A New Beginning

Here's something a little different to my usual writing, a poem I wrote recently. Enjoy :)

A New Beginning

Darkness has once again awoken
As words of woe have been sorely spoken
Love is forlorn, it has no place here,
Close, far, or anywhere near
Bolt the locks and deprive the light
My eyes and soul grow black as night
Loneliness creeps from his dormant den
Sorrow flows from a bleeding pen
Oh heavy heart stop keeping time
You keep only to the beat of foolish rhyme

Alas another tomorrow draws near
One I neither wish to see nor hear
Displace this feeling, set me free
Beat me round the head with a Christmas tree
Tie my tongue and my shoe laces together
So I trip over my own words forever
Torture me with anything but guilt
Until your final tears have been spilt
If it means your closure is due
I'll endure whatever you need to do

You'll soon realise that nothing's lost
For a new beginning, it's worth the cost
For endless is life, eternal is love
Our friendship strong, like a turtle dove
Though we part for now in some ways
Closer we may grow in later days
However time must for now be paused
To find a remedy for the damage caused
Although more sand than you wish, may escape
It's work cannot be measured by any mortal tape

Keep smiling my dear, keep your eyes open wide
I know it's hard when time's a pain in your side
But time holds phoenix tears to soothe your pain
Allow them to shower you like a light rain
As the phoenix dies, it's reborn fresh and new
To start a new life that's long overdue
That day the world will appear a whole new vision
Clarity will strike you with fine precision
Your sense of purpose will rest no more
Inspiration beckons to finish that half written score

Alas keep your heart open and your eyes bright
So you can embrace the incredible new light
Chase your dreams, make them real
Lose no time to this mere ordeal
Brush aside the cobwebs of doubt
Bury them in a suitcase and throw them out
Leave your fears shipwrecked with nowhere to go
Paving the way for happiness to grow
Begin a journey in tune with your own sound
For that's where your new beginning can be found

A J Mallen

Chocolate Brownie Adventure

Is there any better desert than home-made chocolate brownie? I'm not sure there is. I had such a brownie the other day. This chocolate brownie was going to suffer its demise on the return journey from Scotland. How it survived the first leg of the adventure is still a mystery. Being preoccupied with other things helped I guess, and the cake was playing hide from the hazard, trying to avoid anyone or anything that may be a potential predator and cut short its life.

So the first leg of the trip came and went with great success for the chocolate goodness. It was soon time for the return leg where thoughts turned to all things edible and the inevitable, the chocolate brownie. Instead of devouring it however, I forgot about it. At least, I forgot about eating it. Temporarily that is. Instead I took pity on it and gave it my Swiss army knife and a torch. That was until I realised I was confusing the Brownies with Boy Scouts. I don't think Brownies go camping and find themselves wrestling wild bears with only their trusted Swiss army knives with which to defend themselves. Then I thought the idea of a chocolate brownie may sound a bit racist in today's society. I'm not racist, not the least bit, but it's maybe more politically correct to call them ethnic cocoa compositions. Though that just sounds like a collection of songs about chocolate so that probably wouldn't work either.

So anyway, after realising my mistake I promptly took back my Swiss army knife and torch and left the chocolate goodness in the car to find it's own way home. With any luck it can find a way of operating the sat nav and make it home in time to be eaten for supper. That is once it's recovered from the shock of surviving a two-legged car journey, a petrol station and travelling in a car filled with cake-eating human-shaped beings and making it through it all in one piece. Or well, maybe with most of its limbs still attached, though I'm sure the brownie has crumbled in some places, like the petrol station. In reality however, it's probably still trapped in the car door now. Screaming helplessly as its nuts drop out and its hair grows grey with mould age. I just hope it's discovered before it's too late...

Crazed Messenger Pen on Drugs?

Today's gripe is about a feature used in chat programs like MSN and Skype that annoys me beyond belief. This feature rears its ugly head when you're not using the program for actual talking. It's the messaging part, Skype in particular, that drives me insane. You can see when the other person is typing a message because this little yellow pen starts scribbling down what they're saying. It starts working away as soon as the first letter is typed.

The other night I was chatting to a friend on there and I thought to myself my god she's been writing that message for about half an hour now. I wonder if she's fallen asleep on the keyboard or something. I know I was about falling asleep myself just watching the mesmerizing yellow pen scribble for its life. So I thought she's either fallen asleep or she's frantically writing a novella or something. Finally the pen stops dead. My eyes spring open in anticipation for the message. Nothing appears! 'Are you kidding me?' That pen has been scribbling away for an age and there's no message? Did it get lost in translation or something? So I begin typing a reply to this invisible verse when out of the blue a few words appear as though by magic. There are nowhere near as many words as I'd expected mind you. I'm beginning to think this predictive pen or whatever his job title is, is skimming some off the side because he's not being paid enough for the job. One job it does very well however, is to lure you into a false sense of security, because you expect the person on the other computer to be typing as quickly as the pen. In reality though, the pen has rewritten 'War and Peace' in the time it takes the actual person to type 'hello'. In my opinion they should have a feature that automatically detects the speed at which a person is typing and then changes the icon accordingly. So in this case instead of a pen on acid, maybe a slug on sleeping pills would be more appropriate.

I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the pen writes in a different language and that English is not it's native tongue. Maybe it actually first types the message in Aboriginal Mandarin or something, then has to translate the message into English, that would explain why it seems to be scribbling away so furiously all the time. I find it funny when the pen goes into hyper drive and you're waiting for those wonderful words to appear and nothing shows up. Nothing at all. The pen was clearly writing something so complicated that it couldn't translate it into English. Either that or it couldn't read it's own handwriting so it abandoned the attempt halfway through in a blind panic. Then the pen sits quietly back down and takes a drink of water to settle its nerves in the hope that nobody has noticed the screw up. Once he's composed himself he takes to the screen again and types the three letters that always serve as the default lifesaver, 'lol'. 'Phew', the panic is over for now. Back to work it goes, ready to confuse another fool. Oh how a fool and his anticipation are so easily duped by these evil animated pens. One day they will pay...