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Poetry

Nov 29

Candy Floss

For anyone finding it hard to hope, even when there are reasons to hope.

Today you tried to give me my hope back.
But I couldn’t take it, too afraid I’d break it,
Or watch it slip from my grip and feel its loss,
Like water poured on candy floss.

Today you tried to give me my hope back.
But it’s too bright, the light of it hurts my eyes.
It’s been gone for so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like,
Maybe darkness is better than fading light.

Today you tried to give me my hope back.
But my hands are full holding this shovel, as I struggle to clear the wreckage and rubble.
Memories of the dead still circling my head.
Why rebuild if it all just gets smashed up again?

Today you tried to give me my hope back.
Like a giggling kid holding candy floss,
Saying take it taste it just smile and embrace it.
But I’m filled with dread as I look up ahead,
Because clouds are forming over our heads.
The water will pour and next time take even more,
I can’t take more loss, can’t cope with the cost,
I’d rather go hungry than taste candy floss.

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Nov 04

Heart

This spoken word poem is called ‘Heart’. If you’re struggling right now I hope this helps you remember how strong you are. Words below if you need them.

The strongest part of me will always be my heart.
It gets battered and shattered it breaks apart,
Still it restarts.
You can smash it and bash it, hide the crash cart,
Still I’ll revive it, still I’ll survive it,
I’ll stay alive.

The strongest part of me will always be my heart.
You can squeeze it until it bleeds you can cut off the air it needs,
Still I’ll breathe.
You can shake it and break it make it into a thousand pieces.
Still each piece will beat beat beat,
It will not cease.

The strongest part of me will always be my heart.
It’s cracked but still intact despite every attack,
It fights back.
Made of rock but still soft, no love lost.
Tough enough to pump a body full of blood.
It won’t give up.

The strongest part of me will always be my heart.
It’s been in despair and it’s needed care but
It does repair.
So when you feel distress when everything’s a mess
When you feel like what’s coming is cardiac arrest,
Rest your hand on your chest.

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May 24

Hall Pass

I’m in my primary school hallway
Council coloured walls and closed doors
Between classrooms standing on coffee stained floors 
A gateway

Lessons are in session but I’ve got the principal’s blessing
A hall pass of sorts permission to explore
To wander and ponder and search for more
An adventure 

I’ve never been out of place in these liminal spaces 
Always sat on the edges always outside the fences
Finding friends as I walk this way – a kid sent out, another running late
Familiar faces

Did I mention I stole that hall pass while in detention?
An open store cupboard door I just couldn’t ignore
It was a dance between chance and circumstance
Divine intervention 

So when they try to keep you confined
When they insist you must fit and colour inside the lines
Resist it and show them a different existence 
A life undefined 

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May 01

#NewProfilePic

This spoken word poem below was inspired by this photo, taken by my wife while we were on a weekend away recently.

It became more than a photo and took on a deep meaning for me – how sometimes just smiling and living fully are acts of rebellion against all the despair and hopelessness we can sometimes experience in our lives or read about on the news. Not many of us have had an easy time in the last few years, and sometimes it’s just lovely when a moment of joy like this is captured.

I hope it inspires you to be you, to recognise joy when it finds you, to live fully, and to love your imperfections and quirks! The full words to the poem are below the film if you need them.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
The one where I sat with my back to those cool wooden slats and you made me laugh,
Reminiscing about that clip from that show on Netflix.
I realised how brilliant it is to exist.
How existence is resistance to all the shit-ness I’ve witnessed,
My smiling an uprising an insistence of aliveness.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
No I’m not holding a mic and it’s not with my wife or my kids,
Ok I don’t have any but if I did,
They wouldn’t be in a picture or a visual description of me,
They wouldn’t define who I am or who I can be, don’t you see?
I’m enough when alone I have worth on my own.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
Light is shining right above my head,
A reminder a spotlight on the good times ahead,
Or the divine guidance and kindness that’s been mine every step.
There’s a part like a shard that’s pierced the darkness,
Just a shimmer just a glimmer but it still softens the starkness.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
It shows my tattoos including the one that’s still new,
Like me not yet healed and it’s partly concealed its design not quite yet fully revealed.
If you zoomed in you’d see wrinkles and dimples, crinkles and pimples, imprints on my skin,
But these marks are battle scars I’ve made my peace with.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
And okay I’ll spend way too much of my day, having a play in Photoshop
But I won’t change, rearrange or display what I’m not.
Maybe a filter is needed, some aligning and refining,
Some shifting and lifting and colour defining.
But this picture will still be the real me,
Both who I am now and who I’m trying to be.

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Apr 05

Maybe

For anyone trying to heal – I hope you have days like this. Days when there are little rays of light shining through all the darkness, and signs of hope everywhere you look. Keep going.

This morning I saw a small stream of light,
Just a tad, just a crack in the blackout blind.
I didn’t rush past it, I sat while it lasted,
I breathed and believed it, just stopped and received it.

I thought maybe this feeling, maybe it’s real.
Maybe it feels like I’m starting to heal.

I sat by the window with a mug full of tea,
Just let myself be, just watched the steam.
What if just like it I’m starting to rise?
The haze could be fading, there could be blue skies.

I thought maybe this feeling, maybe it’s real,
Maybe it feels like I’m starting to heal.

I walked through the park, saw signs of the spring,
Roots sprouting shoots, and birds starting to sing.
Just like us it gets made through a breaking,
In the harshness of darkness, in the pain of the waiting.

I thought maybe this feeling, maybe it’s real,
Maybe it feels like I’m starting to heal.

Of course I knew as I thought it all through,
That’s there’s still more to come, and more work to do.
These buds and shoots they’re not yet flowers,
Spring sun can quickly become April showers.

But maybe today, maybe just for one day,
A pause, a thought till I go on my way,
Maybe just maybe I’ll let myself say,
Maybe just maybe this might be ok.
Maybe this feeling, maybe it’s real,
Maybe it feels like I’m starting to heal.

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Mar 30

Holding Hope

Hope is heavy.
Sometimes I cannot hold it.
My arms ache with the weight of it.
I have to let it go,
Let it drop to the ground,
Embrace the free-fall. 

In the letting go,
In the slow motion of the fall,
I notice someone who loves me,
Catching it, holding it, protecting it.
Keeping it safe,
Until I am strong enough to hold it for myself.

What else can love be?
We hold hope for each other,
When we cannot hold it for ourselves.
We raise it high above our heads,
We become the searchlight, the beacon, the lighthouse.
Until the darkness lifts.

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Mar 25

Reimagine

When you can’t see a way back,
Try to see a way forward.
When the person you were has gone,
Try to imagine the person you could become.

When all you hold is broken pieces,
Of a beautiful picture you can no longer see,
Rearrange those broken pieces.
The picture will be more beautiful, because of the breaking.

You can’t return, but you can reimagine.

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Feb 18

Unravelling

I keep thinking at the moment about the word unravel/unravelling, and how it has so many distinct meanings. When something is unravelling it can be hugely destructive as it comes apart and is destroyed, perhaps never being able to be put together in the same way or for the same function. There are also positive meanings, perhaps an unravelling being an unveiling or revealing of something that was previously hidden or unseen. I think an unravelling also provides the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the parts of something and what makes it work. This poem is about trying to capture some of those different meanings, particularly how they might relate and apply when our own lives feel as if they are unravelling.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I come apart at the seams,
Insides split open, completely revealed.
A deconstructing disruption,
A rupture, a ruction,
A demising, dismantling, total destruction.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I sever, untether what I know should never
Have ever been threaded together,
A separating, a disintegrating.
Remaking, replacing,
They start with a breaking.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I finally start to see,
As all that’s concealed is gently revealed.
A code that’s cracked after loads of hard graft,
Unfurling, unfolding,
The veil drawn back.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

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Feb 10

The Cathedral

This one felt important to post this week, with everything going on in the Church of England around inclusion, or lack of it. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am to be part of a church where ‘there’s nowhere I can’t go’, and I hope one day, that’s the experience of everyone.

A shaky old man put the welcome pamphlet into my hands.
With a smile for a while he told me facts and stats,
Asked where I was from, asked why I’d come.

I didn’t know, I guess I was just passing by,
A tourist just curious and this place looked glorious from outside.
But I realised why as he spoke his reply.

He said it so casually, passively, with a blind kind of apathy,
“Just so you know, there’s nowhere you can’t go.”
I looked him in the eye, this time my turn to smile,
I said “thank you, I know.”

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Jan 31

Wreckage

I saw it coming.
In that moment of slow motion as it got closer,
I had only seconds for preventions and protections.

I checked my seatbelt was clicked into place.
I slammed on the brakes, I tensed up and I braced,
Breath bated I waited and then it came.

It collided into my side.
Glass shattering metal clattering my body taking a battering,
Then it went quiet.

I realised as I breathed in relief I’m alive,
That despite all I’d done to ensure I’d survive,
The crash had still come and the damage was done.

Some things can’t be won, undone or outrun,
No matter how much you’ve overcome.
They’ll find you and hide you and one day they’ll try to
Make you the wreckage you crawled out from.

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