What if the tides came in all at once,
The ebb just stayed and the flow didn’t go.

What if the wind then swept your path clear,
Corralled the mistrust, the cobwebs and rust.

What if the sun shone that day, its brightest of all days,
And lit you up to guide you and not in vain to hide you.

What if it rained into your core, that fine rain,
That eroded all your furrows and diluted the concentrate of sorrows.

What if the songs and posters you normally ignored,
Burst to life in relevance to connect, and save apparent neglect.

What if that horn sounded just for you,
As you walked oblivious, consumed by what is tedious.

What if you got home and made that salad,
And all in the draw was fresh, as you savoured the earth’s sweet crisp flesh.

What if you’d always been noticed,
Within a chance from a million places, in a sea of a thousand faces.

And what if you saw them and opened your mouth,
And all that they heard, were perfectly timed words.

So what if you took back your sanity from those,who claimed it as their own, now you had bloomed and finally grown.

What if you saw them spin in a ballet of chaos,
A vanishing haze of contorted souls, who were always lost amongst the shoals.

What if once, just once you realised,
That the universe for you was aligned in perfection, and despite false perspective you deserved some affection.

COPYRIGHT 2019 PEDRO BATPOET

PEDROBATPOET.COM



Morning troops.  I was asked to write a sub 2000 words piece, for an Australian publication about SUP.  As a part-time everything in life, my poetry and writing is no different.  My short story here on SUP may resonate. If not, all good, just keep SUPin 酪

‘Why SUP?

I am PaddleboardPedro and every second I am awake, and asleep, all I have on my mind is nature, the sea and my paddleboard!

Stand-Up Paddleboarding (SUP), this sleeping behemoth of a sport, a pastime a set of addictive and repetitive experiences, side-lined for too long by the younger and faster champion that carves and shreds through the water with speed and beautiful lines of white water as its frame cuts through the briny.

Paddleboarding, our veteran of the seas who has been cutting about on waves and water, journeying between islands and inlets, for four score years and more when an old surfer with creaking salty and calcified bones – but still with the sea coursing through his blood – refused to remain shore side in his retirement, and took his old surf board and a paddle and journeyed out to find some final waves.  With the birth, then hibernation and now renaissance of SUP, this veteran has stayed the course and is winning the final battle of the saving of the most souls from the mundane, the rat-race, the pressure as waterways, and lakes, and lochs and seas and canals and rivers are filled with bright colours, and fins, and the laughter of friends and families.  This sleeping gentle giant finally awoken thanks to innovation, the beauty of engineering and blue sky thinking.

Blue sky thinking, as a phrase, is so apt as this is all you can do when you are connected to nature with just 250 litres of oxygen keeping you connected to the water.  This engineered supportive lung providing us with the elixir in life that we all crave, unconsciously or with meaning and purpose, it happens.  It grips your bones and infiltrates our DNA, and never lets go.  For those of us with a mission for connection, and as an Australian singer songwriter wrote, “…World I want to leave you better, I want my life to matter…I’m afraid that I have no purpose here…” what SUP does for us, who paddle in order to stave off the pangs, the shakes, the twitches, the contorted body shapes and misaligned energy that comes when the paddle is out of hand for more than a few days, is that it throws us straight into Attenborough’s back garden.  It gives us purpose, lets us positively influence all we touch.  No engines to prime, no tanks to fill with foul fluid and with no negative energy, we appear in car parks, on road sides in all manner of vehicles.  These eclectic rainbow figures a myriad of genders, shapes, sizes and ages all with a different journey that has led them to these places. These special places where nature has opened her doors and windows to us with slipways and causeways to lead us to what we have dreamed and thought about for days before the paddle.

Paddlers-to-be look on as we bring to life these ruck-sacked revivers of our positive energy.  Our now unfurled friends become the bellows to our smouldering embers, glowing orange from the last epic paddle.  As we pump precious air into our board, the first sensation of adrenaline and endorphins are felt.  They tingle the toes and finger tips as our chariots feel the pressure.  This same pressure we too feel, when the wind is blowing hard at our windows and we are stuck in our offices, our homes; and factories; and shops; and building sites in the hope that we can explode out of our restraints.  As our board reaches its maximum, where no more air is needed, we take this opportunity to exhale with glee, with passion, with patience of a moment that we have planned out for days.  A feeling that many have been yearning for, for years.  Weather and wind apps checked, double checked, triple checked, tide times known…all mapped out to 6 hours beyond the paddle.  Our south-westerlies known from our north-easterlies; our on-shores and off-shores assessed; our up-winds head down driving moments planned and our down-wind back of the board surfing moments relished…we can’t just drive, inflate and go!  To make every paddle the most perfect paddle, takes thought and care and respect.

We are in the hands of nature and all of the power that this beautiful and wild planet can muster, against the insignificance of our fragile frame.  Our brains now in overdrive, with contents for dry-bags; and flasks; and towlines; and leashes, and safety bits and pieces as we splash away most chances of the paddle not being the best.  In truth, the moment we launch and our feet feel the deck, heels down as we unfurl from crouching tiger to proud water-warrior as we scan the horizon, hands in position, knees slightly bent the feeling of that first stroke…well it feels like the first hand held, the first lips kissed, the first car owned and the first tragic loss.  Loss as we now know that our time on the water sadly is timed, the hourglass turned at launch as the weather, like life, won’t stay the same.  I have played and tried and failed and excelled in over 30 sports, nothing is out of my personal reach, my only limit is me…and yet only two sports have ever left me feeling truly loved, truly connected with all that is important in life, the energy of this planet, the plants and all living wild creatures that allow me to share their space with them.  I am but a grateful migrant in their land, and I never forget this with ever step I take, and paddle stroke I make.  Boots on a mountain ridge with burning shoulders and a hot back as I carry my temporary home to a summit, fills me with the love that I feel when my wife takes my hand on a random walk, or when my grown up children sit on me or hug me from behind – this is one such love.  As many ridges and mountain ranges that I have climbed there are times during those climbs and challenges where a corner of my brain is still filled with something I don’t want in there, my work, an issue, a problem…all unwanted tenants.  However, SUP is now the only time when I am truly free of all external noise.   When I am out at sea, in a loch or on a river, out there where my brain is completely devoid of clutter, all I see are sea currents, dark patches and light patches and cloud patterns and colours and wind in the sky how it changes the clouds and the chop, the currents, the wildlife and the movement of my board.  We can name lists of adventurers in terms of their destinations, Columbus, Raleigh, Scott and Cook but rarely the contents of their journey.  SUP, as with life, is no different – it is all about the journey, and little about the destination.  The corporates compartmentalise and condense us by delusions and deviations about the importance of the destination, with their silent planned poison manifested in the profit that they reap from OUR journey, and one WE rarely enjoy.  

SUP, this cranial enema, is effective every time I launch, every time I launch!  When on a mountain, and caught by nature, and this has happened to me with the most well-planned of expeds, there are always safe options for survival, dig in or dig under, cover up and cover over, stay warm with all that the earth provides, yet with SUP, at sea, there is a sense of absolute vulnerability to the elements that makes you feel alive.  My beautiful sea touring Fatstick paddleboard, Moana, is known by many in these parts.  We have travelled many miles at sea together, with the confidence of Marco Polo, yet just 3 miles out at sea, just beyond my front door, Poseidon saw I was just a little too confident that day, so he reminded me just how irrelevant a mammal I actually am, as he threw me off my board as a squall came out of nowhere.  Humbled, Moana and I returned to land in silence, filled with respect and continued love for the sea.   This respect and love ensures that we plan to the nth degree, with every bit of kit packed, app properly read, live conditions assessed, when you are out there at sea you are so small, so insignificant and so vulnerable and my goodness…the respect we should always have for our surroundings stares you down, as if Poseidon himself is assessing how you behave when in his back yard.  As a collective we embrace all who are on the water, all who have a story respected, all who have a journey once neglected.  We embrace every living being, devoid of judgement or unwanted questions as connection is all that matters to us, and this connection is seen as their paddle strikes the water – to be consumed by nature just for as long as it can last.  Moments to relish and cherish.  We stake claim on our amazing advocates, we are proud to call our own Cal Major to Brendon Prince, the Rubbish Paddlers to Chris Saunders to my fine friend Craig. I apologise for the multitudes not named accomplishing phenomenal feats to raise great awareness, but you see I have a limit of 2000 words for this piece, and I am already at 1789.  Ahhh…1789, The French Revolution…as SUP is ours!

So, you will see some strange sights of you sit and look at a SUPer.  You will see them paddling around, stopping, crouching into the water, packing something away, then back up, paddling, scanning all around them, stopping again, picking something else up, photos to take and adventures to relish.  Sadly, at times they leave the water with cargo nets filled with plastic bottles and plastic bags and straws all scooped out of our precious waters, and under the gaze of the great sea god himself.  With these small signs of respect and gestures made with our love for his playground shown, we are allowed to return again, to enjoy all that we love and hold so dear.  And one day we will return with empty cargo nets and a camera filled with images of clear waters and a clear conscience, with the knowledge that when we could we travelled the seas, the rivers, the canals, the lakes and lochs and righted the wrongs of men.  Our community is small but our hearts are big, but we are growing in numbers this armada of love, this armada of respect, this armada of a community.

I am PaddleboardPedro and every second I am awake, and asleep, all I have on my mind is nature, the sea and my paddleboard!

pedrobatpoet2021(c)

The birds ran out of song that day,
When it finally came to an end.
We pushed so hard for that final scene,
Our fight now dormant, fatigued and asleep in our hearts.

The trees stopped gently swaying that day,
When they saw us embrace so tight, tears flowing .
A once distant reality when first met,
We now avoid contact, through fear of our smouldering embers.

The park fell silent that day,
As dogs dropped sticks and sat with heads angled.
I wish we weren’t so brave,
And for the last time we release our touching fingertips, arms fall lifeless.

The world got cancelled that day,
Buses, trains and planes all grounded.
They hoped to stop the departure,
But unannounced the wind blew and our footprints were gone.

All the birds could do is fly silent,
And watched, as the leaves gently dispatched.
As the dogs lay down and cried,
It felt right that nothing would run on time again.

2019 COPYRIGHT Pedro Bat Poet
http://www.pedrobatpoet.com

(Penned for International Womens Day 2021 ~choosetochallenge)

Choose to challenge, we have to challenge

My head bowed, heart heavy with deception,

Knowing that my daughter’s fight for equality began at her conception?

The world remains skewed, out of shape and twisted,

With acceptance being a concept reserved for the shadowed society.



Privilege the punchline at pre-Covid parties over Malbec, couscous and Brie.

Fairness, #, a face, a voice, a campaign in prose and poetry.

Integrity still on ceremony, formal, bound and gagged.

Empowerment erased, esteem encased,

Far from my acceptance, as I choke on my tea and toast, are we still here?



With media streams reports of abuse, no rights and kidnapped souls,

Scythed spirits and words washed into drains.

Why are we not challenging the continued need to promote fairness?

Why are we still fighting for acceptance and equality, within unspoken filth for the fairest?

The corruptions of decisions, vacuous collaborations, blinded to consultation,

Agendas that lasso the rising stars, in a swamp of acrid toxic masculinity.



My daughter is a lioness in this savannah of armed men,

And yet some of these men, they hunt the poachers.

My guilt.  She starts her life with sword in one hand, shield in another.

Her body, her shape, her hair, her eyes will set her back, behind her brother.

Her climb in life limited, her voice being octaves higher.

Her acceptance, her progress, her promotion links to her fashion.



The greys and browns of opportunity are still being sold as rainbows.

I’m not the only man that doesn’t fit into the stereotypes of issuing low blows.

In this issue, that still exists on every street corner in our fractured cities.

Who is the ‘Attenborough’ for my sisters?



My blinkered brothers, bastardize rationale for International Men’s Day?

Their version having as much validity as all lives matter.  Every day is our day!  

A white man and privileged I am a part of the guilty intimidation,

But never did I wave the oppressive flag, or stomach initiation.

Why are we not horrified with no opinions from women,

No creation from women, no platforms, power or guidance from women?



What challenge beyond poverty, traditions, cultures and norms?

Customs formed as tumours within books of old.

Yet these testaments cancer into echelons of opportunity,

From rice field and textile mill to the corporate club of immunity.

The glass ceiling was upgraded to steel, over the sleeping lioness.

Transparency painted over, authenticity dismantled during the night shift.



Sisters buck the trend of top heavy testosterone communal showers,

Cracked, stained, white tiles, mould on grout and stagnant water.

Exposed bias now bathing in a spa of equality?

Sadly, not when my east and west fester in my brain paradoxically.

Obsessive equality, imbalanced when not checked.

I choose to challenge those who base success on sex.



This gender-grapnel dragging too many down into the riptides of injustice.  

I choose to challenge my brothers that when your chariot breaks apart,

you leave it broken.  Use the wood and build houses for your sisters.

The ones you never sheltered.  Embrace the bleeding of your blisters.



My final challenge is to my sisters that when this weight is lifted,

And your scars are almost healed, that

not all with guns are poachers, and

you are not defined by tears.

• For Lucy –

COPYRIGHT PEDROBATPOET 2021

http://www.pedrobatpoet.com

I don’t remember when it came,

No introduction, spasms, convulsions,

Black outs and then me, coming to

With it!

But it definitely arrived, stayed,

Put its feet up, slippers on

Pipe lit, staring into the quiet fire

Yet coiled and waiting to spring up

With aggression into my face

When I least needed it to.

The abuse that I have received

From IT…over the years

It’s left me in rage, blood boiling

But mostly in tears…instant tears

As I walked away from talks,

And meetings, and greetings, and speeches,

And phone calls, and shops.

And IT…always came with me.

It couldn’t just stay put, where it happened

Walked away from me, having had its fun.

And the brighter I got, qualifications mounting,

It still didn’t go, not put off it had a new challenge

To ruin my work, to ruin other peoples’ lives

Who depended on me, in Court.

Who wants a lawyer who can’t say words, they’re just words, what’s your problem?

That start with a P or an L or an S or an M or an R or A or an E or an I or O or a U or a C or K or a W or a H or an N.

In fact shall I just use a small bag of letters,

And try and form simple words.

Simple words for complex problems.

Swearing…that helps..it helps to fill the gaps.

But how many times am I to be threatened with contempt of Court!

Gaps that i now fill with a thesaurus,

You know I still read the thesaurus.

Whenever a new word just won’t come out,

My brain now quick enough to know that

IT is about to strike and so it diverts

My mouth to another track, gives it another word to use,

that means the same. Loading words into a magazine like bullets.

Which is apt for my quick fire speech, mumbling and too fast.

Not often do I sit there trying to

Push out that 1 fucking word

That won’t come out…as people

Look at me. The first few seconds they look it is a small grin, which very quickly goes, as they see

The struggle with what I am fighting with…to just say the word I want to say. 

But the offer I get is silence and stares as they are blinded in what to do. 

Do I say something, try to help him out, or wait patiently until he either gives up or goes for a different word.

It’s only happened once, when one of my team seemed to pick it up so quickly and as I dropped the baton in speech,

she quickly leant down and finished the race with precision.

With my oh so uncomfortable a pause which stretched to over 10 seconds she looked at me “that’s totally right pete..” looking at the other attendees “..we spoke about this yesterday and the important thing to remember is….”

And then the focus shifted to her.  Apart from one person who looked at me, as I looked up feeling sick and n nauseous with my stomach in knots. 

She gave a small polite smile and then focused on my teammate. 

So I run this department, and provide top drawer advice and guidance, but I can’t string a sentence when I need to.

This oral fail, battered by hail, mouth full of nails all manifests into my personal failure, irrational I know,

But when IT strikes, the self-esteem drains like a broken dam.  

IT lives on, never drowned or stifled or suffocated, IT is never lost for words,

As it fills my mind with a thousand reasons as to why it came, and never left,

and IT gets me now and again,

A tenant in my body and head for 3 decades plus 9,

but it sleeps more and more these days.

I joined a poetry group reciting live to an audience, and IT never turned up

Didn’t see a single performance of mine.  Why not!! Where were the fuck were you, when I was armed with words and scripts and thoughts…I would have annihilated you.

I would have disposed of you live, real time with dialogue and speed. 

A wordsmith Zorro with the cameras rolling.

With a perfect Z scratched into your arse!

But hey…why were you there last week when Sky phoned, out of the blue,

To check to see if I am happy.  You chose that moment to suck the wind

From my lungs and the words form my mouth, leaving me arid, parched,

Feeling sick, stressed and stupid.  What was so special about that call?

Did it catch you unaware, and it pissed you off – you fucking rat!

And where were you in London when I held and captured a room of over 100 people as I spoke with passion about the wonders of making a positive impact by helping students get to the UK to get an education and importance of being a part of someone else’s journey? 

As I stood there and you there, I felt you in my chest, dying to get some of the limelight, and you tried to screw up my flow by holding back the word ‘potential’ and you didn’t see me expertly divert to the word  ‘future’.  The safety of the F word, for me…too often relied upon

Perplexing parasite preconditioned to piss on my parade

Marauding Mongol masochistically messing with my mind.

And as I read this out loud, I wonder…did you raise your head up with the P’s and the M’s?

Peak around the corner to remove the wind from my sails…well…DID YOU!

COPYRIGHT PEDRBATPOET 2021

PEDROBATPOET.COM

And we were told they did, and all that we did, mattered.

With a missing needle from the compass of morality, smelted down into a processor.

And it’s all about the speed of their negative, into your positive.

Who am I launching the boat for, as I drive nail after nail into the keel?

And the lights that glare, and with the noise I make,

Which resonates across the horizon, No-one looks up.

And if they do, it’s a cursory glance, with fleeting care, which evaporates upon creation.

Those needles, millions now missing, fashioned to react to a tap and a swipe,

And the guilt I feel is immeasurable, as I expose my blood, my dna, my privacy.

Open to such toxicity and radiated hate, and yet with expert seamanship,

And these teens, through walls of waves, navigate these waters.

With the precision of Horatio, and the nonchalance of a sloth,

And naïve of the horrors being dreamt up, in the ivory towers of every city.

Places where we consumed in the comfort of the revered that guided us, without question.

And our teens at base camp, panning for gold, searching for truth with no friction.

Akin to searching for that cardamom seed, in a ton of rice, blindfolded with a broken chopstick!

And in reality the world was always a swamp, from trenches to the son of sam.

Yet our lives are easier, with peace, with goals, with hope,

and the challenges are there within a thousand mediums.

Set to convince me that I am not satisfied and my life is not as half as good as it should be.

And my potential is empty, and I’m meant to be depressed, and yet the biggest depression is in my pillow.

As I sleep like a buried winter bear, a recurring theme in every dream,

And how can I change the world, why won’t they listen,

I thought they all cared?

Copyright PedroBatpoet 2021

‘A poem about loss and a week in life of…as someone copes with what to do, still yearning for every part of their partner‘

Monday

Can I listen here beside you on the seawall,

share the head massage on each fallen wave?

Casting off secured secrets into white horses and froth,

Destinations, once shared.

I gorged on your comfortable silences.

Now treacherous paths clinging to consuming cliffs.

Grief, my addiction.

Memories deliver the hit I crave.

Tuesday

Can I sit here beside you on this bench,

staring at the flowers together?

Bees create with every petal,

then fight to fly with the weight of life.

The pollen on my legs pulls me to the core,

The world walks, loves and washes over me.

Please don’t turn to me, placing hands on hands,

sharing pain despite your warm, content, now distant heart.

Wednesday

 Can I close my eyes beside you here on the grass,

regulating inward breaths, as my energy impresses the fauna?

Holding in until eyes are filled with stars,

Gentle exhale through tightened lips, craving connection.

The wind summons the leaves in their autumnal committee,

I could be in that community, minuting
the wind and rain.

Standing agenda – detachment.
Please let me fall, soon.

Birds muted and clipped, as we approach any
other business.

Their ballet, beauty and melody of murmurings faded to silent clouds.

A manslaughter of senses, heart ripped open with a breakfast for one.

Thursday

Can I walk beside you here on the beach,

steps synchronised in my servitude?

We are one, I daren’t glance back at faded footprints.

Sand filling each imprint, with every heel lift.

Silica immobilised with merciless military precision, erasing your presence
and my options.

We walked to preserve our stories, our memories, our plans not met.

How the tide ebbs to erase, and flows to forget.

Poseidon beckons, never tiring with the temptation of his flow.

Nets, barren and torn, on the awaiting bleached corals,

a catch never to be caught.

Friday

My pace slowed today, I missed our venue whilst spring-cleaning my inner
shell.

Your comment took me by surprise,

‘Isn’t this beautiful?’ Our pact to share the same pain, showers and tears.

My fingertips raw as I desperately rake at the east and west,

Then I drag them south down my face, sand trapped under fingernails,

As trapped as my reflection, never wanted in silo, my true north gone.

Your honey dew sweetness occupies my mind,

my welcome tenant, pity ruined, my confidence dressed, music played.

 Saturday

Can I stand here in front of you near the dunes,

rays warming my neck to light up your face?

The sun unveiling new colours in your hair,

I felt you smile.

The wind sweeping hair across your eyes and nose,

you slowly turned, fine strands drifting into your comforting mouth.

Words and tones that fuelled my furnace, launching timeless days,

never leaving my soul with concerns over the re-igniting embers.

The moment’s end predicted, but not with a stranger’s touch.

a pensioner, prying me from my paralysis.

Holding on, tears streaming with Hoover Dam theatrics, fully open.

Her finger tips pressed gently into my shoulders releasing my pain on to
that beach,

accompanied tears, each filled with a memory, lost into the sand.

Embrace launched as pictures of you fell from shaking fingers.

Care free dancing, teasing the sand, just as you did.

My elderly angel clutching our lives in her hands, pulled me closer.

Brushing sand off creased photographs, her eyes saddened, her heart warmed.

With redundant hanky, she dried more dropped memories, keeping them safe on
the inside of her jacket.

My empaths forever on the side-lines, wings and shadows.

My protectors of a love lost, vases re-filled, flowers re-arranged.

Today, was a bad day.

 Sunday

Can I lie here next to you in bed for ten more minutes,

your right foot, touching my left?

This will be the last I swear, as throat swells and breathing hurts.

My little finger barely touching the top of your thigh, but aware,

feeling your warmth, your direction, your hope, your presence.

With tainted heart, the ceiling my focus, I pick at sutures, wounds teased
open.

With memories fading, no comfort for loss, the dunes encroach across the
threshold.

Indents in beds and chairs, still visible. Gaps in my days replaced, grain
by grain.

I can’t hear you breathing, I wish I could stop too,

yet I would lose you forever, my energy would release you with no beacons.

A vacated lighthouse with fractured mirrors, I drift off course.

Tomorrow, can we meet again, on the seawall?

 

COPYRIGHT PEDROBATPOET 2021

http://www.pedrobatpoet.com



Empty for a night, snap out, snap in, darkened and safe, pedestals topple crushing soapboxes, my passion appropriated, claim taken, ground with a stake in, irony lost, my anger the focus, light plays across teeth, danced on eyes, words flail, porcelain syntax, shattered to the ground, your intention clear, your monkey goads, amongst broken shards, angles left acute, ruthless edges poised to expose nerves, no pills to pass, ills to bask in, my reaction rationalised, fuck you!

Empty for a day, one trigger, no more, energy evacuated, integrity cracked, attacked, clumsy conversing, broadsides of opinions, shore-side civilians, sails strafed, shredded, bilges overflow with pitch and yaw, rocks smash the keel, luxury the three-hour sleep, eyes close in conflict, re-open in conflict, ablutions in conflict, dressed in conflict, absolute in conflict, exit, remove and armour, a day to calm, my reaction rationalised, fuck you!

COPYRIGHT PEDROBATPOET 2021

http://www.pedrobatpoet.com

I thought they all cared?
We were told they did, and all we did, mattered.

Missing needles from compasses of morality, smelted into a processor.
The pandemic – speed of their viral negative, into your positive.
Why do I continue to launch the boat, simultaneously driving nails into the keel?
The lights they glare with the noise I create,
Resonating across the horizon, no-one looks up.
Any that do, it’s a cursory glance, with fleeting care, evaporating upon creation.
Those needles, millions now missing, fashioned to react to a tap and a swipe,
The guilt I feel, immeasurable, my blood, dna, privacy exposed.
Toxicity permeates, radiating hate with expert seamanship.
Teens, navigate these Nazare waves.
With Horatio’s precision and a sloth’s nonchalance,
Naïve of the horrors, dreamt up in the ivory towers of every city.
Places where we safely consumed the pearls of the revered, with unquestionable guidance.
Our future at base camp, panning for truth, searching for the sparkle.
The task akin to searching for the cardamom seed with a cracked chopstick, in a ton of rice, blindfolded!
In reality the world has always been lost, from Passchendaele to Pichu
Our lives, they ease, with peace, with goals, with hope and community.
The challenges are there within a thousand mediums.
Set to convince us that we are dissatisfied and lives

Set to convince us that it is not as good as it should be.
And our potential is hindered, a stones throw from depression and yet the biggest depression links to fading hope.
I no longer sleep like a hibernating bear, a recurring theme in every dream, as our thoughts betray the reality.

Why won’t they listen,

I thought they all cared?
We were told they did, and all we did, mattered

Copyright PedroBatpoet 2021

Consuming stings and spikes, but dream of sponge and custard,
They’ve burnt my wings, attacked my rights, switched tea for English mustard.
I believed the animation, integrity to wealth,
Passively investing, bad cholesterol to my health.

Pushed to cliffs and edges, with heights to scare the birds,
With voice and actions muted, letters fall away from words.
On shoulders of those giants, I stood and faced their seas,
The waves they grew impatient, taking souls in place of fees.

The cost of my approval, as behaviours crack and break me?
Wincing in the mirror, hating most of what I do see.
I called them out, they lost their way, their politics – my fury,
With cunning skill and toxic plans, their Courts dismissed their juries.

Hunter became the prey, with tables turned I bled,
I cannot sleep for all I need, and lie awake in dread.
Convinced I am the weak one, my anchor quickly rusting,
My path once paved with ethics, dug up, blind, mistrusting.

The broadside on all that is me, I laid down all my arms,
Tears they flowed in shadows, the audible alarm.
Words are sent in semaphore, the fog obscures the flags,
The stress of our modernity, my mental health it drags.

I’m not off work due to stress, my work is what I crave,
I’m off as my reaction links to how the few behave.
Convenience of switching round, that work has made me fold,
Their rocky path to follow, means reflection on their mould.

My mind – a snakes wedding, guests are now my tenants,
Rent free occupation, I work to shed this penance.
With pain still deep within my heart, of friends I’ve lost too soon,
The call I made that day to Nath’, preserved a thousand moons.

I didn’t feel that brave at all, compartments fit to burst,
This wave was all too big for me, my resilience – a curse.
Our friendship founded firmly on, sport and rum no judgements,
He led me off the field, and left the morally repugnant.

Finally I’m not ashamed, of reaching out and crying,
Toxic masculinity, dismantled now and dying.
The hardest call I’ve had to make, contents now not clear,
Clarity remains – his pride, my bravery from fear.

I’ve only just begun to walk, into this new adventure,

Time I know I must invest, my personal debenture.

To concentrate and focus less, on others thoughts and words,

Take the reins and tame, my responses to the world.

I hope these words they resonate, for some that read this rhyme,
If just one soul is reached like me, who rarely shares his life.
Which leads him to stretch, reach out, as life too often smothers,
We all just need to open up, the world – she needs our brothers!

PEDROBATPOET ©️ 2021
www.pedrobatpoet.com