When I was slightly younger, I arrived at home for a bit of a showdown at Christmas and my mother and stepfather were on the brink of splitting up, I was a little sad and decided to write it out on the train, creating the poem ‘Beat’. Years after submitting it for a competition, I had a letter saying it is being published in a book that is stored in the British Library. Here it is…
BEAT
She hisses
He cusses
She stomps,
Words burn like torches.
Faces stern
Hearts race
Heads pound,
Each longs to surrender, admit defeat
Hearts ache but time heals,
Will minds ever learn to take the beat?
Perpetual curses and raised voices,
Hairs all standing like small soldiers, on end
Stress levels raised, emotions in tethers
Each longs for fewer storms, calmer weather,
Each longs for the other to see clear.
Ready at the waiting, large cannons fire
Right through the skin, through all of the layers,
Those were drafted in years of true love
Wounds seep as hearts weep,
Forgetting the sound of their former beat.
Tortuous turmoil and angst turns to dust,
Multiplies in mass, forms a sheet
Covers them both in a coat of guilty reprieve.
Each walks, with opposing ambitions in opposite directions,
Loosening their weave.
Music drowns out the sadness,
Takes the edge of the edginess
As loneliness creeps…
Seeping and spreading
Through each private show.
Lights,
Camera,
Action!
Pause
Hesitation…
Can you still feel the beat?