On the day I was wending my way down south,
barely before crossing the border,
I was warned, when there, 'Don't drink the water,'
so as to keep body and soul in order.
But what about all those crops they grow,
are they hydrated, by any chance,
(and exported to the United States)
with bottled Evian from the Alps in France?
Since you've left
I've bottled up my feelings
and all my thoughts
holding onto everything of us
Winds of honest scented
insistence glided my wings
through life’s many dramas.
Raw breezes fragrantly
touched my unsure skin
with soothing perfumes
promising my faith was
not errantly consumed.
I thought, go until I had it,
not go until the path quit
without signs I had tried.
I imagined a target future
sat for my eventual,
precisely aimed, bullseye.
That’s a notion I did covet,
even leaned it towards perfect.
If bottled, wind's cologne could
release sachets of peace to
waft serene blends upon and
through times of disquietude.
Tossing electronically-bottled messages
into the wild blue sea yonder
will they float like a boat or sink like a stone
it only makes me ponder
as optimistically-inclined
I often wonder why
some say, 'Send me an email,'
but then never reply
do my bottles circumnavigate the globe
or stay in the Sargasso for ever and a day
are they wrecked on the rocks of spam
while typing I waste my days and nights away
Blank Face
Has Feelings
Emotions are bottled up tight.
In these days of austerity
It’s getting to be a treat
To go out for a few pints
And have a bite to eat,
So, Please Mr Pub Landlord
Grant me just a little wish
Bring back the vinegar bottle
So I can splash me bit of fish.
Those little plastic sachets
You’ve generously placed there
Supposedly have perforation
But they just refuse tear.
I need that essential liquid
Over me chips and cod
To transpose it from wonderful
To meal fit for a demi god.
I sit there by the mimute
Growing more and more tense
Looking at the pile of sachets
That just won’t dispense
In despair I eat my meal
Before it grows cold
But it’s just not the same
Without that liquid of gold.
I shall add that designer to
That list of those folk that
I’d like to meet in a dark alley
When I’ve got my baseball bat
A pox on the plastics industry
Once thought a packaging solution
Now a source of anger and despair
And the growing oceanic pollution.
I’m just a simple type of being
So many modern things I hate
Just give me fish and taties
Hot, served on a real plate
And I reall dont think that
I’m asking rather a lot
For vinegar in a real bottle
And salt and pepper in a pot.
I try to make all of the pain poetic
Try to ignore how I was abused by a prick
So many ways
So many days
More times than I can mention
I want to put down my chin
Fall off like the leaves
To the next life and reprieve
This life’s karma
How can I practice dharma
With all this anger inside me
I can’t take out, trying to fight me
Because it’s in my head
Sick of you but I can’t get you out, turning red
A bell-jar, crystalline, as transparent as an aquarium
Vibrant colors burnt umbers tints glass atop the kitchen table.
No elaborate gardening, just gentle misting in the terrarium
Muted pinks, earthy tones, texture soft as Siberian sable
My supercilious ways are overridden by fecund elegance.
Gather around my friends and behold cherished succulents.
These flowery cacti, such profuse perennial poetic ebullience,
with an award worthy, floral southwestern desert essence.
multi nuanced
flavour
many coloured
& aromas to savour
always in the taste
& swallowed
without haste
bottled
magnums
& jereboam,
bouquets
to hint
of lemon & jam
chadonnay shiraz
sauvignon
tempranillo
merlot jostle
in a throng
the trinity
champagne
sherry& port
the latter
stilton's best escort
beaujolais
loved
by the light-hearted
a lingering thirst
&race
to import first
none
can surpass
rioja's reserva
at a thousand feet
oak aged
ripened
in summer heat
it comes and goes lately it seems
to linger leaving a few more scars
in its wake the mastering of self
the balance of craving the emptiness
shattered beneath us why must we
relive old memories collecting
saddened streams of haste causing
injury to the pure foundation of
emotional bliss the beautiful part
of self that rises to the surface
to rescue us from complete despair
awaken to soon we continue to wonder
aimlessly into moving traumatic events
reaching for respite familiar reoccurring
night terrors offering up our own
mental self broken by a bleak metaphor
seeking melancholy behavior only
finding mirth bottled up to perfection
Written by Mrs Yolanda Joy Nicholsen
Gall stones large as hens’ eggs,
pale kidneys buoyant as seabirds.
Shriveled livers,
yet some so bloated they have features
as if the organ had drowned
imprinted by a sleeping face.
A fetus floating in a deeper space than
can be calculated by light years.
There is less purpose in preserving
the anatomy of death now.
The carnival wagons have gone away,
the fish-man in his tank;
the tuberous lungs of the malformed
free now from any glassy ogle.
However, in the medical museum
bottled body parts still wait
in their mason jars
for a hand to commence
death's long-prophesied unscrewing.
Dipping and swirling with my cork ready to pop,
with these words written and your name at the top.
I throw it upon the waters hoping to reach you,
Alone in this sea of love wondering if you will find me.
My heart is trapped floating alone among these waves,
hoping to find you on the golden sand of love.
Many years I have waited bottled up inside searching for you,
this heart of glass has been broken many times.
My ink has started to fade upon my parchment of faith,
please find me and see these lost words of love.
Open this heart once again and do not drift away,
for inside you will find love each and every day.
In his mid-30s but still a boy
Given $14.50 an hour and 12 hour shifts
Six days a week
His driver’s license confiscated
For five slung beers over a night long ago
Cost him $10,000
Contributed to the system
Of judges bailiffs lawyers and Presidents
All residents
Of the lakes and new mansions up north on weekends
Five years it will take him
To pay them for his sin.
Out here on the way to work
There are no buses
So the boy joins a line of third world refugees
Walking an hour and a half a day
Each way
Through the sweat of summer
And the snow of winter
From Greatdale Apartments
To the soda pop company’s bottling plant
He limps down the shoulder of King’s Road
Texting a screen scream to his desperate dad
“I can’t do this anymore!”
This
The only demand the son can manage
While Escalades
Roar by him
Side mirrors whisking within inches of his elbows
The thought of the American Dream
Or even the idea of a violent union revolution
Pouring out of him
Like his 10 cent returns
After work at the Party Store.
Inner rage at boiling point,
Fighting emotions, losing sight
Wanting to let go, dreading I might,
Bottling it up before it’s flight
Roaring and twisting, my tormented soul
Mind fighting reason, giving a goal.
Suffer in silence, or fight and lose all?
Sanity clawing, grasping the wall.
Too easy to kill, harder to drown
Inner most being, must think I’m a clown
My pain is my own
My mind it’s home
Here to stay
Don’t leave I pray
Don’t leave I pray
I,you and the closest
Bottled with winter winds
Clones of one another
Covered with passionate love
People see us in numerical holes
Driven with early thoughts
We grow our own cells,
We grow our own prejudice
Immoral stars aren't always ugly
My closest live with primary stigma,
Fallen and dived
Notions doesn't matter
Empathy is a must
Buy our expensive hearts
And bring the new twilight
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