Three poems

Here are three of my old poems that I've decided to dust off so that my regular readers have something to read that they may not have seen before.

The first poem kind of summerises what I'm going through at the moment with my current bout of sleep disturbance.

Sleepless

Head pounding

The regular beating of an internal bass drum

Stomach churning

The digestive system performing back flips

Sweat pouring from the forehead

Mind racing at light speed, unable to stop.

“Try your relaxation exercises,” you think to yourself

An attempt that ends in failure

As your mind forces you to think about your breathing

Or else you’ll be tempted to stop.

Characters from stories you’re trying to write

Assert their thoughts into your head

Taking control of your consciousness

To prevent you from sleep.

So tired…

So tired…

Still unable to enter the exquisite Land of Nod

Fatigue set in hours ago

But still unable to sleep.

Read a book

The large dryly-written tome you bought for the purpose

Of closing down your mental faculties for sleep

But even that doesn’t work.

Surf the Net

Watch the TV

You look at the clock

It’s a quarter past three!

Pacing the room and giving a nasty glare

To the fast-asleep feline curled up in the chair

Five o’clock in the morning and starting to write

Woken up with a start

“Wake up, you lazy sod!  Did you have a good night?”

© Myles Cook, 2007

The second poem I have decided to post here sums up the spiritual and cosmic angst that I feel typifies the current state of the human condition although I suppose it could just apply to me.

Soul, Searching

Looking for answers to questions

That reveals one’s true inner heart

And helps to find one’s place

In the infinite universe of which we are a part.

The questions posed seem to have easy answers

Unless you work out the rules

That govern the giving of answers

To avoid one looking a fool.

“Who are you?”

A question that provides one with identity

If the answer one happens to find

Whilst failure leads one only to obscurity.

“What do you want?”

The question that is the key that unlocks the true calling of one’s heart

Opening exquisite vistas of possibility

For one’s real journey to start.

Two questions that can be used

To reveal the richness within one’s soul

Providing one with the directions

To allow one to reach one’s goal.

Two questions

Only one answer for each -

A quest for each living soul

To find one’s own path

And not merely be

Just another soul

Searching.

© Myles Cook, 2007

My final choice of poem is one that I wrote during the period of my marriage when I loved my wife and believed she still loved me.  Unfortunately, I was an emotional cripple by the time I met my wife and whilst I loved her dearly, I was unable to show that love properly - a subject that I will come back to when I post the final part of my account of my descent into depression.

The Hollow Man

I am the hollow man

A man without a soul

Animated only by necessity

A purely mechanical being.

I am the hollow man

I can no longer show my love

For the one person who means the world to me

When once it would have overflowed.

I am the hollow man

A man who is dead inside

But once I was an emotional man

One who would have cried

To see the man I have become

And to know my light has died.

© Myles Cook, 2005, 2006

I hope you enjoy reading these poems and that they go some way to giving you some insight into me as a person as well.

Feel free to comment!