Tag: poem

Strike

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

how did we let it happen?

this televised delusion

spectacularized demons who accuse us of their crimes

while they are still committing them

like a schoolyard bully asking

why are you punching yourself?

and we reply politely

offer counter points of view

and they laugh and call us snowflakes

and we let them

let’s go on strike

whenever someone uses a lying word like

snowflake

cuck

those people

those queers

those…aw, but we can’t say that word no more

go on strike

walk off the conversational job

demand better conditions

or walk away

“I don’t owe you my time.”

“You call it an opinion but to me it sounds like hate.”

“We work together.  We don’t need to be friends.”

“You’re talking about people I care about.”

“How could you believe that about another human being?”

do not do their labour

don’t scab yourself to their delusions

refuse to negotiate on the definition of your selfhood

or the selfhood of others

their lies have no authority in the court of your self-worth

they are the ones in prison

they have built the walls themselves

and here we are outside

you and I and all of us

together in the garden

loving

free

(23/03/2023)

I originally thought of calling this not-quite-a-poem “You Fuckers Wanna See Some Cancel Culture?” but sometimes short titles are better.

I also acknowledge that many of us live and work in unsafe places and cannot ‘walk away’ without causing ourselves immense harm. It’s perfectly acceptable to strike by simply not dignifying the offending party’s remarks with a response. A blank stare can work wonders when someone’s fishing for a laugh.

the violence

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I heard they have a plan in America

to replace all the human beings

with self-driving cars with neflix subscriptions

in a landscape of drive-thrus stretching from

sea to sea

the most efficient system ever

to eat their own people alive

“thank god for the river or those people from down south would overrun us”

she said, watching them pull three point turns

in the parking lot of homeland security

that night after we’d blown the rainbow bridge

cruelty has purpose

the violence just is

a live grenade in a hospital lobby

a ship on fire

all hands on deck

“I don’t understand why you’re so unhappy”

he said when I showed him where the swimming pool tiles had cut my face

like I was meant to thank him

that was the day we lost Bruce

what did you expect

a guy like him

getting lost in his own neighbourhood

though all the houses do kind of look the same

a wall of tanks

shedding sparks on the way to put out a fire that isn’t burning

(2023)

5 – Pattern

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

stay busy stay too busy to think

this will work for a while

all the tricks work for a little while

but you become immune

too tolerant of everything

too tired of reflecting

you are so tired from thinking that you have no energy for anything else

avoidance is a kind of lying

if you’d only stayed busy

if you’d only not started getting up alone

hours and hours to pick apart yourself

to feel yourself unravel

to knit yourself anew to contain the rest of the day

but you’re fraying

the pattern is an old one

thumb print blurred

missing corners

the needles slip

your fingers cramping

and there is never any less day

stay busy

or you will come

undone

This is the 5th in a recent series of poems and statements building up around a common theme of identity. I am writing them more for myself than the public, as a tool for introspection, which is why this is the first I’ve posted.

I started this blog as a place for my raw, ragged thoughts then stupidly went and made it a component of my writer’s online persona.  I wish now that I had kept it separate, but anyway I have never been a private person so if this is how I meet the world, so be it. 

you are so tired from thinking that you have no energy for anything else
 
avoidance is a kind of lying

The distance between thought and action (and speaking is an action) can be difficult to bridge.  Poetry is such a bridge: metaphoric, image-making, employing rhyme and meter to produce a sense of coherence, a miniature tautology, a universe complete unto itself.  Meaning from non-meaning, because the best poems are so light they might blow away on the next breeze. 

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Aldous Huxley, Island

The Keeper

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

swearing cheapens everything

it fucking does

I went away to practice my elocution

why do you have to sexualize everything

you’re the one who insisted on the mountains

the snow like cream

the foothills dank with fir

sappy air that ignites when you snap your fingers

such danger

much fear

I went to practice elocution

the shape of words and

the morals

to every fairytale

eat the apple: sleep a thousand years unchanged

then fuck a prince

“so what’s the catch?”

(2023)

Have I written any poems this year?  I keep posting old poems to Insta because I’m lazy and I need content. I don’t write poetry with any diligence. Only when the words need to be poems and not my standard prose. 

But I went to an indie book fair yesterday.  Everyone in my town is a poet or knows a poet.  Pretty, pretty books everywhere. This is what I bought:

A photo of two books laying on a desk. The book on the left is “Poetry is Queer” by the author Kirby. It has a light purple cover with a picture of a surreal phallic shape outlined by white buttons and filled in with googly eyes. This shape is passing through a circle of white buttons. The book on the right is “Dream Rooms” by River Halen. The cover is mainly black with bold white text and a colourful photo of hundreds of pieces of discarded chewing gum. Both books are very, very queer.

Never Enough

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I wanted it not to matter

for it to make no difference

for this to not be measured in these pounds of flesh

weighed and found wanting

we wanted to be free

not to measure

not to count

you mourn yourself

your particular futures

the claims you have made on them

usurped by raw fact

these things too must (sometimes) pass

“No fear exists except beginning”

It is enough

It is never enough

After, we swam in the river

trusting in the darkness

calling one another’s name

you forgot to answer and I

swam to you

blind in the blood warm water

the sacred dark

and when your hand touched mine

beneath the surface I forgot my

own name too

(2023)

On the Watchtower 

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

If we were not so frightened

If we didn’t need so

If every home was a homecoming 

And none died gnawing bones beneath the walls

Would we still set these lamps

Still ward the world away?

Yes, Brother

For the woods are deep and pathless

Yes, light them

As we prepare to receive 

Yes,

For the night you lose the path

For the night I set the lamps

For you

(November 2022)

Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash

Line poem 5

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

(A Minor Delay)

night 

drop 

drip

light

lost 

stars

of 

desert

roads

reflected

by

dark

skies

rivuletting 

circuits

bearing

our

impossible 

flight 

reprieved

ungravitied 

birdless

blind

(21:12 Nov 20, 2022)