Poetry

LIGHT.

by the SSE Hydro in Glasgow

On the beach, in the dead of night, 

we sit around the campfire. 

Our shadows silently rage in the sand. 

The shadows are always looming, aren't they? 

Wherever I go, they follow me,

but they never quite reach.

Or how about when your skin is so wet with perspiration, it glistens;

Or even when the cold, hard metal of the lab table gleams.

Our eyes hungrily drink up the light.

We go about our lives

As though your light will never lose its fire.

As though you have a plan.

You're not afraid, so nor are we.

***

New Mates

The Adoration of the Golden Calf by Nicolas Poussin
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=475193 (Public Domain)

Just the other day 

we were celebrating rotting flesh. 

We used the carcass as a sex toy. 

My goodness, THE SMELL!

Mate, I'm telling you, it was unimaginable. Virtually unbearable.
But not indefinitely so. 

You eventually stop noticing the stench. You start to grow accustomed to it. 

Even embrace it. 

It's you after all: flesh and bones. 

Just a little more empty. 

A little more dead.

I was dying, and I liked it.

But that was then.

We're becoming less discerning.
Nobody likes us.

The walls are closing in. 

There will be backlashes in response.

It's human nature.
But don't get involved with that stuff. 

Chin up mate. Everything is going to plan.

I know, I know I keep saying it, 

but honestly. 

Everything is going to plan!

***

Free

But I am free.

Free to be who I'm meant to be. 

Free from thinking all that matters is me.

Free from the lies the world tells: that life is about happiness, or money, or power, or status, 

or friends and family. 

For what about those who have none of these? Such convincing lies,

but I see it now.

I see. Clearer than I've ever seen.

I'm free. Freer than I've ever been.