Twiddling Knobs

Cut from the same cloth,

Poured into a mould,

Flippant in excesses,

Warm words written cold.

Fine-tuned with a dial,

Ear to hear the clicks,

Turn, turn, got it!

Enough to make you sick!

Agenda’d to the hilt

With a dash of silken voice,

Clones, in cloistered tower,

Drowning in white noise.

History rewritten so soon,

By the boys that live in back,

Twiddling knobs – yes, knobs, I said,

I’m glad I have a … different body part.

 

Although, admittedly, some of those who do,

Twiddle knobs too.

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Delving Not Drowning

In waters’ deepest currents,

Hid beneath a surface clear,

Are the torrid and torrential

Of the flowing waters here,

Dragging from the depths

To drown the unaware,

Casting one about,

Denying footholds under where

Leviathans of old abound,

Marauding loch and shore,

Scaring, with mythology,

Dreams of evermore,

Teasing at the temples

As they grab swimmer by the hair,

Deeper into darkened gloom,

Dropping to their lair,

Where, stranger yet, there’s luminous

In depths of fresher air,

Crystallized in cavern

Where the monsters seek to share

The story of their history

And why they roam for fare,

Forcing faces, upright,

To delve below and bare,

Naked, as a birthright,

No need for outer wear,

Resuming early story

If we but chance to dare,

In harshest light not sprinkled on

The surface where the glare

Hurts the eyes, the innermost

Turns from solar flares,

Where brightness blinds, unseeing,

We choose to dive to scare

The limits of ourselves

And the depths we need to pare.

In caverns deep, fluorescent light,

Guarded by sea mares,

Illumines all the corners

And ride us from despair.

Not drowning, no, just delving

Arms raised to the air,

Going under one more time,

With self to give and spare.

 

 

For Charity

Clearing through the debris in the clutter that surrounds

The memories in the cupboards of my mind,

I rummaged and I raked to reveal the reasons there

Why I give instead of taking what I find.

 

Finding fortune there in the fallen and the stored,

Some carefully, some shoved  there out of sight,

I got down on my knees and stretched to search in out of reach,

Hunting for the answers that just might

 

Deliver cause, causation from the cases I have carried,

The luggage and the baggage kept in there,

Find focus, fact from fiction, dreams from drama days,

Highlighted by harsh light of bulb uncovered, bare.

 

And, in naked truth, I found, among the dust that’s all around,

Hidden boxes on the shelves – my history all packed –

And wondered, being separated, one from each in time,

Maybe this was where the story somehow lacked.

 

I took the lids from boxes I’d forgotten I’d still kept,

Smiled at contents, frowned at others too,

Handled trinkets, papers, words and long-gone memories,

Relived moments gone and past and through.

 

I emptied on the floor amid the cobwebs and the dust,

And mixed the moments garnered over years,

I smiled and laughed and cried, I shook my head and sighed.

In truth, I shed a bucketload of tears.

 

With the liquid I had gathered from the eyelids of my past,

I cleaned the items one by one with love and did not hide,

Laid them side by side, reorganised arrangement,

Allowing those most needed some self-pride.

 

There were fairies, there were dragons, there were caves where buried deep

Battles fought and waged had scarred the walls,

There were people and some places that had touched my very soul,

Among them some I could have done without at all.

 

There were colours bright and shining, just needing some more light

To sharpen contrast with the dark there too,

The shady ones, the muted ones, the clouds that steal the tones,

The ones that seek to overcome all hues.

 

In the swirling of the colours and boxes now bereft of lids,

Washed down by the volume of my sighs,

The gathered chaos on the floor took on meaning and some more.

I saw my life through different coloured eyes.

 

From the blue of childhood days to the hazel they now are,

Changing with the world as I still I grow,

Envisioning a past, a present and times still yet to come,

I recognise and somehow better know

 

That in among the tokens and the treasures I have found,

Among what I once regarded out of sight,

Are the pieces of my jigsaw that give edge to picture laid,

Self-understanding that maybe, hopefully – just might –

 

Let me take my sharing of the love that’s offered here,

My right to being just because I am,

That taking is entitled as long as I still give,

Acceptance of my place in earthly land.

 

In the cupboard of my mind where the junk had gathered layers,

Tarnished by the view of distance past,

I regathered all the pieces and stored them carefully,

Not giving them away but charity, for me, at long sweet last.