Sore Throat

By James Christopher Sheppard

I’m so sick of talking

of writing and verbalising

screaming and shouting

just to explain myself to you.

I want to take pictures

and draw and paint

put together collages of images

to fill my empty days.

Brain disengaged in a way

but awakened to

sounds and sights that fill with delight

the space that once was words.

I want to want

to study and live and love and learn

and I do

yet I don’t hold the reigns tight enough.

I want to learn to relax

and to dance when asked

and to stand at the bar with confidence

and to not feel awkward as I walk through the room.

So it turns out I should have chosen a different path

or perhaps stuck to the original,

but I am not one to pick and stick

if not completely convinced.

I’m so sick of waiting

for something to grab me

and throw me onto the conveyer belt of dreams

and for life to finally begin.

------------------------------

It had been quite sometime since my last update, yet when I tried, all I could put together was this. So yes, in a nutshell, feeling like my degree is pretty much worthless in the sense of getting a decent job in the now as a writer. I keep looking at fellow Kingston University students online portfolios and archives and am blown away. The students that seem to be getting somewhere are the journalism students. Us creative writers alone, don't seem to be half as up on what they are up on. I'm now thinking I should have studied Creative Writing and Journalism instead of English Literature, but we can't change that now. I did love my course, I just hadn't given much thought to the technicalities of employment afterwards. Of course I can chase the freelancer dream, but as we were told in class, you have to have a day job for several years before you can have any hope of living off what you make as a freelance writer. 

Even as a freelance writer, I am barely trained, compared to the journalism students. Their sites are professional and concise, where mine is amateurish. I feel disengaged with writing about myself and what's happening in my life at the moment as I am pretty deflated by it all. As the poem depicts, I am sick of words and trying to piece things together. What I want is to just feel free, and even though I am, I don't posses the ability to embrace that. I don't know, I wrote a poem because it's hard to explain. 

Freckles

Written by James Christopher Sheppard

Freckles of dust

laid around carelessly,

Flung to their rest

by a boy who knew better.

Muffled misery

heard only by bricks,

They weren’t her fault

but were they his?

Displaced by laws

of nature and truth,

Products of time

that stretched sterile.

But if time could bend

would the freckles still lay

or would they be kept neatly

in a jar, high on the shelf?

While carless freckles

they may seem, scattered

with noisy breathless grief,

they are best this way.

You can never go back

though it is your one wish.

He was hers for a time and

he was hers to lose.

One soul mate

is more than most

For one day or ten thousand,

One man only will be yours.

Now freckles may be scattered

seemingly carelessly on the floor,

but at least you jumped from the shelf

and made a glorified mess.

The Wind Farm

Written by James Christopher Sheppard

Maybe,

I’m ok being alone?

Hidden away

at times like treasure

at times like bones

crushed

and hoarded like a newspaper from the day I was born.

Pointlessly wasting time,

Is this hiding?

I cannot be                 seen,              heard,                         felt.

My page, however, remains

electronically

for your information.

Powered, perhaps, by the wind farm I saw on my walk today,

Miles off shore,          white against dense light gray.         Almost invisible. Mostly unnoticed.

Her face still sits as it did two years ago,

next to her name,

written largely and proud as if she is announcing herself

like the rest of us.

Only the page is now filled with ‘I miss you’s’

and has become the only gateway

for us to her

As if it has out-lived her

As the wind farm will out-live us

and keep our pages of pictures and perceptions there, for all to see,

regardless

of our fleshy bodies

and regardless of our distorted realities. 

(oneshotwednesday)

Deconstructing popular lyrics

I am currently studying a module at University called 'Smells like teen spirit- writing popular lyrics'. As you can imagine, we study popular song lyrics and write our own. I have looked forward to this module for years as I am a keen poet and a massive music fan, so I thought this would be right up my street. For weeks, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't write a decent lyric that stuck to the very rigid structure of ABCB rhyme and 3/4/3/4 stress. I had a meeting with my tutor and was told I was being too poetic and putting too much into the lyrics and that I should write things as simply as I possibly can, and to channel universal regret- something that everyone will relate to. I was told to listen to Adele and other very popular artists at the moment. I did so, and was struck by the simplicity of almost all of the commercial music I listen to. Some of these songs are quoted and quoted and appeal to millions of us, but it seems the art is really to say something as simply and vaguely as possible. I have learned from this that I am definitely a poet and not a song writer. Now I am writing these simple lyrics, I just laugh when I read them back because they are so bad- but that appears to be what is wanted from me.

Intellectual Intercourse

I have finally cracked Word Press and started my new 'pro freelance writer' site there at http://jameschristophersheppard.wordpress.com/

Please take a look and subscribe. I'll be posting reviews, features and poetry.

Less will be posted here at 'Choice was an extravagance', so please do visit the new site if you enjoy reading what I write.

Many thanks! :)

Gift-Wrapped

For three years I debated,
shifted mind and tried,
so I wrote the letter.
Precision of word clarified my ramblings, it was done.
Finality on paper,
my signature binding me to my word.
No more a whirlwind of thought drifting at terminal speed,
the letter said it all
in just one page, two hundred words.
Branded wonderings,
there ‘till rot creeps in
like cancer.

On the envelope I write her name. But the letter is mine.
Unforgotten, but laid to rest,
the encased letter lays in it’s paper tomb.
Seven letters spell h-e-r,
but I own these words, they are my creation.
Ownership not for sale,
no paper torn ash will fall here.
She cannot read my letter.
Her name is
only fiction.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/version2point0 (@version2point0)

Check out loads of other great poems this week at One Stop Wednesday! http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/03/one-shot-wednesday-week-37.html

Class Disguise

Your flowery words have little effect,
I’m sorry. Yes you
know some mighty big words
sound terribly impressive
and you’ve dressed in your best
middle class
disguise
with lips painted
road walker red.

My eyes trail,
I try to let my ears take over.
But I drift
further away.
Find myself staring
at my boots
and tight black jeans.

Do I
dress as a poet?
Do I
have less to say?

I leave and stroll
in damp air,
light a cigarette,
despite my flu filled head.
I am not
pretending.

Are you
fooling you?

London

Hatred fuelled eyes cut
Across stale air.
White van man
Shoots
Past.
Too fast,
Too close.

‘Thanks for that,
I was already having a stupendous day,
Walking through the rain
While you sit
In your warm dry seat.

Driving
like a fucking God’

River thick road to cross.
Red light,
green man
and cross.
Without a thought.

Sodden skin under jeans moan,
irritated, restricted.
Nicotine clouds hang low.
Concrete haze of earthy grey
light intensifies
Depression.

No lights, another river to cross.
Take your time,
get drenched by mechanical killing machines
darting past, double the limit.
Wait and hate
and curse
the dry
that don’t waste a second
on you.

Elephant birds bellow
above head.
‘Welcome to London’
the captain said.
‘One of the biggest and best cities in the world’.

http://jinglepoetry.blogspot.com/2011/03/poetry-potluck-idols-role-models-and.html
http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/03/one-shot-poetry-wednesday-celebrating-our-36th-week.html

Money

Life ruiner
Life dictator
Life taker

Life giver
Life enhancer
Life shaper

Class divider
Class creator
Class traveller

Power in quantity
Not quality

Half a Space

35 minutes
Soho to Waterloo
I can do that
On foot.
26th February,
12.30am.
No jacket,
Just a shirt over a t-shirt
flapping in the wind.
Cold stones of rain hitting,
I maneuver between the crowds
Weaving and streaming
Trickling through like water filling a valley.
I know the way I say,
Observing the road names and differing tribes.
China Town to Embankment,
The people swarm
Like the eye of a storm
Embraced by the loudness,
Creating the electricity,
Losing themselves in the smog.

The stars are restricted from view,
Their presence forgotten,
By the city
That uses and churns light.
Night after night the air is attacked
By noise and light,
Pollution, your screams, their cries.
On Hungerford Bridge my eyes gaze
Two sides of the city alive at 1am.
Bouts of shouting hurries through the air
Amplified but inaudible, coarse
Hastily bouncing over the river and meeting my ear.

Half a space,
knee wedged against the seat,
Prevent the natural limp
that will engage me with a stranger.
A woman in her 30s,
Bare foot and trilby wearing,
Staring blankly
Occasionally catching my eye
Before we turn away.
Her man plays billiards on his phone.
She looks unsatisfied.
He looks clueless.

The business man with his brief case,
The sleeping half cut masses sprawled in seats infested.
Standing, swaying, eyes shut,
Hanging,
Crucified in the centre,
He
mouths the words to his music.
I smile
as I watch him,
Care free,
happy in his place.
The business man looks curiously
at me smiling.
In this moment I continue
To have the freedom of the man miming his song.

That I Can Be

I am not the best writer
and never will be.
I am not the fittest or thinnest,
I make a shit cup of tea.

I am not the best kisser or lover,
I don’t read as much as I should.
I smoke even though I quit
My flirting is misunderstood.

I skip class because I can,
I don’t see myself as a 26 year old man,
I spend too much money on food,
I hate my body in the nude,
I drink until I can’t see straight,
I am held back by my problem with my weight,
I am tactless and often disliked,
If a guy smiles at me I think he’s been spiked.

But I am the best me that I can be,
As you are the best you.

I write with more than fingers,
I kiss with more than lips,
I see with more than eyes,
I am more than a body and hips.

I am happy that I am me,
For if I wasn’t the best me that I can be,
I would not have you.

As featured at One Shot Wednesday Week 35: http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/03/one-shot-wednesday-week-35.html

Follow me on twitter @version2point0

Rum Soaked Assistance

By James Christopher Sheppard and Joseph Hurst

Eleven hours to the other side of the world
What the fuck?
Who knew when he was twelve,
Plans and schemes would serve him well.
One sunken,
Drunken eye
Spilt thought and broken time
A friend with heart,
a strong back
My rock,
Keeps me on track.

Time zones stand no distance
Trains of thought,
A rum soaked assistance
Helps us through
Our decisions
I guess
We will
Stop.
Think .
And drink
Till we know that
Another bar will keep us up.

Golden in colour
Jamaican in spirit
The satisfaction derives
From the textures in time.
Never been to the island in question
Places, spaces,
dictations of our paces.

Humour, spirit and affluence in sound
Difference in persuasion,
This discourse resounds
In both sober
And drunken thought
May it never
Fade and sink.
Fuck it.
Pour another drink.

joejagger.tumblr.com

Why I Write

Question, question, question. Am I good enough to write? Should I continue to fight my way through this over-populated path when I am not the best out there? Should I just stop? Night after night I sit alone and consider if I am travelling the wrong road, but then I remember, this is the only thing that has ever filled me with any kind of satisfaction. Does it matter that I am dyslexic, have limited vocabulary and am no better than you? If anything you would confidently stand up and shout that you are ten times as talented as me and that your novel has already been picked up by independent publishers and you’ve been nominated for another young author award. I’m already too old to be considered for your youth award. I have been where you are and I don’t envy it, as much as you can’t conceive not being the best in the room. Writing is an art form, a craft of self-expression, not a competition. We should support and encourage each other, not begrudge each other’s techniques and talent.

I will write, whether I have to get an unfulfilling job to buy my food, or not. I will write because I can only write. I was given this; the ability to find joy sitting alone tapping away trying to somehow create a coherence on the page that I am unable to create in my head or by mouth. Everyday is filled with moments of ideas of more to write. They swirl and distract and crash into each other like carnage from a tornado being violently thrown around. Being able to slow the tornado down and focus on that carnage is key. That is why I write, because if I didn’t, I would have a hurricane brain.

Self Harm

Years of standing alone,

Dependent only on my minor addictions.

Plenty of passionless no strings sex.

Licking, sucking, fucking.

Don’t kiss or hug me,

I am only an appendage of hard flesh and a whole for you to violate.

Filled with blood,

Ready to burst.

Why do you need me here?

Can’t you satisfy yourself?

I don’t need your fowl smelling foreign flesh on mine.

I could make up an elaborate story,

Claim I’ve been raped or abused or some other cliché.

I have been hurt,

I have been wronged,

Haven’t you?

Truth is, I’ve tried it all.

It filled me 

with emptiness.

Voice

I'm not sure just how much I can share of my recent writings on here at the moment as I don't know what I am going to use for my university portfolios yet. After writing 'Man', I seemed to channel a voice that is fresh for me, and even though it may sound far from my own voice, I actually think it may be the most authentic voice I have found to write in so far. I was listening to some hardcore music, the Gallows and Lower Than Atlantis, with my good friend Joe and he was singing the lyrics to me. Actually hearing the lyrics properly gave me time to digest them and realise that these are the most hard hitting  lyrics I have heard for quite some time. So I decided to to give writing more bluntly about real subject matter that you can touch and see, rather than just feel, a go and 'Man' was the outcome. I have written a few poems since, but I need to see if they fit the submission criteria at university before I can publish them online, or I'll be in trouble for plaigarising something that is already out there.


As this blog was intended to follow me on my journey from student to... something else, here is what is currently the plan. My final batch of assignments will be complete by the end of May. I shall then move all of my worldly possessions to my Mother's house in Hull. I know Hull has a lot less to offer than London, but I will be able to live very cheaply and pay off the debts I have incurred as a student (credit cards etc) for a year or so, and have the freedom to leave at the drop of a hat if a job comes up- anywhere. I plan to take a trip to the USA in June or July and write about my experience, which makes living back with my Mother for a year seem more than worth it. I would never be able to take such a trip if I was also paying out London rent and bills. I recently worked out that my monthly outgoings for rent, bills and food total around £800 per month. I know that living in Hull will be difficult but I am slightly looking forward to having little responsibility for a year; something I feel I will massively enjoy after the past four years!

Catch Your Breath

Gasp as the cracks torment

Opportunity dried up in an untouchable haze

The last element in my eye

               I watch as it flutters to the heavens

Gasp as despair soars through my core

Entwined in euphoric whirl, coursing from my stomach

Caught like a fly, the web spins

               I struggle to remain

Gasp through vomit stench

Fighting for nothing

Empty stomach, vacant dream

               Filling with poisonous dark green bile

Pause, breathe

Clutch to any notion of life

Of hope, of possibility

               How many times?

Seduced by the City

One week of frivolous activities has left me elated and the most relaxed I have been for quite some time. I have taken some time out from my part time job and have relished in the two weeks of freedom between handing my assignments in and my new classes beginning. My usual strict regime of hitting the gym at least three times a week and only drinking one day a week has gone out of the window, but it has been much needed and left me feeling on top of the world. Two birthday parties, one at the Ice Bar in Central London and one at a house in Kingston; an evening in Surbiton’s highly priced Bosco Lounge with my friend Alix, and an uplanned evening on Thursday which saw a group of seven of us go from bar to bar and eventually ending up with us dancing like knobs at Kingston’s indie night, ‘New Slang’. This past week has been exceptional, and largely due to Wednesday evening’s events.

I was reeling in a dry-mouthed, head-achy, disorientated hung-over state when waking up at 3pm. The first thing I do when waking up is reach for my phone and check what messages have come through during my deep sleep. A text from Lucy Furlong was slowly coming into focus as my mind raced through the usual first thing questions; ‘what day is it? What did I do last night? What am I meant to be doing today? Am I late?’

It was Wednesday, I got home from Scott’s 21^st birthday party at 6am after drinking an insane amount of rum and I could now read Lucy’s text; ‘Hey hon, are you still up for coming to the poetry thing tonight?’ I held my hand up, above my head, to read the message for a good minute before allowing my hand to flop back onto the bed. I considered my options; lie around the house all day feeling rancid or just get up and get going and experience something new.

I met Lucy at the Poetry Library inside the Royal Festival Hall less than two hours after waking. Thankfully the twenty minute train ride from Surbiton to Waterloo was deadly quiet. For once I decided to enjoy the silence and not listen to tracks on my Iphone. The silence was beautiful. Upon reaching the Royal Festival Hall, somewhere I had never entered, I found my way up to the fifth floor and to find Lucy engrossed in the Poetry Library. We had never seen anything like it. In this amazing building was an astonishingly varied and large collection of poetry and information about poetry events online and throughout the country. We both established that this was a place we would certainly be frequenting on upcoming free days. Upon exiting the library, we ventured out onto the balcony to witness the stunning view of 5.30pm January London. I’ve been on the London Eye and walked across the river countless times, but the image from five stories high at the Royal Festival Hall was overwhelming and beautiful.

We crossed the river and popped into Gordons Wine Bar which has been open, and remained much the same, since 1890. After carefully walking down a narrow staircase, the uneven floor is filled with as much character as is the cave-like surroundings of the walls. A stunning place which I have every intention of revisiting very soon. We then ventured across London to Liverpool Street, where our walk to our next location felt more like an exploration of an unknown part of the city. The buildings between Liverpool Street and Shoreditch were overwhelming. One minute you are walking amongst inconceivably modern structures that resemble something from Inception or The Matrix, and the next you surrounded by 100 year old buildings that have been abandoned and are crumbling slowly to their deaths. In between this stark contrast were some of the most beautiful town houses I have seen in Central London. Just walking around the area and taking in the surroundings was a fascinating experience. As Lucy and I walked, with our jaws on the floor, as we broke our necks to see how high the buildings stood, we unexpectedly came across a stunning Tron-like light up floor. Amongst these futuristic buildings was a large patch of cemented land with a grid of white and red lights zapping around it. We were both mesmerised and stunned that we knew nothing of the eye catching spectacle before.

When we arrived at Rich Mix for Jawdance, now also with Christina, I was already forgetting my hungover body pains and having an exhilarating and refreshing evening. Three hours of performance poetry, from numerous different poets from all walks of life, was mind-opening and brilliant. To witness poetry in such an exciting environment was liberating. I realised that there is so much more to writing than simply writing and hoping someone will enjoy reading it; there is a whole world of fellow writers out there to share and connect with, who you can learn from and who will listen to you. The whole night left me very excited about future possibilities and a refreshed love for London, my beautiful and diverse city.

My Alternative Blog

In order to maintain this blog as the writing side of my blogging, I have recently set up a new blog on Tumblr which is the sister blog to this, but is nonsensical ramblings and postings. Please follow me! http://jameschristophersheppard.tumblr.com/ Also, The Roebuck Poets blog is now up and running with a poem from both Lucy Fur and myself, so please check it out. http://roebuckpoets.blogspot.com/