Ode to Butlins

Butlins, Skegness

Home to the circus where hope has come to die
to die, to sleep, no:
Never to sleep perchance to give up on dreams.
To sit in a white tent watching has-beens in red
Hang on to "beings" in polyester.
It is a world of mediocre, cheap thrills, expensive rooms
Soaked in ambivalence, an apathy for ambition.
Everyday lingers, languishing in reality
Megaphones that pale and meals that make you paler.
Disillusioning doubles, in two by twos
By twos by infuriating boos.
Uninterested stares, personality wears and grinds 
To the point no person should go. 
Butlins:
Where the fun never stops;
It never began, begun, begins...
Opened with a bang... Closes with a phifffff!

The dreaded poem

The dreaded poem

I can’t write any words today

My pen is empty of the invisible ink that tells my secrets.

Old man language, my oldest friend fails me:

Words will not comfort, just sit brazen on the page

Mocking as I search for the one that is right:

They simply hurt me, my bones, my teeth, my legs.

I can’t form letters today

There is no beauty in a world too used to such a loss.

No metaphor or simile can help me right now

They won’t sooth the pain that burns as ember

Or fill the vacuous cavern you left when we parted:

They just hurt me, my fingers, my cheeks, my toes.

I can’t speak my thoughts today

No ideas will come - none wanted, only peace.

The frivolity of clever syntax offends my very soul

You’ve gone too long, too soon, taken too far

To a place I can't see, can’t believe, won’t conceive:

Because they hurt me, my hair, my skin, my eyes.

I can’t feel today, can’t let that happen

All that’s left is to restart the countdown for yet another year.

Alliteration reeks of apathy, and rhyme, it but spits in this face of mine.

Clichés of sleeping, dreaming, watching from the next room,

From a better place and always in still in my heart:

Bring me nothing but hurt, my insides, my tears, my sorrow.

I can’t write this poem today

I don’t want to; don’t want to write anything anymore.

It hurts too much, it's hurt for too long -

My heart, my soul, my head:

Because however many times I write this poem

To you Muv, it will never be read.

My sad in Budapest, my aching treasure chest

My sad in Budapest, my aching treasure chest

Familiar sound in unfamily surroundings

An unknown reason, no need to rhyme

Sad for its own sake,  amongst a shusshéd laugh and awkward stares.

In the company of infantile smiles; a friendship that’s true

Comforted banter in the face of distant absence

Through miles that can’t be quenched by honesty and wine.

But still the sad is still sad

Closer to my eyes , burning with undeserving tears

Feeling realer in my bones, weighing heavy on my heart.

It’s always darkest just before the dawn

But this pinhole eclipse has surprised my soul

And a sad-drop wells, sighing slowly - falling unwanted.

Opposites attract and so joy meets its pair

Sorrow bubbles, and giggles, and spills out of the cracks

It’s here: in there - still where it always was.

But this is not my sad, not my song - not today

This isn’t from now for how I am in this moment

This is a sad hangover, hung over shadows I wish didn’t belong.

Unruly: Unloved: Un-nurtured

Forgotten children, begotten of neglect,

Mothered by ambivalence -

Of who’s society’s afraid.

Do unto others…

Unto others…

Unto others, until we’re undone.

But which others, what mothers?

-          What goes around will still come.

A product of your surroundings,

Of everything you see.

You don’t know of fair, or faith,

Or unconditional care;

Kindness is a stranger you avoid in the street.

Fated to a role: they act, therefore you are.

Pushed into corners, lost time in mauve embraces,

Your only choice arrives: To fight or make flight…

But neither comes to soothe loneliness’ bite.

Forgotten children, begotten of neglect,

Mothered by ambivalence -

Of whom I’m not afraid.