the heat that feeds
your needs
before you're aware
unless things are very right
and the rivers within
are sudden aflame
and you burn

and you flood
a torrent
breaching
and turning your skin
to molten streams
hurtling to pool
and build
to power
reshaping
the world's
place
around you
forever

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 31st December - blood.

imbeciles
during my formative years
taught me depravity
was a sex thing
or a drugs thing
or a rock and roll thing

when there's very little
more depraved
than teaching kids lies
for the benefit
of either yourself
or those you serve

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 30th December - depravity.

suppose
every road's spiked
and every door electrocutes
and every sip
of every drink sears
and every meal
is ground glass
suppose
every heart beat
explodes
shooting shrapnel
through your chest

and this is discourse
according to our
extremist rich boys
"this is discussion"
they howl, nasally
"why won't you debate
with us"
they snivel, snottily
"why won't you
let us fix the game
more than it already is
so we win
everything
we don't already have"

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today 29th Dec strident.

the flames
are not shy
about twisting
curling
and writhing
muttering
and pleading
showing
the sheer
agony
involved
in turning
wood
to ash

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 28th December - writhe.

just the two of us
on the dancefloor
your fingers dancing
in the darkness
slow, yes, as though
swimming in the syrupy bass ripples
just to draw attention to your eyes
inviting
lips smiling
i should move
but i don't because
because, what, exactly
is hard to quantify
but essentially comes down to
you couldn't want me
so it must be someone else
you're beckoning
because despite
there only being a wall
behind me
some nonexistent
person makes more sense

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today 27 Dec - beckon.

such emptiness
in the cry of the child
a denser void than any
previously known
as if we all need
bubbled darkness
of our own
to carry inside
patience feels small
in the torrent
of language
no one wants to hear
from an eight year old -
not expletives
but sorrow and loss
grim and massive
as the bones of the earth -
yet patience
is all there is
to offer the storm
until it blows itself out

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 26th December - futile.

if the child truly
slept in their feed trough then where
did the livestock eat

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 24th December - manger.

sing me the mapped drop-path
of every tear the clouds shed
and the fat splatter pattern
on my speeding windscreen
whisper me the secrets
of the memories of each
and how they merge and mix
to a sheet of liquid speed
swept clean by wiper blades
to clear a glimpse
of the barely lit road
tell me the infinite tale of each wave
in that lashing sea off beside the road
and how they scream
for the return of those sisters
the sun stole to knit clouds

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today - 23 Dec convoluted.

all we know is now
the rough paths we followed here
though just our own view
relying on clean reports
from kind fellow travellers
to fill in details
we use if we're wise enough
to widen our eyes

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 22nd December - hitherto.

it's always about power

the forced emotion
demanded universally
in response
to something
seemingly trite

evocative of non-existent days
when things were simply
simpler and better

an imposition
that grows to the weight
of invisible chains

and yet
why do so many
find it so appealing
so nourishing

and do we do equal harm
judging them for that
without
understanding

#Poetry #Writing #vss365Today prompt - 21st December - kitsch.