Psychic Strain

I have compiled a short e-book of poems to mark Mental Health Awareness Week. You can download it below

  Psychic Strain

Looking for Strength

Beads of rain race

down electric wires

Fanned out from pylon, tracks form for waters rush

The precious glimmer of each dash

charged with suspense

Without warning they plummet

Gravity’s kiss irresistible

I watch in a window of endless time

On multiple lines new translucent capsules emerge

Poised for their tight rope show

hesitant at first

Then in sheer delight at the thrill of life

They run in parallel lines

Clinging on

Gathering drops of water until the moment they fall

When at their fullest

Ripe wet jewels find my forehead

A blessing

Nature’s gift

On Low

The spell of sadness set in
A slow magic pervades my every angle

Fog of my essence 

blanket like

 A hopeful reality threadbare

Cloaked in brutal alternatives

 Where wind gets in to incantate

the harshly true
So cold the prism left to see through

  

Dancing With The Trees

Still night clean with wholesome energy. Fresh air set against cloudless silk. The dark and unbroken sky somehow smiling calm. I walk amongst a gentle garden with thoughts that mirror the night, ethereal nostalgic shimmers. Swaying emotion is charged and piled up in a wave like rhythm. Emotion stored to overflow on nights like this one. I find myself smiling and then soon I am dancing. Only me, no one to watch as I dance like I did as a toddler, for the sensation and moment. The joyous shedding of my disfigured heart, shrugging off the overwhelming absence of meaning. Sliding with the confusion of these days, shaking and stomping in step with the clarity of a single instant. Layer after layer of my decrepit uncertainty peeling back. Underwater feelings coming up to the surface finding a current in which to flow. Yes, I am lost, yes, I am enduring the agony of growing up, yet in the garden earphones in I am dancing.

This inner upwelling gives way to a more reflective exercise. Earphones out I greet the trees to find sound mind waiting. Each sense engages with solidity and the natural presence before me. Hands massage the groves and breaks of the bark. Forehead pressed into the steady smell, everything speaking to a stillness hidden in me. I imagine the trees as healers, I feel parts of my brain leap into place, reconfiguring. Here, I believe the trees to be on my team and hug each one. I leave in gratitude knowing we are one, a system that is not mine to own only dance with.