The Summer Of Silences

I stood still and watched the sun drip

across a candy-coloured skyline and

melt into a puddle on the pavement.

Clouds hung suspended in the air like

wavering pegs on a washing line

anticipating, frozen, a ghost trapped

between two sides. Propelled into

motion, the blanket of fog descends

and suffocates. Wraps itself around

the earth’s neck and breathes. 

Squeezing its victim into submission,

this is the kiss before the bite.

Sometimes I am forced to remember.

In the transient passing of nature: a

wisp of smoke, the crunch of gravel,

the flicker of a firefly. I once thought

I saw a shadow there. In silent screams

the moon pulsates and I find myself catching

honey between the cracks, scooping handfuls into

my mouth for there is fear of forgetting to taste.

I will watch the hourglass until the sand begins to

flow backwards. It never does but, darling, we have

waded in too deep to turn back now. It is only July, 

I remind myself. Flowers still have time to bloom;

I am just a negative waiting to develop.

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Falling In Love With A Catastrophist

There is fire in my bones and lightning

in your lungs. When we kiss it’s like

a thunderstorm. Two tectonic plates­

crash against each other and

somewhere in the world starts

quaking. Seismic waves are quicker

than calling. Continental drift is the

earth’s defence mechanism for

commitment. Static electricity, like

miscommunication, is simply friction

in motion. I am crushing sandstorms­

between my teeth, breathing in

hurricanes like oxygen, swallowing

the volcanic ash of survival; to think

we are all made of liquid love and

some will never feel the force of a

tsunami. Sometimes I am stuck

in the eye of a tornado, others I am

spinning in it. Either way, we are a

whirlwind of skin and bone; flesh and

blood; bruises and scars. Laying in

the fresh rubble of our own creative

destruction, I realise, our love is an

oxymoron; a natural disaster; a

phenomenon scientists could only

dream of understanding.

3AM Refrigerator Light Confessions

I am an old friend of bruised knees and bathroom floors,

exhaling until the chest is empty and body no longer breathing;

only absence lives here now. Cold stone tiles,

so we meet again: spilling secrets into each other's mouths

until we see the light of dawn, we whisper

with a hope of being heard, yet fear of being listened to.

For weeks I have been swallowing metaphors like honey,

gulping down apologies for breakfast,

biting my tongue until the taste of forgiveness fills me --

for once my throat is not made of molasses.

There is a reason why our hearts began to curl like fists

and we aimed them at ourselves, because after all,

self-love has always been the most important thing.

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[disclaimer: this is an original poem written by myself]

Why Poetry Is Still Important In Today's Society

This was a topic that was discussed earlier this week in the debating society that I'm in and although everyone was fairly respectful and open to new ideas, it was pretty conspicuous that I was the only person in the room who was even a regular reader/writer of poetry, not to mention possessing a real passion for it. I know I'm biased, but that was a revelation which was pretty shocking to me: as someone who is surrounded by such a copious amount of fellow writers and wordsmiths, it seems insane to think that there are an increasing amount of people in the world who fail to see the relevance of such an art in today's society. Now first, let me reassure you - I am certainly not here to try and convert anybody into a lover of poetry. You are free to appreciate or disregard it to whatever extent you wish and I have no desire to force anything upon anybody. My aim of this post is nothing more than to simply share my reasons as to why poetry has such a special place in my life to whoever is listening and willing to learn. 

Poetry is an art which lacks definition

The entire essence of poetry is freedom; there are no rules. So many people swallow the commonly accepted misconception, perpetuated by our education system, that a poem has to be littered with literary techniques such as rhyme, meter, alliteration etc in order to be valid and it really couldn't be further from the truth. Poetry has developed so much over time that it's become impossible to capture what a 'poem' really is. Whether it's ten pages or six words long, rhymed or blank verse, you could even argue that a poem doesn't require actual words found in the dictionary. Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance; our entire existence in this physical form is poetry in motion.

There's A Lot To Be Learnt From Nature

Babbacombe Bay (2012)

A Mathematical Love Poem