By Scott Bailey 2017
Automatic lives
With automatic answers
Easier to rule

Automatic lives
With automatic answers
Easier to rule
The filter of social media
Keeps us warm or angry
Reaffirms
The wall goes up
Again
Simple white paper
Flowing blue lines
Birthing complexity
Beyond the bounds
Of reality
A reminder – for me – and anyone who needs it.
Amongst all the dreary advice and articles I have read I came across this comic. Which I think is just brilliant
The original article is here.
Blank white paper sheet
Tempting me to slash with ink
Cutting with dark words
Crossing out
Deleting
Inserting
Adding on
Dropping
Expanding
Changing
Evolving
Inserting
Crossing out
Life
And death
Droplet spins midair
Shimmering graceful free fall
Dashed against grey stone
Kerching! Kerchang! Pow!
Our economy picks up!
Soul still desolate.
Tower of stone
Where hearts are joined
Names are blessed
Flesh is laid to rest
Still
The tower is stone
And cannot
Learn to love
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Span of stone
Taking some to work
Others home
As it has
For centuries
Others watch
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
A white wedge
Spotted in the corner
Of a run-down shop
Off the track
Joyful memories swell
And from the past
I hear the clattering
Of a metal bowl
Filling with a quarter pound
Of sherbet lemons
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Hot red and burnt orange
The peppers in the pot
Ready to be plucked
And in the dinner popped
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Whatever happened to gauges
Haven’t seen one for ages
It gives a feeling of age
Does a good gauge
Engineering solid and good
Surrounded by brass or set in wood
The odd jet of steam venting
What were they all preventing
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Wife!
Standing on a high hill
Green fields rolling away beneath my feet
Off into the hazy horizon.
Strong breeze blowing through my hair
It exhilarates me – makes me feel
I could step forward and fly
Yet
It is nothing to the way you make me feel
Laying in the sun
In the lush deep grass
Sparkles dancing on the water
Blue skies in great expanse arching high
Warms me – happiness safe in my heart
Yet
Cold compared to the warmth you bring
A word of praise from peers
Or reward for long hard work
A beer after a trying day
Shoring up my worth
Yet
Nothing makes me better – more the man I should be
Than having you by my side forever
My love
My wife
My Rachel
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
On wing
Defying the earth
Submitting to the wind
And trust
Soaring joy
Freedom high
Oh for wings
For real
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Bluebell path
Goes to the heart
A potent sign
Of where I am
Where I have been
My roots are theirs
We share soil
And shall again
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Splosh
And a little erosion
Helped on
By little hands
Joy is free
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Living to please
Rather than to be
More on show
Than on the prowl
But in the beating
Heart and genes
Waits the hunter
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Staring down the barrel
Of everyday life
Wondering how long the fuse will last
Tensing to dodge
The final bang
Never can
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
With my lens
Capture the beach
Only to find
A watcher
Staring back
What does it see
The watcher from the sea
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Shining steel
A grill like a grin
Of the shark that killed you
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Defying the cold
In blue and gold
Vanity knows no bounds
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Mysteries of the deep
Simple and unique
Floating by in waves
Who knows what it saves
Deep in its memories
Deeper mysteries
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Back and forth
Criss-crossing
Thick and thin
Loose and taut
A complexity of lines
Just
To go forward
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Food and heat and warmth
Constant needs that connect us
To ancestors old
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Like broken teeth
Unmaintained
No longer useful
Yet
Somehow
Pleasing to the eye
Leading us
To who knows where
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Rock in the flow
Water jumps high
Rock is steadfast
Water jumps for joy
Time passes
Rock is worn to sand
Water flows serene
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Climbing
Slowly to the sky
Many years
Many lives
Reaching for the canopy
We rise
Will we be spared
The axe
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Into the hole
Drawn in by the urge
To know
Waiting
Are fangs
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
I am the hunter
Dance with me beneath the moon
Shafts of silver light
When the white wolf walks
Hunting in silver moonlight
The red deer shivers
Brass
Steam
Steel
Coal
Old
Times
Warm
Smells
Thudding
Down the rails
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Dissecting darkness
Silver shining score
Weaving across the night
Hanging, trembling, shimmering
Waiting for
A hapless fly
To wrap up and serve
As an artist’s
Main course
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams