Poetry from Henry Bladon

The Sweet Smell of Chaos 

The frantic fizzle-frazzle fanatic,
pounding the sidewalk 
proposing splintered logic
and energised by hypertrophic rhythm.

Pulsating patterns propound
a maelstrom mindset, 
a confused calibration
housed in a chocolate-stained cabinet.

The metallic clang 
from a spoonful of sympathy 
is mixed in a sunlit side room.

Sudden alchemy from a cobalt portal. 
The succulent sound of ozone.
The taste of psychic salvation.

Someone crunches on a red apple
and starts to cough.

 
Dark Matter

There was a hippy unreality in my dream.
I was in an online echo chamber
where thoughts queued for attention
and words were bending into a black hole.

The background was populated
with pixelated memories 
of the 90s rave scene 
and pieces of leftover pizza.

There was anxiety when
conversational voids appeared
in a debate concerning
early climate change warnings.

The galactic rulers filled the space
with free streaming particles
and announced that cosmic microwaves 
would be available in all new-build cosmic houses.

In the corner of a park,
a man was standing on a box 
and yelling into a broken megaphone,
asking: if we can’t see it, 
does dark matter really matter?

Poetry from Henry Bladon

Do Nihilists?*

Do nihilists believe in God?
Do nihilists fall in love? 
Do nihilists believe in love?
Do nihilists have morals?
Do nihilists want to die?
Do nihilists hate life?

And the ultimate -
what’s the purpose of nihilism?


*Google questions

 
Death to…

Death to poetry collections
Death to politics
Death to golf
Death to tea towels
Death to garden trowels
Death to tempests
Death to cheap wine
Death to digital self-optimisation
Death to tennis balls
Death to iPhones
Death to pornography
Death to weeds
Death to weed killer
Death to fresh fruit
Death to decaying fruit
Death to bigotry
Death to satellites
Death to aphorisms
Death to potatoes
Death to politics
Death to sunglasses
Death to gilded assertions
Death to magazines
Death to guitar picks
Death to clocks and watches

Death to death…

Amen.

Henry is a poet, writer and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. His work has appeared previously in Synchronized Chaos. 

Poetry from Henry Bladon

In the House of Insomniacs

Freckled phosphenes flicker through 
paper-thin skin as
corpuscles bounce onto
egg-shell sensitivity.

Salty eyes survey the scorched screen
where fragmented images have been laid 
by hessian brushstrokes
and monochrome shadows dance
to throbbing visions in the hall of half-sleep.

The distant screech of a lone owl
befriends the anonymous night.

Atonal phrases, reversed images, 
neologistic nattering magnifying words 
while ignoring the fine art of speaking,
where permission to rest is withdrawn.

Voices whisper noisome nothings
as the sleep prospectors mindlessly 
mine another far-flung valley
or scale another grey wall.


Worthlessness

I was walking along a winding tarmac path
contemplating my own inconsequentiality
and that I find it best not to dwell 
on a pointless search for purpose.

It doesn’t matter to me whether existence 
is like an intergalactic vacuum.

Am I any more important 
than tiny transparent spider?

Do you know how the world ends?
Is it with a cloud of honey-scented candyfloss?

Maybe it just heats up so much we all melt.

I could be an important politician.
I could say something like “Imagine yourself in my shoes, 
I have all the power of the free world.”

But actually,
it makes me feel much better 
to acknowledge my own worthlessness. 

Poetry from Henry Bladon

Do Nihilists?*

Do nihilists believe in God?
Do nihilists fall in love? 
Do nihilists believe in love?
Do nihilists have morals?
Do nihilists want to die?
Do nihilists hate life?

And the ultimate -
what’s the purpose of nihilism?


*Google questions
 

Death to…

Death to poetry collections
Death to politics
Death to golf
Death to tea towels
Death to garden trowels
Death to tempests
Death to cheap wine
Death to digital self-optimisation
Death to tennis balls
Death to iPhones
Death to pornography
Death to weeds
Death to weed killer
Death to fresh fruit
Death to decaying fruit
Death to bigotry
Death to satellites
Death to aphorisms
Death to potatoes
Death to politics
Death to sunglasses
Death to gilded assertions
Death to magazines
Death to guitar picks
Death to clocks and watches

Death to death…

Amen.

Poetry from Henry Bladon

Your Hands Have Blood on Them

From: The Bird of Paradise (RD Laing – 1967)

Men can destroy the humanity of others,

remember your hands have blood on them

you’ve been told as much

that will corrupt you and destroy you

with unadulterated compassion.

How do you plug a void?

Just don’t ask for trouble

remember your place in the hierarchy

and that last desperate clutch.

Do not despair – the soul dies before the body.

Thanatophobia

When the writer from Rio

lost his treasured notebook

his head started to feel

like a blood-filled bath.

It wasn’t the loss of shopping list

or the plot for his next novel

that most preoccupied the mind,

just the writerly thought about the

paper-based metaphor for death.


Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. He is the author of several poetry collections and his work can be seen in Pure Slush, Lunate, and Synchronized Chaos, among other places.

Poetry from Henry Bladon

Future Version of Myself     

What if the tragic future version of myself

has never experienced happiness and joy?

What if the beautiful future version of myself

grows old and frail too soon?

What if the bored future version of myself listens to Mercy Me

and decides that things ain’t what they used to be?

And what if the anxious future version of myself is forced to choose

between a better life or a better death?

What if the future version of myself never exists?

Lay-by

polystyrene cup/ fast food wrapper /

broken glass from an accident /

a stray L-plate / a crushed tin can /

along with / forgotten memories /

of past liaisons /


Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. He is the author of several poetry collections and his work can be seen in Pure Slush, Lunate, and Synchronized Chaos, among other places.

Poetry from Henry Bladon

Narcissist

Don’t tell me to roll with the punches

and don’t lecture me with  

supercharged sepulchral rhetoric

about the curses and blessings of life.

Posturing is the seedling of toxicity

and gesturing is the mother of pomposity,

but you wouldn’t know about that

existing in your world of endless personal imagery.

Your lime juice sense of entitlement

and distorted chilli pepper logic

congeals in your bubble gum brain

like acid pips in a rotten core

Take your arrogance for a long walk

and watch the filament of your empathy

uncoil behind you like a rusted fuse wire

I know what you are and so do you.

The Denial of Darkness

While contemplating

the hypersensitivity of others

I became hypersensitive

to modern etiquette

and subsequently terrified

of transgressing a rule

about which I am

yet to be informed

so,

I closed my eyes

only to discover that

the complete Book of Revelations

was written in pen

on the inside of my eyelids.


Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His latest poetry collection is a collaboration about mental health with Dutch artist Marcel Herms and is available from Egalitarian Publishing.