Category: Visual Words

Sad Eyes

Hello

Sad Eyes

How are you today?

I saw you in your low mood

I hope you’re okay

Haven’t you come too far

to quit now?

Don’t give up now

Don’t get lost before you win

Look up

Sad Eyes

Please don’t despair

It’s really not fair

To do that to you

I need to ask

How are you feeling?

It’s not without meaning

I understand, more than you know.

Sad Eyes

Please don’t

Please don’t cry

Can’t you see the sun shining

In that cloudless sky?

Who took your light away?

Who did those terrible things?

Did your hope go

In the darkness that life brings?

Maybe, together

Sad Eyes

We can mend

your broken wings.

We can’t – but…

We can’t unsend an email

Unscramble an egg

Take back what we said

Bring back the dead

We can’t uncry the tears

Blank that written page

Reverse that move

Rewind our age

We can’t put the genie back in the lamp

Uneat that cake

Unabsorb that toxicity

Make truth from fake

We can’t unopen that box

Break the paradigm

Mend the mirror

Go back in time

We can’t stem the tide

Undream a dream

Unsmoke the fire

Unsee what we’ve seen

Too many CAN’TS

In this world, for you and me

But what CAN we do?

And what CAN we be?

The Joy of Books (Part Three)

The look of books

Aesthetics

Cover, size, look of print,size of print, font type

Light, medium or dark print

Colour and page environment

White page, off white, slightly yellowed, very yellowed

Dirty, mouldy, unidentified stains

Food, liquid, grease, sweat, other.

The cover of books?

I’ll let someone else cover the cover.

Books are meant to be shared

An old, well used paperback or hardback

is good as long as it’s clean

The odd elusive grease stain is acceptable

Can be ignored easily

But then, when we get into food stains

of the third kind

of the oily, damp, highly coloured

sticky kind

the ones that graduate to 3D status

by that, I mean actual food stuffs

Then, my will to ignore

becomes weak.

When I was growing up

the Childrens Library was the absolute worst

for undesirable and unidentifable stains in books.

The stains were mostly food and liquids

the ones I couldn’t stomach

were the green ones

They seemed to appear regularly on the pages

Maybe it was just once

and it traumatized me enough to think

it was just snot all the way

a terrible distraction from whatever I was reading

I had a slight germ phobia

so the children’s book, story and author

had less of an impact than those

slightly alien 3D luminous green things.

The bottom line is, I thought things would get better when I graduated to The Adult Library.

Then I discovered that books for adults were a whole other ball game. Quite literally.

The Joy of Books (Part Two)

The feel of books

Hard back or soft back?

Both please, depending on mood and accessibility.

The hardback is in it for the long haul

Something to hold onto

When all the world is falling apart

When we are falling apart

The hardback can be gripped more fiercely

than any paperback

Without it withering or bending

under the stress of our fingers

to give us the sense that

the world

or ourselves

are not spinning wildly

out

of

control

Hold onto that hardback

For as its name suggests

It is hard

It is a back

And when someone says

they have got your back

It’s good.

Ever read a book with a traumatised spine?

Once a spine goes in a book

it really doesn’t take too long for it to fall apart

a bit like people

Paperbacks bend well

Sometimes circling in on themselves

like a willow in the wind

I love a good bendy paperback

a contortionist of a paperback

Unyeilding paperbacks have their place

but give me a double jointed paperback any day.

Well used paperbacks that have been through the mill

worn and tired and weary

still have the same amount of reading in them

perhaps more so

because of what they’ve been through

You can feel their years on the earth

the emotions that have passed through them

from all those hungry eyes and minds and hearts

fingers clutching or gripping the cover

or gently holding or caressing

Books are inanimate objects

But they were my friends growing up

still are

Like pets, they give unconditional love

they do not judge

and they impart wisdom.

The Joy of Books (Part One)

The smell of books

The scent of print and paper

Some of them like the best cologne in the world

Some spanking new and clinical

Some sharp and gluey

Some sweet and elusive

Some deeply inky

Some second hand,

old, papery, leathery, musty,

earthy, damp, sour

Some impregnated with cigarette smoke

Some experienced worldy books

The ones they call dog eared, well thumbed

The ones that have lived a full, rich life

The wise old ones

that have the stains

the yellowed pages

And the strange odours to prove it

All the hands that have held them

Turned their pages

In daylight, or lamplight, or candle

All the eyes that have gazed upon their pages

Riveted, bored, entertained, comforted

All the rooms they have lived in

All the bookshelves they have marinated in

All the drawers they have got bored in

All the charity shops they have ended up in.

The Joy of Archimedes

(Illustration by Steve Young)

The joy of Archimedes was cut short
When he was summoned by Marcellus himself
A soldier was to take him to the general
The general was very taken with him
But Archimedes was deep in study
Writing on the tiles
His head buried in a project
He could not tear himself away
The joy of Archimedes was
solutions to his vexations
He was only happy when answers came
to all the puzzles of physics that plagued him
When he found answers, he was ecstatic
But this time, obsessiveness did not serve him well
When he refused to go
The soldier ran him through.

The Joy of Norman Battle Tactics

Norman battle tactics

Weren’t particularly kind

And weren’t very healthy

For body, soul and mind

While the archers could do range

The calvary got about

So the lance hit the spot

And the arrow took you out

To exhaust horses

English climb a hill

Weak trajectory of arrow

Might help them get a kill

Normans pretend to flee

English chase fast

But back on even land

And now armed, with just an axe…

…the injured go down

Destiny is soon found

As a hundred soldier hooves

Trample English to the ground

Harold and Co. ill prepared

So the Battle of Hastings goes

If only they had the longbow

To help ease all their woes

Viking settlers

And Franks agree

Winning battles

Is easy

Anglo-Saxon pain

And suffering for their boys

Could not take away

Norman Battle Tactic Joys

There Must Be A Way

Crack in the pavement

Pothole in the path

Snag in the scheme

Rejection on the road

Obstruction on the line

Blockage on the bearing

Travail on the trail

Occlusion in the tube

There must be a way of moving on

Hold up on the motorway

Prevention of the plan

Hurdle at the course

Exclusion on the highway

Barricade on the street

Hinderance on the route

Blockage on the beat

Hazard in the formula

There must be a way of moving on

Jam at the junction

Crisis in the crossing

Interference at the intersection

Clot in the system

Tear in the tactic

A Shut Out in approach

Concealment on the course

A Joke at the joining

There must be a way of moving on.