Child of Our Age

I watch you travelling your ages
Through your tears, your smiles
Billowing as the wind sends you forward
Riding crests of waves
Till you almost disappear into the clouds
 
Free-falling through your young life
Tumbling as a stone in water
Twisting, turning, till you hit the bottom
Then rising, floating like a feather
Upon a pool of quicksilver
 
These walls of water are unforgiving
Plunging you into their conflict
Swirling your mind into black
White horses thunder around you
Pushing you harder, calling for your return
 
Faint bubbles of hope are all that remain
As you limp back
Crumbling onto our shores
Dignity holding your head high
Obstinacy rejecting failure
 
Child of our age; your fragile sanity
In an otherwise frenzied world
Is protected within
The harbour walls of a mother’s love
Understanding, undemanding, unwavering

 

Waiting
 
Beneath the nocturnal queen's opalescent gaze
An early evening mist
Swirls across the Autumn ground
Seeping into every pore
Soaking the Earth with its gossamer coat
To nurture, to feed this barren landscape

My body waits
Also yearning for nourishment
Too long it has been denied
The touch of your silken wrap
Soft, tender, yet strength in its threads
To support the wrath of eons

I will wait for your blanket
Content in the knowledge that
Wherever, however you come to me
With your undying adoration
Each shall give equal measure
To outshine the heaven's brilliant stars

 

Mugging Time

If I could be a time bandit
And mug time of ten minutes
To retrace steps and alter history
I know where I’d start
I wouldn’t want to meet anyone famous
I wouldn’t want to stop a battle
Nor would I steal anything except
The vital moments necessary
To extricate the illicit

Erroneous matter would dissolve
Leaving me pure once more
A child - whole, not damaged
That’s what I’d be
And then my mind would be free
From this never-ending torment
From the stains that sully my memory

 

The Twilight Zone

I love this time of the evening
When the skies are darkening
The lights are brightening
And life stutters along the roads
Beneath rows of golden orbs

Streams of diamonds twinkle
Carrying their cargoes home
To their loved ones
Oblivious to the wonderment overhead

Inky splodges darken
Upon a layer of orange radiance
Patterns which a psychologist
Would interpret as meaningful
Should he glance from his vehicle

Jet streams from the aeroplanes
Carrying those more affluent
Criss-cross the horizon

X marks the spot where I want to be
The twilight zone
In between here and there
Now and then;
was, is and will be...

 
Schoolboys' Seven Sins
 
My feet plodded in the yellow trainers my mother had insisted on purchasing for me. 'They'll help you run faster,' she reasoned. How on earth she imagined the neon fluorescence could help anyone was beyond my understanding.
Placing my newly acquired penguin flippers into the starting blocks and waiting for the teacher to blow the whistle, I was aware of Danny Jones glancing over his shoulder in my direction. Class hero he was. Dunno why; jumped up little oik. Thought he was God’s gift to the girls.
He smirked at the ‘on your marks' signal and shook his head in amusement at the sight of my twelve stone frame bulging alongside him.
‘GO!’
And he did, like a tiger after its prey through the undergrowth of India. Leaping over the hurdles effortlessly and bursting through the tape, seconds ahead of us elephants left lumbering in his wake. He turned and bowed low to the whooping crowds.
Me? I couldn’t even be bothered to move myself from the blocks. What’s the point when I knew I had naff all hope of beating the school champion?
An Ice Cream van was parked behind me and its lure was more inviting than that of running the 110 metres hurdles. Waddling to the vehicle's open window, the wonderful aroma of hot dogs assaulted my senses. Being naturally peckish, I bought two.
"Oi, fat head!"
Cringing at the inference bestowed upon me, I turned around to see Danny grinning his stupid, self-satisfied smirk in my face.
It just happened, honestly! My fist made itself into a neat ball and thrust forward - waste of a perfectly good sausage, but at least I hit my target. Blood splayed from his once straight nose all over the lovely Mandy who was standing by his side. The sight of her weakened my knees, but also hardened my ardour. I really wanted to muzzle into her long blonde hair; to gaze into those sapphire pools that smote any man who dared; I wanted to feel her soft flesh yielding under my touch; to hear her moans of ecstasy...like the ones I heard her giving Danny the other day round the back of the bike sheds.
The screams she now directed at me wounded deeper than the blows she rained on my shoulder.
"You stupid, fat lump. Why the Hell did you do that? He was going to ask you if you wanted to do some training with us. You’ve blown it now, though."
The word, 'sorry' spluttered from my mouth - along with the remains of the other sausage - as I helped Danny up from the ground. Dabbing at the bloodstains with my onion-smeared napkin, more utterances burst forth. "I don’t know what came over me."
"You can say that again," he grimaced, feeling at the bulging mound that was threatening to erupt once more.
"You’ve blown my chance too! My chance of getting the sponsorship from the Sports Council to convert a fatty into a fitty! Five hundred pounds it was worth."
"Oh, sorry, Danny." I blubbed. "It's really not too late, is it?"
"Yes, it is!" yelled Mandy. "There’s the Official leaving now."
Exiting through the school gates, a grey suited man could be seen clutching at a clipboard, shaking his head. Mutters of, "Boys, boys, boys...they will never learn," diminished as he climbed into his car and sped away, probably to the next hopeful applicants. The next hopeful applicants - who probably were not quite as iniquitous as us.