Monday 3 March 2014

Three poems

Here are three of my old poems that I've decided to dust off so that my regular readers have something to read that they may not have seen before.

The first poem kind of summerises what I'm going through at the moment with my current bout of sleep disturbance.




Sleepless

Head pounding
The regular beating of an internal bass drum
Stomach churning
The digestive system performing back flips
Sweat pouring from the forehead
Mind racing at light speed, unable to stop.

“Try your relaxation exercises,” you think to yourself
An attempt that ends in failure
As your mind forces you to think about your breathing
Or else you’ll be tempted to stop.

Characters from stories you’re trying to write
Assert their thoughts into your head
Taking control of your consciousness
To prevent you from sleep.

So tired…
So tired…
Still unable to enter the exquisite Land of Nod
Fatigue set in hours ago
But still unable to sleep.

Read a book
The large dryly-written tome you bought for the purpose
Of closing down your mental faculties for sleep
But even that doesn’t work.

Surf the Net
Watch the TV
You look at the clock
It’s a quarter past three!

Pacing the room and giving a nasty glare
To the fast-asleep feline curled up in the chair
Five o’clock in the morning and starting to write
Woken up with a start
“Wake up, you lazy sod!  Did you have a good night?”


© Myles Cook, 2007


The second poem I have decided to post here sums up the spiritual and cosmic angst that I feel typifies the current state of the human condition although I suppose it could just apply to me.




Soul, Searching

Looking for answers to questions
That reveals one’s true inner heart
And helps to find one’s place
In the infinite universe of which we are a part.

The questions posed seem to have easy answers
Unless you work out the rules
That govern the giving of answers
To avoid one looking a fool.

“Who are you?”
A question that provides one with identity
If the answer one happens to find
Whilst failure leads one only to obscurity.

“What do you want?”
The question that is the key that unlocks the true calling of one’s heart
Opening exquisite vistas of possibility
For one’s real journey to start.

Two questions that can be used
To reveal the richness within one’s soul
Providing one with the directions
To allow one to reach one’s goal.

Two questions
Only one answer for each -
A quest for each living soul
To find one’s own path
And not merely be
Just another soul
Searching.


© Myles Cook, 2007


My final choice of poem is one that I wrote during the period of my marriage when I loved my wife and believed she still loved me.  Unfortunately, I was an emotional cripple by the time I met my wife and whilst I loved her dearly, I was unable to show that love properly - a subject that I will come back to when I post the final part of my account of my descent into depression.




The Hollow Man

I am the hollow man
A man without a soul
Animated only by necessity
A purely mechanical being.

I am the hollow man
I can no longer show my love
For the one person who means the world to me
When once it would have overflowed.

I am the hollow man
A man who is dead inside
But once I was an emotional man
One who would have cried
To see the man I have become
And to know my light has died.

© Myles Cook, 2005, 2006


I hope you enjoy reading these poems and that they go some way to giving you some insight into me as a person as well.

Feel free to comment!


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