Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: poem

  • Poem: Overlooked – 06/03/20

    Poem: Overlooked – 06/03/20

    We so often overlook those who should be
treasured in our lives,
those stoic, and brave, and loving,
and loyal,
who are there for us to lean upon,
exclusive and selective,
they’ve been chosen and choose to be 
continually here for us.
 
Yet our hearts pull away,
they are failing in many measures,
to look after the meaning,
the extended love,
we have no gratitude for some of our beings.
 
Whether we are horrid, cruel or unkind,
for whatever reason,
there is this created divide,
and daughters and mothers,
sons and fathers,
cousins and uncles,
and brothers and sisters,
lovers and best friends,
the allegiances becoming visibly divisible,
the divides unlikely to aid the other
whom is extending their hand or arm to the another.
 
And how their stomachs twist and turn at understanding
their love has been thrust forth and away
into a circumstantial day where their 
emotions and concern
are withering, forgotten,
lost,
by the foibles of the intended receiver,

and there are moments where one of the parties 
simply wishes to crack,
due to the bitter betrayal cast with 
little thought by the receiver,
and sadness, depression will set in,
perhaps it’ll take months to repair the trust
and break down those walls.
 
So easily we can pass over
but so easily we can be passed over ourselves,
if only we opened our hearts to true love and comfort,
we’d understand those close to us in our lives,
even further,
they hold only the best intentions for ourselves.
 
So quieten down our passive animosity
and maybe they'll accept that sometimes 
some are unwilling to be reached,
perhaps in time our barriers will open,
the gates parting ways
and permission to let another inside our hearts and minds
will be accepted,
these moments will be everything,
this is when truthful emotions will be well received.  
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by 733215 from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Holding Charge – 05/03/20

    Poem: Holding Charge – 05/03/20

    Will I hold charge? I wonder. 
Will electricity pass through me and back out to them?
I contemplate how my mind will handle the surging volts,
Will it crumble or will it take the brunt?
 
Perhaps they do not know precisely what they are doing,
How to discover whether the procedure is a success?
A general turn around in mood, I’m expected to about-face,

I’d like to thwack someone out cold, 
he or she who approved this cruelest decision,
But hey,
Doing so would warrant more charging,
And the thoughts of this hardens my face.
 
I’m out of control,
My moods have escalated,
Neither the nurses nor doctors can control me,
Plan A for me: out cold,
Electrocute,
See how she is later that morning.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by 024-657-834 from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Flailing – 04/03/20

    Poem: Flailing – 04/03/20

    There have been many years of flailing,
my life lacking in solid intent,
and I wonder, where am I going,
am I even progressing?
Hoping for something to shoulder all the weight from my listless life.
 
It’s as though I am simply floating in a mass of water,
stagnant appears to be the tune,
the water dank,
murky,
like my lacking of good fortune.
 
I used to be so focused,
attentive and driven,
full of concentration,
dedication to my art,
my music,
my academia,
the processes.
 
Now, I am simply waiting to expire,
growing older by the second,
each tick a stretch from the previous,
to the finality of my last.
 
I wish for something solid to aim for,
something to hope for,
something which I can reach for,
to impress upon myself,
to enliven and enrich my soul.
 
But my dreams seem so far off
and lofty,
and unlikely to come to pass,
I can dream and dream
but surely someone who has become like me
will only finish last.
 
And the truth of the matter is
I am here breathing,
stealing away others’ rightful air
with my pathetic breaths which amount to little,
no,
nothing,
I am nothing anymore,
not what I used to be,                
burned away are my successes.
 
And my desire for excesses,
all ceremonial,
seem an apparent method of
ridiculous and ostentatious showing of invisible wealth.
 
Because,
while I like to sparkle and I love to shine,
the gems upon my fingers
and around my neck
are really the only things about me lately worth drawing the eye.
 
I realise my tone is morose,
that I am lacking in lustre within my words,
although lifeless and downtrodden feels commonplace
from someone who used to outrageously feel.  

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

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  • Prose Poetry: A Land of the Free – 02/03/20

    Prose Poetry: A Land of the Free – 02/03/20

    I fly off, toward a land of the free, where I can soar with my wingspan so wide not even dragons could watch without envy. Their narrowed eyes and aching hearts would speak of something so paining and green that neither head nor heart could be altered, though to be seen with these beasts would be a dream.
 
I am a spectacular bird of the skies, my feathers six feet long, yay high, and of a particular, peculiar colour, tan dipped with white and rose, I am seen throughout the skies daily, my presence is always known.
 
I am on a journey to the land of the free where I will land and find myself among other birds of prey who do not want to capture any more, to kill life. Where we are all equal, soaring, travelling across the craggy and green ground, where we meld with one another, sociable, never disastrously cruel or unkind.
 
The dragons pass me overhead, their keen red beady eyes are searching the ground for me, but instead I rise above them, flourish by flourish of my wings the wind around me grows, and I smile unto them, caw-cawing, as my species is known to express, in a manner so bold.
 
The dragons realise I am not a threat, in fact, I am here to escape their prosperous land, where animals such as rats and mice – my favourite – were available ongoing. There was no competition to capture such meals and it was never left to chance. They simply scurried before me, as though begging to be taken, but now, I am in the land of the free, where no lives will be taken.
 
This includes mine. I wave off the dragons, and smiling, they rise into the sky, leaving myself and my others to decide what to do with our now guilt-free lives.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Parker_West from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Free Falling – 02/03/20

    Poem: Free Falling – 02/03/20

    Out of the window
where my tears fall, fall, fall,
rich and ravenous am I for the salt 
which is encompassed by all.
 
They sting my eyes, 
this liquid drawn from the depths of my despair,
the lingering victimisation of my soul,
I don’t want to become air.
 
I feel real, more alive
when the salt water of my form stings me,
it ails my orbs,
a pair once so bitter and jaded in their viewing
of a world where I’d come undone.
 
There appears nothing worth saving,
a tumultuous wind untamed,
randomised about my body,
my crazed hair,
that my face is seemingly effaced,
there is no longer anything there.
 
Perhaps the salted tears are corrosive,
they are acidic, perchance,
I linger on the thought too long,
it seems preposterous,
and I chide myself for knowing that what I am assuming
is incorrect.
 
I’m in but a daydream,
a nightmare,
a living fantasy?
 
If only I wished to no longer breathe, 
I’d take this nightmare with me,
allow it to launch off a precipice
and grow and bloat and steal
every living atom from me.
 
But then here’s the catch,
I’d have to disappear willingly,
and there is no chance of that, is there?
I can’t allow some people their dreams.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Karen Smits from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Little Purple Soldiers – 01/03/20

    Poem: Little Purple Soldiers – 01/03/20

    I am astounded,
heart beating wildly,
with adrenaline surging freely,
a source of income for the bravery,
a tipping palette,
the grapes scatter, you see.
 
Fruit befitting an emperor
yet here before little old me,
I am in a quandary –
what should I do with these little soldiers before me?
 
They’re glowing purple,
why, what an amazing sort to take on,
I pick one up,
taste it,
amazed,
astounded by the lusciousness,
I take another one.
 
Will my emperor mind?
How will he react knowing his shiny soldiers
are under attack?
Intrigued he might be,
that I’m saving them in my very own ceramic bowl,
perhaps I’ll claim they are for him.
 
For, this is not a battle,
this is the opposite:
a rescue, their salvation!
If it were not for me,
who knows where they would be,
scattering themselves before another,
evil, deducing,
she or he?
 
No, I am their saviour,
and now look,
my emperor enters the humid room,
where his purple glowing soldiers await him
for his taste buds and his desire.
 
The look upon his face is priceless,
anything but callous,
in fact, gracious and full of kindness,
with such gentility he plucks the closest from
a group of three,
the third of the triplet
he sucks and chews with ease.   
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

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  • Poem: The Others – 28/02/20

    Poem: The Others – 28/02/20

    The others watch me lazily,
yet with intent,
from their quiet area of silent judgement,
it is as though I am being assessed for living
and breathing,
such a scoundrel I am,
I must turn the tables,
to impress!
 
Yet why bother
when these individuals are perpetually displeased?
There seems little point in exacerbating the situation
with a further moment that would actually come across as amazing,
divide the divide!
 
Indifferently though, they blink,
what is the generational gap between us three?
nay I bother now for assessment and
tidings which are built upon comeuppance,
because I’ll sell you this: --
the image is quite diseased,
and its feelings explore me from within,
it wants to attack with ease.
 
The virus enters my system,
wreaking, ravaging,
I am now one of them,
how I wish to breathe freely
without a chest full of bricks,
and now I understand the truest meaning
of a vice-like grasp and grip,
I’ll tell you this:
my spirit will go on,
despite the others’ who belligerently sit there,
stroke their chins,
and sip special tea with posh leafed airs.  
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Purple Girl – 27/02/20

    Poem: Purple Girl – 27/02/20

    He tells me he has seen a girl,
with vivid purple hair shining in the sun,
according to him she walked with great presence
away from him,
her face was hidden,
yet her aura shone,
with flecks of blue,
and green and gold,
if I cared to know I would look these up,
the energy, the auric balance of this being,
who captured his heart this very day.
 
He brings her up in conversation,
several times, likely unintentionally
but because he is compelled,
I remind him of the girl in rainbow garb
who I saw around my house many years prior,
like her, he would never lay eyes upon this purple haired girl again.
 
No, these are the people we view once in a lifetime,
for some reason they bless our day and our minds,
filling us with their memories,
that there is something spiritually inclined,
that far off in the distance their presence really
isn’t as far away as the colours may seem,
near us,
holding us,
are the thoughts we have,
of our desired, wholesome dreams.
 
One may state I should have been affected by
the idea she mesmerised him,
completely took his breath away,
although he did wax lyrical about this vision,
I knew that she meant something to his day.
 
I cannot permit a sense of jealously,
a sense of misery because she captured his heart,
for in the mere seconds he watched her
leave the station and head north-east,
his heart enlivened,
and she can be thanked for this,
she managed it in her departure.

In fact, I am pleased
he has had this beauty to lay his eyes upon,
not in the sense that he appreciates her wantonly,
but accepted her presence wholly and for what it is,
something exceptional,
something worthy of speaking and sharing.
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.

Image by SilviaP_Design from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Girlish Dreams – 26/02/20

    Poem: Girlish Dreams – 26/02/20

    fairy bread and toffee apples and Barbie dolls and cupcakes
pink princess outfits and friends' prematurely planned weddings
and skipping rope
and playing-house games
 
a little girl’s dreams
so simple and easy to please
those years in primary school
where we danced on the rocks like sprites with ease
 
but then my dreams grew stormy
I became complicated
the family's black sheep
depression set in and I never really knew
how different I was
I just felt so old,
unlike anything I’d ever even known
 
a tortured soul I felt myself as
a failure in friendships
yearning for relationships
good tidings rarely seemed to be brought my way
though talented it appeared the self-aggrandising nature
of my achievements and success bore me into the ground
nailing me
pinning me
driving me
down
down
down.
 
how I rose up was anyone’s guess
histrionic and glib?
I was never these.
but I smoothed over the rough edges of my undesired life
and made myself into something more,
for if I couldn’t be accepted as I was,
then by all means, I would exemplify my strife.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by peridotmaize from Pixabay 

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  • Poem: Geraniums – 24/02/20

    Poem: Geraniums – 24/02/20

    I glance at the geraniums,
It seems they glance sideways at me.
Some are happy, bubbly, cheery,
And others, they carry a known disease,
Of negativity among the cheer,
The mirth,
The banter,
The geraniums are not completely innocent,
No, some were willing to barter.
 
Some have exchanged their good looks for power,
The ability to glare and stare at us while we
Glance back and forth with horror,
At having come upon the enemies of the majority of these beauties,
Who have gone through struggles to rise above their
Common duties,
These beautiful flowers are not all cast in the light
Of wonder,
Because some made a willing trade,
Their morals and appearance have gone under.
 
Why would a flower trade for power?
What could a flower possibly do?
I do not know,
You do not know,
Perhaps the mystery here lies in the shrivelled petals
And leaves which are dying,
Silently begging to be pruned.
 
I suppose the deception coupled with the power that
A geranium has traded their beauty for
Could be simply this,
A rising,
A surging,
An engulfing whiteness,
An ability to make a viewer come completely undone.
 
The geraniums smile and smile away
And there are only a few within the bunch which
Could ruin our day.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

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