Poetic Expressions

The Seven Deadly Sins

Welcome to The Seven Deadly Sins,

Poetic Expressions Collection.

Seven Different Sins,

Seven Different Poets

and Seven Very Different Poems.

Lust

In essence of the human condition, many deadly sins exist and are a necessity of the body and spirit. The truth and the fact remains, the Gods will always provoke the substance of life. Many torments are going to occur but when all of the other sins fade, only one will constantly return and can never be held down. It is primordial matter and the foundation of human existence – the sin the Devil loves most of all… LUST!

In the twinkling star-filled night

Play two souls staring eyes

Her mouth is wet and lips so soft

Aching thoughts touching moss

Desire most strong shows a life taken

Battered body floats, the river given

A man that never saw his demise

Gives new chances fresh girl’s lies

The tasting acts entice a great many

Wanting, burning, sacrifice every penny

Now comes the time to return back home

Smile faithfully and play the role

Until the next time a secret meet

Craving together soft flesh most sweet

One husband dead the next to go

Girl’s together, a sensual glow

William O’Brien© Copyright applied UK and overseas

Peter: A Darkened Fairytale ©

Gluttony

Gluttony is one of the more feared sins – Being able to devour anything, whether it be man, beast, plant, even rocks and metal. The only ones safe from this hunger are the young. Gluttony says that the young do not have much of a taste and not enough meat on them. Though he is fearsome, he is not very bright. To save their world from being devoured the mortal tricked Gluttony into eating the trash and drinking the poison from lakes and rivers. They told Gluttony that there is always a ready supply of trash and filth while if he ate the world there would be nothing left to eat. Even so, they remained cautious in his presence. To the surprise of many, what appears to be its tail is actually its head. The torso is merely a shield to protect the head. He has the gruesome ability to expel the remains of his last victim and make him attack his enemies.

In life: we want, we hurt, we lie, we cry

Until we find what we are searching for

We’re all dying inside; why do we try?

We all have what we need, yet still want more

We notice not the faces gazing back

With every glance, we stare, our faces blank

We only ever see the things we lack

So every day we try to make the bank

Discovering things that burst at the seams

That’s when you know you’ve accomplished your goal

Recovering from all our broken dreams

We finally can love in heart and soul

Accuse me all you wish of glutton, greed

But I’ve found all the things I know I need

Greed

Greed – the desire to want something eagerly. A rapacious desire for materialistic possessions. A sin of excess.

Greed drives man to do things he shouldn’t. This desire to own everything he lays his eyes on causes him to act in ways that not only harm the people around him, but himself too. Thievery, homicide, violence, trickery – he obtains what he wants in the easiest possible way regardless of how moral it is.

Greed is a deadly sin.

An eager desire to own what I see

An insatiable urge to keep you with me

I hunger for everything that appeals to me

I need to own everything that can be achieved

The silence of seaside, the noise of town

The robe of simplicity, the opulence’s crown

The comfort of peace, yet a reason to frown

In the best of both worlds, I want to drown

My desires see no end

Nothing is ever enough

Even a golden chain demands a diamond pendant

When time takes away its glitter

Sloth

Sloth was originally thought to be made of two components. One was apathy, while the other was sadness. Many people declare it to be laziness, but, to me, sloth is depression and a lack of interest, or rather a complete disinterest to do anything, to care about anything, or to care about any emotions that you or another may feel. Speaking from past feelings of depression, it can make a person feel helpless and find it really hard to want to do anything. Sloth is giving up on trying to get rid of those feelings. It’s not believing in yourself and letting a “demon” take over you.

I would write you a letter

But that doesn’t make me better

Depression is easy to fight

But why would I use my might?

They say that being numb is a state of mind

I just don’t care about the human kind

I could get up and live a day

But I’d just be in the way

The only thing I do is sleep

So I won’t start to weep

Someone says I should eat

I say that I’m too beat

People cry with love

I only stare above

There are the eyes of Sloth

And I embrace its troth

Wrath

When I thought about wrath/anger, and such an extreme version of it that it could be classified a sin, I wanted to show why it occurred. Wrath, or some form of uncontrollable anger, seems to me to be the emotion of a person who rails at the world, taking out his/her frustrations on others because of the way things have turned out for him/her. That’s what I have tried to show in the poem, that we vent our anger on others because of our own failures and non-fulfilment. Maybe, if we can understand wrath or extreme anger as a cry for help out of our own despair, we will then be able to control such outbursts, both in others and ourselves.

I see red when they block my path;

an urge to hit, to obliterate,

a pleasure in hurting,

explodes in my head.

When I see the harm others do to me, and mine,

when others do not do what I wish them to do,

when life casts me aside,

anger’s hot delirious infection wells up in my gut,

rises up through my innards to spit itself out.

I want to shout, scream, wail,

would rip things and bodies up with my hands,

and hurt, hurt, hurt others

for the anger they made me spew out

when they shoved it down my throat.

Envy

Envy: the desire for the possessions or qualities of another. To me envy symbolizes a lack of contentment. A desire to escape one’s own life by aping other peoples seemingly more successful or happier existence. This is not to be confused with ambition. Envy is not about working towards achieving a similar lifestyle; it is about stealing a lifestyle due to some delusion of worth. I want what they have and I deserve what they have but I see no reason why I should work for it. I should be mine by right, not by endeavor. Envy is a deadly disease but it does not take life, it wastes life.

Look at the smile on the face of the hugged.

Look at the hugger with a smile on his face.

Look at the frown on the face of the watcher,

Who has none to hug, cuddle or embrace.

Look at the smile on the face of the rich man.

Look at the frown on the face of the poor.

Look at the money on the rich man’s table.

See no money on the poor man’s floor.

Look at the smile on the face of the achiever.

Look at the frown on the face of the failed.

Look at the smile on the face of the freeman.

Look at the frown on the face of the jailed.

Look at the frown on the face of the one.

Look at the smile on the face of the two.

I’m glad there’s a smile on the face of the many,

And only a frown on the face of the few.

Some people are never happy with the things they’ve got.

They will carry their frown until they’ve got the lot.

Some people are never content with the things in life they find.

But until they’re content, and never before,

They’ll always be a smile behind.

Pride

This poem,Metaphors of Permanence, shows how I believe that as a Poet,I am forever. The persistent metaphors reinforce this belief by constantly comparing the simple to the extreme. It is quite prideful to believe oneself to be immortal,especially in reference to an art and being the proponent of said art. In this case, the art in question is Poetry.

Metaphors of Permanence

I am the monster under the bed.

I am the Boogeyman in the closet, but when you come with your friends to verify my existence, I am not there.

But when you come to retrieve your jacket or coat, I am the one handing it to you, fangs

glistening in the moonlight with saliva dripping from my mouth for I am ravenous.

I am Jason Voorhees, Michael Meyers, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, and Pennywise, and no matter how many times you wish to kill or vanquish me, another movie or book is made for me to live again.

I am Lex Luthor, Grodd the Gorilla, Black Manta, Simon Bar Sinister, and Riff Raff and the heroes that battle, for this illustrates the perpetual struggle of good versus evil. I am the proverbial fly in the ointment that shows up at the picnic, and no matter how much you swing and swat at me, I do not leave but tap dance in the potato salad, perform backstrokes in Cole slaw, and swing back and forth on your fork as you are getting ready to place it in your mouth.

And these are the metaphors of permanence of what truly am.

I am the anger and hatred of Beelzebub for being cast out of Heaven, and I am the disappointment and resignation of the Almighty Himself knowing that when He created Lucifer, He would have no recourse.

I am the bully, the bullied, and the bullied that finally stood up to the bully.

I am dark skin, for no matter how many times it has been chained, whipped, or cursed, it and the people who have it, remain.

And these are the metaphors of permanence to show what I truly am.

I am an addict, but there are no pipes, blunts, bottles, or needles. There is simply me going to open mics, using assumed names, taking the three, five, or how many minutes given to me, and performing like I’m the feature.

There is me using social network to share a poem so there is room for the next poem and the next in my head.

I am the invitation in the mail sent to me, and it is an invite that I am surprised that I received. At this gala, there is Wordsworth and Blake conversing in one corner, while Giovanni, Hughes, and Brooks exchange stories in another.

I bow my head in reverence as a Maya Angelou approaches, but she lifts my head by the chin and says welcome home, my child.

No longer am I lost or wayward.

My life has a course and high purpose.

This skin is temporary and irrelevant, for I realize what I truly am.

I am a poet.

And the metaphors of permanence are complete.

I remember a time when I took a break from buses. It was about ten years ago and I was drawn away by an attractive job offer from a firm that I had previously worked for. It didn’t turn out how I planned and I ended up back on the buses. This is not what this post is all about however. While I was away, the thing I missed the most was the camaraderie ( A word best spoken while giggling your head from side to side with each syllable ). Back then It didn’t matter which bus company you worked for, you still offered a smile and a wave at other bus drivers as you passed by. Nowadays things are different. I am not saying that drivers don’t wave and spread cheer amongst themselves to help relieve either the boredom or the stress, which ever happens to be plaguing you on any particular day, but what I am saying is that it isn’t always the case anymore. You used to be able to rely on a at least a smile if you managed to catch an eye but now a particular form of Russian roulette exists.

I understand that everyone favours those closest to them, it’s human nature, which is why I can relate to drivers from the same company giving each other a quick nod and a grin. I don’t get it, however, when a driver from a different company tries to add to their show of comradeship and only receives scowls in return. Yes the bus companies are in competition with each other, each trying to secure more routes and ultimately more profit, yet the drivers have nothing to gain by ostracising each other in the same way. I have even overheard talk of how the drivers from this company are this or that. Talk of how every driver from one particular company are just the rejects from all the other operators. I have even heard it said, of one service provider, how all their drivers are criminals on parole.

The problem is that this new attitude goes deeper than just a division between the companies. Each individual bus depot within a single company has its own form of segregation as well. This is unwittingly exasperated by the powers that be as they often post rankings that can cause a sense of competition between the garages. I would love to say that was a far as this situation goes but there is a further, lower level to all this division.

This is where my mind boggles at the shear narrow mindedness that people can adopt into their own psyche. Individual bus routes and even the day and night shifts within that one route can end up pitting themselves against each other.
“He’s my mate, he drives the 162. I don’t like him though, he drives the N62”.

I have now adopted a strategy that I implement whenever I meet one of these particular individuals. They are easy to identify by their reaction to your wishing wave of good will. They will go beyond the scowl and raise a single central digit and aim it’s knuckle in your general direction. My uniform response is simple. I will raise my own hand and with three fingers touch my bottom lip, slide my palm under my chin, pucker up and blow. I Usually follow this up with a wide, eyed, sparkling grin and then watch as their faces turn read and their heads inflate like a novelty balloon. Now I don’t consider my gesture as significantly abusive. In fact I have often performed a similar action towards my beloved wife and she has never taken any offence to it. I see it as akin to my other, newer gesture of affection I bestow towards her. It is something I have grown a habit of doing ever since reading William O’Brien’s excellent fantasy novel Peter: A Darkened Fairytale. I will slip my fingers into my shirt pocket and the lift them back out and up to my lips. Much like blowing a kiss, I then puff imaginary fairy dust at her to defend her against weaker evils.

I will now tell of one particular bus driving incident. I should have known as the bus approached. The driver was staring at a cyclist in front of him, with blood curdling hate in his eyes, as he approached a busy bus stop but I offered a wave anyway. His hair was shaven as short as possible, obviously in an attempt to disguise the bald spots. His face looked like the cross between a pit-bull terrier and a pinkish red avocado. His bulbous nose was so pitted and scared it looked like he had been scratching it with a cheese grater for the past twenty years. He also had so much gold in his mouth that he must have had to brush his teeth with Brasso®. There was a stocky look to him, the look of a man who once had rippling muscles which had now turned to fat. He probably told people that it was all just relaxed muscle. Relaxed! Any more relaxed it’ll be dead. Muscles so relaxed that the biceps were now hanging loose from the wrong side of his arms. I must admit that I knew the type well, he was the kind of man who would begin to smell a bit like pork scratching if he was left in the sun for too long.

He saw my wave and, as predicted, the middle finger of his right hand stood alone and erect for my appraisal. I then responded with my trade mark gesture.
His eyes had then bulged to the point of popping out onto his lap. His forward facing attention was completely diverted to my direction and with both hands he performed double, back handed victory signs. This left me wondering how he was steering the bus while both his hands were busy doing more important things. As we passed each other I heard the sound of rubber against curb. A second later I heard the cries of many voices and, as I looked through my rear view mirror I saw a dozen or so people chasing the other bus as it missed the stop and continued down the road still bumping up and down the kerb. I would love to say there was a moral to this story and perhaps there is; I, however , have no clue what that moral could be.

The History

Originally established back in the nineteenth century ‘The Necropolis Bus Company’ provided a private funeral service. In what was known as ‘Carcass Coaches’ by Londoners, The Necropolis Bus Company would convey the deceased, pall bearers and up to fifty mourners through London’s streets. Tragically in 1967 a fire at the company depot destroyed almost their entire fleet of buses. Only one bus was survived and was locked away for 40 years. It has now been fully restored and is being used as a tour bus by ‘Necrobus’.

The Tour

The London Ghost Bus Tour is a spooky and funny guided bus tour of London. Taking in sights such as Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral and many more historic London landmarks, a journey with Necrobus is an experience you’ll not easily forget. With onboard comedy/horror theatrical entertainment in the atmosphere of a fully restored 1960’s Routemaster bus, The London Bus Tour shows you the grisly skeletons in the capitals cupboards.

For more information and some great short videos please visit The London Ghost Bus Tours website at http://www.theghostbustours.com/
And like their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheGhostBusTours

Further Thought

I plan to, in the not too distant future, climb aboard and experience this nocturnal tour myself. When this time comes, I have yet to set an exact date, I will have my camera and notebook to hand in order to document my experience. My tour blog will be posted here on The Trump Diary so watch this space.

Month: October 2013

Poetic Expressions. The Seven Deadly Sins.

Poetic Expressions

The Seven Deadly Sins

Welcome to The Seven Deadly Sins,