B.H.H. Burns

Where does one find trust?
When each bridge you’ve built
was broken and burnt by those
whom you believed would be
your source of solidarity.

Where does one find trust?
When the ship to which
you trussed the sails of Hope
was wrecked upon the coast
of cold and barren apathy.

Where does one find trust?
Has it gone to ground?
Is it even now hunkered down
deep within its lair that lies
somewhere beneath one’s self-belief?

Instead, should we just
turn the words around –
And rather than ask
‘Where can one find trust?
Ask whether trust wants to be found…

Fearless
yet not reckless,
Bold
but not thoughtless,
Kind
yet not compliant,
Strong
but never violent,
Tough
but not indifferent,
Simple
yet not ignorant,
Decisive
yet willing to believe,
Curious
but never naive.

All these things I try to be,
Though they may not come easily.
(Inspired by #writtenriver prompt The Bold Spirits)

In passion’s Purgatory dwells
The most exquisite form of hell –
A pit of anonymity
Where hearts are kept in agony,
A place where cursed souls are caught
Obsessed and tortured by the thought
Their One True Love may one day see
How perfect both their lives could be
If only their two hearts were bound
together, in love so profound
it can save the soul forsaken
So the other must awaken –
For it is surely destiny
and not a fallen fallacy.
(Inspired by #DimpleVerse prompt ‘Limerence’)

Take each kick in the teeth
which you receive
as a brilliant opportunity
for you to grow
a whole new row
of sturdy, pearly whites.

After each set back
get back up and fight
– do not adhere to fear
but write
and let your words burn brighter
than they ever did before.

For though your ego’s sore
you must ignore
those vain and unjust roars
that emanate from an endless source of
vague and aimless self-pity.

So keep growing, and keep showing
those pretty teeth;
Keep exploring new ways
to make them gleam;
for the supporting plinth
from which they spring
is a resilient, brilliant diamond jaw.

Canvas damp with chromatic tears

These brushed-away impressions
These barely-there expressions
These faint and flawed depressions
like mere suggestions
of the intensity
that is what my life has meant to me.

These pale, pastel patches reveal

Nothing more than shadow-play
And like whispers, none may
hear what they say
No sooner made, then fade away
in the cold, bold light of day.
(inspiration SableSwanVerse prompt ‘Watercolor’)

There’s surely nothing sillier,
Than the tale of the escaped killer,
who goes on the prowl
in a trench coat and cowl
And a hook of the purest silver.

And when this psycho’s attacking
He slices in a precise pattern:
There’s no sloppy stabs
Or haphazard jabs,
As he balks at the thought of just hacking.

This madman is far from mundane,
So don’t dismiss this myth with disdain,
That’d be uncouth
And there’s always some truth
In a legend that is urbane.
(Inspired by #TLPoetry prompt ‘Myth/Legend’)

Living in a ghost town.

Haunted by the spectres
of other people’s sins.

On all sides hemmed in.

Still caught by the fetters
that had kept me down –
That had taught me to feel
I was imaginary,
And no more than a spectre,
A shade in your shadow,
A waste of a wraith, so
unfit to be seen.

But now I know.

I must let go of Limbo,
Break free from Hades, and
return to the real world
Where I can once again grow,
Flourish and show
the beauty that flows all through me.
(Inspired by #MadVerse Prompt ‘We Are Dust And Shadow’)

These antipathetic pedants
choose to spew their spurious life lessons
in fitfully furious successions
of tweets, streaked with weak expletives.

These pixilated pipsqueaks seek to speak
with such a dearth of tact, that
(added to their aversion to fact)
it serves merely to render their weirdly
distended versions of the truth
as truly foolish and uncouth
(and quite profusely useless too)
as time and logic always prove.

So these masters of glasshouses
waste away their days espousing lies
whilst sitting safely behind their lines
of glittering, brittle screens;
Where, encased in anonymity,
they belittle better people’s dreams
as, bit-by-bit, they whittle down
their victim’s self-esteem.

And yet, these crown princes of pedantry
(and princesses of incessant jealousy)
altogether fail to see
that their faulty, paltry, pathetic polemic
is endemic to their species;
The one now known (if truth be told)
as the ruthless, toothless
troll.
(Inspired by #microprompt ‘Web’)

Dig down deep, my darling,
Burrow through your buried sorrow,
Drill and prize through those fossilized
dreams, and prayers, those layers
of sentiment like sediment,
That form such firm impediments
to your deep-dwelling goal.

For there within your core
you hold the goldmine of your soul,
A place laid to waste with silt,
Obscured by other people’s guilt,
Yet underneath their lies, still filled
with ore of purest Hope.

So dig down deep, my darling,
And find the greatest gift of all
which, whether it be big or small,
Is yours to own – and yours alone;
There’s no way that they can take it,
Nor buy or sell, steal or break it,
For Hope is gold only your soul keeps –
So dig down, darling, dig down deep.

Tonight, my dreams float like driftwood.
Like flotsam from an empty wreck,
Whose shredded sails slap, flap and flail
like dying fish caught in a net;
Such do my dreams now seem to me.

Tonight, Hope flies on broken wings.
Besieged by Fate’s four fickle winds
blowing hot and cold and high and low
in a storm so unremitting,
Hope can only admit defeat.

So perhaps, for tonight, all is lost.
In the dark, my dreams seem shrouded;
Hope cloaked and conviction clouded
by this darkness that surrounds me,
And confounds my clarity.

So I must just hold on til dawn.
Because I know when light returns,
My eyes will yearn to readjust;
My soul will seek enlightenment, as
my mind mind becomes cognizant
of my ability to cope
with all life throws at me.
(Inspired by #MadVerse prompt We Never Sleep/We Want To Live)