Submissions by CruelHandedWriter (Jamie Rhodes)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Doesn't it make you sick?
Religion has given nothing,
but WAR.
It has installed hatred
where common sense would offer
a non-committal acceptance of reality-
Collectives invade their assumed enemies
with hatred and malice,
whilst the preachers cry out
about the return of Christ.
Doesn't it all make you fucking sick?
Women hiding their faces.
Children being force fed
fire and brimstone deserts.
Literature that attempts
to keep the world
thousands of years old:
Too stubborn to progress.
Doesn't it all make you sick?
And whilst the...
but WAR.
It has installed hatred
where common sense would offer
a non-committal acceptance of reality-
Collectives invade their assumed enemies
with hatred and malice,
whilst the preachers cry out
about the return of Christ.
Doesn't it all make you fucking sick?
Women hiding their faces.
Children being force fed
fire and brimstone deserts.
Literature that attempts
to keep the world
thousands of years old:
Too stubborn to progress.
Doesn't it all make you sick?
And whilst the...
1000 reads
6 Comments
Fifty Two Days
Fifty two days I lasted.
Not many people were sure
how it had happened.
Hell!
I had money,
an easy job
and a lot of free time.
From outside you might think
that they are better things to do
with £400 a week,
but when the only people saying otherwise
are married, or divorced
or depressed or sitting at home
watching prime time television
or still believing in that man upstairs,
-who for the record was put there
by the same people that gave us
banking systems,
and the sickness behind American Presidencies.
It's all...
Not many people were sure
how it had happened.
Hell!
I had money,
an easy job
and a lot of free time.
From outside you might think
that they are better things to do
with £400 a week,
but when the only people saying otherwise
are married, or divorced
or depressed or sitting at home
watching prime time television
or still believing in that man upstairs,
-who for the record was put there
by the same people that gave us
banking systems,
and the sickness behind American Presidencies.
It's all...
#drugs
#freedom
988 reads
2 Comments
A self indulgent thankyou
I wanted to write a poem
for everyone and everything
to say 'I am not
entirely sorry.'
The arguments,
the broken glass,
the women
and their now solemn
ex-boyfriends,
husbands
and fathers.
It has all helped:
Given me the word.
Put me in a place
where I don't have to rhyme
or make over-worded sentimental
metaphorical statements
older than time.
I am fresh.
I present myself -naked,
hiding nothing.
The gut is not sucked in.
No make up.
I present myself
without fear
or falseness....
for everyone and everything
to say 'I am not
entirely sorry.'
The arguments,
the broken glass,
the women
and their now solemn
ex-boyfriends,
husbands
and fathers.
It has all helped:
Given me the word.
Put me in a place
where I don't have to rhyme
or make over-worded sentimental
metaphorical statements
older than time.
I am fresh.
I present myself -naked,
hiding nothing.
The gut is not sucked in.
No make up.
I present myself
without fear
or falseness....
1094 reads
2 Comments
SILENCE!!
Please, for the sakes of yourselves,
SHUT THE HELL UP.
If you are going to talk
then talk.
No one who is anyone
wants to hear
how you love the football
or despise the government
and immigration.
It is dull, two dimensional speak.
It says a lot about you
-you say a lot about yourself:
dull and two dimensional things.
But, I suppose I like listening.
I now know that I have nothing
to worry about.
I got out, in a sense.
Sometimes it gets lonely
looking in at everything
you can't be part of,
but most of the time...
SHUT THE HELL UP.
If you are going to talk
then talk.
No one who is anyone
wants to hear
how you love the football
or despise the government
and immigration.
It is dull, two dimensional speak.
It says a lot about you
-you say a lot about yourself:
dull and two dimensional things.
But, I suppose I like listening.
I now know that I have nothing
to worry about.
I got out, in a sense.
Sometimes it gets lonely
looking in at everything
you can't be part of,
but most of the time...
1250 reads
5 Comments
Advice from an empty bottle
They cling,
they dive.
Sometimes they rise to the top.
They suck,
they blow.
Sometimes they get lucky.
At the end of the day
our fight isn't worth it.
We press on
against nothing.
We try and make sense of it,
but that is as much of a waste of time
as wasting time.
You can keep telling yourself
that you're something else;
progressing further.
I used to do that.
I was wrong.
You will die just like me,
and I will die just like you.
they dive.
Sometimes they rise to the top.
They suck,
they blow.
Sometimes they get lucky.
At the end of the day
our fight isn't worth it.
We press on
against nothing.
We try and make sense of it,
but that is as much of a waste of time
as wasting time.
You can keep telling yourself
that you're something else;
progressing further.
I used to do that.
I was wrong.
You will die just like me,
and I will die just like you.
899 reads
3 Comments
The Ironic Jukebox
If I walk in here alone,
When I sit among maybe two others
at a distance.
Knowing that my company
Couldn’t spare a penny for the jukebox
- It all goes on escapism -
That is when it starts playing
Louder than when I pay for it.
And every time
It hits me in the core of my head
With lyrics that eat me up
Bad Lyrics:
'People that need people,
are the luckiest in the world.'
I doubt that,
I doubt that very much.
Needing, is detrimental,
but the lyrics continue
Those bad lyrics:
'Everybody's got to have somebody.'...
When I sit among maybe two others
at a distance.
Knowing that my company
Couldn’t spare a penny for the jukebox
- It all goes on escapism -
That is when it starts playing
Louder than when I pay for it.
And every time
It hits me in the core of my head
With lyrics that eat me up
Bad Lyrics:
'People that need people,
are the luckiest in the world.'
I doubt that,
I doubt that very much.
Needing, is detrimental,
but the lyrics continue
Those bad lyrics:
'Everybody's got to have somebody.'...
981 reads
0 Comments
Staring at better days from the cage
It is 9:50 am
I’m no longer tired,
but tired out.
I think about my mother
pinned down by her husband.
Unable to live.
Forced to live his life instead:
One without air,
or beauty
or love.
I think about my sister
who in seven weeks
will have a child.
She has had no childhood.
Now she drinks
and inhales twenty-a-day,
Desperately trying to find something
without the aid of the means
she was always denied.
I consider my father
who is old now
and constantly attacked by depleting health
We know so...
I’m no longer tired,
but tired out.
I think about my mother
pinned down by her husband.
Unable to live.
Forced to live his life instead:
One without air,
or beauty
or love.
I think about my sister
who in seven weeks
will have a child.
She has had no childhood.
Now she drinks
and inhales twenty-a-day,
Desperately trying to find something
without the aid of the means
she was always denied.
I consider my father
who is old now
and constantly attacked by depleting health
We know so...
912 reads
3 Comments
Burning Bookshelves
I am a little puzzled
by this obsession
with distractions.
I pin-point
escapist literature
for this.
Unknowingly
the human spirit
- in most cases -
seems to want
to avoid
its own sicknesses
by any means.
It takes itself away
to other plains
in to fairy tails
where it can only learn of
alliteration, fantasy and softness.
Clean and easy writing
that exposes nothing:
A safety net
for the budding intellectual.
Here I sit
staring at my bookshelf
wondering what the difference is....
by this obsession
with distractions.
I pin-point
escapist literature
for this.
Unknowingly
the human spirit
- in most cases -
seems to want
to avoid
its own sicknesses
by any means.
It takes itself away
to other plains
in to fairy tails
where it can only learn of
alliteration, fantasy and softness.
Clean and easy writing
that exposes nothing:
A safety net
for the budding intellectual.
Here I sit
staring at my bookshelf
wondering what the difference is....
864 reads
1 Comment
Literature class
She stares at me,
but I choose the walls:
The cold, featureless walls
that expect nothing
and can take nothing.
Maybe just a little skin
from my knuckles.
Nothing that I need
or that I can't retrieve.
...
I am learning a craft
that everything is part of:
Indecency, lust and bruises
Allies, enemies and alcohol
Music, literature and madness.
It is all essential
to the process.
As is everything else.
but I choose the walls:
The cold, featureless walls
that expect nothing
and can take nothing.
Maybe just a little skin
from my knuckles.
Nothing that I need
or that I can't retrieve.
...
I am learning a craft
that everything is part of:
Indecency, lust and bruises
Allies, enemies and alcohol
Music, literature and madness.
It is all essential
to the process.
As is everything else.
1025 reads
3 Comments
Circus
They deal in hatred
-often well disguised.
Religion impregnated
the extremists.
Then the fingers
really started pointing.
No one is left
without being chastised.
Immigration knocked up
national pride.
Everyone is waiting;
glaring at each other.
We are all dogs
being cattle prodded
with hatred
until our leashes snap.
What a circus it will be,
even more so than now.
More so than ever.
I am both sad
and excited:
If it takes so much
-a moment of finality,
of bloodshed
and horror-...
-often well disguised.
Religion impregnated
the extremists.
Then the fingers
really started pointing.
No one is left
without being chastised.
Immigration knocked up
national pride.
Everyone is waiting;
glaring at each other.
We are all dogs
being cattle prodded
with hatred
until our leashes snap.
What a circus it will be,
even more so than now.
More so than ever.
I am both sad
and excited:
If it takes so much
-a moment of finality,
of bloodshed
and horror-...
1024 reads
2 Comments
The Sick Writer.
I remember him well:
Sick of walking around,
accompanied by a dozen voices
-inside.
Sick of laying in an unmade bed,
in a dirty vest
-alone.
Sick of watching them walk away
as he held his head in one hand,
steadying his nerves with whatever
was in the other.
He was sick of their sights,
their conversations
and their gestures.
Their hands and feet
sickened him also.
Even the ones he liked to watch;
The ones he undressed
behind a quizzical brow:
They all eventually made him sick.
One day he...
Sick of walking around,
accompanied by a dozen voices
-inside.
Sick of laying in an unmade bed,
in a dirty vest
-alone.
Sick of watching them walk away
as he held his head in one hand,
steadying his nerves with whatever
was in the other.
He was sick of their sights,
their conversations
and their gestures.
Their hands and feet
sickened him also.
Even the ones he liked to watch;
The ones he undressed
behind a quizzical brow:
They all eventually made him sick.
One day he...
1036 reads
6 Comments
How to make friends in the bedroom
JESUS CHRIST," I yelled,
"GET OUT OF HERE."
And, with that I hurled my empty glass
against the wall and was left alone.
I've been reading too much
of one man, I thought.
But, watching the glass break
and then the fear;
it felt good.
I have been too kind
-on the surface,
I surrounded myself
with people so that I wasn't alone.
But, I was lonely. -I still am.
Life is stripped away
when you engage with the dead
and that is what they are
-most of them.
At face value
they can appear...
"GET OUT OF HERE."
And, with that I hurled my empty glass
against the wall and was left alone.
I've been reading too much
of one man, I thought.
But, watching the glass break
and then the fear;
it felt good.
I have been too kind
-on the surface,
I surrounded myself
with people so that I wasn't alone.
But, I was lonely. -I still am.
Life is stripped away
when you engage with the dead
and that is what they are
-most of them.
At face value
they can appear...
1054 reads
4 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by CruelHandedWriter (Jamie Rhodes)