Author name: Hayden Veil

In an earlier incarnation, Hayden Veil enjoyed a successful career in software engineering, writing late-night poetry in pursuit of sanity. On 2 February 2020, the world of Hayden Veil changed: Ghosts became real and with its soul laid bare there was no turning back from the perpetual path of poetry.

There’s unrequited love
hidden between broken lines,
ineligible truths obfuscated
like poetry in really small font;
eyebrows waxed and waned,
lips attempting articulation
of those words too small
for any eye to see;
a minuscule Donne dancing
across bleached parchments
without rhyming couplets
for support.
There’s unrequited love
hidden behind every line of poetry,
under every song sung
and in every kiss
abandoned.

No twinkling this blackened night,
a journey towards love and light
begins with a single nothing,
the passing of time, hour by hour
carry us closer to what we crave
our innermost desire,
the first twinkling eye of night
chasing the incubus away,
releasing that first diamond
to light our way
towards the brightest night
on that bestest of summer’s day,
then back again through mud
to this the darkest of days
and our hour of change
and the dawn of a new faith.

Critters capering round twinkling trees
and unlabelled boxes, a time of year
for cold gears to burn; pretend all is well
in the world of men
with their baubles like peanuts
and stiff lower lips like eels in water;
critters capering round twinkling trees,
fire in their eyes
and sildenafil in their veins,
fear not a future bound
their reckoning will come.

Rats sniffing glue in darkness
replaced by authorial glee
over ticks in boxes, gilded chains
free volcanic vapours
in shattered crystal cups,
left like strap-ons between lines
of snow
and the city council’s dark roads;
rats scurry their walls
in search for more of same,
the sticky truths will prevail;
Rats sniffing glue in darkness,
born on darker roads
in darker times
of darker authors, the offsprings
of the masters from hell,
the authorial voices
with a smiley face.

I purge true meaning from my mind,
seeking only truth in the empty page,
the white, the red, and the yellow
pages like yellow snow, red herrings
and pure innocence; stories
told to guide and lead
towards writings less truthful,
less sincere, less divine
than the scriptures quoted
in a Sunday school quire.
I purge true meaning from my mind
as my quill kiss my parchment.

Fortune favours the brave, no!
Fortune favours the bold, no!
Fortune favours the old
and greedy; snakes slithering
down slippery slopes
leaving offspring tossing snowballs
aimlessly at fortunes passed
to others, at love wasted
on black holes hovering
above the treetops
of a burnt down forest;
Fortune favours nobody
deserving a break, nobodies
roam this earth only wanting
what’s fair. No —
fortune favours the old and greedy,
the ones least deserving.

The last remnant of joy lost,
the white powdery bliss
tickled my nose;
the eyes seeing clearly
for just a twinkling of time;
blessed be the creator of joy
the provident provider so coy
leaving nothing behind but remnants
of a snow storm.

The pursuit of love is endless,
tiresome and wrong; no quest
worth pursuing only to fall
face down. I heard him say
she said that they said their love
was not right as they knew him
and she did not; though he had said
that they had said she was
too much for one man to carry
as they knew better, and best of all.

The pursuit of love is endless
face plant or not, caffeine helps
as does chaperones and luck.

I want to hug a tree
but none comes forth, none

small enough for small arms,

I bark up the right tree
but no one speaks:

no one plain of loss
of bark shredded
of bark planed
off;

I want to hug a tree;
but none comes
forth.

I need so little
yet nothing is not enough,

the yellow fluttering wings
of a sunny spring approaching,

long grass on naked legs,
a scent of strawberry fields,

petals, freckles
a touch of rose hip by my side,

so little and yet



so so so far-off

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