This is yet another new poem.

you stole my words
my voice
my language
and i hate you for that
more than for what you did to me
because my words are all i have

you ripped out my tongue
ground it beneath your feet
and it took me seven years to regrow it
but the new tongue is never the same as the old
never as fluent
sometimes it forgets how to speak
and so you silence me still
half a lifetime away

i screamed inside for years
but couldn’t be heard
i still can’t scream out loud
my tongue can’t bear it
but at least i can speak my truth
my new tongue can do that much
and that is enough

© bardofupton 2019

This is another new poem.

your words fall upon me
like a thunderbolt from the sky
the air crashing together behind the strike of your speech
every word another stone on my shoulders
weighing me down
with your rage and grief
passing your pain
to me
so you can walk away
relieved
as i stagger on
under your burden

© bardofupton 2019

This is a new poem. I seem to be on a poetry-writing streak at the moment.

poetry is my heartbeat
essential
necessary
words are my blood
constantly moving through me
my fingers snap with the rhythm
my feet move to the beat
my brain flickers with phrases
they spurt onto paper
uncontrolled

poetry is my breath
keeping me alive
i move through a sea of words
diving here is second nature
i swim to the shore
pearly poem clutched between my teeth
spit it triumphantly onto the sand
and immediately swim back out
in search of another

© bardofupton 2019

This is a new poem.

some poems strike like lightning
straight onto the page
some poems trickle like drops of water
slowly filling the paper
some poems are made word by word
like building a wall of letters
some poems blaze fleetingly through the mind
leaving you groping for their beauty
some poems reveal themselves shyly
blossoming over time

i’ve written them all
the easy the simple the time-consuming
the painfully extracted and the meticulously crafted
have all flowed – eventually – from my pen
and this one embodies them all

© bardofupton 2019

This was inspired by the fog, or at least it started out that way.

adrift in mist
floating in fog
i feel suspended in time
out of place
positively unmoored
or unmoored positively
open to possibilities, time and space
luminous and emergent
lucid and incandescent
metamorphosing second by second
from one self to another
and yet the same
dissolving and reconstituting
i create myself by an act of will
embodying my identity
i become, i am, i was, i will be
my many sides fit together into the puzzle of myself
i coalesce
and step forth
reborn remade
into myself

© bardofupton 2019

This is a new poem.

a single leaf
in the middle of the corridor
lonely
and far from home

discarded duvet
in the street
wet
and muddy

a flattened can
in the middle of the road
crushed
beyond repair

items misplaced
and discarded

scattered scraps
isolate
seem to signify
more than they are

© bardofupton 2018

This is another new poem.

the lowered voice
trails off
silencing itself
shrinking away
into myself
hiding
making myself small
and swallowing my voice
my anger fear despair grief
trying not to offend
not to take up space
not to be myself
because i feel myself undeserving
unlovable
and deeply wrong
unworthy of love
or friendship
capable only of loneliness
and afraid
of love

© bardofupton 2018

This is another new poem.

moments of joy even in the dark
or smiling during the pain
a feather’s lighter than a brick
and yet, it balances
a single flash of happiness counters the pain
giving me strength to endure
because
after all
there’s still beauty
there’s still love
there’s more than bone-deep agony
there’s sunshine even in deepest winter

one bright flash of joy
like a half-glimpsed bird’s wing
reminds me there’s more than the insularity of pain
outside of me is the world i’m still a part of

pain steals breath like beauty does
same reaction opposed causes
tangled twisted round each other
so close i can’t separate them

sometimes life rises like a hydra from a lake
sudden and shocking and shattering
piercing the fog of my pain
and sometimes it recedes
obscured by agony
but
nevertheless
still
always
there

© bardofupton 2018