A letter to Myself

Take a moment to breathe

Clear your mind of all those crumpled thoughts sweep the decks of the wrongs you were taught

They were just other peoples ideas.

Stop identifying with your fears.

You are OK

This moment is eternal so quit rushing

your on a hiding to nothing

filling time with endless tasks!

They are thankless,

ask the ones that have passed.

Breathe again.

This time deep.

Remember how you once traveled in your sleep

to places that lately seem out of reach?

Thats because you have stopped dreaming...

Thats because you have tied yourself up in nets

even stopped believing the simple truths.

How easily your mind forgets.

Remember how if you could see it in your mind it was so?

Such a simple truth

Why did you let that go?

Start seeing your way back

Think yourself a map..

Inhale...

Celebrate your intuition don't criticise what it finds

your a seeker of souls

a meeter of minds

You read hearts instinctively

you find the ones you seek.

When you do... go easy.

you are harder on yourself than you need to be

You expect to much from others

even those you love most.. remember..

They are your sisters and your brothers

They are not there to absorb your pain

or carry the baggage you could drop any time you chose.

Your getting better at walking in others shoes

These souls are eternal lights that shine bright

You have loved them every lifetime through

You are they

and they are you

Exhale....

You have a heart that beats fast

You have endless love to give from a soul that runs deep

Its the reason that you live

Be proud that you have come through shallow pools to swim in beautiful rivers

You are one of life's givers

Continue to give without hesitation

Don't be afraid to give your heart

When you do you shine like constellations..

Its your best side,

when you love your eyes sparkle like night time skies

So seek the souls that set fires blazing

Find yourself gazing into eyes that burn with passion

Run your fingers on skin that shivers with the the joy of you

The ones that see those fires too

Forgive yourself like you forgive others

Love harder those that have hurt you most

You look too deeply into the shadows

there are no such things as ghosts...

Just your misunderstandings seeking to trip you

When you can learn to stay present then your present will be peace of mind

When you can love yourself

then you will find

......that you are home

You wont ever feel alone

Breathe

To this point you haven't always made it easy so lets start again

empty your mind

This moment is eternal

We are narrative

The ebb and flow of totality

Infinite creators

Fractal pilots flicking

loop da loop manoeuvres

We peek behind veils

Read scribbles in margins

We are the dance of light

Vibration manifesting

Consciousness captured

in cosmic jam jars

Dancing Divas

In carbon cages

A blister response

The calloused edge

A universe

trying to feel itself

Star child

I know we were forged from the belly of the same star.

that we still feel each other's touch, whether near or far..

that we span time beyond clocks and lineality.. but in reality

I don't know what this means.

.........Only that it is true.

And I know that when we start ticking and tocking

Synapses locking,

Inner monologues outwardly spoken,  

yet never feeling we've broken A lock

to a door that we shouldn't open........

I know then..that we are two points in time,

one yours, one mine

And between them a line.

And whichever way the universe folds

Even sometimes if it seems too much

Our two points will always touch,

when they touch, we will laugh and joke,

sometimes choke tears as we recall the best of our years

So remember wherever you are

We're two souls born in a star.

Bad Altitude

At this height roads cut land like veins

Traffic jams collect like blood clots

England's green and pleasant land seems more beige with disinterest and bland agricultural endeavour

At this height house’s look like seeds, sit like pips

Villages scar like scabs on grazing land

Towns buzz like circuit boards of collective consciousness disrupted by urban desperation

Fused together

At this height waves are non existent

They just become fuzzy white interference teasing a golden frame

The water looks inviting

Cloud banks gather in a velvet flock and crimped fluff below me but high above the ships scraping chips into cold glass

At this height these wings look as fragile as sycamore seeds

The sky, more eternal than I can handle

The earth as flat as a conspiracy

At this height my heart breaks silently

My eyes speak words that even these people around me understand

Hope and resent trade punches in equal measure

Confused together

The pinned wings of a butterfly's demise

At this height I could fall for you even further

Jump in with both feet with nothing to lose

Only a fool would trust your love to save their fall

But I jump through your hoops anyway

Calculating the time left before I hit the ground

A piercing alarm sounds

White noise rushes my ears

Dance with me again

Dry these tears

We were not destined to be this plane crash

Wonderland.....

Early friday evening,

The warm bubble of conversation reaches the awkward corner of the bar I occupy,

me, myself and I,

the social pariah camping out at the edge of their borders.

Their warming web of words and laughter wraps me up like the best kind of worst blanket.

Wooly enough to promise warmth,

but itchy enough to keep me awake at night,

waiting for the damp as I sweat the small stuff.

I am surrounded by enough technology on this table to land a dream on the moon,

Sitting pretty,  

hearing the lives around me sparkle and devouring others on screen,

knitting together ideas of friends

like spaghetti that doesn't care.

And I am Alone.

The hubble bubble of the friendships around me drown me in the shame of my lonely place.

I see a pretty girl on the table opposite,

I mentally scratch off the layers of her personality that she wears like costume jewellery.....

layers like the silver on the scratch card love disguises itself to be.

She is cute...

and smart enough to raise the vibrational level of the meanest of hearts

but it isn't the heart I fear......

its the vibration..

Even dream frequencies are measured in Hz (hurts)

And I know only to well from the death of the last hope

that I would rather be amused than have a muse right now.

Disappointment is the underpass that tunnels under that rocky road my friend.

I would rather go under it

than find myself washed up and pointless at the side of some highway that promised me the destination …....

only to leave me thumbing a lift in my tattered tears.

Bleak words tumble out of me

but my melancholy doesn't phase me,

if anything it spurs me on.

Im aware of the contrast of the happy throng

and the carpenters singing,  

singing their songs..

shaping my reality from the juke box that mocks

Long ago and oh so far away

I fell in love with you before the second show

Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear

But you're not really here

It's just the radio

And i'm tuning into that show tonight.

That melody stamping itself into passport pages that are taking me nowhere special.

Thats fine.

I just keep writing the wrongs while they keep singing their songs.

At least I didn't put a pound into that joy machine …

I will just write and write until its right my friend

in the hope that you hear the melody of my madness and decide to set me free.

There are so many souls crammed into this fake laughter tinged with real happiness that I wonder which one of them will surrender first.

On cue some hipster in a hat approaches.

A young fresh mind returning empty chairs he took from my table.

He apologises for the noise,

chair legs screeching like chalk on the blackboard that has taught me nothing again and again and again...

I wonder why he didn't apologise for his beard.

His Friend places an empty bottle in front of me

Smiling in their leaving dance,

Jocular waves betray an oblivious naivety that was washed out of me too long ago.

Finally my table is set,

like  Alice's wonderland at the rabbit hole cafe somewhere downtown on any given day.

My empty chairs join the conversation

mocking me with flat faced seats,

exposing their backs with petulant child sulking in a flavour I can taste like its real.

Those chairs...placed with such conviction.

So firmly as if to assure me of my own happy throng

And that I will be serenaded by a different song....

That maybe...

Just maybe,

you will step out of the gloom and light up this room

like a candle fiercely burning the breeze that threatens its very existence ….

in a defiant show of optimism so strong......

it could melt polar bears.

In the mean time, I sip my cider,

bathing in the joy of others like Im drunk and carefree in some hotel,

some place,

some time,

somewhere else.

With the product of this moments madness haunting the laptop screen,

I click save

and wonder wether saving oneself is as easy

as the click imprinting zeros and ones onto insides of some fancy machine

Somehow I doubt it... but its done...

I close the screen as easily as closing the pages of a book

That candle will flicker....

but for now I feel the wind in my face unchecked and I am too tired,

stubborn, stupid, bored, bitter and broken to burn away the wind like you do.

I would rather take that blanket for all its itching and fashion it into some kind of sail

so I can sail the fuck out of here...

you would be welcome to join me...

 I would invite you.....

but the truth is, in a sea of a billion faces,  

I don't know which one you are.

Sean Holland

December 2015

Nanas Delight

She needs a hip op

A hippy to the hippie

A big hip op

To stop my lovely nana rocking

Her balance is shocking

Her body is mocking her

she's very unsteady on her feet

But she don't need no hearing test

She can hear a pin drop at fifty feet

All day long in her rocking chair

Rocking to the beat

Her sight is bad,

her hairs all gone

Like grey smoke on her head

But her mind is sharp and her tongue still works

just told me she wants to be dead.

She's five foot four and five stone two

A pale version of her former self

Every ten minutes, calling for my mum

And pondering her failing health

She wears bling gold and perfume still

But the makeup has all gone

I wipe a tear from her ashen face

And say, nan, what is wrong?

And she said:

"IM DOWN WITH OAP,

YOU KNOW ME"

I've been very happy as an old lady

But it's changed you see,

day by day

Sitting in this rocking chair wasting away

I got MND, Motor neurone disease

This body that I'm in

doesn't look like me

I say chill nana nana chill nana nana chill

It breaks my heart to see you getting this ill

You were the stamina nana,

never needing a stanner

Running up stairs and the lady of the manor

Knit one pearl one,

knit one drop.......

It's not fair that it had to stop

But we can't go on and on on and on 

Only so many times that we see the dawn

But I promise you this,

to my siblings and me

You’re the baddest nana, there ever could be

A  whap bop a do bop and when your heart stops

You can show the spirit world just what you got

You can leave the prison of your rocking chair and

Throw your soul up in the air, throw your soul up in the air

And wave that mother f*@4&8  like you just don't care

She smiles,

we laugh,

be brave sweetheart

Maximise your mind, your bodies falling apart

and when the time comes remember my plea

Relax, let go be free...

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