"Checkmate" POEM by Chasey Delaney [+ Free PDF Download] includes audio
13 February 2025.
"Checkmate" POEM by Chasey Delaney
I checkmate this year out of this boredom feels like passing bolts of lightening from one outstretched hand to the other feels like the sound a benign bubble of acceptance makes when it pops Like my late father was I am stationery and harboured by time the present resides under the sheets of a musty existence in a pillow of dreams I miss him in this cell called home from home The House of The Dead My reality is a prison. So a real incarceration will be a welcome change In waking life I'm barely involved like dad i am always at home he chose to go to sleep where he lost dreams and wished his mobility away to array the fear and pain of being alone like the bedsit casualties on cold yesterdays he locked in the bathroom mirrors too soon no clearer than the hum of the toilet cistern still pissing with him after the fact brushing teeth still missing the dream he had the woman he loved the bucolic future plans that went astray he slept his days away I'm just the same when it rains on me in the night we drag our feet on damp bathmats to get them clean painting a requiem with pallet- scrapings on dirty canvas improvised bed sheets throw in the towel just for a while he used to smoke cigarettes like wine and drink and think of times when a welcome smile felt less like a foreign exhibit on his face and more of an opening to some better place I relinquish the sin of stealing reams of dreams from unwanted ghosts who hold on to me like a haunting they come they go mostly unpleasant I host the parasitic present and hope to let go of my need for possession instead dad once said "I don't sweat much for a fat lass" cringing I'd laugh metaphors racing laps of my brain I worry too much but I'm never afraid In a perpetual state of terror and pain Each night he lay down his bent bristled toothbrush on the side of a pristine clean sink Noting that it wasn't only the old soap that had cracked the old folk were back redirecting dead dreams in his head his feet carry meaning in memory of forsaken waking life dreams he succumb from Long lost adventures never attained yet in vain the teeth rattle inside the cage of his jaw and the sound of his heart's last straw withdrawal in sync with the bells that ring out from the churches this feeling this grief latches on to it we understand the lonely orchestral band the loneliness found at the crack of dawn slow flowing descent of an ice cold solitary drip from the solace he sniffs towards the strangely familiar acceptance of a leaking tap and relinquished the present assumption to draw time and the dusty curtains back tight closed his shirt hangs slack his vest clings to rolls under his chest his cigarette offers him a friend he lies down on the bed fully clothed 1 hour 10 hours a lifetime ago far-flung fissures flare within walls coming down as the dream peters out I attempt slight oneiromancy from desert bucolic dreams merging intimacy wrestling with false identities The divination I found in the relinquished surroundings seeks creatures of sympathy allay my crisis It's cathartic to lean back in the last leg of my half life's story as a crutch forcing an inside exit through open channels transcending poorly lit playing fields of unified glory previously easy this need in me for shrinking humanity it feeds me instantly sucking through the channel of doubt taking me out with it sustained by lust and bad bed poverty Am I really this kind of animal?
Thank you for listening and/or reading my poem with me. It was another 'better version from my notes app' that I found in the aftermath after I had submitted a really unremarkable 'kenning' poem to be featured in my favourite creative's free anthology. You can see exactly what I mean when I say I wished I had NOT submitted that one. I have since posted this and another version which, in my opinion are so much more fitting with the tone of the anthology and the other poet's voices. This is still free to download , keep and share as you please. It is called Our Time Is Now - word 2025.
Best wishes…x
Huge Kisses from Chasey Delaney :)
