Month: November 2017

Secret rooms and muffins

The small animal in the next room is rearranging his living space. I can hear things being banged around and dragged about on the floor.

Earlier he asked me to write a secret room into what I am working on. He may get one, but his expectations of what I am writing, and the reality, may be rather different.

The shuffling stops. I hear feet approaching. The door handle slowly turns.

“Dad, can we make muffins?”

“Ok. Give me 10 minutes.”

The train of thought dissipates like a whisp of smoke caught in the breeze.

I had better go, its muffin time. The secret room will have to stay hidden, even from me, for now.

Sleeping in doorways
Desperation overwhelms
Must be first within

Outside bright windows
Cardboard mattress keeps him warm
Held thick winter coats

Choosing homelessness
She walks into the sunset
Leaves it all behind

—

A series of haiku inspired while walking around Glasgow in the early morning.

It made me think of the different types of people who may be sleeping on the street, the contrast between those who choose to sleep rough for a night, those who have no choice, those who choose homelessness.

The last one was equally inspired by someone very dear to me, for whom the idea of homelessness was appealing, something I didn’t quite understand at the time.

Alarm scream daydream
Silence now long forgotten
Begging end the pain

—

Upstairs from me, the intruder alarm on a vacant flat has been going off for 2 days straight. It sneaks into my dreams, becomes a drone behind all music, like some bizarre torture which never ends it keeps me from being fully asleep, unable to relax, constantly on edge.  

Lingering remains

Tel
Out my soul
Like cancer
From such fragile bones
Self excised
Yet lingering
To painfully
Remain
The heart
It beats the same
Not so easily deleted
As a number
Repeating like refrain
A four letter retelling
Of a name
I am more than just the pain
But memories
Of life before you came
(Or didn’t)
Deserving more
Than self disdain
Or so I’m bidden
But can’t shake hurt
Which surface-wise is hidden
Yet will not go away
Like a name
Deleted
Once again