Beat

I just had a thought

well, a few thoughts

about music being so far away

only the beat is discernible

then suddenly its here

like its bursting into the room

and you can hear every melody

and the beat is changed

because you got it so wrong before

Or when you lie in the silence

and the TV is rambling somewhere

distance babbling, incessant quiet noise

and then you get up

to walk closer

and listen

but its not there

no TV, just silence again

everyone is asleep

and you realise you've been listening

to your own head.

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Clarity (for Kristaline)

What did you do?

When the wind beat the rain

down hard on your soul, with no roof

How can it be?

That flesh and blood and mind

survive under a burning, painful sun

Hell rather than just... hell

These corners come so easily

when called in various ways

called to battle, to war

always a back to the wall

and fear in your heart

poised beside foe

in similar goals

yet loved, and saved.

The curses of time past

were building your heart

In misty, cold streets

and open spaces

Invoking the need to run

Summoning the strength

to fight

throwing the intent

for a new world

A world of night.

Planning your demise

with neurones and synapses

firing into the abyss

Your protector becoming

your darkest hour

again and again

You have nothing

then everything

then nothing again

then something.

Clarity

Warrior

Child

Destiny

Does your star give you answers?

under the red glimmer

of memories

suffused reminders

Bringing forth the demons

of a time when you were someone else

yet you are you

and nothing less

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Astral

I have a notion that I will not know how to start

without sounding like someone else

the centre, the core is brilliant

but the periphery is really quite crap

When I try to sleep at night

I see "God", in colours

and sounds, that whirl around

my Kansas-top room

and then I feel grateful

almost pleased that I am not exposed

the way you want me to be

and I think we might fly if I wasn't hemmed in

Behind my eyes there is always a spotlight

A screen of black with a small hole

that lets me see something, only partial

I need no light when I open them again

through the great expanse of criss-cross glass

there is already a light shining, its cold and white

I should not have thought all that before sleep time

I should not have listened, and breathed and counted

I should not have wondered at all

For now I am hanging on to the bedpost

Sheets and clothes flying in a hurricane

I know I need to let go but I spend my time rearranging the mess

Trying to tuck myself in again so I can awaken properly

Not to be dragged through the violent dimensions of the stars

I awaken a total of 8 times, always clinging to something

Why is it always so stormy up there?

The winds of impatience are always waiting

as if I should have done this so long ago

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Old Woman By The Sea

The northern ocean's harsh swell accompanies her coffee.

The smell of salt and sea life is as ripe as the air is fresh.

It is an odour that clings to her clothes, skin and hair these days

as well as her heart and soul.

She is where she wanted to be,

her old bones content

at the hard-working peacefulness of the view before her.

It is a sunny day, in a grey-blue hazy kind of way.

The end of the summer always brings such warmth and peace.

The tourists return to their city lives

and calm is restored once more

as the natives count their earnings and stash it safely away for winter hibernation.

She can almost hear the rasp of paper and chink of coin

as nests are feathered and laden

with nourishment for harsher times.

She sits on her cliff-top deck in deep thought.

She is, by nature, an intense thinker but today is different.

Today brings thoughts of all that has passed,

the big picture and a questioning of the purpose of life's events.

The passage of time evident upon her life-worn skin,

accelerated by the last 20 years of sea air... salt, fish and whiskey.

The almost comical sound of the small fishing boats horn

drags her back to the present

and she takes another sip of her luke warm coffee

as she watches the men below prepare for a days work.

A mixture of young and old,

generations of family work together as a team

in the hope of bringing home their livelihoods.

She smiles as the elder of the group

gives one of the young ones a slap across the head.

Life is made up of slaps for these people...

a thick ear for disobedience, a slap on the back for a job well done

or a gentle slap on the upper arm with a slight squeeze

to convey commiseration and support

when the vessel returns home empty of a days catch.

She thinks about the possible days produce.

Will they come home with a boat laden full of fish?

The beautiful stench of the ocean and the slime

of guts and scales on it's decks and down the front of their waders.

Muscles will ache and complain no matter what the outcome.

Sweat, tears and a tiredness like no other

will bring them home to anxious loved ones.

She has had a hundred years and sixty-three days of the daily grind.

Every day a new start. A new hope

Will I bring home something worthwhile this evening

or have I wasted yet another day in frustration and pain?

There is nothing but pain now. Physical and emotional.

Although the emotional distress seems to have developed a calm to it,

A yearning, a regretful tune, a sigh and a shrug

but nevertheless

accepted

and peaceful.

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Transference

"Sorry, I'm mental" I explained

"It's ok, you're fabulous" he replied

I'm not good or fair or lying

and your masochism knows no end

maybe if we wait a while, you might leave

with your knotted handkerchief and your stick

Your sturdy boots marking a path

to something more... predictable.

I'm worried about that, about you staying

locking me away and being too accepting of things

Maybe underneath it all I am trying to make you leave

What will I do then? Cry?

I'll just recall that look on your face

the one you adopt when you dont understand

but you really want to ... have to

and it's not because you need to

but so that you can be as mad as people think.

I listen to your iPod and I know the songs

but I think they are from someone else

and the headphones make my ears itch

Did we ever like the same things?

After years, we know each other

yet we have no clue what the other is thinking

Our osmotic embrace is bland and forgotten

on the doorstep, in pyjamas and pin-striped suits

and all I can think is that one day

you might let them take me away

and I will have nothing to do

but scratch out my soul on hard wooden tables

and sit in a plastic-sponge chair

my legs entwined casually

as all the answers to questions

become vacant looks into psychotic space.

Will you walk away then?

Or still stay and bring me flowers

Your arms laden with comfortable clothes

and pretty things

We could walk in the garden then

I think we might find each other

but we would have to work

and keep busy

Because explaining

will always push us apart.

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Broken Pieces

When she awoke this time, she felt sad. Nothing had happened to make her feel this way, she just did. Her eyes examined the grey, almost stormy, sky above. It was not a dramatic sky, just one that threatened something, or nothing. The stars were still there, dotted randomly between the cloud and the moon hung full and outlined, in a shadow, almost transparent.

Many times she would awake like this, feeling intensely wrong, or sad. Her legs were missing again, from the knees, and her heart was carved carefully, but neatly on her chest. The point where her torso joined her pelvis was folded and creased like an accordion, pivoting without control and creaking with every movement. Her hair was gone, a band aid slapped on the side of her head where something had been careless and brutal. No care taken when placing her here.

She sat in the granite, crystal-like sand. Her stumps spread before her and her arms dropped uselessly at her sides. Her fingers trailed across the ground, picking at the paper hearts that had been shaken from her soul. This is why she was sad. She was losing heart. The winter tree behind shaded her from nothing. It’s life long drained away, gaping holes where the foliage of comfort once had been. She was exposed, stripped bare, dismantled and reassembled in the most horrific ways. Grit-filled tears filled her painted eyes, the acrylic from an artists brush stinging and reminding her to look down at her disjointed form.

You ask too many questions, she thought… that’s why it ended this way.

An eternity of broken pieces.

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Sleep

Lavender, milk and honey

glazed looks and knock-out vapours

A pill that churns in my stomach

making me restless

and sick

and all I can do is think

think of getting it out

HERE

misery place

self indulgent little space

A bunch of pixels

made pretty sometimes

with errors

and obscene code

- Code names

Consciousness plagues me

I need to lose it

Coma

My mind starts in a store

queuing, endless fucking queues

then it all goes really wrong

Hysterically confident (and tired)

I end up in hospitals

at funerals

at embarrassing weddings

and silent baptisms

parties with strangers

where the nearest hole in the wall

is a welcome escape

I spend hours trying to crawl through it

I sit in a gutter with vodka

eating ice cream with long (deliberately) lost friends

I remember the most obscure incidents

that meant so much to me

and nothing to you

Why didn't we do something?

Actually, we should have done nothing

It all seems a little futile

but it's taken me hours of thinking

to figure that out

The train stops (crashes?)

I have gone too far

My station 5 miles back

sleeping

Silent tears fall

sideways from one eye to the other

soaking memories and what-ifs

marinating them in nothing

but wasted time

I am empty enough to sleep

but angry and sad enough not to

I have forgiven so much

but it still keeps me awake

The knowledge that if I had just said

"Fuck you"

I would be asleep right now

and not riding this track

of the never-ending

eternal

persistant

incessant

NEED

to tell you

exactly what I think!

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Stay

If I stay, leave or hang around somewhere in between

a vague limbo amidst the brilliant carnival

of should and must-do and wait-a-minute

Nothing will change in my fake smile -

within my shallow heart

and I find comfort right here

in your presence and your mind

An inside truth has more perilous depths

than safer places to rest

I stand tall, strong and slightly numb

yet the shadow cast behind me

betrays the thoughts and feelings of my soul

A shade too black - sharp on a sunny day

Not blurred around it's edges

nor softened in any form of forgiveness

Attached still in places, yet not quite part of me

A dark, chalk outline of the other

The perfect blueprint of a lucid dream

once seen and never forgotten

I write so that you can understand

yet I want to hide it all in rhetoric

And carefully placed posies

in rows and rows of calculated calm

It's too easy to string obscurity together

and to know you've said everything

yet given nothing away.

~Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) 2009

Moniker

I have many names
the first of which I am not
Designation, signature, me.
I was small and indignant
unpopular and difficult
never cute, never good
Slaughtered inside so quickly
and seamlessly garbaged in a bad place
painted with thick, stinking mud
by those who wrote it all down
and passed it on.
I wasn't interested
in your mainstream shit
and narrowed thinking
and I was always thinking
analysing.. asking myself
why did you just say that?
who told you that shit was true?
daydreaming you called it
so "mud" it was
"spam" to my friends
did it just rhyme?
or did I actually like... spam?

Additions, adjustments
advances and breaks
So many breaks...

Broken

I was thinking just now and...
Not now... shut up
concentrate
Do it this way!
So I did it that way
tired and drained
look at this, do that
lovely
you fit right in
a long time looking
for a group
a different group
but still like sheep
They were weirdos
who thought
I was weird.

Puss.. Pusska
sleeping like a cat
stretching, yawning
bored, unstimulated
ego-centric, swollen
turn inwards and smile without
Gathering waifs and strays
who could see
and then want.

I am Electric
a current
a flow
always interrupted
Tough to crack
an inspiring challenge
easy to show me your back
when I'm empty
but I was never empty
I didn't show you what I am
Just what I should be
and then you didn't understand
again
and again
never understanding
difficult got weird
Oh fuck...run
run because you can't quite put your finger on it?

I remember a day when I changed again
Frightening myself stupid on something big
something that kept turning me upside down
until the change fell from my pockets
pockets that I didnt even like
I pledged to swap them when I got home
When my heel snapped my mind was made up
Soz

I meet you over and over
the same person again and again
A handful are tolerant
I could see it in their eyes
I smoked so I could concentrate
then I drank to escape my own head
The back of that bike
always gave me something to hold
made me feel alive
no fear of death
Just a ride that would put the wind in my hair
and freeze my skin

We don't know what to do with her
She is bright but she doesn't try
I'm bored
She seems to have her own agenda
I have
We are at a loss
If you ever take the time....
I'm in here
I would quite like to meet someone new.

~ Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB) aka Leccie 2008/2009

Non-sleeping Dream

Celestial calm inducing sleep
or so I think
Mystical words awaken inside
and slumber paralyses
as the battle rages within
I call out to you
yet you do not hear me
and with hindsight, I know
you can't and won't help
I lie still in distress
the Astral Demon alive
in old, frail, glass houses
it lives and breathes and torments
I wake again and again
yet I do not
An illusion of hope and escape
from my warring soul
It looks peaceful from afar
those hypnotising words
of prophecy and insight
stirring the fight
invoking the struggle
that lies beneath
I have woken again
or have I?
Is this real now?
Exhausted, I have not slept
Just anaesthetised and possessed

~ Leccie 2009 aka Charlotte Sometimes (SRWB)

Coagulated Thought

A half-pale face stares from the sky
as if embedded in a twisted wound
Scraped, broken and yet hidden
by toxic scars and ripples of ruin
It is beauty and filth, all the same
An entity with the knowledge of the past
It is soul-filling and soul dead
Pulling and dragging an ebb and flow
offering an alternative light
a different view
to the obscenities of years
played out below
It still cannot answer
the shameful questions of time
through all it has seen
there is no power in loss
and pain and hatred
The waste of honour and glory
played out time and again
Always the last push
The one to end it all
A cleansing of vanity
A purpose for those long dead
No fear of the physical pain
Just the torment of futility
and an absent meaning.
A half turn within the wound
is an illusion... only light
Upon sight of irritated flesh seeping
The serous fluid drips coagulated
upon the horrified earth below
perpetuating the bleeding thoughts of
war.



~ Leccie 2009 aka Charlotte Sometimes(SWRB)

Failed Exorcism

I left you behind... then
yet your ghost returns
to haunt these hallways
turning absence into need
and strength to weakness

I don't have answers... now
the runaway exorcism seems
such a temporary measure
as I am faced, once more
with flickers from wet eye-corners

... I am lost ...


~ Leccie aka CharlotteSometimes(SRWB) 2009

Curse

In a moment of quiet
The sounds of buried dreams
return... twisting a knife
long blunt and rusted
Running away is good
as long as you don't have to go back
Reopening forgotten wounds
Waiting in a lake of silent sorrow
The realisation that this isnt fixable
A difference in its manifest
A love that will not die
yet be carried, heavy on my back
until the day I die
With no resolution
and no denial
If I hadn't loved you
I could be happy
I am cursed.

~ Leccie aka CharlotteSometimes(SRWB) 2009

Basket Case

It's the last game, played head on
Don't look at it sideways this time
Camo man walks his dog once more
velvet-chocolate muscle under control
He cried this morning, as he often does
whilst the eyeball plague looks on
in horror and distress.
Smile... smile... smile
everyday, ALL day
Don't ever show your soul to us
It's no longer allowed
Let it ferment and fester forever more
as we watch you carefully for the signs
Those signs that say WE are all in for it
A distress signal... the one we care about
because it makes our own lives awkward
if you display the fact that you are human.
Reacting is a weakness, of course
A reflective surface that we don't care to look at
Poor you, little basket case
Let us stuff the cotton wool inside
Just a bit more, much harder
and tighter than last time
We will suffocate you and bind you
An emotional taxidermy in the dusted corner
of a sheen-clean existence
Seratonin zombies don't have bad days
nor good days... just... OK


~ Leccie aka CharlotteSometimes(SRWB) 2009

Cake and Armageddon

I quiet the little ones safely
take a last look at the stale cake
and start to wander around this place
I haven't visited for so long
Am I older now?
Or did we go back a little?
Your bed with it's crumpled sheets
and crumbs, the fork and plate rest
where you left it, then you left
This is the same, that is too
but it's all different
Like an ending, a reckoning
That globe is now in the sky
I photographed it yesterday
A sepia vision in cherubs hands
Glistening like a water drop
unbreakable yet fragile
And now it glows above
Noone knows quite what it is
or what it is there for
But it changes over days
My cake is fresh, better than yours
and I have to wait to eat it
I remember you dressing
covering your older skeleton
draping it in vintage silk and pearls
but the angels are still in their cots
heads kissed and cheeks stroked
I sit outside to eat my cake
as reports of winds come by
the ball in the sky rotates now
Is it bigger?
Yes it's bigger, now huge
and growing, on fire
It overwhelms my mind
with incomprehension
I'm calm but braced for impact
It doesn't happen
All that anticipation
I'm still sitting here
eating my cake

~ Leccie aka CharlotteSometimes(SRWB) 2009

End

There is to be no beginning
in this ball of thread
No end... and no middle
Petty hours spent trying
and trying... to grab at it
just so I can start
Find a dawn, a creation
and work to the middle of noon
which is often where it fucks up
so the end is never in sight... no night
Divine inspiration?
Dissatisfaction more like!
As the masses put their minds
to endless, trivial matters
This useless, fetid world
finally bores me to silent tears
It would be such a pleasure
to leave it.

Fin.

~ Leccie aka CharlotteSometimes (SRWB) 2009