Poetry: Selections from Scott Cumming

Grown

I have grown into my cynicism

Sleepwalked into depression

Eye-rolled into unfeeling

Nodded into perpetual indecision

Now, left

head-scratching

staring into

the nothingness of clouds

searching for answers

long departed.

Sandbagging

Positivity

written in sand

washed clean

baggage and carcasses

the only remnants

 

Cliff face of my psyche

erodes quicker with years

no hand holds left

with which to drag myself back  

even for brief respite

upon a secluded perch

 

In the rocks and waves

I lurk harmlessly

Head drifting above water

Mind swirling the basin

seeking life raft

or any old detritus

A way to reach the shore

another crustacean corpse

to be stomped

ignored.

Thirty-Seven

Rock n Roll stuck it out

while it could

accessorised

aesthetic prized

the rest left

to wither on the vine

 

The outlaws

died dishonourably

no more romance

done sticking it to the man

just scraping each other

from the hull

scooping what we can

fading to black

 

Now I’m the dad

stuck looking at the past

searching for totems

not decayed in sanitiser

Asking

how do you sow the seeds

for something

that disappeared

 

Rebellion these days

elicits

the same shrugs and sighs

as the corruption

and incompetence

that govern our lives.

Scott Cumming never considered himself to be a writer until recently, but turns out he has some stuff to say. He has been published at The Daily Drunk, Punk Noir Magazine, Versification, and Shotgun Honey. His poem, “Blood on Snow”, was voted the best of Outcast Press Poetry: Things We Carry issue and his debut poetry chapbook is due for release in December.