Through papered cracks of prejudice

Through papered cracks of prejudice
The vision strips and peels
To fray the forms reality
Would have us know and feel.
The world is ravelled, riven down
The path of bigotry
Until no flakes of truth remain;
And all is skinned, made  clean.

Childhood

Through miles of mild remembering
my childhood comes alive,
in ribboned trails of sounds and smells,
of thoughts and hopes and dreams.

Gifts of words

Is it enough to offer gifts of words,
No matter where they fall,
Or if the hearts and minds are closed
And blinkered to their cause?
These crafted thoughts are sent abroad,
To carry treasured gifts,
Of richest soul and jewelled mind,
Where dreams still hope to live.
In broken wash they reach those shores,
In dregs and dross of foam,
To bury deep in pebbled time,
Forever lost – unknown.
Is it enough to offer gifts of words,
No matter where they fall,
Or if the hearts and minds are closed
And blinkered to their cause?
Sometimes it must be -

Clous in scattered wanderings

The clouds in scattered wanderings
are lost in deepest sky
and drift upon the tongues of wind,
to live and slowly die.

Labels

They hung the label round my neck
which dangled through my days,
to tell the world and also me
my brain was quite deranged.
The words were crisp and clear
and cruel, and carved by other minds,
to show that they were normal -
and I through madness climbed.
Those words were meant to keep
them safe; to fence their certain
world and yet for me they built
the walls - a prison for my soul.
Those lettered chains are with
me still, and cannot be removed,
for that would threaten sanity -
at least, as they defined.
How casually they drape such
things, how easily they put
their neat and tidy category
upon a complex Self.
It fits the narrow edges of
their logic-laden world,
denying rich humanity
it's chance to live and feel.
How messy is a human being
in full creative form, how
frightening is psyche's dance,
in small and ordered halls?
The bright, full rage of nature
can swallow reason's call,
and in the shadowed burning -
turn certainty to doubt.
Those clear and perfect labels,
like sentries then must stand,
to guard the gates of surety;
to hide the sacred dreams.

Life trips

Within the shattered moments

of shredded days and nights,
we drag ourselves upright once more,
to follow fate revealed.
Life trips us up from time to time,
displays a world unknown,
and teaches us that what we had,
was but a fleeting taste;
of all the possibilities
this world can bring to birth,
of all that we may find within,
of all we held as truth.
Within the staggered moments
of broken days and nights,
we drag ourselves upright once more,
to walk the road revealed.