Thursday, 24 April 2025

Looking down the barrel

 


I was looking down the barrel

of a loaded calendar,

ages being torn away,

encircled dates left scattered,

fading into the floor, 

under the steadily gathering dust.

Your money or your life they said.

Reply I did, I have neither.

These words stumbled drunkenly up my throat,

then slipped back down, a rumbled choke

as I tumbled slowly back across my timeline.

Poetry hasn't always been my mother tongue.

I was more an invisible mime.

Trying to find meaning in places all wrong.

 

When I was young

I devoured first story, then song,

like a plate of the finest delicacies

I pulled the words apart.

I played with them in my mouth,

letting the constants and vowels

form new worlds to try to work out.

What they meant? how they felt?

Why they got under my skin?

What was that feeling inside telling me?

I let them flitter across my eyelids,

like butterflies brushing my thoughts.

I spent days sat in my window, 

watching the world cycle,

caught in a time loop

of fragile emotion, I'd bury myself in it,

to feel the grit and gravel

as it stuck into my skin.

 

I'd sit in that window

until my mind was spent,

Then I'd begin again

a constant soundtrack playing along.

Consistent, it was my meaning of existence.

I never had many friends,

I'd be most alive when hearing

the blends of voice and instrument,

the tones of pure youthful exuberance.

 

Inside I felt a call,

put pen to paper, let your words fall.

You have so much to say.

So many ways to portray

the emotion you feel today,

but I placed these words on the back page,

as life took my dreams away

day by wretched day.

Until, at my lowest ebb.

I listened to a song,

one I'd long ago forgotten,

and soon those same feelings

were treading through

my overgrown mind garden.

 

So, I put pen to paper,

electricity enveloped me.

I was a storm.

The lightning blinding me,

but it was not trying to frighten,

it was trying to enlighten,

to guide me. You see poetry

wasn't my mother tongue,

but it was a saviour when my life felt wrong.

It showed me that I was not alone,

I’d uncover stones

and find new storylines living on,

and I'd write them down

to keep them living

long after they have gone.

Now I listen to the sounds of words

I don't devour them, I delight on them.

Poetry has become my native tongue

I let the words form into one

and I live in the echoes of its song.

 

 




Thanks for reading
Follow this link for more.
https://linktr.ee/Wordsandfluff

My latest book, "Journey"
the third part of my "Travels with pen trilogy"
is now available, with all of my other books, 
at Amazon
 
 
Please buy a copy if you can
it would really help me
continue to do this.

Peace, Love & Poetry
Kyle

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