Thinking
If they say age is just a number
Why should it feel like a deadline?
Anxious to meet and to hold:
Onto the rise of expectations that greet its
Joy; to put those who wonder,
Under pressure to achieve…
What others can only hope them to.
If notes are bigger than coins
Why aren’t they thrown into wishing
Wells, like sponges soaking up all that those want them to desire?
Take what they please from the ones who are foolish enough to dream mere dreams:
Idealistic hopes and fresh starts.
If wishes turned into realities
Why do so many stay untrue?
Lingering on the skyline under the stars:
Too high for the catchers to hold them
In their open arms,
All thoughts, out of control
Blind to realise
Like a girl is commonly a phrase I hear
Not often said with much to cheer
Like a girl yourself you used to breath
Fresh air and freedom to be who I’ll be
What you didn’t know, you didn’t care
That you were different, so much to share
To bring to the table, to bring to world
Believing to be as special as an oyster’s pearl
What you don’t know, just can’t hurt
Despite the tone if it’s harsh or curt
Meanings differ, perspectives change
Those who believe the bad are like moths to a flame
Can’t help the grief they feel inside
Those innocent girls start to hide
Themselves from others, themselves to them
Building a wall or a secret den
Where they can’t be touched, can’t be seen
Though like a girl they do not fail to dream
To win the race, in front of the crowd
To continue doing what makes them proud
Proud to be and proud to do
Whatever it is that they wish to pursue
Art and music, science or sports
Girls were made to do all sorts
So stand beside them, watch them grow
And give what they need to make them glow
Be the woman they are, inside their skin
Like a girl they’ll stay as you watch them win.
Journeys
Enlighten me
Stand beside me, so when all feels lost
I won’t feel alone on this
Cold shoreline along the ocean that divides us
Awaiting your return, I reflect on the times I never thought I could do things on my own:
never be just to be or see how I wanted things to seem
For I know my strengths when I’m not around
you: we’re better off alone again
When together restricts us
Should we come to an end?
I care neither way now if you come to see
A fallen journey is what we came to be.
Swimming pool
See it shine, this swimming pool: that
Bobs through the currents of its open glide, glide through the bubbles that break the surface
Open; to changes, ripples and drip-
Like droplets that splash from a summers dip. So used it feels, a sort of intrusion, both gloomy yet glad that it has been chosen to produce the
memories of so many, some few-
Depends on the place they are going to:
For some are neglected, not meant to be pools
Some don’t swim in them ever at all.
The rich and the wealthy- just there to be seen
Another object to make others be pleased
There for status, not play at all- they belong to the shallows, shallow and small-
My blue symbolises there cold.
Both are bored (such irony)…
When I am here, always waiting for the
leaves of beetles or even dust to swim:
Jump in, surprise or startle me, they’re debating…
splish, splash and splosh
Are the words they use, when they finally decide to give me some use- attention.
I watch them, bemused.
When it’s done and over, when the moments pass, the leaves don’t float but crack my shining surface- as hard as the glass.
But even the darkness cannot cover me
I know I must watch them do as they please
Wrap me under a cover when you’re done with me… so deep I am (I hear myself)
All I can do is wait for thee- the splish splash and splosh, count one two and three (again)
Lie by the side, with a book or two
For here I am, rectangle of pleasure, storing memories for you
Clockwork Art
A painter paints his still life drawing
On his deck chair, the terrace outside
Lies; direct in front, a fence to the left
And a few small flowers in plant pots a
Head of the shadows on a summer morning. cast over the side, right,
As the house sits quietly, not a person inside to
Chime through the peace he feels, the wonder that
Appeals to all his senses; for he inspires to draw the lines in symmetry, wait for the overcast of the bright sky to guide his strokes, for the sun to
Wait patiently; as he moves the water through the colours, complete the work of art. To see through the clouds. Like the empty visage of a canvas bare and vast-
With empty meaning, empty eyes that cannot see
What it is and what it means to be. The painting, unfinished, inanimately. Without direction: you can not tell the
Purpose of the picture, what made him
Start as well: no direction, or direct centre, but diagonal crosses; unsure decisions, (cognitions) fall out of place.
He waits their silently, rocks back and forth
Thinking deeply if he’s on the right course to complete his drawing, round in circles he goes- though circular still, no sharp corners, no room to dwell on
A different finish, time zone of
mind:
Fragments of colours: all jagged lines
Torn through the canvas, his old round face
Crinkled with the deep thoughts he gave
Into that space, where hopefulness lies
Will he ever finish it, will he do it well?
For it is his greatness, his work off a spark, a circular art: only time will tell
The World Pressed on Pause
When you stopped me, I stopped and the world paused too.
it was then that I remembered something was
missing. it froze:
Something deep within the cage that you
shut yourself in, a portal you dared to look into;
you lost the key in the there and then: it was nothing that I couldn’t
recreate, or try to piece back together, until,
Your,
Reluctance. Became the only thing that stopped it: once,
Now
Twice,
The roll of the dice-
The games we play: or watch
Play on the
Sky.
…You learned to repress everything we worked for, when,
The world really cared to
Feel
Emotions. Only an image…
… to see on screens
That is
Our life; for we became embraced, and put on pause by
Buttons:
The
tap of the screen
The
print of a finger
-all what we knew before is now left unseen-
discarded, (once more) time:
can only tell if the box can ever be opened again, the box of our passivity, the box in the
Sky;
So that we may learn to live once, now
Twice
And over:
So that we can replay it, learn to live it, (play, live, repeat) all
Over;
Over, and
Over
Again.
All the Senses
Turn off the lights that blind my vision,
The noise of a thousand crowds from
Concerts I wish I could attend:
If it were not for these sense that have
Always felt so heightened
When I don’t know why. Questions I’ve
Always had unanswered:
So hard to understand what others easily
Do, to feel other things, so indifferent from
Those around me, lead to ask myself:
Am I alone in all this peril? The
Unknowingness?
The lateness, the growth- less
The over outlandishness (behaviour)
The over everything,
The wasting of time
The doubting thoughts, the things I’ve got
Wrong, misread/ interpreted, the
Comments I’ve made and the looks that
Follow; as though I’m on another earth,
Where all is unusual or strange to many;
There are more, more
Truths, that lie: in my tainted
Colours like those from water, lightened,
Painted, washed over or shaded-
Unfortunate for me, who dares to dream,
Dream of simplicity: a mere dream.
Maybe in another time, another year,
Through more knock- backs that have
Made me grow, (learn the hard way) and
Everything will become clearer- them, to
Me, so suggestions don’t sound like insults.
Fortune came when I found them,
Those who speak in another language,
Became my own: a one that only we can (finally)
Understand.
They said, that all they wanted was to be
Lifted from the crowd, brought forward,
Step out, souls heightened (this time)
So all our hardships,
Would be for something.
Message from a bottle
I see you, you see me;
standing,
on the
Shore line:
observing the tide as the
waves
Crash
Above its surface;
Lost in its bubbles,
thoughts flying
As they break through the
cracks: you crack- like the
glass of a pane holding
you in, surrounded by
olive green lights
Rusty, from what
has made it shatter:
fragmented
Under the sun.
I caged myself in, locked
my world in (an embrace
caught me)- like a bottle: I
became the neck of
something
old, something brown;
drifting
around and around,
changed- from
A Queen, to her broken
crown…
…Now… I bob beside you;
try to find you, then
cling behind you onto the
remnants that have so
long
Decayed,
and caused me to fray.
I find you far away:
no longer floating; you’re
sinking…
…And finding the waves,
pushing you further and
further, still,
further down.
Float as you may, I know
you let yourself break
Down, (long before)
down down and down,
you went down still
don’t drag me (with you).
I’m not ready to sink down
or lose my matter:
Bring me back to the
shore so I do not shatter;
I will not be seen to drown
For I am neither lost, nor
found.
Olivia Morel
Featured image courtesy of Jeannette S. (https://flic.kr/p/cCFkJm) via Flickr. Image Licence found here.
Article image 1 courtesy of Mark Bradshaw (https://flic.kr/p/SJWhc9), image 2 courtesy of Lauren Treece (https://flic.kr/p/9E69X9), image 3 courtesy of rubyblossom. (https://flic.kr/p/ogYuXC), image 4 courtesy of Anita Bower (https://flic.kr/p/97HKzq), image 5 courtesy of Bill Smith (https://flic.kr/p/KucNJL), image 6 courtesy of hans van den berg (https://flic.kr/p/98P1ps), image 7 courtesy of Chrismatos ?90% OFF, so (https://flic.kr/p/b91Vde) via flickr
Image use licence here.
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