Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: prose poem

  • Poem: Prosperous Knowing – 28/08/21

    Poem: Prosperous Knowing – 28/08/21

    While there may be times,
    occasions,
    where our world eases it way out of a desired page,
    when the messages sent our way are not the type
    that we would want to have saved,
    why, we wonder, is our pathway so twisted,
    so many offshoots for us to forcibly explore?
    I’ll tell you this,
    we must map this path stridently,
    assuredly capture it as ours.

    Do not wander down garden paths
    that seem too delectable to be,
    neither stride down avenues that tempt and tease
    with outrageously perfect dreams,
    for life requires us to work, and work hard,
    and the blessings that are granted to us,
    we will accept them with open arms.

    Understand the wisdom we encapsulate
    while struggling and experiencing ease of flowing,
    momentous knowing in that we are not
    limited by our past incorrect understandings,
    moving into one path, one street,
    one highway, with prosperous thinking,
    I enable myself with wandering and openly flowing,
    how will you carry yourself in that path you are at last knowing?
    With beauty of inner understanding?
    Or proud stature, stately knowing?

    While we are complete the way that we are,
    there is always room for improvements,
    in the manner that I know we are capable of,
    personal growth, consciousness, our development,
    soul journeying as we’d never known it.
    Now’s the time for us to find it,
    for this mission, this power,
    for us to embrace and enable it.  

    Copyright © 2021 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
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  • Prose: Chirping Crickets – 26/09/20

    Prose: Chirping Crickets – 26/09/20

    Male crickets chirp, signalling their romantic calamity. They know what they are seeking, whom they are aiming to have come into their world. But crickets; crickets, crickets, don’t we downplay their communication, assigning a meaning of humorous silence following a moment intended to be poignant, profound, or carry some other feeling?

    I used to love crickets as a child. I would hunt them for hours on end, following the sounds until hopefully, in the brush, I would pounce with jar in hand and happen upon one, to keep all of my own. I fancied having a cricket as a pet would be a grand affair. Sadly, I only ever succeeded at once catching one. They were often far too perceptive at hearing my lumbering human body’s approach and would suddenly hush with their song, thereby quashing my ability to reign victorious as a Cricket-Owning Queen.

    It makes me wonder, who else decides to silence themselves in order to avoid any unwanted behaviour or conflict? Who backs down, seemingly cowardly initially, but inherently wise in the end? For the world, with its youth and ignorance, with its body of fiery enemies and desires and wants and needs, can be dangerous for any little crickets to exist in, this is truth from my mouth which begs to be heard, all well as vowels formed to be seen.

    I used to want to capture bees as well. They were so beautiful and busy and perfect, that I wanted my own, even if for an hour, then I would return it to the safety of its pollen-filled world. Capturing a busy, occupied bee proved far easier than locating and capturing a garden cricket. Still, sadness then washed over me as I realised what I was doing, what had I done? I had captured something so wonderful which was meant to remain free in its own way. With a smile and a few comforting words, I gently released my unintentional prey, my beautiful companion if only for a few minutes of that day.

    And I hear them calling me again, I hear the buzzing of their fervent collections, I hear the shrill calling of the dances I took with crickets who surely smiled in wonder at my persistence, and I smile to myself at my childhood curiosity, and at knowing that nothing that calm, serene Nature created should be altered, should be changed, should be taken away from the comfort of their own damn home – how would I like it if I were plucked from the comforts of my very own abode?

    But crickets chirping in my memory tell me there’s no finer point to be made, nor a softer point to be emphasised, just to live life in harmony with the world, and we will get along perfectly fine.

    © 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
    Photo by Krzysztof Niewolny on Unsplash

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  • Prose Poetry: Divulging This – 21/07/20

    Prose Poetry: Divulging This – 21/07/20

    I don’t think it’s pertinent to share all. I don’t believe it is wise to give everything away; this is something I need to inherently grasp and know. Because throwing precious hurt and gnarled knots of hardened truth, for revelation’s sake, for honesty, for letting go, and giving it all away, it no longer always seems the right thing to do. But, I am who I am, and I will continue providing my hopes, my pain, my anguish, my joys to the wind, in the hopes that when these whisper, the conjoining of their pitches and hisses, perhaps I’ll truly understand how I was meant to be, to have lived a life free of err and sin, without selfish exploration and untidy needs. And try to understand: who would I have been if I had achieved these?

I will tell you this, I’ll continue to share, and these moments and opportunities seem always there; they will stoically sit, before me, before us all, because I’ve already jigged a jig, flamboyantly swept my form, sung my ballads, cast my hurt in the direction of the audience’s rows. The shrill, the unseemly, the affected, the melodies, strewn before you painfully, sometimes pitifully, I bare myself to you, my soul is on show. I’ve given and I’ve shared, and though I felt better for it, perhaps it’s not actually wise, is it, to divulge every single piece of it…

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.

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  • Poem: Welcomed Home – Text and Audio – 16/07/20

    Poem: Welcomed Home – Text and Audio – 16/07/20

    I welcome the rain,
it is cleansing away
the angst which seems to be
my permanent ailment.
 
I welcome its wash,
its ability to stream away
the grime of yesterdays.
 
I invite its arrival
for I know the longer I remain
being whittled away by
little droplets
hollowing me all around,
the more worthy I will feel,
with my brave ability to hold 
my head high with a beaming smile.
 
I grow emotional,
one eye – only the right –
tears up,
it is my regretful side,
the side I led with most,
my foot which began all
ill-fated travels,
paths which I took.
 
Right before left, I’d always
say in my head,
for some reason, the phrase stuck,
right before left,
not left before right,
still rings within my mind.
 
I throw off my outer layers,
step, with left foot,
further into the pummelling rain,
it is strangely pleasant,
its attack,
I’ve tuned out;
it’s mostly dulled, numbing pain.
 
In fact, it’s rather like a
needling sensation,
or what I’d imagine it to be,
the harsh drops begin to fall on an angle,
as though wanting to wash closer
with dire haste toward me.
 
I feel my skin begin to loosen,
or is it bubbling now?
Increased pain,
it’s probably for the best I shed
this outer skin,
for I am developing within,
a physical transformation will reflect this somehow.
 
My anguish is now lacking
as I peel back sheets of my bare layer,
I am a monstrosity, but I don’t mind,
I’ll eventually heal from this indelicate picture.
 
Pieces of me upon the ground, 
pieces of me all around,
away from myself!
Now I’m pink,
fresh-skinned,
a bare-faced woman soon to be welcomed home.

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

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  • Poem: An Illusion – Spoken Word and Text – 13/07/20

    Poem: An Illusion – Spoken Word and Text – 13/07/20

    Audio: An Illusion
    My hands present as aged and weary,
my flesh paper-thin and melting 
like an image of Salvador Dali’s,
with bones like soft honeycomb,
where bees cheerfully settle in.

Their wings frantically beat
they seek nectar from the rhythm,
the rhythm,
hands slowly try itching them away,
off my skin,
away from an arm which they travel upwards,
ignoring my slow decay.

Other insects join in,
stinging mosquitoes,
beautiful butterflies
who live but three days without sin,
it’s rather unlike the diaries of old,
to go three days without intentional error
would utterly amaze.

The bees are now concerned,
combatted by the wasp
whose angry demeanour wishes to fight
my friends,
in my shin’s honeycomb land,
the buzzing, the droning,
whom will succeed at their intent?
At securing a home of marrow-less matrimony?

A fly settles on the wall of my wrist,
sardonically smiling,
he decides to join in the violent tryst
of bee upon enemy
upon melting candle-wax skin,
dream-like
or like a nightmare,
reality is falling.

In the heaviness of a veil
which draws itself away from my subconscious,
I'm once more myself,
no more strange images,
curious bees
butterflies, maddened mosquitoes,
wasps whom will not leave.

My bones are themselves again,
full and not deprived,
weariness dissipated and skin almost
pristine,
I am alive.

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

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  • Poem: Making Mountains Out of Molehills? – 08/07/20

    Poem: Making Mountains Out of Molehills? – 08/07/20

    I glare at the
splotches of raw colour
in the mirror:
one, two, three,
four, more.
 
An adolescent’s
dreaded nightmare;
immense, angry, welt-like, firm.
 
They’re like curious mountains
which have arisen overnight,
swollen and painful,
because I insist on 
irritating their surface 
though I know 
it’s not right,
 
they flare, they throb
with each unsuccessful
squeeze I make,
 
who knew a war’s
been waged against me,
one I’ve unwittingly
been forced to undertake??

How to remove these
painful sites from my face,
clear my complexion
as if by magic?
 
I feel as though I might
require some form of
divine intervention,
because these mountains,
not molehills,
are certainly not budging.
 
Makeup:
foundation, concealer,
could work a treat,
but only if these
unsightly visitors sat flat
at 180 degrees.
 
If they were simple,
mere blemishes,
I could paint them
into obscurity,
 
however, this
aggressive adult acne
is really
my current reality.
 
I sit, perplexed,
wondering what to do,
it hurts when I
attempt to drain them,
the thought disgusts and
revolts me, too.
 
I have an important date
scheduled which I 
need later attend,

but I suspect I’ll be sending
my apologies
if I can’t make
the blemishes heal 
and cleanse,
fastidiously empty my pores,
leave them open once again.
 
Well, it looks as though
I’ll be staying home,
I’m not vain for 
avoiding company,
the solitude of my home is 
where it's safest,
where I can hide these
mountains raw and glistening.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.  
Image credit: Clip-Art Library

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  • Prose Poetry: The Deep Azure – 18/05/20

    Prose Poetry: The Deep Azure – 18/05/20

    The bright blue twinkles before me, the waves curl and roll with such pristine splendour. I prepare myself for the swell: my tiptoes dangle above the lapping at the shore, and I smile, I smile so widely that I want more, so much more, of the cooling caress which grips my extremities like refreshing, watered diamonds. The sprinkles, the splashes, my heart it stills, it grows.
 
What did I do to deserve this amazing experience, these rocking, hilly blues? A reflection of skyward azure, wandering below, across the crystalline views. I tiptoe, step by step, into the creeping shallows, as smoothly as it breathes across the damp sand which I imprint with impressions of me, my footprints, my imprints, which disappear beneath the wetness. Sandy signs that I’ve been here are only visible for seconds, seemingly emulsified, or eaten away, into the surrounding and temporary moulds. The water trails higher, higher above my ankles, midway up my calves, then my thighs – I can feel the chill of the robust crests grabbing at them, then I dive in, head-first – the rush of coldness makes me breathless.
 
I feel at one with the shimmer, although I cannot see it, I feel the ebb and the flow, and with legs seemingly now melded together as though the tail of a mermaid, I dive deeper, exploring far below. I dare myself to open my eyes; such wonder there is down here so low: sparkling, whimsical, fantastical, a living world before my eyes unfolds. How could I have spent so much of my life on land? I ask myself, feeling numb from what is visible in this underwater world. I shake myself, take away this odd, unfamiliar feeling, and decide to explore everything, or at least as much as I can see.

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

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