Advice for Alice – A Haiku

My best advice, dear,

is: go down the rabbit hole.

Go, stay, adventure.

My Dear

I remember walking into that room,

warm and comforting as it was.

I was but youth and simplicity. I was but calm.

To wear a smile is a wonderful thing;

to do so like a puppet whose emotion is naught but fiction is yet more so.

I was happy, indeed.

You were but aged soul and complication. A thing of beauty.

To feel an emotion unexpected is exciting;

the thing, the excitement, in that moment, is unexpected in itself.

I remember you being, oftentimes, quite dark; a little solemn.

Or, rather, a lot.

I remember it, certainly, when I walked into that room.

A beautiful dress remembering that you had always been a canvas;

hair so kept, so perfectly pinned;

your eyes as blue as ever, shining.

You were floating, suspended;

cold against the warmth of the room; warm, now, against the cold in your heart.

You, my dear, were always dark, indeed.

But there, floating, suspended –

there I had never seen you look so beautiful; hanging there.

Pearls, this time, not upon your neck; you were simply floating, hanging.

I remember walking into that room.

You had never looked so peaceful.

Take Care, Be Kind. [A Senseless Rambling After a Significant Hiatus]

We once were grand enough to tell friends, strangers, to

‘Take Care; Be Kind’.

The wisdom of the seventy-seven, though, is not wisdom at all.

It is a simple thing, you see, to give love; to be loved.

Grand as we were, we could not presume to know better, nor to do so.

Years on, though –

Years on and we still take the greatest care, do the kindest things.

It is a simple thing, and we were grander then.

My love.

Behind a Pen and Paper (This, Friends, is not Poetry)

Find Me on Twitter @scottiem3.

Search My Name on Facebook.

Email scottmcginn@btinternet.com.

 

Behind a pen and paper or within reach of a laptop.

The Power of Language

The one remaining photograph I can find from Censored Sensibility.
Words and a (reasonably representative) drawing of a heart. On my chest.
Language, Art, Concept and the Heart of the Artist, brought together in the centre of one of the bodies that brought it to life.
Something so appropriate about us choosing to do this.

Empty; Here – A Haiku

Never truer words

Than those of hell’s vacancy

And the devils’ place.

Heart – A Haiku

It’s worth just noting,

All the things you need to know

About me are Here.

Ghost Writers

I think we right about things which we have no idea about because if we wrote about our own lives we would realise how sad or unexciting or secret our lives are.

There is some unbearable feeling to telling our own story when others’ are so much better.

We right about things we don’t know because it is much less painful to imagine than to address.

As writers of fiction we become fiction ourselves because we pretend a wisdom which is not really there.

Black and white and inky ghosts.

Jack

Sell your soul to something you believe in.

Climb up to where the air is thinnest.

Do not be afraid of life’s giants.

You are taller,

Braver,

Stronger than they.

You are no myth,

You are a tale.

Defeat them, little one,

You are taller than they.

Do not be afraid,

Sell your soul to something you believe in.

Closed

With eyes, closed, I have forgotten the details of your face.

With diary, closed, I have forgotten the passage of time.

With lips, closed, I have forgotten the sound of your voice.

Sing – A Haiku

Sing ev’ry feeling,

Each line a moment in time,

Ev’ry note a heart beat.

Serif

Everything simple in you is black ink.

Everything pure is white canvas.

 

Every quirk is an aspect of serif.

Every fact about you is a full stop.

Everything new is a question mark.

 

Everything about you is a letter.

Everything about you is a font.

Everything about you is a word.

Infinite One

You are forever in motion;

you will never stop.

Infinity lasts longer with every beat of your heart.

The atoms which are your concrete and your bricks are the most beautiful;

there is nothing architectural here,

only artistic.

We would all be wise to remember the colour of your eyes,

blue as the sea and beating against my shores every time you wake in the morning.

When someone tells you

‘no’

‘you’ll never’

‘don’t bother’,

we would be wise to remember that ‘no’ is just a two letter word,

and ‘yes’ is of three, like ‘win’ and ‘now’ and can’;

like ‘I’ and

‘love’ and

‘you’.

I know that with every day you will become more you;

more and more

and the most you that you have ever been.

Then you will be infinite.

Blood – A Haiku

Write with ink from veins,

Not for pain, but for passion.

Blood and expression.

Platinum – A Haiku

Your touch is silver.

The sound of your voice is gold.

You precious metal.

Words – A Haiku

Don’t be so foolish.

You are a thousand words, love.

Such perfect words, love

Your Fault – A Haiku

Did you smile too much?

Inviting. To blame. Unclean.

Your fault. Of course not.

Mark – A Haiku

Shame is a black mark.

An excitement of my guilt.

I love and hate it.

Question – A Haiku

You are confusion.

A beautiful question mark.

A difficulty.

Check – A Haiku

You simply check up

And my heart skips a little.

The simple things; You.

Path – A Haiku

Two streets in my mind.

Sickness and heat in my chest.

Confusion. Conflict.

Tempt – A Haiku

You are temptation,

Touchable, untouchable.

Sweet; Bitter. Wanted.

Cast It Out – A Haiku

Point a finger, then.

Find no black marks on your name.

Blame is best cast out.

Reasons to Value a Friend – Ode to CW (Written Some Months Ago About Cassie, My Censored Sensibility Partner)

She isn’t the silver lining on every nimbus and stratus that floats above you.

She’s more like white gold, or platinum, or that moment where the sun cuts a spiderweb across your vision with surgical precision.

She is everything you love and hate about yourself as if she has studied your face every second of every day until she knew a hair was out of place before you even did.

She could take a yawn from your mouth to save you the embarrassment.

She knows that the hot chocolate you buy from the cafe will continue to dissapoint you, so just walk across the road and get one from the library.

She laughs at your awkward jokes because like you she isn’t funny and like you she isn’t cool. And there is nothing funnier and cooler than a friend like that.

When she is in a bad mood, whether you know it or not, she’ll be fine, she’ll shine.

When everything gets too much and she folds into herself and shakes a little, shakes a little, shakes a little, she will push her chin up as though she is styling out awkwardly tripping in public.

She is not brave. She is bravery.

She is every smile you have ever shared because she inists on smiling like she can see down your irises and into your soul.

Because she insists on telling you your face is nice. Once, twice.

Because you should stop flirting, because two people have never been so perfectly and so poorly suited.

She is the first sip of tea and the first breath of a cigarette and the first rush of the breeze.

She is everything you never knew you needed, everything you always took for granted.

And now everything you would desperately need if she did not fill the days of your week.

She is the simple things, like the way her hair falls and she hates it but you love it because her insecurity screams out with everything you question about yourself in perfect harmony.

She is three o’clock. And she is four o’clock. When you could walk home but her shoes and her coat and her pens make you stay. Every day.

She is every word you hate, and none of the words she does.

She finishes off every sentence to make every second together a novel.

She is not a friend.

She is friendship.

And luckily, she is happily yours.

Jackie Hill – Only the Good Die Young

A gorgeous piece of spoken word poetry by Jackie Hill; wonderfully written and beautifully performed. A piece which really inspires me.

When Your Words Are Your Own – Creative Practice During Censored Sensibility

We are all born to silence. Conceived with gentle moans of passion and brought into the world with the screams of the final push. But we are all born to silence. We do not own the words to say ‘thank you, ‘hello’, ‘nice to meet you’. We have to learn the words, we have to earn the words. We are born without our own voice. Someone decides which cry is one of hunger, one of sadness, one of pain. Our voice is their voice. Or their voice is ours. We are born fresh, new, a whole life on the horizon but we are more like the ineloquent grunting caveman than the fluent speaking spokesman. A series of sounds meaning nothing more than ‘be me for now, the best you know how, move my hands and speak my mind until I find what I must find’ – be me.

We grow and grow and know and know and show and show just who we are or so we think. We are moulded every day. We are changing every day. We begin to learn the words that express just who we are, or who we want to be. But we are moulded still, for better or for worse. The silence is falling away and this word is your and that word is yours, but your dictionary is not complete yet, your thesaurus is not filled with every meaning and every feeling, it is not filled up to the ceiling so you are ready to shout any words with confidence that they are yours. But you will.

I often wonder how people expressed sadness when they lost a family member or when that darkest day comes round again year after year before Facebook and Twitter gave you that voice you’d been yearning for since you were born to silence. Did people tie notes, ‘I miss you mum’ to birds and set them free or roll parchment into a bottle and send it out to sea? Did everyone remember, did everyone read? Did no one care? At least all of our two thousand five hundred Facebook friends can honestly say they care about us, can say they paid attention to our status – thanks for the ‘like’, it really helped. At least all four hundred followers stopped reading Piers Morgan’s tweets and favourited our ‘See you there Dad’, it was like a hug through my laptop. But seriously, how did people express their sadness before someone said ‘here, takes these pixels, tell the world’. I wonder. I guess people prayed, prayed for days, for days to last, for days that have passed, prayed for days and days and days. And who do they pray to? To that person in their dreams with a thousand ears, a thousand hands, a mind in a thousand lands. Or to those people on their screens with a thousand peers, a thousand hands, thousands of minds in thousands of lands. Perhaps God and Facebook aren’t so different; so absent and so present with a careful balance of followers. After all, it’s only pixels and prayers that divide them.

One day we will all be old enough, wise enough, brave enough, to own our own words, our own voices. They might have mortgages, we might have to pay taxes on them, but they will be ours and yours and mine and theirs and they will be worth every penny for your thoughts. And one day, when it is your turn to leave someone behind to pray, to tweet away their feelings, you will have written your own eulogy, you will have written the markings on your grave – you will have written yourself; the best you can hope for is to have lived without quotation marks around your name. You will be your own. Your words will will be your own.

When you have escaped your birth of silence. When you are older. And wiser.

And you

Kiss Me – A Haiku

Kiss me like always.

Kiss me like never before.

Just kiss me; please, love.

The Knife – A Haiku

Intense cold pressure,

Wonderful; into my back

Your knife, then, dear friend.

Sex – (from Censored Sensibility 7 Day Poetry Challenge)

I feel your body before I touch it,

I taste you before I open my mouth,

I see your body before I open my eyes.

Even in the dark

there is a light

like nothing else;

Bright.

A kiss, a hand on the back of your neck, a soft touch; a breath.

The feel of your skin.

Even in the heat

the air

feels just right

Cool.

A wondering tongue, a hand reaching down to your waist, a strong hold; a shiver.

The sound of your voice.

Even in nervousness

there is a confidence

you didn’t know existed.

Powerful.

A bite, a hand feeling a heartbeat, a force that doesn’t scare; a moan.

The feel of your body

The taste of your skin

The sight of your face

I can feel it.

A breathe, a push, a quiver.

Collide.

Collapse.

Co-exist.

A breath.

A Regret – (from Censored Sensibility 7 Day Poetry Challenge)

I began by letting go of hands that had led me on my way,

So that I could open up my arms and intertwine my fingers with those of people I had never met before

I found warm hands; one pair, six more. And linking our hands sent a simultaneous heartbeat between us from within.

I discovered hands not meant to hold, just mean to touch and to scratch and to grab.

But not to hold.

And I have been searching; and I find myself returning.

One pair. Six. One more.

One more pair of hands to hold. A hold that sends a simultaneous heartbeat between us from within. A simultaneous heartbeat that moulds into one.

We weave our fingers like a tapestry of memories.

Our hearts beat in passion, in fear, in anger, in harmony.

As one.

Unity, intensity.

Ignorance, insularity.

Isolation.

I let go of one pair of hands. And six more.

For too long I had held on to only one.

Yet stitches begin to unravel. Snags begin to tear. Holes begin to form.

And our woven fingers cannot help but pull apart.

So I stand without hands to hold; not letting go, just losing.

I stand without hands to hold.

One less. My doing.

Six less, for the sake of that one.

So I pick up my needles, grey and sharp and cold, and try to stitch six tapestries together before the edges are too frayed to repair.

I am trying to make images, memories.

I am trying to hold on.

I began by letting go of hands that had led me on my way; but hands are meant to be held.

I will never let go of any hands again.

Because hands are meant to be held.