Poetry Selection

Soul Music

Take a shop, a music shop

No-one wants you to leave

They are pleased you are there

Pick up a guitar and play

Run your scaly fingers across a keyboard

Tap a drum, play a flute

The sound is all you need

The spirit moves you

Like wind across the water

The sound owns you like a beautiful daughter

Immensity fills your body

It grows metaphorically

Living and breathing you

Playing you, an instrument

By proxy it plays them all

And inside you

Plays the universe

The Possessed Child

The spirits of the night

Dressed in the clothes of fallen angels

Which cruelly advertise their darkest edge

Pose question after question

And she, so sweet in sleep

Cannot escape such horrors these demons breed

Her murmurs, squawks and sudden shakes

Indicative of things she sees

In total isolation from this waking world

And I, looking on helpless

Save in that power I have to wake her

Am left in a dichotomy of frozen indecision

To suffer as she does or wake to horrors of this life

Can I decide what life she needs or wants?

Where are the angels to guard my beloved?

Can evil tread so easily on those we love?

But this is just a father’s madness

Craving to be bold protector

In waking and in sleeping

Not knowing how long to leave her

Making my heart break no matter how I choose.

You Are Not Perfect

The perfumiers and shampoo makers

Your indulgent parents

Your best friend

All say “You are perfect.”

I have bad news, terrible thoughts

You are not perfect

Oh, you have your good points

And your bad ones

You have a few creative skills

But most are pretty mundane

That promise that was pressing at age 10

Is just an average when you mature

Your social skills aren’t great

No one finds you special

A room doesn’t light up when you enter

But they gossip when you leave

But it is not all doom and gloom

Read well between the lines

Good enough is good enough

But strive for better

The creaking bible morality

Demands your sense of sin

Try not to hear its strident tone

But don’t ignore the kinder parts

You are what you are, but not forever

Take life as it comes, and strive

But remember you are not alone

The average man is everywhere