THE BIRDS
The birds talk to me, I just heard my name,
Flying up so high they will not be tamed,
Not scared of the creature,
but of what it can say,
Can you work out what the chirps convey?
A coincidence too many times,
The same bird ‘song’, line after line,
“Twit, twit, twit, it’s you”
I can hear the voices,
Can you hear them too?
Flaps in my ear, then the noise disappears,
They follow me everywhere I go,
Tune into the tune of the predictions of doom,
Then life will go more with the flow,
The chirps of threes and fives,
Tell me how to live my life
Pecking at my brain in a rhythmic way
Make sure you listen to what they have to say
But now I know they’re coming for you!
The birds told me and they will tell you too ...
DEPARTURE
Breakdown
Barriers
The wrong track
Faces blurred
Signs
Signals
Messages
Anticipation of plans
The rumble of release
Please, Mind the gap
Step out, step off
ENOUGH?
This is not enough
Walking to the end, but not the end of the night
Air foggy as I stay in the gaze of sight
The same looks from the night before are thrown
As I stand so very much on my own
As I stand and wait for my fate
Another day where comfort comes late.
Counting coins, I hear a noise, assessing every shadow,
Fingers frozen feel the chill and the burn from old tobacco.
My day is finally done
The long awaited time has come.
As I hold it up to the light,
This won’t last me through the night.
This is not enough.
DOORWAY DOG
We will be together side by side,
even when I’m scared and have no place to hide,
I watch the brightlights while he takes a nap,
I feel nice and safe in my owner’s lap,
Sometimes he gets tired but that’s okay,
I get stroked by passerbys throughout the day
But this time he slept even more,
hunched over on the cold hard floor,
I will wait and wait – he’s my only thought.
Then came Brightlights of a different sort,
I watch him be taken away,
in comes the darkness, here comes the rain.
Shoes on the pavement, a shadow in the way
“Hey little fella what’s your game”
I raise my nose to the voice and into the black I say
“I am the doorway dog, the dog with no name”
ABOUT JAKE
Jake is a spoken word poet and a future children’s book author from Canterbury, (England). He describes his work as ‘unpolished poetry’ through his straightforward, relatable language which makes his work highly accessible and engaging for a wide audience. Each poem delves into universal themes of time, loss, and the search for meaning. Jake has a profound understanding of human vulnerability where he paints vivid portraits of life’s small but defining moments and is good at dropping readers right into the experience. His focus on isolation, repetition, fixation, and blurred realities creates a nuanced portrayal of mental instability. By immersing readers in the minds of his speakers, Jones captures the fragility of the human psyche and the fine line between sanity and madness.
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Email: Robin@PoetryForMentalHealth.org
Facebook: @Poetryandmentalhealth
Based in Norwich, Norfolk, UK
THANK YOU to the following people who have donated to Poetry For Mental Health: Madeleine & Paul Giraldi, Barbara Rivers, Rabi Mariathasan, Duane Anderson, John Zurn, Sandra Rollins,
Braxsen Sindelar, Caroline Berry, Sage Gargano, Gabriel Cleveland, April Bartaszewicz, Patricia Lynn Coughlin, Hilary Canto, Jennifer Mabus, Chris Husband, Dr Sarah Clarke, Eva Marie Dunlap, Sheri Thomas, Andrew Stallwood, Stephen Ferrett, Craig Davidson, Joseph Shannon Hodges, John Tunaley, and
Patrick Oshea.