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

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.

Posted on by caitlinvkelly

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.