My Poetry: It's Easy To Be Lonely

It's Easy To Be Lonely

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It's easy to be lonely,
spend solitary months
speaking only to buy beer
hid in busy pubs,
watching receding tide line
of cheap porter fall
in unison with the sun,
and later coke black rum.

Silent for whole days
wasting empty afternoons
walking without destination,
till old broken bench beckons
from where to watch
churning eternal water
swell and fall away;
feel the ebb and flow of life
wash through poison veins.

Sat next to a stranger
with daydreams in blue curve
of jean thigh and rose lips;
but no words seem sensible
making hello redundant
so we watch the day tick by,
quiet in each other’s company
because it easier to stay lonely.

 

NB> Loneliness, like love and happiness, seems to be a topic many can relate to.

I think all writers crave a little solitude - it's where we acheive our thinking and creating - but as a great lyricist Annika Norlin aka Hello Saferide put it 'Loneliness Is Better When You're Not Alone' can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2xgUXNJuIQ

My Poetry; Hunst'un

Hunst'un

---

It’s June and the streets are pretty
much deserted in Sunny Hunny.
I sit watching the promenade's
hardy city tourists trudge
hunting for candy floss and souvenirs
around clearance sale shops
with fading, tattered veneers.
Jelly arsed woman and bald men
cower from the shower
under the canopies dotted along shore

of shellfish and burger stalls.

I watch the bus trip tourists,

steam rising from their hands,
move to bench to consume tea,
coffee and hot doughnuts.
The matriarch of the group sits
beneath a large blue and red umbrella;
they smile despite the drizzle.
These people have no idea
they are becoming immortalised,
statues chiselled from words,
have no idea what it means to
slowly calcify in this small town.

The rain falls lazily, steadily
flat grey sky from horizon to horizon.
On concrete wall, barricading beach
from the rest of the world, I remain.
Thunder, like a death rattle,
reaches across the wash,
the sea-side resort breaths heavier,
the fairground far right
works on half mast, rides closed,
just the dodgems and arcade
throw fluorescent beams of noise
onto the glistening world,
a reminder of yesterday’s promises
today has failed to honour.

Behind this is Hunst’un town centre.
The town closes at 5pm.
Coffee and clothes shops,
discount stores and local bores
head home to prepare for tomorrow.
Walking past funeral parlour
I see it’s taken on the keys
from closed Co-op shop next door,
as if death has started to take over
slowly ingesting this town
one bit at a time.

http://norfolkdialect.com/villages.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunstanton

My Poetry: I Pretend the Rain

I Pretend the Rain

---

I pretend the rain dropping heavy
on my windows are beetles,
running to get home before
the day drowns them.
Sipping at a cracked glass
of cheap red wine
I wonder if the world has stopped:
the streets are empty,
the sirens are silent,
even the cars seem to have disappeared.
I wonder if the world is at home,
warm and dry with loved ones.
Not wasting time
watching beetles race
on their window panes.

My Poetry: Docking

Docking

---

The autumn hues of this land
have long faded into winter,
which bites at ears and ruddy nose.
The landscape has become pastel,
a thousand shades of brown,
burrs of the muddy borough
shorn smooth of its sharpness,
smudged outlines of naked trees,
hibernating hedgerows,
three hundred-year-old farm stays,
crumbling blacksmiths, closed,
next to duckless pond,
old railway working pubs now holiday cottages;
like morning mirror I recognise it all in reflection.

This village moves on between visits,
Station Road, that now leads to defunct lines,
is quiet as rumbling bouncing machines
of agriculture rest in barn beds,
while the seeds of tomorrow's bread
lie patiently in frosting earth for sun
to wake them; some will not make it,
taken early by the shadow black raven
who sits on metal gate
till the time is right to swoop
with lavish swish of wing to swipe
poor seed's destiny afore its prime.

But the world is hid, today,
squirreled away from the dull shades
of a month’s winter,
from the sad trees, boughs bowed
to the wind and weak sun,
from green tartan patches turned brick red;
I remember walking those fields
when the summer of my youth was strong
and my heart was light blue
like the milky skies I wandered under.
I did not fear the winter then,
it was yet to draw me asunder.

But some things never change,
the accents draw out nostalgia,
like a bramble splinter from finger.
This land, beyond the flats and broads,
where stars hug the sky close like new lovers
and even twinkle in silent icy evenings,
where stereotypes prop up bars,
and youth ages with old responsibilities,
Yes this land will always be my home.

Docking is the village I grew up in. It is the highest point in north-west Norfolk, close to Kings Lynn, Hunstanton and Burnham Thorpe, the birthplace of Lord Nelson.
why not have a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking,_Norfolk

The old blacksmiths (now closed)

The Railway Pub (still open)

                                                       

The duck pond, looking down Station Road (is quiet as rumbling bouncing machines
of agriculture rest in barn beds