POETRY SPOTLIGHT: Samuel Allen

Who are you?
I am a 17 year old student of Politics, History, and Literature with a passion for writing and reading.

Any links for us to look at?
www.manycoloursblog.wordpress.com

Painted in Many Colours

We are all, to an extent,
The same.
Portraits arranged
In an endless landscape,
Painted in many colours.

Light refracts through
It all.
Sun bleeding off the pages,
Changing us
In its glow.

Grass of green
And sky of blue,
Inverted
And changed
By perspective.

The artists hand,
Shaking but firm,
Decides all but what we wish
As we are led down the dark path.

We watch, frozen,
As portraits tear, and change
To dust in old age.
Transition to new.

Flowers of gold
Grow soon
In wistful dreams,
Blocked by fickle progress
In the cold light of day.

A Cafe,
A home,
I see it all
Behind the scenes.

Smiles and laughter
And pieces of conversation
Fit together.
A jigsaw, a puzzle;
Painted in many colours.

Children laugh and cry
Depending on mood and circumstance.
Look deeper and see
The loneliness of riches
And pain of little.

I enter the pool,
Cold under the weaving
Shadows of a long-dead copse.
Submerged, I travel.

I fall slowly,
And stand on firm ground
Which falls with me
Ever faster.

Turning, twisting,
Straight and even
Through layers of paint.
Peeling before me like the worn fabric
Of an old jumper.

The anticipation worse
Than inevitable impact
As consciousness grows
Of my surroundings.

I open pained eyes
And see
What I feared.

A blur, whizzing past
Too quickly for the eye
To discern,
And yet I know.

Some ingrained knowledge
Tells me I travel
Through a tainted, beautiful world,
Painted in many colours.

Lines on an evening at Church Farm, Shipmeadow

I look forward,
The light breeze warm in my hair,
And see the sky,
An arching frame of blue,
The perfect backdrop to peace.

On the long horizon,
Streaks of rain,
Juxtaposed with pillars of swaying light
Bold in the distance,
Illuminate rolling hills
And sun-dappled meadows of satin grass.

A rickety wooden fence,
Held together by natures firm embrace,
Offers to me it’s weathered shoulder to lean on,
As I pause to drink in
The richest of views.

The scene evokes greater memory in me;
‘Dull would he be of soul
Who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty’.

The orchestra begins.
I hear birdsong
Chirruping above me,
And summer breeze swishing
In the tall grass.

Eternal motion seems,
For the moment,
Still.
With music,
The painting is complete.

Requiem for the Natural World

We have become
Our own Gods;
The world around us
Changing with our mood.

Watchful trees grow old
In solitude
As concrete towers high
Into closed skies.

Open fields and gently waving grass,
A scene from a memory;
Faint,
Nostalgic,
Beautiful.

As some weep for the elusive freedom
Of a warm summer breeze,
Others watch
As layers of concrete censor
The Creator’s art.

Greens and Reds
To neutral Grey
As the whispers of the wind
Change to the grating
Scrape of metal
In the fires of our progress.

Neatly-mown patches of weeds
Are to serve as our new Eden;
All identical,
But our own,
Nonetheless.

We are blind to change
As we see
The progress of Men
Forget what made us
Possible.

And here I sit,
In my room of concrete,
Wishing for backwards
Change;
A shift to
Peace.

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