From head to hand uniquencybyJilly
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The Foetal Position
You know about love, you know about pain
You know what it's like to be going insane
When you can't figure out who you are,
what is real
Suppressing the urges to say what you feel
You know about love, you know about hate
You know what it's like to be lost, in a state
Of utter confusion, frustration and dread
When the only solution is to bury your head
Pull your knees to your chest, face the wall
Shut the world from your eyes and your ears as you crawl to a place out of sight,
where you stay
Put your thumb in your mouth, suck your troubles away
You need to regress to a time in the past
When you were too young for decision
When somebody took all your problems away as you lay in the foetal position
You know about life, you know about death
You know how a world can collapse in a breath
When you're seconds away from that final big snap
Clutching desperate straws to avoid the rat trap
You know about you, you know about me
You know that we both hold a half of a key
To unlock good doors in the future before us
With skills combined the world can't ignore us
But sometimes it's hard to relate
When your mind is a minefield of anger and hate
So you find the solution in total exclusion
And filter your thoughts from all earthly intrusion
Could you, would you?
Could you press a button to eliminate a nation?
Would you flick the switch that ends a civilization?
Could you plant a dirty bomb and watch the people run?
or shower random bullets from an automatic gun?
In a crowded nightclub could you drop a lighted match
then hearing screams of panic would you fasten tight the latch?
Could you fly a jet into a building tall and full?
Would you round up victims for a massive ethnic cull?
Could you fill a chamber with a toxic deadly gas
and watch the children suffocate behind your safety glass?
All these things are easy if you educate your mind
to stay detached, remote and cold, pretend that you are blind
Imagine you're a giant crushing tiny ants
Put yourself above them all, weed unwanted plants
As long as no identity will put you off your stroke
Mass murder is a video game, just a crazy joke
But when you see the whites of eyes is it so easy now?
If you wanted beef for dinner could you kill the cow?
And when you see a baby born and give the child your name
you'll know that life is personal and every life the same
SPOILERS
Who put the cat among my pigeons ?
Fat ugly creature, scattering my dear little birds.
Ruffled feathers stuck to its guilty black nose,
choking my ambition in a frenzy of flying fur
Who put the rotten apple in my barrel ?
Soft putrid flesh pressing against my firm green fruit.
Its cancerous pulp spreads without responsibility,
contaminating my resolve with its mouldering mass
Who put the spanner in my works ?
Clumsy metal implement, seizing up my fine engineering.
Stubborn steel prongs twist around jagged cogs,
strangling my purpose with the grip of a graceless giant
I
TATTOOED ANGELS
Two garish cartoon angels, indelibly etched,
Naively sketched and vertically stretched
one to each breast, squeezed and pressed.
Impossible to turn away, pardon my stare,
had Heaven blessed this plump and playful pair?
Nipple nosed seraphim on fleshy canvas lay
Plucking harp and blowing horn
Badly drawn
with little thought
So cheaply bought
one sentimental drunken day
What is the purpose? Surely not art
More tart than smart?
In the name of religion
or regrettable decision?
Two perky cherubs provocatively thrust
heralding arrival of extroverted bust
designed to highlight beauty, questionable taste
in retrospect, a waste
as those inky pinkie icons are doomed to fall from grace
Little Poet
Step back little poet
return from whence you came
Dress not your everyday thoughts in Sunday frills
Paint not your silent lips with cadmium or lick the poison
Hide yourself little poet
withdraw, you gave like Rossetti's whore
Virtual seedlings spread in lifeless deserts
trod to sand by hungry nomads seeking greener plains
Take stock little poet
your inventory is depleted
Lock well the larder door, preserve what little remains
Replace the sweetened aspic with a bitter marinade
Your poetry gives masked essence but to a Prince's firm
grasp and mystical nose.
Some days we have the cracking wit of a leather strap landing on the soft flesh of an unsuspecting backside
Some days ideas spring into and out of our heads
with the agility of a frog in the mating season.
Some days we grasp every new concept, we are totally
'in the zone' as our thoughts process instantly from mind to mouth.
Some days there's a halo of light above our head
kept burning by the constant electrifying current of piercingly accurate brain arrows
But some days we stand alone while intelligent life forces spin around us like whirlpools of hot bubbling water as we sink further into the deep dark icy crevasse of confusion.
Some days we're as thick as two short planks
Heart and SOLES
While my soles are hot on sand
I have to keep them moving
but my hot heart wants to stay
and take in the view
While my feet are burnt by the sun
I must soothe them with cream
but if my heart is exposed
the Sun will do the soothing
As I walk on sea-washed pebbles
I must take care not to slip
but my heart will gladly fall
in love with every shining stone
When my limbs are too heavy to lift
I'm content to let them lie
But my heart is light and rises
to lift my aspirations.
Scoop
Whatever you trod in years ago
still clings relentlessly
Repeated gouging stimulates
a latent pungency
Once fresh and pliable
now a moulded pile
more liable
to cramp your fragrant style
Wash away the odious dust
until both soles are free
that stubborn, offensive crust
beneath your feet . . . is me
Looking into me
As your eye burns, red hot as coal
it brakes the hymen of my soul
and through it you can see
I feel the heat of your control
unearthing like a digging mole
the truest part of me
To bite off the hand
Would I bite off this hand, thrust before me with skin hung in papery folds, tucked roughly through circles of thin metal now as shine-less as a plucked daisy stalk, rusted green.
Flattened sweetie wrappers creased from constant re-modelling would have no more worth, yet this hand has carries its second rate shackles proudly for countless decades.
What does it offer, this animated fist that I might seek to devour, this fluttering appendage, never still, always swimming under my nose, speaking to me of its troubles, etched with stories repeated in the fragile embroidered sampler of memories.
If I bit off this hand what would be my loss? Would I starve, fade to extinction without the nourishment it promises? To bite, to chew, swallow and digest may be more sustaining than being at the mercy of a broken promise locked in a closed palm.
They say I must never do it, but how can I assess my fate on the word of an untried theory spoken through the tight lips of cautious witches ruled by superstition twisted in the Chinese whisperers ears.
What does this hand want of me that I am forced to watch it perform to my face like some ancient exotic dancer while I am chained to an unforgiving pole pleading for freedom. Do I force pennies of hope into its stretched, over-washed fabric cover so it might use them to pay for another's attention?
Once the hand is bitten perhaps I will no longer be a hostage to its gesticulating threat. It did not ever feed me with what I desired but gave only what it had available to dangle before my hungry eyes. What I wanted was the food on the plate that spun above my head, beyond the reach of this surrogate hand I must now bite off.
Let me be
When I'm crazy as a mad horse in May, when the Moon is full and pulling me away, when only fools and masochists should stay in my vicinity
Don't try to reason with a mood that's wider than infinity
Let me be
When I'm flaky as a brittle chocolate bar, when I'm reckless as a wayward bumper car, when patience flew and love fell of its perch like a canary
Black is white and wrong is right when fighting my contrary
Make sure you look both ways, a little apprehension pays
Just watch your step if you decide to enter,
take care, don't venture out when unhinged women are about
It's never safe to argue with a paranoid dissenter
Blame the moon
Blame the moon, that sneaky moon... It turns the tides, then runs and hides - attacks my brain 'til I'm insane - cold and deathly white, it hunts its prey at night like howling wolves and owls and bats and ghosts of sickly feral cats
Afternoon, early moon, Summer will be over soon - Days long all gone, Fall is coming fast
Short night, alright, guess you won't put up a fight. head for the back door, I knew you wouldn't last
Winter was on holiday, over the hills and far away, I can feel its feet of clay stomping down my street
Rosy apples, ripe to fall, waiting for their Autumn call - Last dance of the Summer Ball but I can't leave my seat
Blame the moon, that sneaky moon... It turns the tides, then runs and hides - attacks my brain 'til I'm insane - cold and deathly white, it hunts its prey at night like howling wolves and owls and bats and ghosts of sickly feral cats
Full moon, dull moon, just a floating gas balloon - can't wait to inflate with harvest on the dinner plate
Dark skies, white lies, you ain't got no alibis, old wise dreary guys, your turn again to dominate
Summer was a promise lost, wouldn't last at any cost, won't be bullied, won't be bossed, stubborn little season
Never did commit to stay, showed your face then ran away, turned the lush green grass to hay for no particular reason
Blame the moon, that sneaky moon... It turns the tides, then runs and hides - attacks my brain 'til I'm insane - cold and deathly white, it hunts its prey at night like howling wolves and owls and bats and ghosts of sickly feral cats
I'll hound you moon, confound you moon, take away your silver spoon - All year long, switch off and on your silly, grinning stare
Pull me, push me, but you will never hush me - my dreams it seems, split at the seams 'neath your compelling glare
One Man Band
You were born to this world like some alien messiah, always precocious, ahead of your peers
Your interests were high and your energy higher, mind always busting with unique ideas
Deep and intriguing, touched and effected, mind never shuts off, sleep is a waste
You're easily hurt and can soon feel dejected, annoyed by the people who prattle in haste
Being a tortured genius is a blessing and a curse
you're misunderstood, or rejected, or worse
But you don't really want them to understand
You're just happy as an island, or a one-man-band
You form an opinion and stand to defend, despising injustice, detesting unfair
You're honest and open and never pretend that the gifts you possess aren't exceedingly rare
Your world is so complex yet somehow it's right, you remember the detail of things that you love
Though your interpretation seems odd at first sight, soon the logic shines through like a shaft from above
Being a tortured genius is fraught with pain and angst
You're filled with frustration and you get little thanks
But genius and insanity go hand in hand
You're a happy oasis or a one-man-band
The Sun and I
Spent the day with Mr Sun, a mellow, yellow fellow, always smiling, always bright. He's right for me but cannot see how low I go when he withdraws his vibrant crimson afterglow. But do I really know the guy, the reason why he's often shy- and then he'll burst from cake-like sky to entertain the World below... we're so alike, the Sun and I.
Cheeky Sun plays peepbo with a stubborn cloud, removes that willful shroud by piercing Mr killjoy with his sharp orange teeth - and underneath he leaves a trace of silver whiskers from his face.
Sneaky Sun plays with my mood, when he's subdued then so am I. Some days I cry "Coming to find you, ready or not" ... he's always ready, not so I. The game is long and quite frustrating, I'm left waiting while he chides... "Warmer, warmer, getting warmer... hotter, hot" then "Colder... cold" no glimpse of gold, his presence is forgot.
I'm less inclined to find a Sun that hides unfairly, who rarely will stay put but shuts the sky door on a whim - no-one can get too close to him or look directly in his face. There's not a place he cannot go - his constant glow on sparkling pond or Titian hair, in eye of cat or claw of bear - his twinkling glare will see to that.
Freaky Sun, placid giant, always charming - quite alarming how he flirts with such success, removing shirts and skirts. He'll dress the girls in cozy curls of heat, reducing their attire... then leave his fire on their skin - with point of pin he'll find a limb exposed to bite with scarlet fangs of burning light.
A strange companion, Mr Sun, the day is won when he arrives, my spirit thrives against the odds, I thank the weather Gods on high for opening my rain soaked eye so I can see that even he is cloaked in vulnerability - we're so alike, the Sun and I
THE MASK
I wear the mask to hide expression, suppress the truth, avoid confession
I change the face, make pale the blush, reduce the screaming soul to hush
The gloom surrounds me, from within, I'd stem the flow but where do I begin?
The moon decends, a heavy bowl of thick, black creosote holding down my soul
The sky is closing, drawing it's drapes, nowhere to run and hide, no escapes
A hopeless yearning not satisfied - a doleful ritual, thoughts that won't subside
Cobweb Dilemma
How easy it would be to decimate those tangled threads
clinging to forgotten places in a complex net that spreads
from A to B, precariously in shimmering anticipation
gravity defying structures, overdue of liberation
I'd purse my lips, expel a tiny stream of air, enough to shake
the old and dusty mass where spiders once held court ; I'd break
with merest touch or brush or puff, a casual gesture, just enough
to dissipate this empty nest, deserted, fragile, over-stressed
No-one to judge or even know who razed the web with single blow
The parts that once held firm and tight would yield to me without a fight
And yet the thought disturbs me such, I know it cannot be, you see
I'm blown away by cobwebs, they're not blown away by me.
IA place called LOVE
Beyond the walls of life, the scope of time,
the depth and height of conscious thought
there is a place, it’s yours and mine,
and we can go there once we’re taught
to push the shackles from our mind,
to leave our humanness behind
we must become outside and in,
above, below, without an end and a beginning
And once we lose ourselves in what we are
we will become a distant, shapeless star
we will not think but we will know
just one emotion, never high and never low
Unborn spirits without guilt and shame
We’ll call it love,
Let’s call it love,
Its name is love ... no better name
Beyond the universe, beyond our ken,
there is a world outside of Zen
a whole infinity we never can conceive,
a transcendental kind of make- believe
An Urge To Purge by Jilly Wright (2015)
There ought to be a laxative for mental constipation
that doesn't bring on verbal diarrhea
The pregnancy of thoughts can be an arduous gestation
where nothing ever moves from there to here
When the brain becomes distended and there's cognitive impaction
When a motion is suspended with no positive reaction
There is nothing recommended to secure some satisfaction
The mind has great capacity and we can never fill it
Its contents have a tendency to pile
There's a log-jam that will never budge however much you will it
All the pushing and the straining is futile
The head, unlike the ass it seems, contains and stores forever
The bulk continues to amass despite your best endeavor
This image may be crass but solid truth holds firm whatever
All the things you want to do, the plans you need to make
Lots of ideas to impart and habits you must break
People you must talk to, places you could go
Stuff that needs attention, things you ought to know
A vast impedimenta of cloying odds and ends
Clogging up your system, lying in U-bends
Heed the call of nature once you get the merest urge
When the spirit starts to move you, purge, purge, purge
When everything is static, retarded, in remission
An obstruction you can't splatter even with atomic fission
Your brain's in holding pattern waiting for a shift in mood
I'm sorry to be tasteless, offensive, even crude
All that hard grey matter's laying heavy on your soul
And it needs to make an exit through the most convenient hole
So don't create the blockages that will forever stay
Let nature move you constantly each and every day