Category Archives: Poetry & Short Stories

Every which way

Failing to sleep

(Note: to be read as a series of three word poems and/or as a complete one.)

Failing to sleep
Not falling asleep
Coffee still working
Baby still sleeping
Waiting for work
Waiting for love
Dancing in distress
Dancing in desperation
(Dancing for joy)
(dancing for dancing)
Walking with wonder
Walking alone again
Drinking alone again
Baby crying again
Hope is everywhere
Hope is nowhere
Up the stairs
Down the stairs
Holding my baby
Crying in shadows
Tears stop falling
Tears building up
Tears falling down (down)
Eyes looking up
Eyes on me
Eyes on you
Walking away again
Meeting up again
Failing to start
Four more years
Waiting on updates
Previously on Lost
No network connection
Network connection lost
No new taxes
Never say never
(Say it again)
Just do it
Don’t do it
I dare ya!
Up and down
Round and round
‘ No’ is news ?
Sugar free options
Sugar free choice
Sugar free sugar
When friendship dies
No new emotions
No more friends
Waiting for another
Drinking with strangers
Talking to shadows
(talking to trees)
Listening without listening
Speaking without words
Smiling from inside
Smiling for lies
Smiling for treats
Smiling for money
No smiles anymore
Another beauty passes
Another chance passes
(another one passed)
Another day tomorrow
Another night alone
An extra pillow
An empty cot
A discarded rattle
A father’s warning
A parent’s blessing
A last goodbye
A jealous heart
Love lives here
Love from afar
Love unspoken lost
Faint heart fails
Her face remains
Her memory remains
My selfish past
My selfish steps
My soul desire
My selfish desire
Selfish not soulful
Rude not right
Drink not endearing
Rash words rush
Rash words ruin
Mother and child
I need you
I want you
I love you
I like you
I hate you
( my happy valentine)
I love hate
I love love
My heart declines
My head accepts
My soul ponders
I reflect sometimes
Look then leap
Don’t look, leap!
Shopping mall mood
More mood swings
Moody means mean
No excuses matter
No more excuses
Leave me alone
Abandoned alone angry
Green tea moments
Coffee morning choice
Coffee morning chatter
Coffee morning clucking
Reading thinking writing
Reading writing thinking
Writing reading thinking (editing)
Thinking writing reading (writers ways)
Writers write writings
Readers read readings?
Reading out loud
Reading in bed
Toilet reading times
Written In Toilet
Written On Bus
Written Without Wonder
Written To Free
Write to free
Writing to freedom
Falling to mediocrity
Dreaming of stardom (fame)
Wishes Of Women
Summer dresses shrinking
Burgers to hand
Burgers in hand
Beer and burgers
Boring Old Bed
Be More Interested
Or more interesting
Book face surface
Facebook is superficial
(Judge not less
Judge much more
Poor judgement, good
Good judgement, bad)
What is normal?
What is average?
Who really cares?
Why leave now
Never say goodbye
Flowers wither too
Life brings death
Life ends sometime
Think of worse
Optimism reverses pessimism
Pessimism negates optimism
I fell thrice
(Thrice I fell )
One plus one
No means no
No means yes?
Teach our children
Educate ourselves first
Teachers teach curriculum
Teachers teach too
Teachers are humans
Women have rights
Race is distinction
Distinction is description
Distinction is ostracism (ostracisation)
Drawing only distinctions
Bias breeds ignorance
Ignorance breeds bias
People need air
People get thirsty
People have rights
(every person bleeds)
Other people bleed
Others bleed too
Others hurt too
Only Fools Flounder
Words are human
Meaning is everything
Meaning draws meaning
My mind meanders
A river flows
A heart beats
The wind blows
The sun shines
The snows fall
Night and day
Through it all.

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

If I don’t look out

If I don’t look out now, out this window
And into the city
I’ll miss my chance and with it the night.
Orange and yellow lights sheen in across my page
They offer solace in the shadows run repetitive
And then they fail
As deep beneath all vision
The light offers no warmth
And in the vacant stuttering of the bus in wait with open doors
The engine ticking over
Taking time to let us go.
Instead it holds us to ransom
Along some distant shores…
For this is no longer Budapest
But is anywhere away from home.

Tiredness tempting
A blush presented.
Cheap Wine on tired mind
Lets fatigue run over gently
Into greater weariness
Which with time
Involves us in the whole charade
As sleep and dreams envelope

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

The neighbours

The neighbours
I don’t want to speak to them
I don’t know what to say!
Is she better?
Which one?
The younger one too!?
We’ll see, as my words fail to smile.
I need all my energy for us now
And not for them.
I can paint their world with regalery
Once my own has again found stability.
First things first: Family then friends then neighbours I guess…
But who are they?

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

The darker they seem

The darker they seem
With each reach inwards
Each breach of skin and trust.
The pressure, the voices, numbing into shadows along the waste, the perceived pain.
Kisses falter against the torment
Caresses run against the grain.
In the idiocy of a moment
Something matters, something dumb.
There might even be a smile
Or bare intention lost in realizing it
To look ever onwards
And never back.
The pale parade of patient doctors,
Or nervous nurses,
And all the rest.
Inside a lair of greater healing
Before e’er the morning, comes this night first.

© TheHairyTeacher2016

Back and forth

Back and forth on errand trail
The need for joy a subtle distance.
For hope itself disguised in rage
The world around now not a friend.
The silver lining wearing thin
Searching for the sun beyond.
Bit by bit a ray but then
A cloudburst too to spoil our mood.

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

Nighttime has brought

Nighttime has brought the rain
And I move away from One and two
Into the arms of another.
The chill breeze early evening replaced
The sun long gone, huddling into the west
Leaving darkness to greet the rain that’s coming down.
Street lights in their endeavour find sheen resplendent luxury
A luxury that weary minds ignore.
I leave one and two and pass through judgement to my charge
The other lady in my life already sleeping.

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

I have no news

I have no news, she sighed
And the other side went dead.
An audible silence seeping through
Conveying the weight of optimism.
A baby’s babbling could be heard there –
While here the morning sun dabbed corners
Expressing beauty from a clouded mind.
Soon the journey would begin
Not my calvary just my worry
Burdened, moving, questioning…
A bus door opened hissss
And closing beep beeped.
And onwards sailing,
Nearly there.

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

The provisions of…

The provisions of the day
Outside the window the premature darkness of a rolling storm sent wisps of flue steam directed away from their previous predelictions
Their swirl and curl and rise and flutter all shoved aside and southwards.
The sunset spilling o’er the newly coined immensity lit still a south and west that dared a sunset breach.
And the city in its awkward splendour, the castle regal there beyond, and even here the fine brick exterior(s), perhaps facade to feccund interior.
The streets beneath less travelled by or so a wishful thinker hoped, but each siren bore a patient prize, each car a reluctant visitor.
And from a perch as this I was set to thinking…
The rust streaked stained walls, the dust grey grating, the white bars solid to fulfil imprisonment
And in flicker of a sunlit window the laden clouds came contrasting
While from an enclosed balcony I gathered back my thoughts and looked through cracked-paned window glass
To where a child, my child lay, set to sleeping, perchance to dreaming, perchance to rest.

© ThehairyTeacher2016

I hit my girl

I hit my girl this morning to make her see some sense.
She glared at me through teary eyes.
I could see she’d learned to vent.
It’s for your own good, I promise you
And she frowned and snarled and wept.
I slapped my girl this morning, and this has made all the difference.

 

© TheHairyTeacher2016

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