I'm Charlie. Human. Facilitator. Activist. Therapist. Student of Life.
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Death stirs thickly
As the faces Of unborn beings Encapsulate My mind So many hands Reaching out For a help That doesn’t exist Clutching Gripping Grasping Gasping The self That wants to save us And the self That knows it can’t Tonight They meet Beneath the light Of a blood red moon They duel And they dance They cry And they fall In sadness And in surrender In the distance Children scream Mothers hope Landscapes burn All around me Babies Humans Love & Fear Death stirs It digs And it strangles While the self Goes into battle Surrounded By moonlit fire Death is all Around me Before me Inside me I cannot beat you But my Hands can fight My heart can love And my head can pray I cannot beat you But I can walk beside All those who Fall in your shadow Walk beside them Never leave them As we enter The future of flames.
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Fresh
Smelt the day You were born Heavy The day The earth’s suffering Took him away Too many feelings The autopsy said Or a world Which just can’t Hold that much pain? Your tiny heart It beats so fast Almost as fast as his did In those dreadful final hours I hear your hearts Beat together Waking us up To the breath Of every child Feel, little one Don’t be scared He felt like you too Yet nowhere Was brave enough To receive it I know this world Will break your heart But a messy, collective love Will piece it back together I can hear Your future crying Will help you Grow gardens From the tears Can feel your Future body tensing To the realisation Of what is happening Am ready to Rock you in my arms Stay, little one We can make something You want to live in and for Raw but fresh Tragic yet beautiful Heartbreaking yet Lovingly interwoven A world brave enough to Hold everything you feel. Remember the fire
Inside your heart? Flames and flesh Can’t co exist Smoke should Never meet chest Today’s so still It cuts silence Through bush Sets motionlessness Through water Freezes minds In harrowed longing For something Simpler and easier Than all This Flocks of black birds Circle endlessly Through residual Tiny pockets Of untouched blue Trying desperately To break open the sky So we can all heave A collective sigh Of relief I know this silence Hear it Ringing in my ears The foretelling Of an impending Heated Hurt I feel this silence And how it stretches From me To you To out beyond forever Oh force of heat and heart D’you know how much I fear you? Yet how ready I am to meet you With all of my love And all of my rage? I hear the future Whispering Howling Sobbing Hoping Sometimes it’s screaming Sometimes it’s standing right beside me Sometimes it is me And my hot and heavy heart. Listen…
Can you hear The chilling silence Of the slow Moving pendulum? Swing… Into the horrific scale of loss Swing… Into the tsunami of disbelief Swing… Towards the rising, crippling panic The irresistible invitation To stretch our limits Far beyond breaking point Because the world has Already gone there Swing… Into the crashing collapse Of knowing that I can’t go there That we can’t go there Swing… Into the knowledge That we might not make it But can’t not make it So what do we do? And who shall we be? Swing… Until all you can do Is swing Endlessly swing Let your body be rocked Back and forth Between Hope and despair Feeling and numbness Holding on and letting it all go Swing…. I feel old, so old.
And tired. A tiredness you can’t sleep off Because it stains your bones, flesh And mind, like thick red wine Stuck to a brand new carpet. My brain is knotted, the folds sewn Together with wire, clumped with pain Trying to unravel out of my skull, To relax and be liberated of thoughts & impulses Stars and feelings, break free From the prison it inhabits inside my head And I feel so old, like a creaky cedar tree That has sunk its roots to the same bed of earth For so long that it can’t see the forest, Can’t glimpse the sky, only feel the Burden of this deep attachment Can’t blow with the wind Fixated in place forever Creak, creak, creak My bones feel the world’s breath against them Blowing through them. They hurt. They heave. When I wake, they remind me of its suffering When I lie down, my spine aches For the rest of the world. My body is burning, my skin swelling With the pain of the world. And I feel so old, so so old. My thoughts don’t flow like they used to Because the rivers don’t flow, we drained them dry. My eyes don’t see things like they used to, Because the world’s gone blind With all this pointless suffering My heart doesn’t feel like it used to Because too much love’s been betrayed My nerves are on edge Because everything’s tipping over And we don’t know how to stop it My shoulders are weighed down by bricks So many bricks All the bricks we’ve thrown at each other Built empires with and then torn them down Made homes with and then bulldozed them over They’re scraping at my back Like claws of species slipping away From us forever, because We were too selfish to think of anyone else Here one day, gone the next. I can’t cry because there’s no water left We’ve used it all, sprayed it all Washed our cars and then Thrown it down the drain Whilst in deserts and towns, children die From thirst and hunger The drip of a tap is not something They’ve ever heard before. My veins pulse as the sound of Digging fills my ears As we cut open the heart of the earth and Suck out its blood to fuel our Transient existence Drip, drip, drip. I feel the world inside me. Around me. Beside me. I feel its suffering around me, Throughout me, outside me. And I feel old, so, so old. Painfully old. My head is burning inside.
I sit still, listening to the silence, temples pulsing, thoughts racing. Outside, the future has arrived, today. The homeless seek ephemeral refuge from the burn in temples of mammon. But soon they’ll struggle to find another way. The children know, yet they shouldn’t have to know. Today’s hot but it won’t always be this way? A city, in the south, hottest on earth. It’s fleeting, surely? Tomorrow, normality will creep and seep, erasing the memories. Good. Hospital wards swelling with racing hearts and tightened chests, faces flushed, life teetering back and forth, here and gone. Today’s just a busy day. Drops of moisture, gathered over weeks and months in pools and rivulets, singing in hope of growth and abundance, licked away in seconds by flames, raging with contempt for life, spurred on by the burring of rigs, the drilling of wells, the digging of bottomless pits to yield to a thirst that can never be quenched. A family is packing up their life, a book, a photo, perhaps two – it’s all that’s left. Across the ocean, a father is thinking. His crops sinking, soil caught in a briny mess. To stay or to go… In north America, it’s cold, so cold the snow won’t fall, the kind of cold that takes you far, far away from reality, sense and logic. The kind of cold that offers solace from the heat, an escape, a place to hide and pretend it’s all ok. Tomorrow, an alarm will sound. She’ll go to work. He’ll go to school. A billboard will be projected, in heads, a new headline etched. Phones will ring, inboxes will fill, plungers will drip, drip, drip. Sweat will bead upon preoccupied brows. The tracks will shrink, the trains will run on time. The grid will heave a sigh of momentary relief. Rain will fall a little while. And in the distance, there’s silence as a hole is drilled, a pit cut deep into a valley, a pipeline sunk hard into a forest. A tree falls, but does it? A mother cries, but does she? A farmer dies, but does he? The heat rises, but it’s all inside my head. |
Charlie WoodHuman. Activist. Facilitator. Therapist. Student of Life. Trying to do my bit to build a kinder world. Archives
December 2024
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