Along with reams of short stories, and longer attempts at fiction, I’ve written countless poems over the decades. The bulk were written in my teens and twenties and I literally have folders full of handwritten and typewritten compositions.

I’d been threatening to put a selection into print since the mid-90’s. I remember discussing it with an old girlfriend in ’95 but a number of things always seemed to stop me. Part of that was not really being sure if I wanted to share them with the world, part was never having the time to go through what was amounting to thousands of bits of paper – ranging from typed and formatted finished compositions to hand written stanzas on the back of paper bags, or anything I had at hand when inspiration hit.

A few years ago I finally got round to sorting out a collection and published them under the title “Wild Card Symphonies”. Consisting of three smaller volumes of my work, “Wild Card Symphonies”, “Cry To Me”, and “This Graveyard Heart”, the book totaled just over 120 poems. You can buy a copy (plug plug) through Lulu on one of the links at the bottom of the page if you like what you read and want to have more.

Performance

If a look could hurt

It was the one you shared tonight

Over the wine

All across your face

Does love really make you sick

—

You don’t care to smile

And when you do it’s all wrong

Like laughter on a deathbed

And blood on a child

Who’s been torn from their home.

—

I can taste your performance

Like you can feel my lies

But we still dance together

Time after time after time

After time.

—

I can feel your agitation and anger

In the way you move tonight

Like the time we watched your nightmares

And we couldn’t stop the screams

With any amount of lies.

—

You once told me that you enjoyed pain

Is that the reason that you still cling to me

Like a corpse in its grave

Unable to run away

Unable to say no.

—

Are all your feelings broken

Are all our friends convinced by your lies

Isn’t there anything I can do

To fill the holes we created

And gather up my defence to justify.

—

I can taste your performance

As you dance our final scene

Before you pull my world from me

And I can hear my screams

And I can see the horrors of your smile.

—

I know what’s coming next for me

Like you could see my lies

But we still dance together

Time after time after time

After time.

—

So let this be our final show piece

With me draped in stained sheets

And the knives of your propaganda

In the hands of my friends

And I can’t stop my screams

With any amount of lies.

(PERFORMANCE; By A R J ABRANSON; 06-11-92/17:40; 30-10-94/17:40; 09-07-95/22:07)

My poetry anthology, Wild Card Symphonies, is available to buy now on Lulu in both Softcover and Dust Jacket Hardcover.

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Wild Card Symphonies, Cry To Me & This Graveyard Heart are Copyright ©2015, Angus Abranson. All rights reserved.
Cover design by George C. Cotronis (Ravenkult Studios, www.ravenkult.com) Copyright © 2015 Angus Abranson
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
No reproduction in part or in whole without prior written permission from the author of the copyright owner.