Drowned/Out

Stream of Consciousness POV - Seabird Surge Velcro

This is my first experience taking part in the Stream of Consciousness POV workshop hosted by

Edith Bow

- thank you to Edith for organising this and also to

Jon T

for his prompt words Seabird, Surge, Velcro. I don’t know why I attached to this set of prompts specifically - it must have been the velcro!

I went old school for the stream part, letting my words flow onto the page - some of you will have seen my handwriting! Afterwards, I played around with the formatting to create a free verse poem.

I inhabit the dark side in my writing, sometimes exorcising personal demons, sometimes more general monsters. This piece feels both intensely personal and global at the same time. My mind feels a bit messy. Maybe I’m on the cusp of something, quite possibly because I have found such a wealth of phenomenal writing on Substack since committing to the platform at the end of last year. Mind blown? Maybe!.

I’ve really enjoyed this exercise and still have more prompts to choose from, thanks to

Emil Ottoman

Nick Winney

Keith Long

M.P. Fitzgerald - Graphomania

and

S.L. Stallings

and I’m looking forward to reading more prompt responses from them too.

Anyway - here’s my poem.

Hooks and loops and hurdles and hoops to jump over and through
and trip on the never-ending slip and the slide
and down the hill and all aboard, don’t step on the tracks
the train I will ride around the bend and
under
the hill and
over the bridge to
the vanishing point
where it all

ends

in total oblivion. 

Leap and deride the unceasing glide as I
fall
and I rise and I rise and I rise
on the rising tide, isobars colliding, temperatures rising.

The burn of the wind as it churns my skin
yearns for the chill and the thrill
the bitter pill of the turn of the year
and the scars and the fears and the hopes
dashed and lashed 
by the sea salt spray crash of the waves on my skin
stinging and flayed
spitting and crazed

When will it stop?

When will I
drop to my knees, begging, please
for forgiveness to someone, somewhere
riding on air currents singing, choirs of remorse, or is it vengeance? 

Of course. 

There is no rewinding, the clocks are not reversing, time is past turning
and the path is well-trod
my shoes are rough-shod
dirges prodding the earth
faces stare up from the sickening sod
my heels grind into the dirt and stamp out their mirth
brittle snapping bones, sinew-stretching
elegantly
- breaking. 

And the power is out, gone, goodbye
no more digital clocks blinking
no green luminescence
no cherry red incandescence
under waves, determined, I sink past the verminous rat-race
to the bottomless foul thoughts, 
despots determined.

Stop.

I. 

Stop.

In my tracks in my path in my mind’s eye of wrath
I relax into the closeout, the clamour, the ring of the hammer
the chime of the death knell, the opening bell to the start of the ending
chaotic, relentless, soothing, unending; lullabies are calling
pitching and yawing with the pull of the swell
all the circles of hellish depravity are calling and waiting to warn me
to burn me, to call me to the ashes and cinders
body fat rendered to a skeletal shadow
a fantasy of bones
a form of no matter
a mindless existence
all my thoughts weightless
lost in the ether
the world hangs beneath as I soar on the wind
watch the coastline receding, my memories bleeding, 
my heart in freefall, it sinks to the below times
the slow times, the gone times, the yonder, the before lands
the cliffs and the shorelines
I dance in rock pools with starfish
bladder-wracked in seafoam
just a bubble, just a whisper, featherlike, zephyristic, the past is futuristic.

I let it go, let it fade. 

Let it slip. 

The switch has been flipped
life flips into oblivion
power cut
and lights out. 

It’s over.

I’m 
Drowned
Out.