I’ve finally completed my first poetry chapbook, ‘Stars, Earth, and Bedrock’, after beginning two years ago.

It contains twenty-four poems in three different sections of the chapbook. ‘Stars’ are poems that are happy or hopeful, ‘Earth’ contains poems about society or human nature, and ‘Bedrock’ is the section of the chapbook dedicated to poems about depression.

You can find it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0e2D2fn0ONMQ1JMSFBLNEg3V1k

Poem #63

O delirious mind! What ails you so?

Has Psyche fallen ill, a victim of

Lost location in this old oak forest?

Has Roderigo’s lament ‘come a Syren;

Is it truly silliness to live when

To live is torment? Nay! To live is life!

To live is to be tormented, to suff’r,

To be pained and defeated! To live is

To be alive, and breathe a young breath.

O delirious mind! From whence did thy

Delusions come - a mirthless wintry eve?

Eject them from thy Thoughts, experience

Sensations in their stead, for no man can

Push ‘gainst walls or avoid a blighting wind.

Poem #62

Whenever I feel alone or anxious,

Depressed or dejected, unloved or unnoticed,

I play Minesweeper.

The first click is always down to chance.

And from there the clicking quickens,

As the numbers and red flags appear,

Like a bomb near detonation or

A dolphin in distress.

It is a simple distraction

That simply numbs and focuses my attention

To one thing:

Survival.

Surviving the mines on the screen and in my mind.

I play it to forget.

I play it to remember.

I play it to feel calm.

I play it to feel anything.

I play it to survive.

I’ve played it sixteen-thousand times.

Poem #61

I look forward to writing happy poetry,

Instead of line after line of

Arrhythmic depression.

When that time comes and the depression has passed,

I will write line after line of

Melodic happiness

And it will be as beautiful as my future.

Poem #60

if love could have saved you,

you would have lived forever.

if kindness could have helped you,

you would never have wanted to leave.

if compassion took a human form,

it would look like you.

if happiness donned a face,

it would now be weeping.

if beauty has any capacity in heaven,

you will be amongst angels.

if depression destroys anyone else,

it will be me.

Poem #59

you can’t try

to save someone from

suicide,

you need to

succeed.

Poem #58

I’ve thought about you a lot over the past ten years.

More so recently, though, after seeing you again.

Rediscovering you.

Excavating the chasms of friendship and love

from the initial chinks we made in an age past.

I have a version of you in my head.

A version of you who didn’t go to a different high school,

or who didn’t get fed up with me,

or who I didn’t reject for whatever damned childish reason

it might have been – my imaginary version of you.

Maybe this version of you exists somewhere,

in a different version of this world

with a different version of me

that loved you then and now, not just the latter.

I often wonder if we’re happy there.

Apparently, you kissed me when we were, what, seven? Eight?

Apparently, I discarded the gesture, shunned it and you;

but it means so much to me now.

I wish our bridge hadn’t burnt whilst we were still fording the river.

The ashes flowed down its currents and meet me here.

And now I see you,

with a face a decade older,

but still with that same smile I adored.

I see you in photos posted by mutual friends,

of you with that smile,

and I try to fit myself in there with you

to see whether it would fade.

I see you in that square,

donned with the button,

azure and assuredly tempting,

‘Add Friend’.

I wish I had the courage to say you still were,

still could be,

because I want that so damn much.

Whatever the reason was we drifted apart,

I regret it.

Because I’ve thought about you a lot over the past ten years,

and I wish to God that you’ve thought about me.

Poem #57

If I were a painter,

I would paint you

Amongst the starry night.

If I were a sculptor,

I would sculpt you

Out of stars and bedrock.

If I were a film-maker,

Every single one would

Star you in the lead role.

I am a writer,

And I write about you

With stars in my eyes.

Poem #56

We are a society of painted faces.

We have forgotten the innocence

Of face-paint,

Only using it now to show our

Collective kaleidoscopic grief:

An assortment of colours

Shifting from one to the next.

Like Autumn leaves,

We are falling,

Like Spring rain,

We are crying,

Like Winter widows,

We are fading,

Like Summer sun,

We are bleeding.

We have remembered the innocent

With face-paint,

And the overuse has now stained our

Skin:

An assortment of colours

Shifting from one to the next.

We are a society of painted faces,

And our seasons last mere days.

Poem #55

At the edge of the world, there is an inn

With a cliff-side behind its back;

No matter what you are met by a grin.

 -

The wooden walls are waning and peeling like skin

And everything you see out of your room’s window is black.

At the edge of the world, there is an inn.

 -

You find a bar with rows and rows of cloudy gin

That has the nostalgic aftertaste of Prozac.

No matter what you are met by a grin.

 -

Even after you can’t stand the stench or your chagrin so begin

To tear up the floorboards, you cannot deny that

At the edge of the world, there is an inn.

 -

Even though you have indulged in a mortal sin

And you have no idea what their father would do as payback,

No matter what you are met by a grin

 -

And a horned beast in the guise of the keeper, with teeth akin

To the piked pillars of rock that burst through the surrounding blue lilac.

At the edge of the world, there is an inn,

No matter what you are met by a grin.

Poem #54

The damned will inherit the earth;

the damned, the down-trodden, and the bitter

will divide up the remnants of what they will win:

 -

An earth with beloved tyrants,

who parade their prejudices

and are met with praise,

who flaunt their fornications

and are met with fortune.

 -

An earth where men seek to peddle profits

from catastrophes, as if the tragedy of death

has no dominion over their blackened conscience.

 -

An earth that questions the nature of infinity,

but must only look in their thousand-times-cracked

mirror and see their green-eyes stare back

to understand what is infinite.

 -

An earth where, if every vice was shown,

tainting your skin like a heifer’s brand

and was exposed for all to witness,

you would still be looked upon with more

credit than a man born with skin

as dark as yours would become.

 -

How they will win this earth I cannot say

for I simply cannot remember.

It happened so long ago.