Stop, Listen, Breathe! The pleas of the dispossessed child within. Engage Torrent of rage, Yet no breath, No connection, Where is the feeling. Talking head, It's all brain. Mouthing words, Stop, listen, Breathe. Deeply now, Shallowness resists, Deflecting pain, Shovelling scars felt down. Gulping for space, Squeezing stuttering words spoke. Experience the body, Is it not your existence. This lifeline, How sustaining is this wounded past. Fear darkens light, Shadows dismayed the true organismic self. Clenched fist pounds loss, Anger beats whose chest. Paradoxically you've been here before, Rugs dragged from under you, Victory swept away, No celebration, Only desolation, Your success punished, Your needs shattered, And now you face yourself. Learnt self, Protecting the little boy, Confused, Misunderstood, And abandoned at the school gates, Screaming deep felt distress. Tectonic plates of your life shifted, Open to volcanic uncertainty, Loneliness worn like an oversized, Consumed and lost, Little boy punished, He felt a different, before he could be different. Now the adult cries for this little boy, Can he now be the man the little boy was denied. What spaghetti washed ashore, Your tin of life opened, Vomiting from within, wrenching from without, And now we can begin. Taps turned on, Water gushing such truth, When will it ever end? Seas of hope, Swam against tidal waves of structure. Dreams dreamt never realised, Seventeen years old and sinking, Floating by that life, Your voyage to manhood, Your first love lost, Pained education experiences washed upon examination disaster, Shipping moored it in the wake of your parent’s separation, Merchant Navy catering boy flaying upon the deck of your ambition, Flown back to a home that no longer existed, Depression sank this teenager into his anger. Denying to his adult experience the damaged past, Those ships engines they were never comforting, Yet that sea was so vast, Its beauty ocean deep, Its mystical powers drew him to its edge, He never released himself from the wanderlust of his youth, His void within is that loss, He could never go back, Such uncertainty, Such anger, Such sadness, Departure to his sea faring dreams arrive at his adult reality, His parents stood more than a million miles apart, Their separated waves of goodbye echoed down the station platform, Desolation shunted his train opportunity, His stomach ached for reassurance that never came. Eating away at his certainty confusion became his bedfellow, He lived that goodbye, He consumed it, It ate away at him, He was transfixed by his feelings, He could never leave home, That home that had been smashed beyond safety, And how he has carried so much pain. Stop, listen, breathe, Have faith, Experience yourself, There is time. Your body needs you. Disassociation once, disassociation twice Yet not forever, Trust yourself, Trust me, I am you, You are me, Now let's rest. Lost in the Mist of Direction Right to left, the pain of separation. Right-handed world, That world I experienced, I can't write, I can't turn right, I can't think right, I'm just left feeling such disappointment. This world I’ve been silenced by, This world crushes my freedom, I'm joy, I'm salvation, I'm the cookie jar, I'm the little boy alive to the possibilities of his life. I was squashed by the right sidedness of others, I couldn’t just be right, I couldn’t just be the opposite of left. My friend of the left turned to alienating both our worlds, He punished me for not helping him, Oh how I couldn't pick up a pen and make it all write, Oh how I struggled to witness the strife my left sided friend endured, Oh we both became helpless to our experience, Such silent pain separated our direction, We were not ambidextrous, We'd amputated our difference, Flaying hands severed by feeling. Now our unequal reality sits upon our knees, Can we become brothers in arms, Can we accept our pain, Can we help each other regain the free hand of our creation? Railroaded Dreams Sunk Space Behind Self A million miles parted their goodbyes. It never ended, Parents disintegrated union separated this platform, Waving endlessly to the son who could never let go, Never let go of the hurt gripping his carriage. It dug deep within, Cutting his innards, Shafting his pain, What anger he felt, What abandonment, Yet could he let go, Could he express his heartfelt self. Upon his seafarers bunk, He cried to his mother, He cried to his father, Could he be in fact sane. Bring me a straight jacket, Bring me its safety, Tie me up in my pain, Let me be safe in its arms. Irelands verdant hills drunkenly rolled to Cork, Echoed tear felt loss, Loss to the sea of my dreams. This boy he drank his goodbye, On Air Lingus, This plane flew to worlds of unfulfilled dreams lost. Straitjacket Sea Shanties Straitjacket world, Come envelop my arms, Tie me into your comfort, Arrest my distress, Pain my crooked sense, Address my anger, Dress my tears, Stiffen my fears, Embrace my detractors, Clothe my insanity, Restrain my jailers, Whose safety is reassured? Straitjacket world, Come navigate beyond this ship of mutiny, Release me from your ignorance, Set free that troubled boy, Swaying with naiveties legs, Crying on bunks of confusion, Tied up in troubled waters, His anchor weighs heavily below, S.S DROPER sinking into its hull. Irish sea washes wounds into channels of loss, Drying upon his port never to muster upon the deck of his dreams. Straitjacket world, Come release the straining past, Cleanse its gale force frustration, Bridge its destiny, Drain its empty cargo seaward bound, Batten down its choppy turbulence, Calm it's dockside murmurs, Withdraw its gangplank of uncertainty, Voyage upon its passing, Tomorrow it sets sail for its Newfoundland, Galley boy serving now such utensils of nutrition, His salty settling seas wake upon oceans peace. Tick-Tock I'm With My Granddad's Grandfather Clock Tick-tock, tick-tock, I'm with my Granddad's grandfather clock, I'm on those stairs, All wooden and old, Listening to time ticking Noisily peacefully by. I am in that garden All walled and enchanted, I'm the little boy Excited by just living. I'm racing around in time To the pendulum. I'm striking that chine, I'm sounding that game, I'm winding up my feet, I'm handing myself fun, I'm holding onto that beat, That rhyme of old, That symmetry of precision, That says every second ticks, And every other second tocks, And on the hour, Such a crescendo, Bang, bang, bang, bang, This world is all alive. I know where I am With my Granddad's grandfather clock, I'm with time, I am living in time, As then as now, Slowly and surely, It passes, And I am just Being me. Clean Slate Wiped Clean Clean slate Wiped clean, Christ is that so, Can I be in my world, Being just myself and nothing else? What of all those experiences? What do I do with them? What of my void within? Where is it now? Now wait a minute, It’s gone! Then what now? Wow I am open to the Experience of just being. I'm the little boy Open to the possibilities Of his life, and I am Living them at 41 years old, And do you know what, It's actually okay to say, I can just be here in the minute, And live it, Bloody hell can I wait for The next minute, I am enjoying this one much too much! Tick-tock, tick-tock I don't need a watch. That Blackened Room Loneliness arriving at the home of acceptance. That blackened room, Its impervious walls of doom. Laid upon its bed, Unfulfilled childhood dreams, Its mother couldn't nurture her kin, Dressed in denied abuse, A closed world of whispered secrets, Never kissed upon her children, Those hands shrank from love within. Shivering coldness enveloped that boy, His home was a house of empty feelings, It dried wallpaper thin tears, It polished tables clean with veneers of loneliness. That blackened room, Its bed ruffling sheets of despair. Stark sardonic walls, Blinded by their plight. Curtained anger, Closed upon its depression. Drawn back from its past, Windows pained by their experience. Doors fired by hope, Spring realities warmth, Heated by reflection, Comforted by its beauty. That blackened room, Its walls coloured by light. Floored by its need not to be scared, Furnished with hope, Decorated by acceptance, Made over to be joyously blue. Warming to fireside peace, Its bedside chair covered in life, Breathing contented lightness calmly seated, Awakening hollowing emptiness to its demise, Alarm clocks no longer striking headaches painfully down. That blackened room, Is coloured by life, It radiates that boy into games of happiness. It accommodates his reality, Its windows create salvations answers into being, Its skirting boards level onto carpeted comfort, Furnishing optimism homeward bound. This bedroom is more than a playground, Is more than a room, Is more than the past, Is more than the future, It is one child’s life experience, He can now come and go as he pleases. The Cry of the Wallowing Head Wallowing head Pillows cushion your fears, Bedding sleeps your dreams, Walls crush your screams, Duvets spread such uncertainty, Warming your confusion, Awakening your pain, Curtains drawing nightmares home. Wallowing head Hold not your brow, Walk upon your world, Seize its life, Squeeze away those spots of depression, Ooze out their dead heads, Cleanse that wrinkled worried line, Dress your distress, Clothe those blues with purple, red, turquoise bright. My Life As We Know It Closure Nothing No words No need I'm empty, A vessel light upon my load. Weaving past into present, Living now not then, This world, This inner drive, It rests easy, Within I'm calmed. Words are my meaning, They belong to me, Once I split them off, Their ownership was second-hand, I traded it in for denial. This Macarno set is complete, Its pieces fit, No jigsaw puzzle here. I am constructed, I am whole, I am all of me and more. My spanner no longer tinkers, This toolkit now services other vehicles. Not driven into rescue, I'll not panic into speeding, I steer were I'm directed, My brakes are my centeredness. I can journey without the handbrake on, Reverse is only a gear I engage When I am lost in other worlds. Spring eternal hope is more than just glib utterances. I'm the season of my own destiny. Sticky Glue Sticky glue, Now how unstuck, Unstuck about the past, Unstuck about being me, Yet the biggest pot of glue, Absorbs my loneliness, It darkens my light, It seeps into my world, This glue doesn't bind me, It only binds its creator. This glue is someone else's denial, Its stickiness their loss, Their pained cheeks facing skeletal brittleness, Eying raw blindness they see only survival, Their clinging fingertips only hand themselves the past. Coldness chills this bed, An ocean of bed linen, Spreads such distance between selves, Screwed up defences hurt, Destroying intimacy. Not met in nurtured peace, Growth beyond restraint, Can this glue unbind itself? Today I Am Today I notice, Today I feel, Today I experience, Today I am peace, Today I am turmoil, Today I am lost, Today I am angry, Today I am happiness, Today I am deep sadness, Today I am all of me, Today I am my past, Today I am now, Today I am the future, Today I am, Today I am myself. Today I am the radiating heat sunning itself by its feet, Today I am a raindrop dampening your windowpane, Today I am the whistling wind blowing between your ears, Today I am the darkness blanketing your eyes, Today I am a stamen unfolding flowering beauty, Today I am a crooked branch resting upon my trunk, Today I am a footprint hopeful of his tread, Today I am a teething tooth dribbling into growth, Today I am a rock-strewn cliff craggily facing its scree, Today I am a schoolboy blazer ripped finally goodbye, Today I am the seafarer drying his bones upon terra firma, Today I am, Today I am more myself, Today I am 41 years myself. HOME text © Lee Allen 2004 images © John Mingay 2004 A Raunchland Publication 2004