Under the Influence

Cart-wheeling ignorantly,
oblivious to dependency,
on a one-way trip
under the influence.

There is no medication,
there is no cure.
It is as certain
as it is memorable.

It will be
what it wills to be,
but will it be
what you will it to be?

In moderation
bringing pleasure;
in addiction,
pain.

I wonder whether
curse will someday
outweigh gain?

Men and women…
their most appealingly appalling drink;
a fluid bouncing
confusing cacophonies.

A dreary train ride
or patient love affair?
Sweet nothings
or nothing sweet?
Clouds or sun,
tears and fears,
bliss and rapture,
certainty or not…
This drug seeps through
all we’ve got.

This fatal, futile, fleeting thing…
… called emotion.


This I wrote on the train coming back from Swansea on a small notepad piece of paper. It looks nicer with the custom fonts I produced for it and it fit well in a hand-written form but here it is presented in a slightly less creative form. This poem was in the interim between my first and second years at college and that day, I remember very plainly struggling with the Lord about my apparent lack of missionistic output. Ironically, it is one of those poems which could be extremely personal for me, but ended up not being at the time I wrote it. It usually works out that I start a poem from a present experience and then it has a future disassociative affect but here I was writing it after the experience, way after. I quite enjoy this one, it must be said...

Matt K, Summer 2004