Squeeze It
Paul Whybrow
Squeeze It
Ten Poems on Creativity & Setbacks
Paul Whybrow
Copyright 2015 Paul Whybrow
Published by Paul Whybrow
Cover Art: Google Images
Squeeze It
Ten Poems on Creativity & Setbacks
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold
or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did
not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and
purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.
Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. While some of the place names are real, characters are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Squeeze It
Ten Poems on Creativity & Setbacks
'My own mind is very hard to me.
It is just as if I were carrying my mind around.
What is the matter with you?'
Tlingit Tribe
Contents
The Poems
It's a Blunder-full Life
Everyone's A Critic
Reasons For Bravery
A Heart of Hollow Halls
Life's A Habit
It's All Illusion
Pilgrim Hearts
Afraid or Wise
Hyperdrive
Squeeze It
The End
About The Author
Also by Paul Whybrow
Novellas
Short Stories
Song Lyrics
Poetry
Novels
Connect with the author
Squeeze It
Ten Poems on Creativity & Setbacks
Paul Whybrow
It's a Blunder-full Life
There's no revelation of joy
awaiting most of us.
We struggle, often fail
and suffer through.
Despair and doubt
are our perpetual lot.
Folk will always knock you,
as you try once more.
Many give up,
fall prey to apathy,
take uneasy ways out,
their spirits wracked and torn.
If only we were praised
just once in a while,
given a pat on the back,
told we were doing well.
That so rarely happens.
We stumble along
over stones in the road,
through our blunder-full life.
Everyone's A Critic
What do you do?
I can't do that,
But I could do
It better than you.
And you could do
More than you are.
I don't understand
Your success, at all.
You've had these thoughts.
Admit that you have,
When watching anything
Done by someone else.
Excellence sometimes
Silences your mealy mouth.
Or you utter begrudging
Praise and admiration.
More fun to take pot-shots,
To snipe at easy targets.
Keep them in their place
With contempt and envy.
What you detest may be delight
For someone else, their joy
Salve for the bile you fling.
It's chance how things even out.
Is it that we perpetuate nastiness?
Do we simply share the pain
We felt, getting our own back?
They did it first, so I'm passing it on.
What have you ever placed on the line?
That would mean risking being hurt,
By sharing who you really are inside.
It might make you reconsider criticism.
They say that 'everyone's been burned',
But some do little, while hurling flares.
It's odd how the conflagration of failure
Warms the souls of such cowardly critics.
It's rarely a long-lasting fire, for time
Obliterates embers with a kick of soil.
Ghouls and trolls move on, seeking light
From others' magic to tear down to nothing.
Reasons For Bravery
A warrior, now an old man,
Told me of his brave act,
Which won him a medal.
He charged a machine-gun
Nest, slaughtered the enemy,
As they were reloading.
He expected to be killed,
Almost needed to die then.
Tormented by bullets and bombs,
He ran into oblivion, firing blindly,
Simply wanting it all to end.
He hadn't been brave at all.
A woman, now free and living life,
Told me of her brave act.
Which won her independence.
She left an abusive home-life,
Where her father ruled in terror.
Brutalising his daughters
And gentle loving wife.
She expected to be brought back,
Hunted down and chastised.
Vulnerable and open to exploitation,
She struggled, and won through.
She hadn't been brave at all.
Sometimes we do what we can,
Because it's all that's left to do.
Backed up to an unyielding wall,
Forced to jump a fiery pit of hell,
We endure, despite fears and doubt.
Others may look and call it bravery.
Praise us for courage and fortitude.
But desperation and despair trigger
Precipitous leaps into the unknown.
Getting out from under and escaping,
Even risking things getting worse
Isn't bravery—it's simply taking a stand.
A Heart of Hollow Halls
Listen to the echoes
resounding in the dark.
The bang of slamming doors.
A whistling through cracked panes.
Hammer-heeled conscience patrols cold corridors,
Looking in on the man I was, shuffling lost and sad.
From room to room through webs and dust, the ruins of my dreams.
I can't see out through moss-ringed windows for the vision I used to have.
Discarded plans blow past my torn feet: I scarce recall such hopefulness.
I inhabit this place, wandering listlessly, not thinking of all that could have been.
A heart of hollow halls.
Life's A Habit
Feeling like a robot,
I looked at who I was.
I did the same things
Over and over, no thought
Involved, an automaton.
I got through well enough.
Unawareness my guardian.
Doing more important things,
This habitual behaviour,
Palely escorts my creativity.
Replacing bad habits with good
Is said to be the key to happiness.
My personal customs line-up,
Hemming me in familiarly.
I hold onto their support and fret.
It's All Illusion
We believe what we can.
That's it, in a nut-shell.
Stretching the possibilities
Is harder than we're able.
Knocked flat by disillusion,
We fail to see it's all illusion.
Dreams are always floating.
Near and far, they hover.
We think they leave us,
But they are ours to hold.
You can do what you believe
Or not do it, if that's your truth.
Try fooling yourself as a friend.
Shift your viewpoint, nudge it
Sideways, pinching your gossamer
Dream by a corner for new inspection.
It's not so bad after all, is it?
If you think it will work, it just might.
Pilgrim Hearts
Searching for salvation
Through souls mired
In grey sadness,
digging deeper holes
for precious dreams.
Something may grow,
rise up from the loam,
into a sky alive with wings.
Such is how new hope
creeps out of strata
of weariness.
Pilgrim hearts linger,
take stock and grow.
On with the search,
scanning horizons.
Casting our eyes
to meet others
wandering
in search of
belief.
Afraid or Wise?
Life's lessons are harder learned
Than anything in the class-room.
No paper qualifications in sight,
Just ragged diplomas carried within.
It's easier to learn how not to do things,
Than to find a foolproof way to succeed.
There isn't one anyway, whatever you're doing.
It's all hit-and-miss, trial and error muddling.
If you're still in some game, you may be brave
Or just stupid, nor caring what happens to you.
I stepped out from most things a while ago.
Does that make me afraid or wise? I'm not sure.
Hyperdrive
What's in me
Is coming out.
Don't know
Where I'm bound,
But I'm warping
Through time.
A rooster-tail
Incandescent,
Drives me.
Stellar Mysteries
Surround me
Rocketing through.
I'm looking for
My destination.
I may explode,
Fall to earth.
Becoming a comet
Of wonder and doubt.
Squeeze It
Put it under pressure.
See what pops out.
Some things, some people
Need squeezing,
To reveal what's inside.
They'll just sit there
If you don't.
Replete in their juice,
They'll slowly rot away.
Stale and wasted,
Turning in on themselves.
Goodness turned rank.
You could have used it.
So, squeeze it.
The End
About The Author
Paul Whybrow has a young head on old shoulders.
Ex many things, including being a teacher, counsellor,
librarian, dispatch-rider, milk-man, postman, bar man,
house renovator, classic vehicle restorer, courier,
van driver, factory worker, project manager,
live-in carer for the elderly, editor, photographer,
volunteer at a community centre, play-schemes,
homeless campaigns and nature conservation projects.
I wrote non-fiction magazine articles for ages,
but turned to creative writing in the summer of
2013. I've been my own boss for a long time,
which means I'm working for an idiot and the
pay is lousy—but the holidays are great.
Paul Whybrow has a good heart inside a battered chest.
* * *
Also by Paul Whybrow
Novellas
* A Man Out Walking His Dog—A tale of mistaken identity.
* Burpwallow Holler—Loyalty in post Civil War America.
* Quarry—A gangster becomes prey in a lethal reality TV show.
* Ghosting—How a lonely biologist finds peace with the ghosts of her life.
* Is It Her?—A new start is offered to a grieving widower.
* A Blue Tomorrow—Temptation and new beginnings on a farm.
* Hearts On Tour—Small town friends support one another.
* What Would I Do Without You?—A newly-single wife begins life again.
Short Stories
* The Moon Is Out Tonight—Two soul-mates separated by circumstance.
* Due-Date—A soul in limbo is given a new job.
* Jacqui In Space—A 20th century explorer on 22nd century Mars.
* Over And Out—Things come to a head on a 50th wedding anniversary.
* In The Graveyard At Dawn—A boy and his dog among the graves.
* Soul-Swapping—Moving souls, a demon tries to get back to hell.
Song Lyrics
* 12 Country & Western Lyrics—hope, regret and seeing things as they are.
* 13 Kinds of Blue—trouble's your only friend, ain't it?
* A Dozen Pops—love in a bubble always goes pop.
* A Dozen Rocks—head down boogie along the highway.
* Box of Love—songs of love and hope.
* Howling For You—the sadness goes on and on.
Poetry
* Love Stages—Love affairs seen at different phases.
* Love Begins—The thrill of the new, the nervousness and delight.
* Love Ends—What do you do when things go wrong?
* Love Hopes—How would you like love to happen?
* Love Wishes—In an ideal world your affair would be like this...
* Nature's Ways—Aspects of the natural world, happy and sad.
* Modern Times—What it means to live in the 21st century.
* Old Age Navigation—Ageing stinks, but it beats the alternative.
* Darkness—Written from the endless night of the soul.
* Darkness Darkness—We all have our dark side—how's yours?
* Loneliness—The poverty of the soul, when you're alone.
* Solitariness—The richness of the soul, when you go solo.
* Poems To Ponder—Thoughtful and amusing poems for children.
* Witches' Knickers—Silly and nonsense poems for young readers.
* Hold Onto Yourself—Funny and warm poems for youngsters.
* What Do You Like?—9 Erotic Poems
* Building Story House—10 Poems on creating stories
* Lost Among The Words—10 Poems about Writing
* Friends And Other Confusions—10 Poems on liking others and yourself.
* Chasing Big 'O'—9 Erotic Poems
* Squeeze It—10 Poems on Creativity and Setbacks
* We Stop Ourselves—10 Poems on Creativity, Doubt and Self-Belief
* Love Scenes—10 Poems about love
* Free To Fly—10 poems on getting through
Novels
Coming soon:
* The Perfect Murderer—a novel about a serial killer, who makes no mistakes.
.
* * *
Connect with the author
https://paulwhybrowblog.wordpress.com
