When Words Fail
How do you describe the taste of salt?
Which words best explain the smell of musk?
Must we have a description or explanation
For all our sensory surroundings
Would that make us feel less
Alone?
Words are armour, weapons
Decorations and utensils
Pencils for our conscious
And unconscious
Binding with reality
The only practicality for rationality
They prove our awareness and delusions
Our dreams and streams of illusions
In fact, they can be
Loaded or hollow
Tricky lyricisms or
Instructions to follow
The word is rite:
Falsehood and fake
Truth and validity
They colour our personalities
With tines of our choosing
But what happens when words fail us
When the verbal fails
Will the physical prevail?
But how would you act out
The smell of musk
The taste of salt
What happens then to fill the husk?
I lust for awareness
Hunt for a new shared common sense
I demand an answer
To satiate my desire
To solve puzzles
Anomalies and abstractions
I want words to evoke
More than meaning
I want from them
A different kind of
Feeling
The Skip
I took my life and threw it on the skip,
Reckoning the next-door neighbours wouldn’t mind
If my life hitched a lift to the council tip
With their dry rot and rubble. What you find
Reckoning the next-door neighbours wouldn’t mind
If my life hitched a lift to the council tip
With their dry rot and rubble. What you find
With skips is – the whole community joins in.
Old mattresses appear, doors kind of drift
Along with all that won’t fit in the bin
And what the bin-men can’t be fished to shift.
Old mattresses appear, doors kind of drift
Along with all that won’t fit in the bin
And what the bin-men can’t be fished to shift.
I threw away my life, and there it lay
And grew quite sodden. `What a dreadful shame,’
Clucked some old bag and sucked her teeth: ‘The way
The young these days … no values … me, I blame…’
And grew quite sodden. `What a dreadful shame,’
Clucked some old bag and sucked her teeth: ‘The way
The young these days … no values … me, I blame…’
But I blamed no one. Quality control
Had loused it up, and that was that.
‘Nough said. I couldn’t stick at home. I took a stroll
And passed the skip, and left my life for dead.
Had loused it up, and that was that.
‘Nough said. I couldn’t stick at home. I took a stroll
And passed the skip, and left my life for dead.
Without my life, the beer was just as foul,
The landlord still as filthy as his wife,
The chicken in the basket was an owl,
And no one said: `Ee, Jim-lad, whur’s thee life?’
The landlord still as filthy as his wife,
The chicken in the basket was an owl,
And no one said: `Ee, Jim-lad, whur’s thee life?’
Well, I got back that night the worse for wear,
But still just capable of single vision ;
Looked in the skip; my life – it wasn’t there!
Some bugger’d nicked it – without my permission.
But still just capable of single vision ;
Looked in the skip; my life – it wasn’t there!
Some bugger’d nicked it – without my permission.
Okay, so I got angry and began
To shout, and woke the street. Okay. Okay!
And I was sick all down the neighbour’s van.
And I disgraced myself on the par-kay.
To shout, and woke the street. Okay. Okay!
And I was sick all down the neighbour’s van.
And I disgraced myself on the par-kay.
And then … you know how if you’ve had a few
You’ll wake at dawn, all healthy, like sea breezes,
Raring to go, and thinking: `Clever you!
You’ve got away with it.’ And then, oh Jesus,
You’ll wake at dawn, all healthy, like sea breezes,
Raring to go, and thinking: `Clever you!
You’ve got away with it.’ And then, oh Jesus,
It hits you. Well, that morning, just at six
I woke, got up and looked down at the skip.
There lay my life, still sodden, on the bricks;
There lay my poor old life, arse over tip.
I woke, got up and looked down at the skip.
There lay my life, still sodden, on the bricks;
There lay my poor old life, arse over tip.
Or was it mine? Still dressed, I went downstairs
And took a long cool look. The truth was dawning.
Someone had just exchanged my life for theirs.
Poor fool, I thought – I should have left a warning.
And took a long cool look. The truth was dawning.
Someone had just exchanged my life for theirs.
Poor fool, I thought – I should have left a warning.
Some bastard saw my life and thought it nicer
Than what he had. Yet what he’d had seemed fine.
He’d never caught his fingers in the slicer
The way I’d managed in that life of mine.
Than what he had. Yet what he’d had seemed fine.
He’d never caught his fingers in the slicer
The way I’d managed in that life of mine.
His life lay glistening in the rain, neglected,
Yet still a decent, an authentic life.
Some people I can think of, I reflected
Would take that thing as soon as you’d say Knife.
Yet still a decent, an authentic life.
Some people I can think of, I reflected
Would take that thing as soon as you’d say Knife.
It seemed a shame to miss a chance like that.
I brought the life in, dried it by the stove.
It looked so fetching, stretched out on the mat.
I tried it on. It fitted, like a glove.
I brought the life in, dried it by the stove.
It looked so fetching, stretched out on the mat.
I tried it on. It fitted, like a glove.
And now, when some local bat drops off the twig
And new folk take the house, and pull up floors
And knock down walls and hire some kind of big
Container (say, a skip) for their old doors,
And new folk take the house, and pull up floors
And knock down walls and hire some kind of big
Container (say, a skip) for their old doors,
I’ll watch it like a hawk, and every day
I’ll make at least – oh – half a dozen trips.
I’ve furnished an existence in that way.
You’d not believe the things you find on skips.
I’ll make at least – oh – half a dozen trips.
I’ve furnished an existence in that way.
You’d not believe the things you find on skips.
James Fenton
Power of Three
The power of three
appears many ways
a sequence that
is impossible to
go unnoticed, its
glaring glowing
strikingly or softly
salient in sight
It is immortalised
by historical icons,
the trailblazing minds
that canonised this
sequence of three;
but is felt
by the everyday
ever present people.
There is a
fictional mastery of
the three witches
casting a curse
on the antihero
the unlucky Macbeth
Beware the bewitching
temptress of the
feminised number three,
walking wombs who
can cast a
spell to bewitch
or grant triple
strokes of luck.
Interlinked by mysticism,
that supernatural is
Rooted female three.
Don’t forget the
Salem witches villains
indelible, formidable in
the crucial crucible
a poetic mastery.
But three goes
Deeper than that:
proving the power
of the numerical
motifs and codes
that colours our
our subjective perception
of relative reality
Watch out people,
Men and women
can be hit by
this threesome tragedy
or meta miracle.
Still it’s been
interpreted to be
So inherently female;
a feminine mystique.
It is indiscriminate
of gendered duality.
No identified gender
is exempt, safe.
The number three
treats men and
women the same.
If metaphorical patterns
respects gendered equality
Why can’t we?
By Emma G
A Winter Poem
Our love was ripe in the third week of winter
crisp, as I bit into it.
It dripped down my chin and I licked
each drop of sweetness I caught on the tip of my finger.
I repaid your kindness by placing our love against your lips, offering you a sip to drink,
its warmth—the very thing you needed in the cold lonely countryside.
Our love was oddly shaped and oddly sized;
big enough to be snacked on, as well as sliced,
tossed with golden caster sugar, spices and cinnamon.
Our love was sweet, perfect for your sweet tooth.
It would warm my toes, the tips of my fingers and my tickly throat.
Our love was fragrant,
and our love was rich.
It kept well in the freezer,
as well as in the fridge.
Our love was gentle,
and our love was incredibly kind.
And fortunately for us,
our love was ripe,
in the third week of winter.
By Nana Yaa Adu
Electric State of Mind
When that battery hidden in your brain
Switches on
Immediately your blood becomes
Charged, a rush of energy
Runs through the body
Voltaic veins lace your body
Pumping an electric current
Aimed straight to the brain.
Your mind now has a new kind of electrolyte
You feel a rush of delicious
Passion. Lust. Rage. Ego.
You’re intoxicated by the
Vibrations of static rhythm
Dancing to a tempo
That only you can hear
You’re too dazzled
Blinded by your own brilliance
To notice the damage done
With your sparks
The painful electric shocks you
inflict to those around you
Suddenly but inevitably
Your wiring becomes faulty
And you’re spreading fires
Leaving destruction in your wake
Sensory overload burning
Blinding rationale
Rupturing coherency
illuminating the necessary darkness
That cloaks your thoughts
That should not be thought
That should not be believed
The fuse eventually melts
it is burnt to a crisp
and like a magnet
flips towards the negative
that transient glorious
electrified cognisance
became what is a
flash of lightening
that precedes
the storm.
Telescope
There is a moment after you move your eye away
when you forget where you are
because you've been living, it seems,
somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.
You've stopped being here in the world.
you're in a different place,
a place where human life has no meaning.
You're not a creature in a body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.
Then you're in the world again.
At night, on a cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.
You realise afterward
not the image is false
but the relation is false.
You see again how far away
each thing is from every other thing.
By Louise Gluck
An Acoustic Mind
I can see what my eyes don't show
I can see the hidden chaotic colours
Hidden behind my eyelids
I can see that haze
I can see that rhythm
I can hear the whispers of an album
I can hear the heart beat of a minimalist drop
I can hear the vibrations of a sound design
I can feel that triple kick drum mix
I can hear emotions in words
I can hear that powerful pacing of a thriller
I can hear the pain in the parathesis
I can hear that synthy syntax
Speaking
Is a bit different
I speak sparks
I spit lightening without thinking twice
I speak unfiltered coffee
I speak to the tunes of my mind
By Emma G
