My Poetry: Old & New Awaits…

My Words Are My Voice.

My words are my voice

A choice, as natural as breathing

Sitting, repeating,

And by nature deceiving.

I am lying

On a bed

It is my head that talks.

Sometimes blindness is the greatest gift.

It lets the darkness speak.

To slip between the unseen and scream

There is no rhyme for this.

Sublime space?

If only…

Sinking through the flaws in your skin,

Your bones dissolving in a poet’s shadow fading.

Made worthy, unworthy, worthy, unworthy, worthy more and more,

What is this for?

I appeal to the listener who thinks they’ve heard it all

by the blink of my eyes.

This image talks indeed

Shaking in its unsteady shell shackled,

But I am not its reflection,

I am the silence within the unspoken

The spoken aloud, not alive.

Cut down, edited, repressed

Made strong (or so they think)

In the name of art

Or speech, that may be understood in more than clarity’s tongue,

Stuttering so quietly in its searching

You won’t even know that it’s gone…

Originally published in The Dark Side of Light by Bardic Media in 2017.

It is still one of favourite pieces to perform live.

The Dark Side of Light was my debut poetry collection. Bardic Media was a small publishing house that is no longer active, but if you wish to know more about this collection you can contact me at the following email address:

Kaychannonwrites@gmail.com

~~~~~~~

CP & Me.

I have CP.

I was once told I was lucky.

Forgive me if I disagree, you see, CP, is in fact, not a facial deformity.

So, basically, he was saying that it was good I didn’t look like me, him;

a specialist in Neurology.

To set the record straight, what happens in your brain can severely affect your face…

A smile,

a headshake,

impressions all those in a room can take…

They make me visible,

ask me questions,

then don’t give a shit what escapes my lips.

They don’t take my advice about relationships; you know, how flavoured condoms can be a great add on with titanium hips...

Then there is my apparent deafness; still unheard, where every vowel becomes a word loudly echoing

her and her and her and her, rather than me.

So, whilst I may have conditions A, B, and C - X is the problem,

the invisible me…

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~~~~~

A Note to the Reader:

The following poem is the result of an online gig I was asked to headline for ‘Virtual Voices’, an online based open mic event. I asked everyone in attendance to type the first word that came to mind when I said war.

The only word I had to substitute was ‘belligerence’. I researched alternative meanings and settled on the idea of an individual who enjoyed engaging in conflict. This conceived the image of bystanders who ‘want to weigh in’, suggesting they enjoy watching conflict but don’t always like to admit it.

I am really enjoying crafting this poem. Thank you to everyone of at ‘Virtual Voices’. I can’t wait to share this piece with you later this month.

(May 2026)

Warring Words – Draft II

By Kay Channon

Words spill from leader to leader

wasted on bystanders

who want to weigh in but won’t admit it.

The walls weep.

Images stand solidified in dust

the heartbeats of survivors

searching in terror torn at the cost of arms

of holding someone tight

of loving the lonely

caring…

Emotions become maladies.

Explosions echo racing thoughts.

Alarms chime notes of destruction

in white noise rooms padded

with grit, guilt, and gender bias.

A father feels shame for scars

made before he was ten

madness moulded by backwards democracy

dictating and invading every mind’s eye.

“Where were you when the world broke in two?”

“In my room. Talking to death.”

“I kept my finger on the trigger, even when I slept.”

“They were just screaming, screaming into nowhere.”

Kay Channon