Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: writing

  • poem: depressed downward key – 08/03/22

    poem: depressed downward key – 08/03/22

    © Lauren M. Hancock
    my key is permanent, it’s on the left side of me,
    the side which I spoke of in my metaphoric language
    of how
    I don’t need a man
    and time is always on my side
    I am independent
    I will never need another’s fate, nor abilities.

    But it’s no longer on my side, my love,
    and the key, wrong place, wrong inked time,
    and I need this man, and I guess,
    perhaps he needs me, too,
    pity I seem like the fool.

    Not as a soulmate, not as a kindred spirit,
    but just a best friend.
    Just? Is that not good enough?
    Maybe it’s not, but
    it’s the best that I’ll receive?
    Is this truth? If so, to digest it, it’s rough.

    These deeply personal thoughts collect in my head,
    should not be visually recorded, I should not post nor project
    but I need to get them down, out,
    I feel like I’ve cut myself off for a man who even doesn’t
    recognise my true crown.
    Not the visual, but the spiritual.
    The swirling, the colours, all around.

    This logical, not even subliminal hurts,
    I am not in the throes, no, I am not,
    I need much more, damnit, but how much more
    can I demand before I’m cut off,
    no more love, whatever style,
    from his hand?
    Complaining? I am more than enough.

    I used to be so independent and pretty
    now I’ve grown dependent, an ugly being,
    hand-holding baby,
    where is the prized confidence?
    Where am I now?

    Am I assumed to be unworthy, betrayer,
    there goes my crown?
    These tainted thoughts, I must succeed, at tactically
    beating them down.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    08/03/22
    Original photo by myself, (c) 2022.

  • poem: kookaburras – 07/03/21

    poem: kookaburras – 07/03/21

    Kookaburras sing their laughter, two fighting for acknowledgement, one with the other, and galahs smile with their cheeky beaded eyes winking, oh my! and the lorikeets feast on our figs, damn it! Mum wants to know WHY. Why is it they are so greedy, sitting on the boughs so precious, looking for something delicious for a bird so pretty, one two flew the coup, out the nest, and well, life is just beginning. Slowly, slowly, starstruck, one is startled and soars to hide but her presence is noted, taken, assessed and made begotten, wondering what did she do to be ignored by hand holding little buttons?

    There is the cryptic and here within are the clues, of life we must undertake many different, many hues, I am certain that there will be challenges, here now I acknowledge the twittering magpies who always stay home with their children, and knowing their loyalty, I know our pills must be taken in order for the positive side of myself to inevitably be spoken and seen.

    Bespoke I was obsessed with but I must take nature in, for what she is, I am not truly a tempestuous thing, nor the tempest, not in reality, but here, I must feel the wind, the breath, and understand I am truly blessed and my life I can renew, and once again begin.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    07/03/22
    Image by Sandid on Pixabay

  • poem: running from – 05/03/22

    poem: running from – 05/03/22


    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose.

    im running from the light
    sometimes it burns it sears my retinas
    im running from the light its too good to take,
    these prophets, seers

    i don’t need their hints at fate which aren’t
    even accurate as of late
    I can determine my own cloud
    witness this
    I’ma tempt and leap all bounds

    I want to explore the darkness
    trail in shadows but still exist in light
    a dichotomy of reasons, new tomorrows
    in which I aim to take both sides with flight
    with light
    with fight

    the shadows treasure me hereon in
    they know I know what it means to sin
    but the stagnancy of these fails to pour in
    I don’t need heredity circumstance
    I have no need for falsity
    I am here and now I am visible
    low or highbrow

    I don’t care to run any longer
    the past is not worth a shard
    a victim’s mentality
    arriving on a birthday ever so early
    gravitated armour
    shaded malignancy

    I don’t need these
    I choose the light,
    It captures me.
    what am I running towards?
    the new me. Why?
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    Image from Unsplash

  • poem: neighbourhoods – 03/03/22

    poem: neighbourhoods – 03/03/22

    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.

    I’ll take you on a personal path, one where love and light exist. Where the flowers blossom and grow so large we might mistake them for a place of romanticism and trysts. Where the stars will never cower in shame, where the voice within will speak truth all the same, where your eyes will widen, and childhood memories will become unfrozen, the melodies of the world will sing to me.

    I shan’t dance along by the riverbed, though dead it may appear, for underneath there is life, true life, crawling with breaths, bubbles of air. The animals are there, causing sabotage and strength and they won’t ever be tamed, not even during Lent, for their position in the world is clearly at large, big, white beautiful snow leopard, and he’s keeping you and I in perfect charge. We are allowed, no permitted, to wander the garden at large, we are allowed, no, promised to be taken upon deck, above board, of this world, heaven-sent. The charms and wonder within our scope, prisms here, envelope hope, do not chide us for having fun beneath the sun, we are special, we are wanted, and our skills shall never ever come undone, in fact, they’ll soon take hold.

    We are as unique as you and he, and she and they, beyond the breeze, each holding hope, an awareness, scope, of deep meditative breaths and dangerous calls. We are the animals who get things done, we are the children who once ran from fun, and we are the young adults who allowed our worlds to come undone, all in the name of joyousness, all in the name of immaturity, to these which we would run. We have shaped up, of course, those days are simply memories, horse, carriage, dragons, chopped, singed trees, but of course, I do not wish to envelope ourselves further, we’re already entwined and are together, together. Matter not these days, they were puffs within airy clouds, the sun hailing all around, harkening from horizon-bound. I won’t shatter in due course for I have repaired and I’m coming good, I’ve always been good even when I’ve not wanted to be so, that’’s how I escaped all those neighbourhoods.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.

    Photo by TheDigitalArtist from Pixabay

  • poem: still here despite it all – (repost from another platform) – 01/03/22

    poem: still here despite it all – (repost from another platform) – 01/03/22

    ~~~~~Still Here Despite it All~~~~~~
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock
    what is it about me that this some of this world seems to abhor? Am I not immaculate enough, in and of myself, to be considered something sightly and toward? Someone worthy of being heard? Of not being ostracised, unread, too? Am I something so abhorrent that they cannot understand my illness, that this decrepit twin which attaches itself to me during delusions and paranoia and versions of heightened moods, exists, my flagrant mania? Is there no care, concern, nor empathy to be viewed, to be seen? I feel just a walking ghost, with a gust of wind who shouldn’t matter at all, I slide through loosely hung sheets, trailing my stature because to them, I’m no longer seen, and I am not whining, nor crying, nor languishing, or despairing, I am simply making a point that I feel I’m not here yet again.

    But it shouldn’t matter for this is my own path, forging ahead is the pathway to choose, I choose to continue, I desire to be seen, to be heard, and if I can’t, if I’m such a joke then why is it that when those whom I love hear my creations, my poems, my words, they are impressed, surely I’m not being humoured by all, that their words are to me a version of being blessed? No, this cannot be the case with all. I do not believe it to be as such, I know I can in thrall.

    I can make my mark, in my main world I already have, and if this is how I’m met elsewhere, with hostility and dangerous eyes, and allusions, and insinuations which are mean and cruel and unkind, well, dears, I will still continue on my path, it’s not even a fight. It’s a means of reckoning with myself, telling, assuring myself that I am worthy of freedom, expression, and here, those foes, once-friends, there is nothing more important here, nothing more, if anything, than this I will put on the pulse. I was ill. I should not have to make amends. Feel my heartbeat, I am still here, breathing and living, and I will not allow others to dictate my fall. I can do that all by myself, and through experience I have learned to soar so well.

    01/03/22
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    (c) 2022 my own photo

  • post: i will be – 01/03/22

    post: i will be – 01/03/22

    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock

    I will be the boisterous me
    I will grin and bear the dreams
    I will heal and steal that light
    the sun of the Son of the Sun
    I will rise when the prisms sparkle rainbow sheens
    I will be fortuitous
    and reach for desired dreams
    I will call and call for items like sticky pearls
    because they satiate my need for nourishment
    be and end all.

    I won’t fold beneath pressure
    I will contemplate and begin to once again know my other
    my shadow self I will tame and feed her charisma
    my Peter-Pan syndrome
    my rainbow sprite self won’t go under

    I will live with an inner dream
    childhood fantasies of writing and creating art and music
    are everything, as they seemed
    I will not complain nor will I whine
    because within is my great divine
    and I will reach it, reach her,
    the moment I speak I will become of her

    Let the laymen understand me
    and even let the complex mock me
    I won’t heed their warnings
    their shooting signs
    because this is my life
    and I’ll direct it just fine.

    Whittle down the edges of a
    childhood book with worn pages
    and travel with me
    travel, become,
    love is what keeps us together,
    and we shan’t come undone.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.   
    Photo from Pixabay
    01/03/22

  • poem: perform – 28/02/22

    poem: perform – 28/02/22


    by Lauren M. Hancock
     
    I wanna dance the night away
    away from the tirades and smiles and the drains
    from the bastards and the potions and the trees that won’t
    bend to them
    the portentous little rascals who think they have the best of them.

    I won’t dance in the ocean, no, no,
    I won’t dance in the lukewarm sea,
    I won’t float in the bubbles where the fish might surface
    without mermen
    I won’t dance in the ocean
    I won’t toil, succumb to the lot of them.

    What I will do is this,
    I’ll prance to Schumann and Liszt
    and Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
    Prokofiev and Dvorak,
    and then Mozart and Handel will grasp my heart
    with the lot of them
    I will perform Bruch and Lalo
    and beg, no, beg, for future, golden tomorrows.

    My violin, its fingerboard, blacker than the devil’s sin
    demons alive within, won’t you reign them in?
    And listen to my talent, reinstated through
    tyrannous hard work,
    I’ll make it, I’ll make it,
    you’ll see, this body will perform.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    Image from Pixabay  

  • poem: arisen – 28/02/22

    poem: arisen – 28/02/22

    even when I’ve not everything I need all around
    I have all I need when I’m here
    the bare minimum does not contribute to any sense of gloom
    nor quaint snipey conversations within the room
    my face doesn’t grow tired or long
    because I am here and now
    and by my side is… you.

    I know you’re tired of the same old love poems
    dedicated to you and I,
    perhaps things are about to change,
    perhaps we’ll move on, move forward,
    move forth,
    we are too good for dwelling upon the
    prior circumstance –

    we will move forward.

    no matter how long it takes,
    how many angsty bitter tunes and rhymes
    I won’t be like that today,
    at least, not this time,

    I wander our memories,
    childhood, adulthood things
    as I clean with slow ease,
    wondering what to bin, what to keep,
    what to allow as designated for others,

    and I realise how quickly time’s passed
    before my very eyes,
    and I contemplate what happened to the stars,
    the moon, oh the stars
    when my world was up in arms,
    I was angered, bitter, untidy, nasty,
    cruel to mankind,
    it wasn’t pretty,
    but it was only a spell,
    for a tiny moment in time,
    and recovery is poignant,
    it is turbulent,
    but it’s occurring,
    within hours.
    within minutes and seconds, darling.

    And those who decide to stand by me,
    as friends, as warriors, as heroes,
    times three,
    many have been here in the making
    but only three remain somehow,
    maybe more,
    but they’ve no designated doors,
    not yet, anyhow.

    I am watching and waiting for the complete revelation,
    about the words they will say and unravel
    tongues engorged like a tame good-willed Cerberus,
    I don’t know, not quite, what they can do,
    but I’m excited to see how the utterances will
    help me,
    assist me,
    my mindset, my confidence to entirely return.

    Lovingly, achingly, away from me,
    I’ve made my childhood bed, and what about you,
    dear sir?
    Shall you rise from my head?
    A memory, a mere memory?
    No, shadowy darkness and smiles,
    spirits assured.

    Now drink to us.
    Both seemingly arisen from the dead.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.   
    (28/2/22)
    Photo by spirit111 on Pixabay.

  • poem: which side to choose? – 27/02/22

    poem: which side to choose? – 27/02/22

    by Lauren M. Hancock

    choosing which side to take,
    it’s really not that hard,
    to rise and rise with great distinction
    or to sink and remain at large.

    there’s no shame in being positive and pretty
    with my words I will conflate them, will engorge them
    with slim and shaded shadows
    the truth has already been forged,
    lusciously, freely.

    the time I take with every piece
    I spit it out as though an undesired precious dream,
    a nightmare in fact, some have come to be
    but only in my dwindling ill-durations,
    irreverently.

    have respect for some and respect for all
    but what matters most when you’re in the presence of ghosts
    who make you laugh and cry and everything in between
    is this truth in itself
    is this really what it seems?

    more so humankind who seemed to
    prey upon me
    seemed to play with my weaker points
    reading my life
    enabled the training
    those clicks and turns all the while
    delicately, indelicately?
    there’s nothing, just an indelible style.

    I did not, do not appreciate being treated
    with operant conditioning
    I am not an animal, I am myself
    I am a woman above and underneath
    and between.

    speak not of those sickening months and years
    nor my fears, anxiety, poor Jurassic tears
    there is nothing sycophantic
    in my words right now.

    I will rise and rise
    and you’ll see –
    you’ll see how far I’ll go.

    I have the tricks I have the honesty
    I, I have the expertise
    I have the know-how,
    I have it all,
    I possess my keys,
    whether high or low-brow.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    Image from Pixabay
    (27/02/22)

  • prose poetry: the turning tides – 26/02/22

    prose poetry: the turning tides – 26/02/22

    fighting against the turning tides, the waves rise and crash upon the open shore, begging for appeasement, begging the waves for more. The fish and seashells and mermaids and mermen crawl from well beyond the shore. There’s barely anything left upon the seabed, so tumultuous it has become indeed, from tridents these waves of terror have been sent, and wreaking upon my life the charlatans and evidence of danger all around, whose going to reinstate that purple crown? That glowing iridescence that lingers above my head, once there, once gone, and once again now dead, then revived all around?

    There are starfish lingering in the bed, in the crevasses, and one large, large star within my head.
    “I am terrific,” it says, “I am here and now, won’t you reveal, won’t you remain unashamed, somehow?” I smile to myself, for this pink and yellow starfish is actually amazing to me, she’s how I see, I breathe, I be, through the very evidence that is wrought deep within me. Myself as a mermaid, no, that is not right, I need to be five pointed and note-worthy, without means of a fight. And toss and turn now, deep within my rest, I grin widely now, because I feel blessed for having entered into this scene, this amazing joy it does bring, the tides crashing upon the shore, shall I ask for more, for more, for more?

    And now these dainty little crabs dance up from beneath the sand, left way this and right way that, they don’t want to hold hands, instead a conga line they proceed, with no difficulty, of course not, please, under the sea is where they will be, under their sea indeed. The tides will evermore change but they will still irrevocably remain the same. Precious beauty and pink and blue, with danger zones nil, just a rapid wash of hues. The sun shines down brightly today, this very day, and escape, escape I shall not, come whatever may.
    © 2022 Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose. All rights reserved.
    Image from Pixabay
    (26/02/22)