December #3

Ask for Help!!
A song for those struggling with the concept of equality

(To the tune of I Can Help - by Billy Swan)

If you don't know what to do

if you don't know what to say

if the main thought in your head is 'please make it go away'

ask for help

there'll be someone who can change things

ask for help

It would do you good

to do the things you should

so ask for help.

 

If everything you're doing

seems to turn out wrong

try taking some deep breaths and remembering this song

and ask for help

there'll be someone who can fix things

ask for help

You don't know it all

nobody ever could

so ask for help

 

When you go to bed at night you want to be able to sleep

Treating people properly is something that will always keep

your conscience clear...

 

So instead of trying to hide that you don't know what to do

Instead of fooling yourself that you can muddle through

ask for help

from the people who know best

ask for help

be better than the rest

It would do the world good

if you do the things you should

so ask for help.

 

Michele Brenton 25th December 2014
Merry Christmas!!

November #3

To sleep: perchance to dream…

I never know what to expect

each night I go to bed;

the ravelled sleeve of care stays ravelled,

tattered and in shreds.

In fact the action packed

into the theatre of my dreams

frays the fabric of my mind

and soundtracks it with screams.

I've swooped and soared above the clouds

and plummeted to earth,

borne immolation many times

relived countless births

from the point of view of mother

and from that of child,

I've even mothered fox cubs

then released them in the wild.

I've wondered where my husband is

while marrying another,

had long chats with dead relatives,

rowed furiously with Mother;

grieved for people still alive,

partied with the feted,

was once hailed saviour of the world

and simultaneously hated.

The only common factor is

my dreams are never bores;

I'm continuously fascinated

while my body snores.

— Michele Brenton

October #3

To My Mitochondria

I remember painstaking lines and

careful colouring-in 

punctuated by leaning back

in blissful satisfaction to 

admire the result.

I learned their biochemistry

and their physiology

gazed at slides

from microtomes.

I once knew such a lot of things

and now that knowledge

is long gone.

All I can recall from then - 

diagrams in felt-tipped pen.

Michele Brenton

September #3

Harder the second time around

I never thought I'd be excited
to see a divorce
or encourage one so gleefully
and enjoy each severance
witnessed in pixel-dancing light.

Something rises in me, a tidal wave
wanting more and more
until the old is swept away
and change becomes the new
landscape.

I used to shout at the television
when I was young and watching films:
Walk away or sneak away at night
when they are asleep. Get away while
you can!

Too many celluloid sacrifices,
too many individuals subsumed
for the sake of the storyline.

This is real life and the stories
can be better or worse.
I sit through this night
on the edge of my seat.
Please let this be the happy beginning,
the day when it didn't take
death to us part.
Because if there isn't a clean getaway
we all know what happens

when they try again.

— Michele Brenton 

August #3

Living through the pain

My compatriot urged his dad

to rage against the dying of the light

but my rage is against pain

and blood and tears and sweat

and hope getting stomped

when it peeps its little

chocolate-buttony bright eyes

over the top of the trench

where it very wisely hid

until optimism once more

triumphed over experience.

I watch you living through the pain

and I try to find something positive

in your brave, dogged fight

and I love you for your strength,

your weakness, your quirks,

your failings, your heart

but I cannot find anything positive

that wasn't already a part of you

before the adversary arrived

and this torment began.

I want to scoop you up

in my arms and hold you

until the danger passes

but you see it never does.

That bloody enemy stalks

us all the time and never sleeps

and even if I doze with one eye

open it still sneaks in because

nobody can win against it every time

and it only needs to win once.

— Michele Brenton

July #3

Activation

Like a pill

grim and white

I must take,

good for me,

so they say,

take the nasty

dreams away!

I swallow

so much dreck

from high-ups

smiling wide

wearing suits

planting seeds

poison fruits.

Then WAKE UP!

Smell the beans

recognise

what it means

to be snowed

be kowtowed

be reduced,

zeroed, cowed.

Stand up, stretch

look around

take it in

what is there,

not the show

see what’s wrong

make it fair.

Spit the pill

grim and white

stuff what’s easy

do what’s right.

— Michele Brenton

June #3

Feedback Loop

The greatest mystery

is mysterious

and great.

In fact not just great

it is the GREATEST

and all the not-so-great mysteries

weep into cushions

while chowing down on an entire tub of

the most fattening ice cream

to quell their sense of inadequacy.

And the most fattening ice cream

which is creamy and icy

and fattening

is not just fattening

it is the MOST fattening

and for some reason also

the MOST delicious and moreish

and the MOST bad for you

which is often the way for food.

Why when we know this do we still…?

It is the greatest mystery.

It is mysterious

and great.

In fact not just great

it is the GREATEST

and round we go again…

— Michele Brenton

May #3

Moonlight becomes her

The worst of alien overlords

twirls her moustache

and smiles lopsidedly.

It took many years to

perfect that smile,

without it no archenemy could ever

hold their head high.

The moustache arrived with no effort at all

the only tricky part was

deciding to embrace it rather

than depilate. 

There are more

satisfying targets in life

and snide looks make it easier

when culling is required.

Whatever set her on this path to begin with,

she is happy now at the top of the tower,

finger on the button, deciding the game.

Heroines are for fairy tales and stories,

nothing to do with real life

and that suits her just fine.

— Michele Brenton

April #3

Edgy

Toast crusts, pork scratchings,

burnt bits of meat,

borders of gardens,

bushes trimmed neat,

beaches and cliff tops

where nesting birds wedge,

some of these things can be found on the edge.

Lace upon lingerie, good for a thrill,

spun sugar topping Chantilly cream hills,

butterfly stroke for surface swimming,

makeup and fake tans on plastic-faced women,

suited blokes smiling with hard cold eyes,

coral reefs dying where golden sands lie.

For things of importance

the things we should keep,

those are the things we find when we go deep.

— Michele Brenton

March #3

Centre of Education.

A dot.

A point.

An exact location in space.

The place

pierced with a compass.

A pinhole.

Light bursts through.

A prism

refracts

the spectrum,

frees a rainbow,

and the point is the light.

— Michele Brenton

February #3

The next time

The next time you’re late

I hope it’s for a great reason,

something spectacular

nothing trivial, or mundane

but a cataclysmic intervention

that entirely distracted you

because it was so wonderful

it swept every commitment,

appointment, chore, plan,

timetable away in a tsunami

of delightful experience

and left you just enough breath

to explain eventually with a red face

not from embarrassment but

excitement that THIS could have

happened at all and I will be

so entranced by your story
I won’t mind one bit and I won’t

need to be gracious and forgiving

the way you need to be now

because I don’t have a

whirlwind reason or

breath taking

excuse

just a brain

that loses track

so often

I spend most days

off the rails.

 — Michele Brenton

January #3

Fill us

Fill us with humanity,

between the cracks of our facade,

down where what is left of love

hides its face in fear of pain.

Fill our hearts and let us feel

what links us all as one again.

— Michele Brenton