A passing beauty
once observed
(Who’d walked upon
the cobbled street
below my window)
Revisited
in dream.
And there
(again)
she strode along
With arms around herself:
A kind of cradling pose
which stood out as
so feminine.
This sight endured
in mind.
Since women always
fascinated me.
How self contained they seemed.
How unapproachable.
Those favoured ones
I most adored
moved ever
beyond reach.
Above apparent
possiblity
for connection.
Or of love.
I recalled
(next)
my childhood
school.
Where bullies
brutes and boasters would
display their baseless confidence.
Acting as if unaware
of life’s
fragility.
But some still
grew quite popular.
While I was left
aside or
shunned.
Both then
and now.
Alone
each day.
All down those
cold decades.
Among
this long
ten thousand nights
at times the
pain could get so bad
that
(lying in the dark
awake)
I also tried to hold myself.
(Console myself.)
Two arms across the chest.
(Just as the passing girl had done.)
Yet
found
it
did not
help.
(As an affectionate person, 30 years alone with illness has felt a bit like
being endlessly stuck in a touch-deprivation experiment.
I tried to convey something of that experience in the poem.)
And now, rather late (but better than never?) :
Here’s a piece to mark fours years on WordPress…
4th Blogiversary post
Not writing
How I envy those who love writing!
It doesn’t work that way for me.
Nor did my “blogging break” enable “returning refreshed”.
I find “refreshed” an almost forgotten sensation.
Due to chronic illness.
Each morning feels more like dragging my body free from a pit
of exhaustion and pain.
After taking minor beatings, during the night.
(Had dream-demons caught me again?)
Then I attempt to fake being human, for a few hours.
The longer my blogging break, the harder restarting appeared.
Inertia, anxiety, self-doubts, set in.
Watching others pour out their blogposts
I floundered amid sickness and despair.
Tormented by my own time-wasting.
Depression coats awareness
with its layer of toxic mould.
Failure expands, to seem a default state.
Perhaps poem-hunger makes it worse?
The waiting for inspiration.
Minus structure, plan, or plot.
Because I associate writing with mental ferment.
Nailbiting.
Insomnia.
Where ideas disrupt rest.
Tapping against windowpanes of consciousness.
As if annoying moths sought entry.
Thoughts scribbled down: in order to escape them.
After which they fade, unseen.
Confined by decaying notepads.
An unedited chaos, I lack energy to synthesise.
If only this mess could be redeemed!
But illness ruins everything.
(How to ever to get published
when I struggle to get out of bed?)
So passed a blogiversary:
Enjoying other people’s work.
While neglecting my own.
Days spent scrolling.
soon joined weeks.
Then months.
On it goes.
The emptiness.
The ticking clock.
Now draws me back.
To write.
About
not writing.
Does anyone else prefer reading to writing?
Have you ever felt motivationally-challenged (like me)?
Comments are always VERY welcome!🙏
Best wishes to you all!
(Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it.🌛)
Thanks
for reading!
( anxiety / art / beauty / blog / blogging / depression / drawing / life / loneliness / mental health / poem / poems / poetry / writing )
Ken Hallett Blog 