Featured Poet - Chris Scriven
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
Some sympathize with Doctor Frankenstein
and others with the monster he designed.
My pity lies with loved ones of the souls
whose bodies were exhumed and disembowelled;
grave-blighted flesh stripped from their corpse and stretched
across stained bones, with jagged sutures stitched,
expired internal organs stuffed within
a festering and mis-matched sack of skin
and this abomination lurches down
the would-be homely streets of my home town,
reminding me of what I would forget;
macabre monster built of my regret.
To see my mother’s legacy so damned
outweighs the monster’s burden and the man’s.
I wish the undead beast was dead again
that I might then re-bury former pain,
replace her heart within her hollow ribs
and once more seal her shattered coffin’s lid.
- My thanks to The Cannon’s Mouth magazine who first published this poem.
ABOUT THE POEM: The business that I lost (and that was meant to form a legacy to my mother) was a franchise and the franchisor sold the rights to the territory to a new owner. On a daily basis, I was seeing what looked like the business that I had lost but which wasn’t.
FAUX TABLEAUX
The golden sunlight sparkles on the sea,
a bright parade of dazzling pageantry,
the intermittent flashes like a strobe
upon the gilded waters turquoise robe.
The chorus from an orchestra of birds
could rival any pulpit-woven words,
each fragile warbler candidly delights
to sing of joi d’vivre at its height.
In unison, the flowers’ petalled heads
release their scents from rainbow coloured beds,
their sweet aromas blend and interweave
in fragrances near perfectly conceived.
This cornucopia of nature’s realm
is straining both to calm and overwhelm
so neural pathways thought to be long dead
are reignited thoroughfares instead
for never has a morning worked so hard
to overcome an ingrate’s disregard.
I’m pained when I remember I’d believe
in what the sense said – oh how naïve!
The deeper truth is shaped by how we feel,
beyond the mind, there’s nothing truly real.
The all-consuming sanctum of the head
has left this hopeless fantasy for dead.
The outside world is tumbled upside down,
its joys dethroned and inner-horrors crowned.
The panorama knows that it’s a fake,
a dream upon an eyelid ripped awake
or conjured scene that’s pasted up to fool
the credulous as whimsy for the cruel,
mere artifice alone that can’t disguise
a world that’s built of tissue-paper lies.
How easy it would be to peel away
this thin charade, this sham of sunlit day
and prove that my imagined hell exists.
But I’ve not got the guts to take that risk,
ABOUT THE POEM: I live in an area of outstanding neutral beauty. I was in a wonderful place when the weather was close to perfect, but my mental state caused me to believe that there was something wrong with the outside world as opposed to there being something wring with me.
PICK AND MIX TOOL KIT
It’s all about the thoughts that fit
to keep your head in shape,
build confidence to wrap you in
a superhero’s cape.
It’s all about the tools you choose
and how you pick and mix
to plan yourself a long-term cure
and plasters of quick fix.
It’s all about the thoughts that form
a cocktail in your mind;
ambitious thoughts to stimulate,
relaxing to unwind.
The brain can be our friend as much
as it can be our foe.
We need to choose which thoughts we keep
and which we should let go.
Myopic folk need spectacles
to maximise their sight
so change the lenses of your thoughts
to get your vision right.
Construct a day from building blocks
of things you like to do,
create the blueprint in your head
then work to make it true.
And train the mind to make best use
of what it can provide
so even on the toughest days
you still feel good inside.
Do workouts for your self-belief,
say twenty sets of ten?
Enjoy a full two minutes rest
then start those sets again.
It’s all about thought-management
to keep your life on track.
It’s not about the calm you’ve lost
but how you win it back.
It’s all about the battle-plan,
the wins we engineer.
It’s all about how well you’ve done
and where you go from here.
- My thanks to The Cannon’s Mouth magazine who first published this poem.
ABOUT THE POEM: This poem was written at a time when I was working night shifts in a supported accommodation project for young people. It was inspired by the courage of the young people that I met who battled with their own mental health-related challenges often after difficult or traumatic childhoods.
QUASIMODO MASK
This crown of thorns employment that I bear
is more than I can easily endure,
a Quasimodo mask I’m forced to wear.
A juggernaut of absolute despair
assails me as I sidle through the door.
This crown of thorns employment that I bear!
For half my waking life compelled to care
about a job that’s some god-awful bore,
a Quasimodo mask I’m forced to wear.
If only I could vanish into air,
or, bodily, get sucked beneath the floor!
This crown of thorns employment that I bear!
My own reflection gives me quite a scare,
a horror-show I’d wilfully ignore,
a Quasimodo mask I’m forced to wear.
It breaks my heart whenever I compare
my working life to what it was before.
This crown of thorns employment that I bear,
a Quasimodo mask I’m forced to wear.
- My thanks to Asylum magazine who first published this poem.
TICK-TOCK
I can’t start here. I haven’t even seen
the destination or departure screen.
This high-hedged maze with all the exits blocked.
Tick-tock.
And one wrong foot will trigger merciless
explosions in a minefield consciousness.
What’s earthquake and what’s aftershock?
Tick-tock.
The meadows where my mind would once reside
are flooded by a potent herbicide.
The verdant landscape scraped to barren rock.
Tick-tock.
The fastenings of plans have come undone
and all descends to pandemonium.
Infernal chaos means I can’t take stock.
Tick-tock.
Unhappy hours are long yet years roll past.
A second’s slow but yet a season’s fast.
Time’s jumbled cogs pervert the addled clock.
Tick-tock.
Thoughts stumble madly down their fractured line,
this dodgy deal Death made your parents sign:
your heart will slow and one day it will stop.
Tick-tock.
AM I THE GUY?
Who am I?
Am I the guy
who failed because
he didn’t try?
Who ran away from battle
like he had a suspect chin?
Who played the game believing
that he couldn’t really win?
Who am I?
Am I the guy
who took a punch
with no reply?
Whose belly is so yellow
that he threw the towel in,
his courage so depleted
there’s no thickness to his skin?
Who am I?
Am I the guy
who walked because
he feared to fly?
Who paddled in the shallows
with the ocean at his door,
the brake the only pedal
that would ever touch the floor?
Who am I?
Am I the guy
who painted walls
to watch them dry?
Who cleaned his car on Sundays,
read the papers, watched the news,
put football on the telly
while he polished up his shoes?
Who am I?
Am I the guy
who just stood still
while life passed by?
Whose own resolve was weaker
than the web that had him caught,
whose anxious eyes just watched the
clock that counted down to naught?
Who am I?
- My thanks to
The Cannon’s Mouth magazine who first published this poem.
ABOUT CHRIS
"I went through a dark time after losing a business in 2017, which I’d had a strong emotional connection to both because it was established using money that I had inherited following my mother’s death and therefore my way of remembering her and because I was hoping it would represent a solid future for my children. When I lost the business, it felt like a personal failure as well as having let down those that mattered most to me. The poems connect to this loss and also reflect my difficulties in adapting to a working life that I found substantially less challenging and rewarding. During this time, I struggled with depression and periods of suicidal thoughts."
