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.

No Beginning, No End

Poetry Drafts / / By 
It never really begun I suggest,
Perhaps a child in time 
I was born unwell, unfed, untrained 
In all matters that matter in a world 
Without instructions, without guide
Or printed manuals I was left to fear 
All things, all times, in perpetuity. 

It never really begun I suggest,
Perhaps the wind took hold
Of the sail she left behind,
Unknowingly or unwittingly 
The whiff of love long lost
Was no anchor strong enough
To keep the dinghy from escaping. 

It never really begun I suggest,
The child, the angry adolescent, 
The man that grew out of no plant
And the old man contemplating,
Are all one and the same, the same
Thoughts and the same responses
To life and events best avoided.

A Dream in Three Acts

Poetry Drafts / / By 
Three hours? Three hours!
Three hours of hell, then three blinks
And Death enters:
Pokes, asks, pokes again,
Asks further if I be ready to play,
I wheeze, caught tongue-tied 
In the driest of deserts, 
Petrified to play the game
Of one final hour;
I seek a safe haven, a shelter
From the stirring storm, 
To lighten my load
As escape will unfold,
I wheeze, 
Tongue tied to the tree of life 
As bark meet virgin lips 
In a silent lullaby,
I dream of dust and barren beaches 
Hear a raven call, a summons
To a final feast; Then a poke,
And another lift the lids too tired
To fathom and fear the burning 
Apparition floating up ahead, 
I pray as I crawl closer and closer:
Be real, be real, you cheaply cut
Outline of a figure, like the last
Mannequin in a closed down store 
Waiting in anticipation for anyone 
To call โ€“ only to find it gone,
The salvation, solution to 
The simple unthought truth
Of moisture, of tears, or rain
To reawaken for real this time
The tongue-tied tired mind
Of the dreamer.

A Slice of Life

Poetry Drafts / / By 
A thin slice of life 
Covered in whipped cream,
A silver spoon searching 
For sponge finds only cream,
Cream,
Strawberry jam, 
And hard-whipped
Cream. 

A thin slice of life
Whitewashed as the walls,
Right hands reaching for bread
To dip and divide among the dead. 

A thin slice of life
Partitioned.

Lives โ€“ severely severed.

Dusty Roads

Poetry Drafts / / By 
Intemperate the soul that walks 
Your skin along meridians blocked,
Along the remnants of a stagnant
Life once lived;
Eager the infant child to walk anew
The same paths unforgotten;
Intemperate the souls that roam
The eternal roads, in search of 
Other victims, of other beasts
To tame;
Eager infant children walk anew
The dusty roads never ending.

More or Less

Poetry Drafts / / By 
you beg me to say more with less;

scant the expression
of a pervasive void,

the princes of Serendip
served chilled without a die,

succumb to echoes
of a dawn time morning,

scourge to tame 
the beast before you;

you beg me to say more with less
and this is it,

more or less.

Knitted Comforts

Poetry Drafts / / By 
I sing my songs as muffled truths,
As knitted comforts in her presence;
With her nails like icicles beneath a 
Shadow moon, I sing my sad songs
Alone by a fire long expired:
Like a hell that never came to be, 
Yet a hell continuously begging: 
Unleash me with your fire eye,
Thaw this frozen hell; but I sing
My songs through knitted socks,
I keep the aching feet frozen
As I sing my final hymn in joy;
Never again to ponder incineration,
Never more becoming less than 
What I was sent here to be: free.

Tinsel

Poetry Drafts / / By 
Snakes in the womb, in the forge
Of life; cold โ€“ abandoned it answers 
No questions, no arguments sold
Of right or wrong, of pride or fall. 
Worms in the wound, grim the pace
Of life; warm โ€“ pulsating, festering 
Questions and flawed arguments:
We are masked, betrayed, tools
Of a master race; No! Merely tinsel 
Shuddering in a cold winter wind,
Finding purposeless dreams 
Along the way to meaning.

Compare and Contrast

Poetry Drafts / / By 
I compare and contrast all things,
Every moment of every day
I place a self in relation to all
Others; every otherwise imagined
As a better, a taller, a thinner
Life in this snowstorm of raging rain. 

I compare and contrast all words,
The attempted, the written, 
Some silently spoken in torrents 
While others howled in halcyon 
Chambers; all better than a self
Expressing the unspoken. 

I compare and contrast, and find 
A self lacking.

The Third Dimension

Poetry Drafts / / By 
I overheard my words speaking
Of starvation; of their utter lack
Of most vital nutrients. 

I lined them up, and spoke at length: 
Of metaphysical fonts, of angles 
On glyphs, and their most likely 
Audience; I spoke of enjambing
Lines, and they โ€“ in unison โ€“ 
Chanted their reply: 
โ€˜Caesura! Caesura!โ€™

I promised Iโ€™d try: in hiding, place 
A volt, to amuse as the words 
Rolled on. 

I overlaid my maltreated words
With an echo from times before;
Let a tempest howl between each 
Syllable; added strings aplenty 
With distortion โ€“ for the masses. 

I overheard my words speaking
Of moshing metaphors
And slick similes;
Of being part of something sweet:
The world of song
And supporting Music.
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