By Scott Bailey © 2017
Silk slides on the breeze
Meets the flow of sharpened steel
Leaves a perfect tear

Silk slides on the breeze
Meets the flow of sharpened steel
Leaves a perfect tear
Have you
Noticed
That the books
That teach us
How
To succeed at this
And
Win at that
Don’t teach us
Why
Meanwhile
Authors count their cash
The meteor dares
To kiss the flames of the sun
Then slingshots away
Sleek steel aperture
Widens for a brief moment
Exposing a truth
Thinking aesthetics
Is vaguely anaesthetic
Trying hard to write
Life is a marathon
They say
I disagree
A marathon is a race
Has a goal
They whip us with that line
Life is a marathon
Life is a song
Every
Note
To be
Savoured
Listen
Or sing
Or play
For
Life is a song
Exquisite black lace
Sheer black nylon
Spicy perfume air
Smooth black hair
Blood red lips
Deep blue eyes
Soft warm skin
Hot pulsing blood
Cool night beckons
Exquisite black lace
Unseen, unheard, forgotten
We
The people
Scorned
Belittled
Bled
We see, we hear, nothing is forgotten
We
The people
Have dignity
Might
And reserves
I’m not capable
Of writing a good poem
Tonight. Worn right out
Someday, one day, soon
After that important thing
That I need to do
Little monkey clings
Tightly to his mother’s back
Ancient lizard flies
Life in unbalanced
Uneven
Unfair?
Karma is bunkum
Days, weeks, years of effort
For each small gain
Each small good
None reached with ease
While all around
The bad rains down
Good luck seems rare
Bad luck the normal
The scales uneven
It seems
This car is coasting
Familiar road ahead
Time to go off-road
Dark, thick between the trees
No light shines off
The dull black armour
Of the horseman as he rides
Slow through the forest of dreams.
Pale the winding path
The black knight follows
His weary steed plods steadfast
As its burden heavy grows
Head hung low
This quest was not the glory
He dreamed of in his youth
Like the birds that flew this morning
On dreams that seemed to be
A promise of life and growth
He followed the flighty birds
As they danced upon his dreams
Into this tree locked realm
And the winding path so thin
They drew him deeper in
And the vines of need reached out
With curled dependency
Wrapped around his limbs, his heart
Sinking deep their thorns
The pain shook him from his dreams
To the vines, he must cling
To keep his dreams at bay
Though they drag him deeper down
And hamper his faltering way
They are a part of him
He no longer sees the birds
Riding on his dreams
Now he knows the awful truth
That only dragons truly fly
The dragons he should slay
He could unsheath his sword
These vines to cut
Roar fire and leap to the sky
Instead, he forges onward
To endure until he dies
Silver twines
intricate wires
thin and delicate
stretching from misty past
to infinite future
Each one a story
a thread of life
Twisting they come together
Winding, entwining
Further down the road
The twines form a rope
Stronger
Older
Wiser
Thicker
Stiffer
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Gravity
When specific
Has strange effects
Things get wibbly-wobbly
Certain lines
Get bent
Other lines
Get crossed
So watch
The specific gravity
Gone
The blue eyes sparked with new
Gone to shadows
Gone
The play, the cowboys and indians
Gone to payments and tax
Gone
The times to stop and breathe
Gone to endless turmoil
Gone, gone gone
A little magic
A little luck
Is needed
What’s inside
Distorts and shapes
The exterior
All those dreams and hopes
Hates and fears
That make up the interior
The moiling
Boiling
Packed and stacked
Stretched and tense
Earnest pretence
That inside us all
Makes us all
What we are
Rather than what
We wish
Feel the space around
Everywhere that I can see
Breathe, release and live
Discovered knowledge
Treasured sweeter than any
Teacher could serve up
Dead enthusiasm
Passion for mundane labours
Seems to be required
Ring the bells of life
Every heartbeat tolling on
So jingle them well
Relax
It’s just the end of the world
Relax
As the wall tumbles down
Relax they say
It will all work out
In the end
If you down in the dumps
Smile
It’s the positive attitude
That wins the day
Which is just another way
To say
It’s your fault
Relax
It’s just the end of the world
Relax
As the wall tumble down
Relax they say
It will all work out
In the end
Tell that to the man
Asleep in the door
Tell that to the maiden
Dead on the shore
Tell it to the lonely
Tell it to the lost
To the OAP bitten by frost
Relax
It is the end
Brooding skies
For moody times
Thunderous justice
For shady lies
A storm is coming
Be prepared
For the arising
Of the weak and the scared
Kingfisher fishing
Silver treasure in the dark
Ice seals the lake shut
It’s a maddening
Saddening state of affairs
That everyone knows
The rulers don’t care
And nobody does a fucking thing
And the includes
Me
The shadows around us
A deep as the night
Masquerade as stars
Shining vile light
Showing the way
To the promised land
Lead by the hand
There it awaits us
The cage of our choice
Fully charged senses
Completely blocked voice
Thus is the fate
Of all but a few
All of us damn lazy
Fools
She stared at the artefact. It reminded her of a flower. Well, reminded was the wrong word. She had never seen a flower – there were no more left. They had died out long before she had arrived.
Everything had.
But in the last few months, her colleagues had managed to decipher and read the ancient data they had found here and there. They had pieced together a rough history of this dead place. Not much but enough – enough to know what happened.
Enough to know it could happen to them.
Enough to know what a flower looked like.
Before they had died – somebody had carved a final message on this artefact.
‘Man’s final folly!”
She wondered at that. She could not fathom its reasoning.
It was beyond doubt now that this giant metal flower had been the instrument that had called out to them so long ago. Sent its message to the stars.
And they had heard. 20,000 long years ago she and her colleagues had boarded their ship and started on their way.
In all probability, the flower was still broadcasting then. The carver of that message was still breathing good air.
No more.
There was no more good air. There was nothing left to breathe it.
What puzzled her more was the fact that the remaining histories made it plain that it was foreseeable. Preventable even.
Yet she could also see that their own masters back home could easily make the same mistake. As advanced as they were the path was familiar.
So it was that she and her fellow robotic explorers had taken the decision to delay their trip home. It would take them 20,000 more years to get back with the warning.
This – folly – could send the message quicker. So here they were trying to repair it get it working again.
A desperate battle to avoid the fate of these long-dead people who called themselves human beings.
The humdrum conundrum
Of life rumbles on
The pounding of
A thousand thoughts
The tension
Between the chains
Of convention
And the delicious
Whips of vice
Dreaming ends
Life rumbles on
On on
The beat of the master’s drum