Purpose

She, born of the forge and cast from the pyre,

The fire of her birth soon vanished to iron,

Cold and lifeless, but still with a purpose

And then, from the worthless womb of coals

She falls.

Her sisters, countless in their tumble

Collide and stumble to the four corners

Of the earth.  Rapidly consumed

Exhumed for a thousand years

Or perhaps two…

Here she, in the wood of the punished

Blemished the leather that still bears

Her name.

And the pain that she drove

Into carvings of old grow mould

From the sacrifice of divinity flesh.

And as time burns away it leaves nothing

But her rust in the dust of the world,

Unfurled in a shroud that covered

The man of men.

But she, who knew nothing of hate

Was but fates victim as her captors abused her,

Turned her and used her to decimate;

Eradicate, annihilate the son of the stars,

As the hammer of fear drove her in once, again,

And again,

And again.

What was left?  But a crack in the earth

And a splintered cross in the dirt,

As the holders of sceptres washed the blood

From their hands at the feet

Where the forsaken stands

As they turn and dissolve in the sands.

But she stayed and she tightened her grip

And relieved he (who shall not be named)

From the pain infused by the vanity

Of men.

But do not blame her, for she simply did

What she was so effortlessly created

To do.

And in the cremated remains

Of the ashes of history,

Scorched by the hate of men,

Here you’ll find her just lying,

Sitting so flawlessly;

Silently waiting to have purpose again,

And again,

And again.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Ironic

Dying under the weight of unsaid words.

Captured, like birds in cankered cages,

Flightless and futile, broken with ages,

As they perch and rot to the reading

From ironic pages.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Beneath the Black Atlantic

Her body lays at rest in the abyss,

An endless darkness, through eternities.

Four days she spent exploring April’s mists,

Two hours she spent drowning in her seas.

A breathless night enticed her on at speed;

The greatest moving object of the earth,

But here among the greatest of the sea’s,

Her fate is sealed by shards of arctic birth.

When diamonds of the north caressed her coat

And opened up her buttons to the world,

She strained to keep her iron soul afloat,

Before her armour rapidly unfurled.

The icy water slipped its way inside

And pulled her bladed bow towards the black;

She rose until the oceans she defied;

So riled Poseidon broke the Titans back.

And rapidly the darkness overcame,

No longer could she fight the cruel torrent.

The final snuff of her combustion flame

Engulfed her in a blackness, abhorrent.

Into the black Atlantic she dissolved,

And slowly slipped below the glassy waves;

To take with her four years of dreams, annulled;

To drag with her two thousand souls, enslaved.

And far above, below an ancient night,

The cries of freezing masses start to fade

And with the final breath of those in plight,

The silence, as before, was thus replayed.

She disappeared to plains beyond the stars,

Her form was ripped to pieces in the depths.

Incurable the deepness of her scars;

Immeasurable the plummet to her death.

So now, her body rests beneath the sea,

As slowly she erases from the page.

Soon history will hold her memory

And legend will endure her through the age.

But do not curse the ship that sailed from dreams,

The ship they falsified unsinkable,

One hundred years decayed the lies at seams

And showed mans ignorance at her downfall.

And as the broken giant turns to dust,

A decomposing shrine to tragedy,

Her legacy reminds man past his lust,

To ne'er again defy the mighty sea.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

In Commemoration of the Centenary of the Sinking of the RMS Titanic, April 14th 1912

On April 14th 1912, The RMS Titanic, the largest, grandest, most luxurious and deemed safest ship in the world, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg at 11.40pm and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later, taking 1,514 people with her to the bottom of the North Atlantic (by utter coincidence, this poem, including its title, has 1,514 characters).  The disaster was met with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life, and led to many public enquiries and ultimately, a complete overhaul of the then outdated safety regulations governing ships at sea.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the disaster, and many commemorations and memorial services will take place to once again remember those that were lost, and also renew interest in the legends and stories from that fateful night one hundred years ago. 

I've always had a personal fascination with the Titanic, the stories, the nobility and the final hours on that April night, and wrote this poem of the sinking of the great ship, and the consequences that echo on through the ages as my own personal dedication to the commemorations of the tragedy.

Found

And here

Amongst the shattered pieces

Of an annihilated sky

It lies.

Long was it lost

The cost of finding it, high

And the price, great

But the wait, justified.

Dignified in its fragile state

It waits to be held once again

And then,

As true as the love that bore it,

And wore it for so many lifetimes

Gone by, it awakes

And blesses, caresses those

That long to be with it;

That were lost just to find it again.

Finally, I stand here before it myself

In health, once more, and recognise it so instantly

It seemed lost so infinitely

But seemingly, finally we’re together 
Again.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Fallen

I hit the earth at speeds surpassing all

And dug in deep as dirt smothered my back;

The daylight came then disappeared to black

And left me buried with my broken soul.

As eons dripped away at timeless pace,

I slept and waited for the time to pass,

My thoughts were lost remembering the past;

My dreams were haunted by a vivid face.

I clawed the earth to sink much further still

And hid my scars from surfaces above;

I fell in ancient chasms void of love

And plummeted through chambers void of will.

My hope lay shattered, scattered all around,

As madness quickly dug its claws in deep,

The demons worked their way into my sleep

And tore my body up upon the ground.

As my mistakes entombed me like a cave

And darkness overcame eternally,

I cast my soul into a blackened sea

And let it sink beneath the icy waves.

And as I reached the furnaces of hell,

I let my body buckle in the heat.

Deserve it all in essence of the feat,

To lie and blister where at once I fell.

But do not pity me, I am to blame,

My choices choked the love I had forgot

And as my heart and soul begin to clot,

I disappear among the burning flames.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

The Hawk

Life,

Unbalanced yet unwavering

Sits like a hawk on brittle twigs,

Waiting.

The winds shake her

And the rain soaks her

But she remains there,

Unbalanced, but unwavering.

The dive to the earth is far,

And the risk, high,

But the prize is just.

So she watches,

Waiting.

A break in the clouds

Reveals her endeavour

And with the rustle of her feathers

She spreads her wings,

Casting shadows

Against the dying light 

Of an endless sun;

Soaring willingly,

Into oblivion.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Lost

A face of steel is easy 
When hidden behind.
Lost in false hope,
Drowning under memories
That my shoulders cannot hold;
They buckle in sharp flaws;
Watch me break at dawn
And vanish into dust.
My soul entrenched
Under a cotton shroud,
Unable to rise.
I will never again stand 
So boldly.
Time, the only healer
Has stopped,
And I am lost
In forgotten thoughts
As hopelessness ensnares.
And in the dying embers
Of the vigil flame
I lay and blister
Until the very breaking of the world.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin 

Broken Alone

The trees, so hidden well by thickened wood,

While senses hide behind the deep despair,

He, ridiculed by those that can’t but should

And persecuted by those that once did care.

As fingers point and clone the loaded gun;

They choose a victim crying on his knees,

To watch him beg for solitude, in one,

And disregard his perennial pleas.

The rights and wrongs of progress blister quick

And fall apart to rapturous applause.

For paths of devils spawn are lit at wick

And decompose before his sharpened claws.

For as the darkness shrouds with efforts lost,

The poisons of the earth are thus entwined.

His tears fall hard and to his conscious’ cost,

His evolution ceases from behind.

And all the while the hands of time do turn,

He passes those that choose to stay their feet.

For oil on oceans life will always burn;

He swims and does not drown in his defeat.

But do not punish him, he knows no more,

His misery is real and chokes his breath,

For it is all he knows to thus endure

And now must live a love beyond its death.

For sadness herein sits effortlessly,

Where ignorance is thickly overgrown,

But when the clouds do lift, that’s when they'll see,

That never is a heart broken alone.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Enola

She rose into the air, roaring;

Soaring like the phoenix born of the ash

As the flash of morning sunlight kissed her wings,

Reminding them all of greater things,

Amongst such fragile beings.

Her beating heart shudders

And she flexes her steel shoulders

Shaking off long hours of inaction

For love of a new distraction

In the fraction of beauty above.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Dante's Ball

Withered gowns flutter in the acrid air,

Hair, sculpted into cathedrals

Welcomes the thralls of worshippers

At the scorched gates.

The fates have brought them here,

And now amongst twisted rocks,

To the clocks of the demons trance,

They dance.

Tortured chiffon ignites to the tune

Of wailing sirens atop pylons of bone,

Here, beneath a dome of fire.

The earthly desires of the guests of honour

Are lost under a decoration of chains,

The pains of their passing endure

As they step to the molten floor

And sway to oblivions beat.

Arrivals from the bowels of eternity

Walk morbidly through

And swarm to the palace of pyre,

Where the thief and the liar clasp hands

And cavort through quartz chasms

Below immeasurable fathoms of flame.

But eternal the hustle, boundless the bustle

Amongst souls that shall never be reclaimed.

And all the while with the most insidious glee,

The hellion conducts his most malevolent symphony.

But still they will dance, lost in the trance

Of a dancer that knows nothing more

Than the dance.

And as the spectres shuffle in imperishable turn,

Here to burn to the songs of an evil, sublime,

Until the very death of time.

Copyright © 2012 by Simon Austin

Christmas

A frozen dawn crackles into view

Cottoned concrete, new and flawless

Lays ready for the impression;

For the session to begin.

Footprints puncture the pristine powder

As the march of families reveal familiar paths

Soon enough, they gather around sparkling trees

Propped on their knees, thankful for the company

And grateful for those that can join them

This Christmas day.

Spiced apples dance in the soupy air

Fair smells of roasting foods entertains the senses

As the sharing commences amidst happy chatter

The clatter replaced by the rustling

Of silvery sheets, sparkling

Against the crackling firelight

A wonderful sight, adorned with smiles

As the paper shreds in chaotic joy

And piles up in quiet corners

Into marbled alloys

The merriment drifts across sleepy towns

As crystals, sparkled with champagne beads

Greet to the sounds of laughter and cheer

A feast of no equal is polished

The sequel of which will repeat for days

Whilst the haze of the wine

After much time turns words

Into the most mirthful of mischief.

Witness the wonder of this time spent together

In company of those that we love

And remembering those that are no longer with us

That were lost in the year soon to pass

But we’re thankful for the time we still have to share

Under the remembrance air of the past
To wish all that I love a magical day

And a very merry Christmas.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin

Under the Shadow of Grief

Weight of the earth in thick rock and sorrow

Wish for release from regretful tomorrow

Burden the past as it blisters the brain

Force back the torment and choke on the pain

Weeks roll in seconds through forgotten time

Meaningless chatter within purposeless rhyme

Drifting in masses but walking with ghosts

Swimming the oceans but drowning at coasts

Clouded in judgements whilst clear in denials

Begging for inches then giving up miles

Facing blank walls when staring through spaces

Insincere pity from false smiling faces

Absence of feeling and sick of existence

Happiness muted through tortured persistence

Eyes full of rivers with hearts full of frost

And a world full of strangers in a paradise lost

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Winter

Mist of midnight frost on shards of glass,

Peppered snow at rest on rigid grass,

Wind is still but whispers sleeted breaths,

Threatened creatures sleep in frosted deaths.

Frozen branches drop their tears for art,

As fashioned moonbeams split the world apart.

Air is thick with fog, heavy and blue,

Ground of steel is crowned with icy dew,

Crystal flakes descend at leisure’s pace,

Dusting whispered powder about face.

Hazy lights are bled of upper zones,

Noise distorts to ghostly baritones.

Man-made stars blink hard in absence heat,

Natural flows buckle in jagged pleat,
Roaring coals crack hard amongst the pyre,

Roasted bricks irradiate the fire.

Plated sheets of black coat corners new,

Splitting asphalt rocks at once in two.

Purple lights loom high above; surreal,

Endless twilight bleeds the ethereal,

Objects brought to life solidify,

Underneath an obsidian sky.

Sunlight glances, cuts the brume to splinter,

As life accepts the thick blanket of winter.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

The Titan

Too late, Titan lost

Touch the diamonds of the north

Fill her chest

Soak her lungs

See her drown to the ripening

Of stars

Body and soul deep in the water

Gliding softly at first

But the strength of the sea

Takes her slowly

Then quickly

As the mirror of night

Drags the willing

To die

And a sky

Full of sapphires

Gazes down on those left without hope

Hear them choke

On the crystals

Of god

The bed welcomes

She

Whilst above, hopelessly

Those that struggle to breathe

Do so slowly

Mournfully

The queen of the waves

Regretfully saves 
None

And bows her head

In acceptance

Regret at once

That a man

Who is full of the strength

To have all

Sent the irons of earth to the oceans

With but ignorance in tow

See the spirit of death

Rub his hands

Without passion

And pull in those lost

In a most desperate

Fashion.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Two Minutes

Distant thunder rings out across pristine lands,

Hands, weathered by life’s lessons reach for heart and crown

And settle down for two minutes of peace.

The modern world ceases unfurling and rapidly curling

To once more remember those long since deceased,

For some, not so long, for the drums of war do not stop

Just because the earth has grown wiser with ages,

For the pages of history continue to be written in blood.

And whilst we cannot erase the stain of the battle

So often in vain, for those silent two minutes

We remember the bullets that cut down our heroes

And ended their turmoil’s in trenches and deserts

In distant lands, on foreign soils and plains.

Hats clasped in hands as heads bow towards stone relics

As the old boy picks his moment to rise from the chair

He is bound to these days, the metal reminder

Still sits in his back, where the three seconds of lapsed concentration

Cut him down to become yet another hero of nations.

His knees buckle under the strain of age, but his page

Is already turned and his strength has returned for

Two minutes, no more, as he stands to endure

And to honour his brothers that lie in poppy strewn fields.

His eyes still burn with the life of that man that marched

Across shell shocked lands. His strength therein peaks,

And the tears that have so long stung the back of his soul

Roll forward and fall to his battle scarred cheeks.

A minute has passed and still the silence is true

The boy with blue eyes rocks forward in his chair

And tries once more to steady his unbalanced frame.

The reminders of war are raw here and he bites on his lip

To try not to slip and let out yet another cry from the pain.

His phantom feet ache, and his one good arm is held firm

To his head in salute; resolute, that for one minute more

He will honour his brothers that lay strewn across sands

In distant desert lands that are still finding space

For their graves.  The cenotaph helps with his strength

And watches over the boy, holds the wreath, burdens grief

For his young haunted mind. But he still makes the time,

To forget his own burdens and remember those now underneath.

The thunder returns as chimes of distant bells ring about

And signs the ending of two minutes silence. Then, rising up

Above the retuning abruption, the eruption of bugles sounds out.

The Last Post echoes beyond barriers of history and time.

Divine souls lost in the eons of conflict once more return

From the grave, from the sea and the urn

And stand once again at the shoulders of those that remain.

For many still carry the pain of the injuries, memories of war,

But they endure, for their brothers have paid the ultimate price

For freedom cannot be won without the sacrifice of heroes

That we remember this day. And remember once more,

Until the time comes again to caress the faces of lost friends

In places beyond the senseless destruction of war.

But for now, just two minutes in a silent November,

Whilst we will never understand the loss, 
We will always remember.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

 

For my Uncle Gary x

Covered Tracks

The orchard trees left petals of blood on the ground,

The sound of wood and metal shaking hands

In cold winds, rattled through souls

Lost within the smother of snow

Unknown destinations map out in clouds of misery

The mystery of tracks leading forward

Toward the end of the lines entwined within the depths

Of human annihilation.

Aspirations eradicated beyond pointless skies

As eyes look out through splintered cracks

In frozen oak.

Smoke on the horizon entices as tracks continue on

Through places well trodden, sodden

With the tears and the blood of ludicrous life.

The well written strife of those whose story was never told

Are old and meaningless, clotted within the soil of one-point-one

Lost under a sun of glowing atoms; forgotten and rotten

In the obituaries of history and time.

But the tracks remain prodded

As the trains of the damned roll on across white waves

Where the slaves are absurd and they scream out the words

Of books that are burning and pushing their ash to the sky.

The lies of the men spread like fire and fill the desire

Of a nation that is blinded by death.

Understand though that some have been left by the tracks

Were the monsters forgot to look back and select

The delectable pain and to punish the same

And they wish they were lost in the boiling

Combusting of those that will burn;

That are fit for the pit, for the urn

And there still behind oak as the smoke rises up to an eternal sky

Those that die, they have done so in vain.

And as the slain turn to dust in the ravenous furnace

Where the ultimate end to the life of the man

Is decided, not by those who cannot

But simply, by those, who can.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 


This poem is based and inspired by the trains that took victims of the Holocaust to the
'Gates of Hell' at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1942-1945

The Nazis established their largest and most infamous extermination camp at Oswiecim, near Krakow, in Poland and called it Auschwitz.

Between 1940 and 1945 they killed more than a million people there - the vast majority of them Jews but also Poles, Roma (Gypsies) and Russian prisoners of war.

Trains filled with victims from throughout occupied Europe arrived at the camp almost every day between 1942 and the summer of 1944.

Punishment

Caliginous cage at the ends of the earth,

Undignified prisoner of unnatural birth.

Beset by insanity; skinless and raw,

Cankered, decrepit and burnt to the core.

Bloodied and battered, left there to die,

Hidden in shadows, absent of sky.

Tortured and tattered; blinded and deaf,

Screaming in agony, longing for death.

Chained to the walls in a bottomless well,

Enraptured by demons… shackled to hell.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Fickle Fire

Burning brightly, fickle fire,

Gift of heaven, man’s desire,

Boil the ocean, all admire,

Songs in honour, demon choir,

Brightly fickle, burning fire,

Born of heaven's dark desire.

Flicker fire, fickle flame,

Out of power, out of pain,

Born so quickly, lost the same,

Move the earth through darker plain,

Fickle fire, flicker flame,

Lost before the pouring rain.

Flaming fire, brightly burning,

Boiling under planet, turning,

Hide the stars, the fate unnerving,

Warm the man, still undeserving,

Brightly flaming, fire burning,

Death in darkness, light in learning.

Flicker fire, burning fickle,

Deliquesce the ferronickel,

Freezed to forge the reapers sickle,

Cut to fever, blood in prickle,

Burning flicker, fire fickle,

Through deaths finger, lightly trickle.

Fickle fire, burning brightly,

Roaring flame from ember slightly,

Kiss the moth; consume the mighty,

Birth the dawn from ever nightly,

Fickle burning, fire brightly,

Praised on earth but cursed, almighty.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Mortality

I see him at my window tonight.

The moon, full and bright

Casts his dark shadow onto an icy wall.

A familiar silhouette, unmistakable,

Pressed against the pane.

The cold melts his breath into feathery diamonds

Running in thin veins down the thick glass.

His face, hidden and veiled in black

Glances my way and nods;

I nod back

Acceptingly. Suddenly,

The glass no longer divides,

Inside with me and glancing forward

Towards my funeral bed.

My head, frozen, near death

Funnels my sight towards him.

His thin frame stops at my side.

The immortal guide

Reaching his ancient hand towards mine,

Soon to be part of the fabrics

Of time.

And as the warmth of my life turns to frost,

Acceptingly.  Suddenly,

I am lost.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin

Amy

The breath had left her, not long ago.

Her face, pressed into the pillow

Drained black tears onto white linen.

Her fight had been lost; the long battle had ravaged her

And her iconic war paint scrawled ironic defeat in tracks

Down her pale skin onto paler sheets.

A motionless husk; as she lays there;
Her raven hair, unravelled from familiarity,

Falls delicately on her back,

Carefully caressing her cold shoulders;

Shielding her from the dawn of life from which now

She has withdrawn.

Soft silhouettes draped across pleated sails,

Her frail body, brittle and delicate, finally rested.

Tested beyond its limits, too high the cost

And too great the affliction.

Lost in the struggle of the addict

To the addiction.

And now her Palladian palace enshrines,

As the afternoon sun shines through gaps

In drawn blinds.

A silent room, ordered and decided,

Expects an arrival beyond the survival

Of the girl that had no more to lose.

In a time where spirits take spirits, she;

Three lifetimes lived in seven and twenty.

But here, at the very end in her empty home,

The girl that thought she was nothing,

Died for nothing,

Alone.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 



Amy Jade Winehouse
1983 - 2011



 



Dreamer

The space you stare into is vast,

I can see behind your glass-like gaze, the maze revealed

Is twisted and infuriating, concealed within

An enigma, wrapped in a riddle

And shrouded in mystery.

You whistle Dixie as the seconds

Unravel into days, unconnected to the world

As you collapse through the motions of time.

To you; sublime.

But a lapse in your absence brings you back to me

Briefly. And as quick as you came you are gone

Once again as you fly away off with the fairies,

The prairies of your isolate mind unravel before you

As you travel amongst them in awe.

The wondrous heat of a sun that’s not there

Warms your skin, which is cooled

By the wind in your hair that you’re so sure is real,

But it’s not.

You’ve forgot what it’s like to exist in the place

Where your face is caressed;

Where your presence is blessed every day, must I say

Anymore how I love you and need you here with me?

Not off in a place where I cannot be with you

My darling, come back to me.

Briefly.

But you’re gone yet again as your eyes roll to white

And your sight is emblazoned with visions of heaven,

The rapture entices, the vices of life

Are dissolved in a sapphire ocean.

Admire it darling but do not forget that the waters are shallow

The jade fields lie fallow

And the radiant sky is as empty and frozen as night.

I cannot offer perfection

But here your reflection is as true as the day

Is the day.

So please bring me back into view

And let me gaze once more on you and see all the beauty of life

In your eyes. Liberate from the lies,

Let your head fall from clouds to my arms

And you’ll be my redeemer, come back to me, dreamer

To exist with me here once again.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin