d been rumbled.

 

The door to reality was a few steps away,

so he stopped.

Thought about the hour of release and its’ worth.

Then laughed,

walking into the Sunshine he raised his Dragon fist to the world and was both soft and hard.

 

Breathing in a heady mix of truth and marketed medium,

lies intertwined with that line seperating what could be proven and what could not,

 

 

He reintegrated seamlessly.

waiting for a month to pass.

The time gone unnoticed,

bringing nothing new,

but something, simply something

else,

the next time he lay back, and closed his eyes on the brown leather.

 

Steve B 06/09