‘How to Function in Society’

(A poem written from a prompt as part of last year’s April PAD Challenge from Writer’s Digest – the prompt being to write a ‘How (blank)’ poem.)

How to Function in Society

‘How do you live each day
Maintaining that illusion
That you are perfectly normal?’
The awkwards among us ask,
Fumbling their way through it all.
I’m still not entirely sure I know.

How to stop your words slipping
Into stuttery, slushy gibberish.
How to stop your twitchy eyes
Falling to your sheepish shoes.
These secrets are the fabled key
To function in common society.

Sadly I have not yet unlocked
What comes to others so easily.
I serve my speech in slipshod
With a quivering, shaking spoon.
I cloud the purity of silence
With my compulsion to fill it.

So the answer, fellow awkwards,
Is still something that eludes me,
So just dither through best you can,
Talk like they do, walk like they do
And then just maybe you too
Can join the tribe of the normals.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

The Drone Directive

(A poem written from a prompt as part of last year’s April PAD Challenge from Writer’s Digest – the prompt being to write a ‘Work’ poem.)

The Drone Directive

We start you on the lowest band,
Not the cool sort, you understand,
There shall be no music-making,
Merely the sound of souls breaking.

You’re here to inspire and empower!
Tasks beyond your pittance per hour,
We never said the numbers were fair,
But we still control them, so there!

But wait! Don’t fall into depression!
There is some chance of progression!
Remember the bullet points you read,
Before you put one in your head.

It’s all there, the things you must do
All of the hoops to jump through
To go up in our hopeless little hive
Do all these you must, to survive.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

Who Dares?

(A poem written from a prompt as part of last year’s April PAD Challenge from Writer’s Digest – the prompt being to write a ‘Dare’ poem.)

Who Dares?

‘How dare you?’, we all say.
Well, someone has to,
They counter defiantly.
After all, if no one did,
It’d be frightfully dull.

We need the bolder ones
Among us, those tricksters
To voice what we all think,
To inject needed colour
In this wishy-washy world.

The wily wisecrackers who
Breathe life into vapid parties
And save us from small-talk,
As we gasp at their sheer gall
In awe of their insolent antics.

They pull down the pants
Of the high and uppity,
Laugh in the very faces
Of self-important leaders,
They are the ones, who dare.

Like these poems? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

Behind a Clouded Mind

(A poem written from a prompt as part of last year’s April PAD Challenge from the good folks at Writer’s Digest – the prompt being to write a ‘Not as they Appear’ poem.)

Behind a Clouded Mind

You talk such a big game,
But I can see the secret shame
Behind those scathing sneers,
I see you and all your fears.

You spout all your notions,
Caring not for our emotions,
Finding fault in everyone,
Create conflict if there is none.

You judge us all up and down
Or self-loathing would drown
You in your cesspit of sadness,
So you nit-pick us all to madness.

I see how small you really are,
You act like you don’t care,
But I know inflicting this pain
Is all that keeps you sane.

Like these poems? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘Bury the Bitterness’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 30: Take the phrase “Bury the (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Bury the Bitterness

Your tongue won’t thank you
For that terrible taste, you know.
Stop chewing on what you can’t change,
You need to swallow all that spite now.
Your stomach may swell from the scorn
But your mouth will finally know mercy.

If you insist on feeding it still,
Its weeds winding tight inside,
The bitterness will become you.
So for your own sanity’s sake,
Cut yourself from this cruel circle
That threatens to consume you.

Your enemies will evaporate
In the flames of fortitude,
And peace will be restored
To your vexed and weary vessel,
Once you have banished bitterness,
And buried it in the before.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘A Room Unknown’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 29: Write a ‘What Nobody Knows’ poem

A Room Unknown

No one knows who
Has been disrobed
In this dingy room
And laid upon that
Careless creaky bed.

No one can know
All the unfaithful
That coldly break
The unspoken vow
In this neutral ground.

Nor do we know
Who lost innocence
In rushed lunchtimes
And cried silently
When it was all over.

We do not know
Who else has been
In this night’s bed
But we still stay
And after last sleep…

We leave just a little
Of ourselves behind.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘The End of the Matter’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 28: Write a ‘matter’ poem, or an ‘anti-matter’ poem

I opted for the former, though I perhaps didn’t completely follow the intention of this prompt (i.e. ‘matter’ in terms of what things are made of), but here it is anyway…

The End of the Matter

It really doesn’t matter
How much inane chatter
I have to bear from you,
My mind muddles through,
And shuts down the part
That takes critique to heart.

In fact it’s off most of the day
As, truthfully, you don’t pay
Enough money nor attention
For me to keep such pretension.
So as much as you huff and puff,
My mind is made of stronger stuff.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘Seeing Things Sideways’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 27: Write a ‘looking back’ poem- as you can tell from the title, I played with this idea a bit 😉

Seeing Thing Sideways

I try to not tread too far back
Or fret about what’s forward,
What’s best for misty eyes
Is to see things on their side.

We look through time’s trail,
Forgotten faces frozen in time,
Long lost laughs now silent,
The scenes of simpler, sillier days.

Everything staring back is still there,
We may not see them all the time,
But just out of the corner of our eyes,
They live on in a parallel mind.

To see we must shift our sight,
Look to the left, regard the right,
To keep it all with us, just not
Allowing it to cloud what’s to come.

So many things shape us,
Soften us, sadden us,
They put us on this path,
So to throw them back is treason.

But nor must they burden us
On the wavering road ahead,
To keep them at our side instead,
Is the sentiment of a sane mind.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘After Countless Compromise’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 26: ‘Take a word or two invented by William Shakespeare, make it the title of your poem, and write your poem’

It’s surprising to learn just how many of the words we still use today were in fact, coined by Shakespeare; before writing this poem, for example, I had no idea we owed the words ‘Countless’ and ‘Compromise’ to him! Click here to see just how many we owe to the Great Bard (even ‘elbow!’)

Anyway, this is what I came up with – I used a few of his other coined words as well, which I have highlighted. Enjoy!

After Countless Compromise

Never have I known a soul so impudent
As yourself, when an invitation I extend,
Is rewritten to your own decree,
Regardless of what our weary selves wish.

I grant you a most generous negotiation,
A compromise to cater to your compulsion,
But still we must serve your stubborn self,
The same demand standing like stone.

For countless times I have relented
To your barefaced brazenness,
But now I am brave enough to battle
Against your senseless agitations.

No more shall you callously ignore
The world that whimpers around you
You are not its pivotal champion
And its people live not to please you.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M

‘An Ocean Apart’ (2015 April PAD Challenge) #aprpad

Last year’s prompt for Day 25: Write an ‘Across the Sea’ poem

An Ocean Apart

This gateway, but also barrier of blue
Severs my remote connection to you.
So I throw some small piece of me
Across this shifting, unsettled sea.

Fleeting image and clipped message
Is all I can project in this long passage.
Things you may see, read, or hear,
But the coveted touch is not near.

While our straining bond may bend,
Against testing times it will contend,
It shall not break, for your avatar
Channels through to me from afar.

We will fight through tide of time
Until your touch at last meets mine.
For now I dispatch my devotion
In form of trinkets across the ocean.

Like this poem? Read more in my first poetry collection, ‘The Awakening’, available NOW for download as an eBook on Amazon. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BZBH6M