The Nightmare in My Head

I feel like I have to introduce this one, just to be certain no one gets too offended by it. The actual poem goes for a bit longer, but I think this stanza about sums it up. It's another poem lurking about in the vault and as you'll soon gather it has a somewhat unpleasant tone.

 I think sometimes in poetry what I am trying to do and what I feel other poets are trying to do, is to tap into something very primal. It isn't so much what is said, but what is felt and what is behind the words. The words are just a vessel for something deeper and sometimes...darker.

The Nightmare in my Head

Let me introduce you to

The Nightmare in my head

One day I saw a vision it was remarkably fuzzy

And perhaps a tad uncertain

Which you may find a relief to be frank

But it was a vision

I saw your body curling up like the edge of a cigarette

I smiled screaming in my sleep

You didn’t scream

like paper you shrivelled

And I stepped you into the ground

The end.

Driving

Good morning all! (well AEST that is)

I was trying to dig up an old poem to share today. Truth be told it's actually quite applicable to something that happened only a few days ago. I think so many of you will relate to it. That peace of driving, it's almost like meditation and it can be magical to share that with someone else. Completely disengaging from abbsolutely everything in the world, so that you create your own private world.

I convince myself it's not too dissimilar to driving on the moon (apologies for the db neg). Anyway everyone enjoy! And don't you worry I intend to be posting again V soon and for any poets who come across this site, feel free to post me a link or suggest a poem you think I should re-post. Always happy to hear from you!

Driving

Falling autumn leaves

Recollections and night talk

Ghost stories and camp fires

By the light of a full luminous torch

Breaths possessed of autumn

Wrinkles by my bedside

The contours of our love

So deep

So far

so good

So full

I imagine how to say the unsayable

To imagine the moment as it is now

Captured

Forever next to our bedside

Forever this same picture

Of the sun-setting over the expanse of the horizon

And the final melting gold of the sky

Unfolding beside you and I

And kisses

and this feeble chemistry

and the road

and the sun

and you

driving into tomorrow. 

When we Climbed in Trees

Remember the days when we climbed trees
I took your secrets and held them close
I took your hand and up and up we climbed
We never believed how high we'd go

Remember the times we nearly touched fire
You always gazed into the flames
And I watched your eyes and the shadows that
flickered across your face


Remember the days when we hid in the dark
We closed off our hearts and pretended
All the things we were too afraid to say
The feelings were too new to us then

Remember the time when our hands nearly froze
we sat under the trees and we
Still pretended to care about the world
As we stole shy looks at one another

Remember the day when I cried
I was small back then too small to climb as high
I watched you and I tried to follow but I fell 
I tried to look away so you wouldn't see my tears

Remember the times when we used to sit
I would say something to fill the gaps
And you would smile 
The same way as when we climbed trees
 





 





 

Lonely Tree

Hey everyone,

I was driving down back from Canberra and I saw this lonely tree sitting in the middle of a field all by itself. It made me want to go over to it and hug it the clouds were going dark.

It was a funny thing to think really but it made me wonder why is that tree by itself, when it could be like other trees all together? I suppose maybe this was through human design or perhaps the quality of the soil. In any case there is something I think to be said of a tree who stands so tall and proud in the middle of a field; exposed to the scrutiny of the world.

So to you and all other lonely trees this poem is for you.

Lonely Tree

Lonely tree
Who stands alone upon a grassy field
The sky howling
The sky throbbing above

I notice you and remember
I see you lonely tree
So distant so free
Like no other trees
crowded in fields
Greener than yours

Do not give up tree
Live long live as you wish to be
One day I'll come
One day I'll sit
Under your long limbs
Under your long years

Then tree together
We will be
Only you and only me
Free at last to be

Blue Moon

I saw the most spectacular moon the other month. I don't know why I'm waiting till now to write about it...but basically as a few fishers in the nearby wharf chimed it was supposedly the biggest moon in...a year I'm guessing didn't hear the last bit.

Suffice to say this was a brilliantly white orb glowing so bright in the sky. It most certainly wasnt by any stretch of the imagination blue. But as us Aussies and perhaps our other English counterparts say there are some wondrous things that only happen once in a Blue Moon.

Blue Moon

The blue moon weaves a way
Into dreams and water
And you are here.

Breathless nipping wonder
seas swell like breathing
And you are here

The musk of the sea
Wiped on the rocks
And you are here

The tangle of the worlds
Lights gloam on water
And you are here

Almond eyes subtle tongue
Gentle brown warmth
You are here

The cliffs and the seas
The rocks sand and the grit
And you are here

The Thunder clap of waves
Swirling unfolding lapping
And you are here

As the tide takes over
As the sun grows older
You are here

Night comes and the
black wet Water with it
And you are here

Salt sand grass tickling
Hands entwined
hot mouth perfume skin
Our clothes barely holding

Wet

The blue moon weaves a way
Into dreams and water
And you are here.

Cold like Fire

Lying under moon colored blankets
Two feet with fidgeting toddler toes
Entwine and thread like vines

Slippery fish-cold sweat
The funk of stale dry fluid
Mistaken for porridge

Honey- shine yolks drooling over
Snap sour toast that dance with
Green wrinkles of spinach

Bitter chest rind balances on
Tongues that tug and pull
Black oily hairs

Faces buried in animal satisfaction
Lapping up the hot pots overflowing with sweet breads

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrollfrom Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

Good morning all,

You know the funny thing...I've never really read this poem ever. People tell me I should read Alice in Wonderland.

The thing I wasn't expecting I'd enjoy so much about this poem was how it sounds. I love the ridiculous line "calloo callay!"

It was actually you one of my noble readers who got me to take a look. And you were quite right I think the thing to take from this is the sound and flow of the words...although I like the idea of a jabber wonky although I suppose reading this poem I'm my much closer to knowing what one is.

But anyone reading this try reading this aloud. I think you'll really enjoy the sing-song quality of the Jabberwocky. As for whether I'll read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass well the jury is still out on that one.

THE JABBERWOCKY

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Prison

We sat playing merry games
Darkness enveloped us then
Meats were distributed foul
Words were spoke and I sat
Back in white noise

The next day you could hardly
Tell the voices from the thoughts
The numbness from the reality

Walking down hallways trapped entranced
Doubtful of anything pleasant
Skeptical from experience
Desperate in love desiring an anchor
Something solid stationary

Weeks do not dull dark thoughts
They only multiply like a spiders
Infecting with a habit of sticking
To all you love

That's how he hit her that first time
The fist through her brain
As all you love becomes a sieve
For every menace he brewed in his torn heart

another man was
Driving along one night
It was A long dark highway
through bush and ignored but ever present stars
And by the time he was home he scarcely could recall the trip
Save for the dark miasma crawling
And sucking like leeches at his chemical thought

Is it right to be so numb to sensations
Does the internal rule after all as
Our pedestrian bodies strut across
Unnavigable streets

How deep and dark can a mind wander
How much can thoughts dominate experience

Did you see the boy who got pushed down into mud
It wasn't the mud that stuck but
Something darker and impossible to wash out
Did you try and talk to him
Did you hear the stuff he says or rather doesn't say

The way he sways his head as he speaks
And how he looks at the point on the wall beside you
The way he denies and denies
Again and again and again

I thought all this as I sat
Now they are laughing
It is time i decided that
I must also laugh
"that is most funny" I exclaimed
Most funny I thought as it
Became less so

Very funny I repeated only to my mind
Sinking now
I wasn't there anymore not really
I was in a place where laughter
Manifested differently
And soon it was infecting me
And jabbing me
And all I could think was
How desperately I wanted to escape.

A Love Story (Celebrating 1+ years of Where Shall I Wander)

Im terrible with birthdays and somehow I missed my own. I am pleased to announce to my readers that Jolly one-click is proud to be moving into a new year. It's well overdue now, but I thought I could do something I haven't done in a while, go back into the vaults and rather than write a new poem post something I've written a while ago.

I think this is a good one to pick. It's not particularly nostalgic, but it's an experiment. It's four little experiments. I can't even remember the reason for the heading "love story", but each of these poems or at least a few of them were the rough workings of larger ones I wrote later.

I hope you enjoy this look into the drafting of poems. Sometimes as I've said before I simply liek the sound of words or I like sometimes I like changing the tone around. You know you have something really dark so you understate it in your language. Actually there's a song, George Michael "Cars and Trains", it has the catchiest beat, but the chorus goes something like this, it's funny too different songs in a way...but it'll give you an idea of what I'm trying to say.

"Getting you ass to the top of that building
throwing yourself under cars and trains
taking the pill that you know will kill ya
under the wheels the same the same."

Ah George gotta love ya! Give it a listen, it's actually a really cool song. It's on his album Patience. Let's be uber patient for the next one eh?

Anyway without further adue here it is "A Love story" a quartet of short paragraph form poetry. Thank you again readers for staying reading on this site. I appreciate everyone who has even glanced at this page (if only to learn about Sarah Simpson's Grave...hahaha).

A Love Story.

Superman. A train. Close your eyes. 200 miles an hour. Smacks my head, but

I only hear vibrations. Asleep the metal melts. Into a coffin, my body
Disintegrates. Open eyes, dead train. But still alive. Still here

The Hospital Bed. I did not know it, but i saw the glassy eyes
humming awake on that bed, the grey hands sighing over the fresh sheets,
the sudden jolt as if by frankenstein But there were no bolts, only the flesh and those howling eyes.                    Soon strangled from life.

A Piece of Evidence. Riding to tomorrow. transfixed on the horizon. Gazing at the night-day

Apparitions As they whisper their Ancient secrets A piece of evidence Beating in your ear as
the cold air whips about your person warning sirens in the twilight relics of the time-fold but the black ash of  the highway Always the same

Funny Face. You have a funny face. The sort i can’t quite look away from. Hey funny face. The sort i can’t hide from I love ya. I’ll hug ya. Come in funny face. Always laughing. With those big blue cheeky eyes The kind of eyes that cry And cry and cry                                                              Funny feast of mine

it ought to have been mine. at least in a dream. maybe at a time         

Where were the Words

Sometimes poetry is the best way to vent. Has anyone reading this ever been bullied, well to me that's what this poem is. It's what happens after, it's that internal process. My internal processes are full of melodrama, but that's just the words I think with and tend to write in.

You ever have someone do something so cruel and then you just can't say anything back. Do you know that feeling when your throat goes dry? Do you know that feeling of being so embarassed that you just don't know what to say. That sense that this can't really be happening?

That's what this is all about. It all comes back to one simple question doesn't it. When you are bullied you never know the words. You don't know how to stand up and fight...and you always go away and ask yourself "Where were the words".

I hope you enjoy my poem.

Where were the words

Where were my words
When the world stopped working

Where was my plan
When it all vanished

What could I have done?

Is there such a thing as fairness?
Did I wait too long?

Where were the words

The words that might have saved me

Where are they now?


But lost in my stomach

Where is my head
 lost hovering warm and close

                                                     ...too close

Where was my heart
Radiant and pulsing
Ready to fight
Full of passion and conviction

Where was my courage
It came too late
in a time of delusional luxury and procrastination

Where were my friends

When the world turned dark
Where were they when knives
rammed through my heart.

Sydney's Face

It's funny I haven't written much patriotic, but I just found a brilliant way to use some odd things I've observed in the last two weeks. See folks this is how a poem emerges. This morning I looked up my Pops nostrils and I took out my iPhone and wrote down (as you do )that they looked like two almonds.

About a week before I looked out at the sunset and as it faded behind the blue mountains I thought of the light in a new way...like a big sagging lip drowsily maybe drooling onto the pillow as it goes to sleep.

Anyway everyone here's something a little lighter than my last posts. Just wanted to share that very insightful look inside the mind of a poet...haha. Hope it wasnt too disappointing.

Sydney's Face

I'm convinced Sydney has a face

With My pops almond nostrils
And a nose wrinkled with the same
Adorable crinkliness of my girlfriend

The tongue would be as long as its highways with a retractable tongue
Like my fathers old garage door

Its eyes would seem like juicy black fruits soaked in the stars of night
As they bathe in the Harbour

Hair spun carelessly in sand and on
Some days salt, chilli, oregano, chilli

He'd have my mums forehead
With the the same three lines she's worn since I first learned to frown

Bushy eyebrows like our former PM and the koalas stamped on our shield

A cheek soft and pillowy almost like one
Of those big fat gym balls
Delightful on the rump soft on the hands

A jaw and chin not carved in the Renaissance but blunted and crude like those shoddy things they call houses out west way

Maybe also it would be blue and wet skin amphibious and grotesque
Like the way you'll never know if you'll emerge from the sea with a grin
Or maybe a blue bottle attached lovingly to your leg

All the rest I've only just now made up but that's just as well
Because I saw the fat red lip
Of Sydney from my dull dreary quarters
It stretched flat and amber gold
Hanging slackly over the tops of the mountains

Imagine Storms

Imagine storms

Imagine the thunder of free horses

As they gallop like steam engines over a plain

A plain with thunder overhead

And grass ripe for for burning

Can you imagine

Pain without blood or a mark

Maybe a prick that pierces

See blankets

And see safety

Feel cool

The nervous chill of air-conditioning in

Long lonely yellow lit halls

Without shadows and music

Imagine nails dragging over dried skin

Imagine the small white arteries that form

The soft trickle of red blood as it turns to treacle

Warm and near comforting

Can you imagine

Can you see

 fire as it burns hairs on skin

How close do you look

How long do you look at the individual fibres

As they dissolve silent

Imagine storms

Imagine hell

Imagine prison

Imagine whispers of a dark voice

Imagine squid fingers that shoot

Darkness into murky pools

Imagine phantoms

See them trail behind your eyes

Tickle the blood vessels circling your brain

Imagine wrapping yourself tight

But feeling nothing

Imagine a lightning strike

The thunder booms

Do you hear?

It rings again louder still and inescapable

Bound inside you

It’s always inside

Storms

Imagine storms

Imagine the crashes of thunder

Are waves

Imagine the blinding lightning

Is the sun turned white and petrified

Imagine sinking into the peat

Imagine going dark

Imagine softly suffocating

Imagine no more suffering

Imagine

Poison Me

Poison me
So that we can drown
In a toxic bubble
Called fun and parties
And ecstasy

Force liquid burning
Down my throat
Rotting my insides
Because its good

Don't resist
Don't hold back
Don't be a pussy
Don't be weak
Down it quick

Let your mouth be an endless
Chute spilling the happiness
Straight to your rotting liver
Straight to your grey matter