A thousand apologies for my recent ‘ghostly’ activities. Why ghostly? …Because ghosts don’t exist, silly. I have been enduring the long nights of procrastination, slaving away under the hot irons of laziness, and billowing the coals of ineptitude. Just kidding, I have been working two jobs and failing my MA – [Insert cheeky grin…and lager, lots of lager].

Anyyyyway.

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Meanwhile, in my lair, I have been crafting a new poem. Now, the poems I have posted thus far have just been some old junk that I found in my neighbour’s attic - writings of a younger mind and a younger soul. Now that life has damaged me a little more, I feel that my creativity may have reached depths that even Captain Nemo himself couldn’t fathom.

So, here is a fresh poem, straight from the gooey insides of my mind, and dripping with all the efforts I should be putting into something more useful. Nevertheless, find your love, your loss, and your days to be, in this poem – enjoy.

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A Foreign Pulling

It's louder now, that thing you seek;
A foreign pulling week by week.
Those dreadful beasts, on pollards perch;
Their beckoned beaks for feathers search.

Be not as them, that caw and crow;
You know not where those feathers go.
Your barbs and vanes, such that you truss,
Belay your name by calamus!
But still insist of you your plan;
With talons bearing all they can.
Nothing gained in of your rest -
Your song to rot around that nest.
The plump and perry of that fruit,
Is over tree and over root.
There are no leaves, nor twigs to bear,
For it is not your home out there.
Yet you wait for winding winds,
Or chances few that nature brings.
Be thick in air, you winged thing,
Make scared the life to which you cling.
Heed that calling, deep and down,
For it is calling louder now.
That foreign, pulling thing you seek,
Is calling stronger week by week.

Why am I now blind?

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Because of my excellence, of course!

…and, of course, I am kidding. However, I do have an affinity with this poem, and while you may be thinking “…but Dan, it’s your poem, of course you have an ‘affinity’ with it”, not every writer connects with their writing; writing can sometimes be just that – writing.

I like this poem because it speaks about…oh, wait…

[Spoiler Alert!]

…it speaks about the things you never did; the fears you never conquered; the dreams you never lived - all of these things that ‘pull at you’ with every passing year. Things you hope for your children to have, and for them to fly where you have fallen. You excuse these things for ‘a lack of readiness’, or in waiting for ‘the better time’ – there will be none. It is fear that rules you and, in old age, that will pass to regret. If you have an opportunity - take it. If you have the time – use it. And, by the gods, if you can be, be the best version of yourself – be great!

I wrote this poem for myself as, in my getting older, I feel this ‘pulling’ and I want not for regret.

I hope you have enjoyed my mind words. Sorry for getting all deep…it got a little deep, didn’t it?

Geronimo, Steemit!
Dan