The Clock has Stopped - please could this be criticised!

The Clock has Stopped

I was left injured; missing a limb,
and searching for something,
To fill my oblivion

We will walk around
With lead in our shoes
Our minds a hazy shell-shock
To cope with the news

You'll want to scream at the people
Asking if you're ok,
(it's a pretty stupid question),
But they don't know what else to say,

The stinging slap of mortality,
With the redness in your eyes,
The knotting of your stomach,
as a real friend dies,

I was left injured; missing a limb,
and searching for something,
To fill my oblivion

The clock has stopped,
And you battle a multitude of emotion
As you grope for a reason,
Whilst you're living in slow-motion

The lump in your throat
Restricting your breath,
The anger, the guilt,
The unfairness

You'll sit, half-expecting a punchline
and listen to silence instead,
you'll think of your jokes shared,
and things left unsaid,

I was left injured; missing a limb,
and searching for something,
To fill my oblivion

And when walking down a busy street,
you'll see her disappear into the crowd.

Dickensian Boy

Lit by the harsh florescent light
A smile thins his lips
momentarily disturbing the route
of a glinting spoon piled
with cereal.

A bowl balances the scene
jauntily held
in statement more than purpose.

He glides into the classroom
to an open desk
in simulated nonchalance,
discarding the bowl noiselessly
on the Formica surface.

An exhibit in a freak show
created to obscure
a mundane life.

Out of our time he floats among us
long enough
to assert his oddball brilliance
without a hint of irony
in his sunken eyes and glib persona.

He scries oratory delights on
crinkled scraps of paper tied together
with a blue shoelace.

Where does he go when he leaves us?
Delving the depths of obscurity,
hands buried in patched pockets
of a gentleman’s blazer.
Hunched against the tide of modernity.

An over intellectualized ghost
of a personality hiding behind
his clever words and witty rhetoric.


This poem is based on a purely fictional character. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is coincidental and unintended!!

JC

Lessons

Rain fell on a leaf on the boughs of a tree in Craylum Village. It had been too long since Ignacia had gone back to the village where she was born. The beautiful hills stretched out like slumbering dragons with their scaled backs standing proud against the dying light. The grass smelt of that sweet metallic scent only achieved through hot sunshine and summer rain. The ground at her feet hummed with the electricity of the coming storm. She lightly squeezed the hand in hers and Sera opened her eyes.
A gasp escaped her lips as she took in the breathtaking views of the Craylum Hills.
“It’s amazing!” Sera shivered as a light gust swirled around them and disappeared in a moment. “Is it real?”
“Oh yes,” Ignatia’s voice came out in barely a whisper as she smiled into the darkening sky. “This is where I grew up.”
“Is this a memory then? “
“No,” Ignatia smiled and regarded Sera closely. How quick she was to accept the magical world around her, absorbing like a sponge disciplines that usually took years master. Her hand slowly caressed a leaf of the large oak they stood beneath, her eyes full of wonder.
“So are we really here?” Her eyes tore away from the wonder of her surroundings and level a look at Ignatia.
“Yes, and no.” Ignatia hedged. “This place is real. The trees, the hills, the sky, they are all real and solid. We are in a real place but we are not entirely here.”
“How do you mean?” Puzzlement lifted Sera’s features.
“I have projected our minds here, our bodies are still in the shop. You can touch things but we are not entirely here.”
“How is it done?”
A rumble of thunder and a flash in the distant hills interrupted their latest lessen as Ignatia felt the increased power of the lightening strike rumbled through the ground beneath them.
“Sera, do you remember what I told you about feeling energy?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to concentrate on the ground around our feet.”
“Why? I thought we were learning this projection thing.”
“Lightening has broken ground a few miles to the east and it’s radiating energy across the earth to the western sea. I want you to feel it.”
Sera closed her eyes and focused on the ground as she had been taught. Her mind wound through her body and down her legs, exiting into the ground. She could feel the different elements in the soil and knew the ground was prosperous. The summer had brought bountiful crop nourished by the rich soil surrounding the hills. She saw golden fields stretching down through the unseen valley below. Sera gasped in delight.
“Concentrate,” Ignacia interjected the vision. “Now focus on the energy and it’s origin.
“Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
Pure power washed over her in waves heading out to the sea. It was weak at first and then got brighter as she homed in on the source. A mile away a proud old tree stood ablaze from the overwhelming power that had consumed it. It’s once regal form shone out like a grotesque beacon, both beautiful and wretched. It left Sera feeling both invigorated and sad.
Another flash lit against the lids of her eyes illuminating the intricate patterns of the veins of their underside. Lightening had hit again less than a mile away. She felt it, rolling like a tidal wave fast approaching them. Ignatia grabbed Sera’s arm but there was no time. The wave of power broke over her bringing her to her knees.
Ignatia was talking frantically above her but sera could not speak. Mesmerized by the strength of pure power that nature had conjured she could only shake her head slowly trying to clear her mind.
“Wow”
“Are you okay?”
Sera rose uncertainly to her feet and opened her eyes. The world looked the same but everything had changed. The energy of everything was different and Sera could feel it. No need to concentrate. All living things, including the air around her sung with energy she had not noticed before. So much power lay dormant all around her. The fact was terrifying.
“I’m fine. Really.” Ignatia looked worried. Sera tried to filter out the melody of energy that hummed all about her.
“Maybe we should go back.” Ignatia was not convinced. She inwardly cursed herself for her own stupidity. It was her fault Sera had been hit with the full force of the lightening strike. She should have been concentrating rather than marvelling at the speed at which Sera’s mind moved and located energies. Even at this distance the energy force from the strike should have knocked her unconscious. A weaker witch could have been killed, becoming a human torch, as the energy touched her mind and consumed it. Sera had barely felt it. It had passed through her and she was, from what Ignatia could feel, unharmed.
“No,” Sera met Ignatia’s worried stare. “Please, I want to finish our lesson. Honestly, I’m fine.”
Ignatia remained sceptical. The first drops of rain were beginning to fall on them from the bruised sky. It was only a matter of time before the lightening struck closer. Shielding against it was risky and after what had just happened, Ignatia did not trust herself to protect them.
“I think it’s time we leave. We can discuss the theory at the shop. Perhaps pick a less volatile spot to practice?”
“It is beautiful here, are you sure we can’t stay. A little rain never harmed anyone.”
“No, but lightening has. Besides it’s too distracting.” Ignatia regained her grasp on Sera’s hand and she did not protest. She caught a faint tinkle and was reminded of a far off bell. “And if I’m not mistaken we have a customer. Come on, let’s get out of this weather.”
In that moment the storm filled clouds and rolling hills of green faded and were replaced with the familiar stacks of dusty books. Sera stood between the shelves and steadied her senses. The humming energy of the open space had been replaced by the lulling sound of old magic, slowly leaking from within the tomes at her fingertips.



A little something from my Lifes Big Project. One day it may be finished, in the mean time feel free to pick apart this morsel.

JC

Broken

James walks through the door into his dreams. He immediately notices the purple rainbow that circles the clouds and the sharp blue sun rays scattering out like iceberg shards, broken.

The grass under his feet is long and sumptuous. James slips off his brown moccasins and thick blue striped sports socks to wiggle his toes in the blades. His mind fills with thoughts of birds soaring in the sky; thoughts of running on the beach without feeling breathless or having side stitch; thoughts of endless blue sky days and nothing to do but be. Everything beautiful with nothing broken.

In the distance James spots a flash of red. He slowly walks towards it, savouring each step. He walks in a zig zag pattern that flattens the grass in a z shaped pattern. At his feet is a long stemmed red daisy, lying prostrate and broken.

James sheds tears of sparkling stones that slide down his cheeks before bouncing down into the roots of the long grass. Lost forever. He quickly bends down and rubs his hands over the shoots, desperately searching for one gem, one sparkling tear stone to hold in his hand. Yet all he does is flatten more grass, causing stems to cross stems, in a chaotic weave. Broken.

James looks up from his fruitless task and notices a building in the distance. It looks like a castle made of sweetbreads and chocolates. As he walks closer he sees the castle is surrounded by hedges of black roses. Each flower appears larger and larger as he gets closer. A hedge of vast black bells of flower, each leaf pealing away from the middle like mouldy cow tongues and falling backwards into a gaping blossom. A black flower ribbon hedge that surrounds the castle. The castle is broken.

Each spire is pointless, the ends broken and hanging like brass candle snuffers. The windows were smashed, everyone, cracked or gaping, with circular wounds on shattered pains. The big green double doors hang perilously on single hinges waiting for that second when they finally break and fall into the muddy remains of a moat that sits at the front of the castle. Every tile chipped, every sill smashed, every part, broken.

Only a single ivy clings on, winding its way around the horrified ruins like a covering smog, each leaf and stem trying to cover the devastation, and smother the remains. In this castle only the ivy is un-broken.

James suddenly wants to leave this place, to wake to his magnolia room and brown spotted duvet. He turns and runs back, trying to follow the crushed marks of his footsteps in the grass. The quicker he runs the slower it feels. Each step becomes entwined by the long grass stems, grabbing and clawing at his feet and trying to wrap itself around his feet. He has to pull hard to continue to move forward, move forward away from the broken castle; away from the tear stealing grass stems; away from the zig zag path until he bends to grab his discarded shoes and socks and his eyes search the horizon for an exit. James searches from an exit from this land that is broken.

The purple rainbow have evaporated leaving only a darkening cloud that is falling slowly earthwards. James notices the cloud appears to be made of bowling ball size lumps, each shimmering like extra large midnight blue marbles, perfectly circular. As he tries to run quicker, it begins to shed these balls, spitting them out in irregular intervals at irregular angles. James tries to avoid them but his inability to move quickly makes this impossible. One smashes his right foot, crushing hard against his big toe, smashing it instantly. The pain shudders up his leg making him gasp. He tries to ignore the pain and use his instincts to get him out.

As he reaches an exit, a large midnight blue ball breaks from the clouds and smashes straight down onto his head. It crushes his skull like a walnut and leaves him broken.

M☻g