Best Lifeart Poems
I have mastered the art of leaving.
The art of symmetric mirror-imaged parting hands
The sad shaped angel eyes
The running mascara
The sleepy goodbyes
The transient embraces causing permanent damage
The shaky voices
The interrupted heart beats
The running away
The crawling back
The silent sighs
The unanswered whys
The hanging of unattained broken dreams on little key chains
The biting of lips
And caging of unspoken desires
I have mastered the art of leaving.
I was never right –
So I left, I left and I left –
Until leaving had become my forte
My field of expertise.
Like many of my poems, this was also a farewell piece of advice. It was written long before The Canvas, but
is similar in theme. It is a little more cynical though.
'Tis an art to live
For the portrait of one's life
Is not easy to draw.
Your choice of canvas
You must discern
And the lens of subtlety
Prudently learn
The depths of emotion
You must tint and shade
Its vibrant colours
Passionately grade
The people around
You must artfully stroke
And in the correct oils
Your brushes soak
Traces of reality
With skill, reflect
Small strokes of meaning
At your peril, neglect
The vagaries of situations
With deliberation, you paint
Leave no negligent smudges
That, could, your canvas taint
Yet, expect no praise
From all around
And take the stings
Of criticism as they abound
For...
'Tis an art to live
And the portrait of one's life
Is not easy to draw.
Dark Ages at The Deep End ( For Alex )
What does our society teach our children
Churn them out as fodder
For the cultural use of consumerism
The empty promises of success
And the great grand promise of never ending wealth
Plies them with ever needful obsessions
Scientific, mathematical, technology
Tested, retested, awarded, rewarded
Good little robot sent out into the world
To fill their lives with even more sparkly, spanking brand new possessions
To account their lives by material attainment
And to judge others by their lack of
Out to feed the numbers of marketable goods
To be counted by adverts
And to face life uneducated and alone
Thrown in at the deep end
These ever hungering and even younger adults
Looking for the promised land of electronic gadgets
Have they been taught to cope with failure
How to respond to one another
How to communicate
Do they know the art of parenting
How to define fact from illusion
And a reality from a dream
Have they been shown the art of problem solving
Do they know how to deal with overwhelming emotions
How do they know who to turn to
What does our society teach our children
The third largest killer of young adults today, is suicide
Living in the dark ages still, of human relations
Churned out for the fodder
For this cultural capitalist use of consumerism
We have learnt nothing, nothing about them
Though our modern historical claims to be so concerned
Still they leave our schools knowing nothing about themselves
The unattainable prize
Has a price of failure
But what else is there
Some join the joke of a gangster subculture
Some join the rat race ( what else is there )
Some rebel in drug faced reflections of societies crap
Some turn to religion to hide the demon inside them
Some just swallow the lies of quick easy gettable
And some find freedom at the end of a rope
What does society teach our children
Mere acceptance of an illusion
Good little robot sent out into the world
Thrown in at the deep end; now learn to swim
The third largest killer of young adults today; is suicide
Picked from the garden of life,
As unique as any flower,
As beautiful as a rainbow,
Trapped in an April shower.
Like a blossom pressed and dried,
Its colour fading never,
I have pressed you
Between the pages of my life,
Where I hope you will stay forever.