One part sweet and three parts sour, the seeds I sewed grow by the hour. Discreet and neat, they’ll rise to meet, to greet and flower at my feet. But now the cold will take a hold, and tender leaves begin to fold. They need the sun, they need the rain, else all their songs were sung in vain and thrown to winds that howl with power; bold the bane that scaled the tower whose bell that rung in the midnight hour was one part sweet and three parts sour.

Is this how you’d have it? Does this tune ring true?

A madman’s ramble, spewed, like the innards of drunkards. Whimsical wisdoms, stuttered, severed by line breaks

as if I’d forgotten what I was going to say.

Tell me, is this how you’d have it? Does this tune ring true?

I’m the stern look on the faces of teachers, scowling at what you have to say, belittling you… Go on. Feel belittled.

And now I am them. Words come and go, abundantly so, but few seem worthy of the page.

But you desire the splattered canvas. To be purchased by those who wish to admire something more thoughtless than they.

I’ll crash through the swell, hold my face to the spray, wipe the salt from my lips so they can swear and can pray. Trim the head, trim the main, crank the winch, pump the stay; sailing my way to Whitehaven.

When my feet start to ache, I think of silica sand. When I tire and fall, I recall why I stand. There’s not many here who can try understand until they set foot on Whitehaven.

It’s not just her promise, her colour or shape, nor is it alone her smell or her taste. No matter how hard, or how long I must wait, I’ll never give up on Whitehaven.

The kingdom bells rang out, rang out, and cornered every cobbled street, whose stones lay worn from summer heat, and scuffed by dashing, running feet.

The windows whispered as he passed, and clapped (for ignorance is bliss), but through the cracks they caught a glimpse, and spoke the origins of legend.

He flew between the roofs of houses, scaled the heights of the kingdom towers, looked down upon the streets below, his eyes, his smile, the both aglow,

and watched the bobbing lanterns, swimming through the lanes, forming clusters at open doors, but the night parade could do no more.

Admitting defeat at the first light of dawn, retreating, their words as clear as were they worn, “He’s the son of a ghost, and in shadows was born.”

I’ve seen men waste away in the absence of purpose, caught adrift on the tides of uncertainty, breaking over the rocks and casting their indecisiveness high against the sun,

and I’ve seen the rainbows through their tears, watched them fall from nowhere skies, frustrated in their unpaved search for anything of importance.

I’ve seen them hold to passing clouds, hugging and struggling to pot their pain, falling after every drop

in devoted desperation, in valour and in vain, in hope there’s love in vertigo, ‘cause there sure ain’t none in rain.

And I’ve seen them dive back through the crest, plummet beyond their sunken loves, to deposit another.

Clawing towards the brighter promise; adrift again, and in dire need of nobler occupation.