In my air-conditioned carcass I sit and falsely fraternise with what I’m told is success.
My scullery darkens as the skies open. It beckons me outside.
Initial shock, the rain soothes my tenacious and torn brow,
Penetrating through once scalable furrows,
Ploughed by my own planned and accepted procrastination,
Pillaged time so squandered, I have pilfered my hope for too long.
I stay out, suit darkens, sodden and exposed, shelter breached and discarded as I reach for the tears.
Their significance now penetrating as they roll down that child’s cheek who truly believed his dreams,
Which don’t dilute the connection to me on each diffracted encounter.
The combination it sensates and resonates new life into me.
I remove a layer, and another and then another,
My smile widens as each encumbrance slaps to the wet pavement,
Ocean weathered skin now alive as each crown forms,
My arms hang lifeless, impediment-free and I am mesmerised.
Captivated by the flimsy disloyal waterfalls that follow valleys between raised bones
on the back of my hands, as it streams off my fingertips.
When did the obsession with poignancy ignore the peace of precipitation?
Why have I eluded its touch, averted its reach,
Scanning hindrance and not exploring the capacity of happiness?
As I sit eyes closed, adoring the temporary kiss as each tear collapses onto me,
An epiphany is felt, the need to call a close to this.
A need to open that vault of serendipity,
Hit the savannah with speed you Springbok in this moment of clarity!
And then it happened, like bottled lightening,
The holy-grail, the blue whale sighting,
the ember feeling with your first handheld in part-time volcanic love.
The sun….it chastised the clouds, they all defected,
and then rays shone on me, it seemed only me!
All I could do is sit down, no suit jacket, or shirt.
My tie abandoned, silk corporate snake now coiled in the gutter,
Shoes neatly on parade to my left, I sat bare feet, cross legged
And it was there, just there…at that moment.
Sitting, inclined on my arms behind me, eyes inactive, head back and mouth open,
Inspiration and belief coursing through me without hesitation.
Drained cadaverous faces stared at me, fixed on my warrior tattoos, never before seen.
Now dark and sharp and amplified by torrents of water that flowed down my chest.
The inauguration of eyes with trumpeted fanfare then look beyond the horizon,
‘Make your mark, make your mark…’ I thought, Influence change for the rutted masses,
if YOU feel this, maybe they do too!
Leave foot prints in the sand for the tentative to seek.
My complex childhood goal, now complete, is more than a notch on the post.
To be a good father, kind and present – smashed out of the grounds for six.
Why can I not be content with the success of shaping and loving three amazing people?
So here it is, leave fresh colour on the dried out tainted pallets,
Pitch thoughts in ink on the decommissioned notebooks,
Get those benevolent words heard, resonate a message in the cavity of the masses,
What is the message, what can I offer apart from two words, don’t fear?!
Pick up your pencil and brushes and instruments, reach out, pour out, connect!
You Prosecco poets, you lion-hearted libertines, you extra-ordinary people!Don’t fear the looks, don’t fear the comments and don’t fear their dread!I’m just an ordinary guy standing now in my medieval draped dampness, nothing special!
Wanting to now be a positive influence with every interaction I have with you all.
Then silence, and the rain retreats as if the reservoir had ran dry.
The moment now boxed, compartmentalised to be captured on paper or a phone,
I slowly walk back to my hole, collecting my corporate condiments.
The snake now draped around my shoulder as it clings to my back and chest,
and I feel the constriction take hold, once more.
2019 COPYRIGHT PEDRO BAT-POET
Pedro Batpoet 