Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Not a Poem

This is not a poem. But you know that. You can read. I’m not sure what this is if I’m honest. A letter? But to whom? You, yes. But to address something to a ‘reader’ suggests that someone will read it. I don’t mind if no one does. A diary entry then? That doesn’t feel quite right either. I have so many diaries, why here? I think, perhaps, ‘not a poem’ is enough information for now.

I guess, if anything, this is a promise. It’s saying “I haven’t forgotten”. You would be excused for thinking as much. It’s an assurance: I have been writing. More than ever in fact. Not academic (small cheer for that; I loved my degree, but I need more time to miss essay writing – absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that). I mean other types of writing. Diaries, letters, reviews, articles. Poetry too, don’t worry. Just no finished ones. Nothing worthy of posting in my eyes.

You see I have come to view writing on a scale. Picture it, 1-10. On one end (1) we have writing that is for my eyes only. My thought-untangling writing. My lifeline. On the other (10), we have hard-core academia. University essays for example. Something for intense critique and scrutiny by someone else. The writing I have been doing as of late I would put around a 7. Reviews, articles and the like. Something I am passionate about, but is ultimately for someone else. With this in mind, poetry for me is like a 4. Does this make any sense at all?

What I am trying to say, in the most convoluted way possible, is that I am trying to find my middle ground. I have been satisfying my need for balance by reaching for both extremes. Poetry enables me to do all of this in one. I’m not divulging any deep dark secrets, but it was still most likely written in the dark at 1am.

I guess right now I’m enjoying having the whole scale at my disposal. For so long academia was all I could write. So when I found poetry it was revolutionary. Now I have finished my degree, all the other options are making themselves known. There’s still so much I haven’t tried. So let’s make this like an exchange. You give me patience and I’ll pay you in poetry.

As an aside, it bears repeating that I obviously don’t write any of this with the assumption that anyone is actually waiting with bated breath for my next post. Hence this not being a letter. If I could be sure anyone would, I would have called this ‘Dear Reader’ or something similarly Jane Eyre-esque. But I’m not a Brontë sister, so here we are.

I think the point of this is for me. I have thought about this little blog a lot and as time passed (and boy did time pass), the more I knew I couldn’t just put up a poem and pretend nothing had happened. Apart from the fact you can’t put up a poem you haven’t written. I like continuity. I enjoy when things make sense. Or more specifically, I really don’t enjoy when things don’t make sense. This is my way of trying to make this make sense. For me. In some ways I admit this blog is like a diary. And having large chunks of time unaccounted for is wholly unsatisfying.

So clean slate? Good. Hopefully I’ll see you soon. With or without a poem.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly · 4 Comments

The Time It Takes For Rain To Eat Words

Remove the tedious inevitable from your mind now
pitter 
patter 
drip drop 
crack rumble 
Dull.

This rain is not like that. 
This rain is sobbing 
hitting the pavement 
bullet wounds to the brain 
exploding 
seeming to leave tiny holes in the concrete
no thoughts erupting out to the surface 
only lights 
like smashed glass 
burning embers 
not falling animals but 
milk bottles that
shatter and spread into drains and gutters and shoes.

Many fight heaven's heartbreak
clutching their own vanity to their chests 
to retain its heat
shielding its eyes from the electric roots of the sky 
too afraid to succumb to its one and only request:
exist.
We all reach breaking point 
who we fall upon shows who we care for 
and the sky, she cared for me tonight. 

Her game of seduction 
making her way into every inch of my clothing 
making it heavy 
curling my hair into corkscrews  
dumped lazily in the kitchen drawer 
intertwined
hiding where one ends 
and another begins. 

To pull out paper would be a ridiculous thing, 
laughable in fact, 
to capture existence and forget my heart beats now. 
She would distort every letter 
making them swell and then crumble 
between my fingers
beautiful destruction
she forces the art of letting go at the time of arrival 
only temporarily placed in the palm of my hands.

I choose not to write

perhaps this needed holding a little longer 
than the time it takes for rain to eat words.

thoughts.

After a few months of abandoned ideas and unfinished drafts, I turned to google in a moment of creative desperation and asked it for poetry prompts. After clicking a random link and scrolling I settled on the most mundane one I could find: write a poem about the rain. Having decided I could definitely manage this one at least, I ended up writing about embracing the moment and being thankful for the now – such is the creative mind’s way.

I have always really enjoyed rain as a metaphor for sadness, or any emotion, but also those things in life that penetrate deep into our core and force us to confront or just be. If you find yourself on a high street in the middle of a storm, I urge you to take a moment to look around you. I can guarantee you will find the screwed up faces of people desperately trying to save their make up with their coat collar or scurrying into bus stops and shop doorways as they fight what cannot be controlled around them. This is all providing that you are not too busy doing all of these things yourself. It is much rarer, and much more wonderful, to see a person strolling through the empty streets with their hood down and their face pointed towards the heavens. This is because we place importance on things that do not matter. I have done it too many times, and I am always more miserable when I arrive at a place only half drenched, because I failed to keep dry, rather than dripping from head to toe, because I chose to be. We only ever have control over our own reactions.

I couldn’t help but approach this idea from a more artistic perspective to resolve the poem. It reminded me of the feeling, you know the one, when you are enjoying something so much and you can’t help but use precious seconds by fishing around for your phone or playing with a camera. I did this once on holiday a few years ago; the sun was setting behind the Greek sea and the sky was a cocktail of colours, so naturally I reached for my phone and spent so long faffing with the settings that I not only didn’t get a picture, but I didn’t even see the sun set. Once we capture a moment into something physical, we place an expiration date on it. Photos can get lost and paper can deteriorate, but memories last a lifetime, and the very fact that the moment even happened, well that can never be erased. Besides, the sun will always rise and set, so there’s always tomorrow.

Before this becomes a sickening compilation of inspirational quotes, I will leave you with this – try it at some point. Take your time. Time is the only thing more important than love after all.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Amare

A common cliché
to litter my poetry with.
To some a disease, 
in sickness and in health, 
distracting and authentically 
sweet, too much, not enough
and perfection 
all at once. 
It boggles the mind. 
Leaves us drunk and cloudy,
thinking  in curls of ribbon,  
satin rivers of rose petals and 
vows of forever. 
A physical ailment -
tightening of chest. 
Heart, tied on a string and attached 
to another's. 
This tug of war, 
not competing but still 
winning everything and 
losing ourselves beautifully. 
It's a person,
a memory,
the smell of skin and 
the taste of saliva, 
the sound of words, 
their words,
and t shirt material to the touch. 
A thought
Action 
Fight 
Flight 
Hunger 
Fullness
Everything 
and absolutely nothing at all. 
Cannot be plucked from a selection box of delights.
It's not tangible, 
probable,
all manner of -ibles and -ables. 
Having enough and being enough.
It's in us
and for us
it's me and it's you. 
It is us
side by side or 
spread over galaxies 
like butter, 
It's 
Lovely. 

- amare è essere amati -

Thoughts.

From the moment I discovered I liked writing poetry, I attempted on countless occasions to try and tackle the whole ‘love poetry’ thing. I was curious, and found it very interesting that so many people all wanted to dedicate their words to it. As time passed, I decided there were so many other things to write about, and ended up finding the words I wanted on other topics faster. I will admit, I’m not exactly your “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” kind of poet, so I would write about what came easier to me. Love seemed so large, so overwhelming, and so beyond my own singular comprehension.

Now I wasn’t completely wrong. But I have recently turned my mind back to it. I realised that love is something so important, and serves as one of the main driving forces of human beings (along with money, but frankly I don’t have the energy to get political right now, perhaps another day…). It’s so delightful in its own confusing way, and can make people do the best and most stupid things.

That’s why there are so many poems about it. There are songs, books, films about it. There’s so much art about it. So many people are fighting for it, be that among races, genders, religions or countries. It’s why we all feel hate and sadness. We have to, in order to be able to recognise and feel the absolute joy of loving people too.

The Italian line (one of the most romantic languages in my opinion) translates as “to love is to be loved”. It encapsulates the whole thing for me, explaining that it’s as important to allow ourselves to be loved by others, and by ourselves, as it is to love others. We all feel it and we all need it, and unquestionably giving love is as beautiful as unquestionably receiving it.

As cheesy as it is, I really do think that the Beatles were on to something when they said “All You Need Is Love”.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly · 2 Comments

March, ‘Twenty.

Silence the alarms.
Turn down normality and 
cease to persist.
Take life down to half time 
and sip the wine slowly.
I want to taste simplicity.
I imagine it's sweet,
like strawberry jam or
tea with two sugars,
but I've never been able to check.

Let's turn off the cars.
Bash the batteries out the remotes
and dismantle the tracks.
Let the box gather dust for a while.
Not pressing pause, per se,
just changing discs for a bit.

Isn't it wonderful how 
the volume of life so effectively 
drowns out the volume of thoughts?
And when you turn one down
the other begins to enunciate. 
Let it. 
For too long have we let 
TV, traffic and loud voices distract 
from feeling, 
thinking, 
healing. 

This is a time for 
bad and good.
No hiding. Just truth
laid out on a silver platter, 
ready to be tentatively chewed
and then gobbled up in one. 

Silence the alarms.
It turns out that 
simplicity and truth 
taste remarkably similar.
Like cappuccino:
Bitter.
Delightful.

Thoughts.

In a time like now, I am one of those people with the attitude that we should always try to draw the positive to the surface. I am not willing to list the number of negatives that surround everyone on a daily basis, as I do not believe that is what people want when they turn to art (especially now). Art brings realities to the forefront of our minds, yes. But it also distracts from those which are clouding our judgement too.

The times I have been outside over the last few days have been serene. If the houses drew their curtains and we swapped blue sky for a black one, I would genuinely believe it is night. And to me, that is kind of beautiful. Ignoring the dystopian fear that fills us whenever a letter is pushed through our letterbox because IT COULD BE ON THE PAPER and, just for a moment, the lives sacrificed to nature’s revolt (before going back to profusely thanking them for the other 1439 minutes of our days), there is some loveliness to be found.

When I first started writing the poem, I couldn’t get W H Auden’s poem ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’ out of my head. The sentiment was similar in some ways; I do see this as time standing still in a sense, but not because I have lost someone (there are many people Auden’s poem would apply to right now, and all I can say to those people is, I am so tremendously sorry). I see this as dialling back. I see it as holding onto a distraught loved one and rocking them back and forth until their breathing slows and their eyes get tired. We are changing the pace of the earth, while we place universal energies into saving and preserving lives.

Something being bittersweet doesn’t make it any less bitter, or any less sweet. It just means that we are offered a choice, and I know what I choose.

Stay safe x

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Harmless Pain.

To pierce your skin just once
To name it your own again 
That's ok 
To pull it apart and  
beg for it back  
That's not  
Never denied self-expression 
Do not misunderstand 
Resentment is absent 
because I didn't invite it 
But taking back 
what you already own  
is a better feeling 
no stealing  
no lying 
All we want is to  
look deep into the eye of the beholder 
and say  
I am me again.

thoughts.

I recently got my nose pierced and it got me thinking about the significance of doing something like that, why different people do it, what it says about a person and how they can be perceived. I find it very interesting that something so simple could have such an impact to how people respond to you. To some it can feel like the defining of a phase they went through at a certain point in their life, and when the time comes these things can be reversed, when the necessary process of self expression is done. For others, it becomes a definitive part of who they are and an extension of themselves. It can serve as a coping mechanism, a way of attempting to find who you are, or a simple impulse decision that either sticks or doesn’t.

But, no matter what it is for you, it can be a poetic thing, like most things, and as we begin this new year and new decade, I find that if I have taken a step to become more me, now is the time to celebrate it.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

#5

It breaks away and
falls from my wrist,
a leaf in autumn.
Not a fall from grace but a 
graceful fall,
carried by water to the 
floor of the earth
where it lays to rest
in salt and serenity.
Plucked from the 
path less trodden
and then weaved and wound
until unrecognisable.
A metaphor for human nature.
I wore it as I wear 
my skin
and now it sits
at the bottom of the ocean
waiting to be worn by the 
Earth again

thoughts.

I spent a long time trying to think of a title for this poem, but I decided after much deliberation to leave it untitled (#5 meaning the fifth poem on here). No single word or phrase could capture what I could have been referring to; the circle of life and death, nature, loss etc.

It appears to be, and truthfully did begin, as a very literal piece. I described losing a gift in the ocean, but as I have worked with this poem over the last couple months and thought about the meaning, I began to enjoy how much it said through so little. For this reason, I will not say too much about the meaning. What to one could be a poem about a bracelet that fell off a wrist while swimming, could be a tale of the inevitability of change, or a comment on nature and its cruel beauty to another. I believe it is both none and all of these things simultaneously, which is why I love poetry so much, I suppose.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Mum’s Dad

 Only three years old when it happened,
 my mind is fuzzy.
 But fragments land in my lap when I’m 
 sat at my desk or driving late at night. 
  
 We formed a stronger relationship then-
 the first three years of a life full of promise-
 than with many of those I have once 
 called my best friends.
 We spoke the language of 
 music to each other.
 I was learning; he was fluent. 
 Even now you can 
 play me Duke Ellington’s 
 In A Sentimental Mood or 
 Debussy’s Clare de Lune and 
 watch a stillness overcome me.
 This is his way of asking how I am. 
  
 Mum would tell me of
 her own memories;
 a youth spent with 
 legs crossed, watching proudly from the floor 
 as her father made the music 
 I only dream of.
 A pint fused a ring into the 
 wood of the piano as he 
 pretended to read the music
 virtuosos work so hard to know by heart.
 He’d be surrounded by a smoke 
 that danced freely on the ceiling, 
 like clouds before a storm, yet
 the only rain in that room is the 
 reign of my grandfather’s talent.  
  
 I could talk about the funeral, 
 though hazy,
 or the hole that never quite heals.
 The gap that age three, four, 
 Seven, eight, fifty, year old me 
 tries to understand.
 I only saw the emptiness, 
 the gaping silent space. 
 It was not until I held the sides
 that I noticed the shape it took- 
 the shape of a man so full of laughter, 
 it would be a sin to think of 
 anything other than 
 joy.

Thoughts.

The first poem a new writer shows their family or loved ones can be, and was to me, quite a big deal. Somehow this poem was the one I was most comfortable sharing. I only say ‘somehow’ as it comes from one of the realest places a poem has come from for me so far. I have been lucky enough to share time with all four of my grandparents (and am still sharing time with my wonderful grandmother) throughout my life, and each memory I have with each one of them is so precious. Naturally, it was through the university’s need for an assignment that this particular expression of memory came about, and as it was to be centred around childhood, I figured my earliest memory of loss was one of the most authentic takes. It comes from a perspective of naivety at the time, but shows how this can shift with age. I drew on the things my mother had told me and the thoughts I had had regarding my grandfather over the past 16 years.

After plucking up the courage to read/send the poem to various close family members and hearing the reception it got, I gained confidence that I didn’t realise I was so lacking in. Everyone has experienced or will experience some kind of grief in their life, be it with family members or friends, the end of a life or heart break. It’s the single most human thing in my opinion, as the only certainty that we have is the certainty that life as we know it will not continue forever. It is very easy to shy away from this thought, or fear it, but it can be the thing that unites us as a race as well. To be able to make others feel the way I felt when writing this piece is something I will never take for granted, as to me, it draws on fundamental human nature and reminds whoever reads it that we are all quite similar really.

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Cherry.

Bite
Satisfy the bloodlust
Cover teeth in a film of 
Dark rouge nectar
It runs through me 
And sits hard like the stone in my mouth
I try to break it 
But to no avail

I am the stone 
I sit beneath a layer of blood and 
Sweetness
And you pull me into you 
Expecting 
Sweetness 
And I give you the crunch 
of another life 
Waiting to happen

Thoughts.

Having posted a couple prose-like poems, I thought I would take a more metaphorical approach to my next one, and wrote this in the middle of the night recently in the notes app of my phone. I figured that, with entitling this section ‘thoughts’ and, my favourite thing (apart from writing it) is analysing poetry, I would do an analysis of my own poem to aid understanding. Of course, a quick disclaimer is in order: even though I did write this myself, it is open to interpretation and my analysis is my own opinion, therefore meaning any other reading is no less valid than my own. The poem is not completely mine once I have ‘released’ it, and one of the beauties of art is its lack of limitations. With this in mind, I shall begin…

The poem is, overall, an extended metaphor for a difficult relationship. Fruit in itself is very sensual, as it engages with the oral sense of taste, is ‘sweet’ (coupled with the use of ‘nectar’) and, with cherries specifically, the colour red brings with it stereotypically provocative connotations. To begin with, the cherry represents the love itself, the biting engaging with the sense of taste and then connoting a vampiric idea, supported by the mention of ‘bloodlust’, ‘teeth’ and the ‘dark rouge’ image. Not only is this the classically gothic idea of biting the neck and feeding off one’s blood, but also, by directly comparing the juice of the cherry to blood, therefore to human flesh, it foreshadows the following metaphor of the speaker being the cherry. It continues, ‘”it” running through [them]’ meaning blood through veins and feelings of lust and love. But immediately after, this image is juxtaposed, the liquid, fluid idea becoming ‘hard’ and almost uncomfortable. Using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ at the beginning of the line demonstrates the simultaneous nature of the bittersweet feelings and the speaker’s anticipation of the relationship feeling this way. The stone here is the issues in the relationship that were inevitable and ‘unbreakable’, or unresolvable. Ironically, in this case, the act of shattering would be the solution rather than the issue itself.

The second stanza shows the speaker explaining that they are the whole relationship in essence; the one who fell the hardest, but also the one who caused the issue. They admit their fault, simply stating that they seem to be a sweet, kind person, but within them sits an uncompromising problem that clearly shows the relationship is not meant to be. The stone is the cause of the relationship ending and the beginning of life both literally (plant the stone and grow a cherry tree) and the life of the speaker (they have a life waiting for them, without their now-ex-partner and they are tethered until otherwise released from the toxic relationship).

To summarise, the speaker is a troubled person, who enters the relationship drawing in their partner, perhaps to fill an otherwise unacknowledged void, and subsequently ends up causing the demise of the relationship. The speaker comes out the other side ultimately wishing to be free immediately, after understanding that the fault is their own and both people would be better off separated. Though short, it can demonstrate a large journey of maturity.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Free Writing

 It’s a nice idea-
 The idea that someone can be 
 Set free 
 With words.
 In a life where writing is structured,
 Planned, pre-empted, 
 It’s liberating to use the 
 English language to get more than 
 a grade. 
  
 It’s a form of meditation; 
 A spiritual journey to parts of yourself 
 You didn’t know were there and 
 That stare up at you on paper, 
 Willing you to not only 
 Acknowledge but 
 Accept. 
  
 The flow can be disrupted, 
 Through lack of thought.
 Or over-thought. 
 Or pretty much anything if one allows it. 
 It’s all about the choice you make
 -much like meditation-
 as to whether the flow of your mind
 is drawn to a halt, 
 intercepted. 
  
 Strength of character determines
 The outcome
 As per usual.
 If I had a pound for every 
 Fifty-word document entitled
 My Feelings 
 Or notepad filled with the 
 Desperate scrawl of a girl who just needs to 
 Let go 
 I would spend it on a 
 Lifetime supply of paper and pens because 
 Why would I stop such a 
 Healthy coping mechanism?
 Count yourself lucky I’m not 
 Counting calories or scars
 But instead the number of 
 Ink stains on my hand. 
  
 Free yourself.
 Because you can rip out pages,
 Set them alight and 
 Watch them burn to nothing.
 They are forever safe in the embers 
 But untouchable. 
 What’s more cathartic
 Than that?

thoughts.

This poem’s inspiration came from a workshop exercise at uni (as it always seems to at the moment), but was supposed to just be a stream of consciousness. I found myself adding the lineation and punctuation out of instinct and, with the exception of the final stanza, I had a poem. There needed to be a conclusion, as, while I enjoy the classically laid back style of free verse, I am also a big believer in poetry having a direction, depending on the subject matter.

I become increasingly self-aware when I am commanded to write; the only thing my mind holds on to is how subjective the whole thing is and what it means to me. This being said, it has always served as a logical way of bringing thoughts out of my brain, where they could otherwise tangle and snag on other potentially worse thoughts. My ‘thoughts about thoughts’, if you will, are always the most complicated ones though, so transforming them into ‘writing about thoughts’, more than anything, saves me from insanity.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

Capturing Happiness.

 I can’t capture happiness.
 Words just don’t paint the right 
 Song or 
 Sing the right
 Picture. 
 Colours sound so vibrant 
 Yet they catch in my throat, 
 Get stuck in my teeth. 
 I promise I’m not unhappy.
  
 I guess I’m just better at sorrow than
 Sickly sweet bullshit.
 Don’t make me sick.
 Words are not flowers, They’re bullets, They puncture.
 A needle without thread doesn’t mend it just
 Pierces.
  
 Words can’t express just how
 happy you are?
 Yeah, 
 But when you are mad you just can’t shut your mouth.
  
 I prefer it, you know.
 Because when they are stuck to the page 
 They can’t hurt me.
 Spit them through thin lips at
 Volume one hundred and 
 maybe then 
 I wont be the one with the needle
 But the one with the holes in her skin.

Thoughts.

I felt it was only appropriate to begin this slightly daunting new thing by showing what is probably my favourite original poem. I wrote this for my university course, intending it to be a lyric poem about writer’s block. Only after I had read it aloud in a creative writing workshop did my lecturer suggest I submit it as a spoken word piece (and by suggest, he assumed I was and I readily agreed, not really sure what I was signing myself up for). What followed was a million attempts in front of a camera that not only got me a first (1:1), but served as a kind of therapy; I went from growing a disliking to my voice and facial expressions, to stubbornly deciding I didn’t really care. As a result, somewhere on my phone are multiple videos of me interrupting myself mid-sentence to swear dramatically. To think that I went to university having no idea I even liked writing poetry, let alone having the confidence to submit a reading and put it on a blog. Character development? I think so.