Sunshine, in Seasons of Showers is a collection of poetry and prose reflecting on the nature of humans. This book represents a collection of moments lived across the world, throughout humanity. Exploring the burden and struggle of nature's beauty, human instinct, and modern day life. It is the inaugural work of J F Bartley, spanning three continents, and six years in the making.
Sunshine, in Seasons of Showers is a collection of poetry and prose reflecting on the nature of humans. This book represents a collection of moments lived across the world, throughout humanity. Exploring the burden and struggle of nature's beauty, human instinct, and modern day life. It is the inaugural work of J F Bartley, spanning three continents, and six years in the making.
Hello Pablo
I'm starting to hear you more now when I talk.
That feeling where I can't quite rest or enjoy something.
Did you realise what you were doing? I have to think not.
Love does distort things, but did you know what love was?
I do, love lives in me, but then so do you.
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We made it out you know, not without scars, but we're not unique.
Our scars run deep and are easily opened.
Our hearts are not. We love fiercely, but always on edge.
That's a love we learnt.
½ a family of love.
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When I look back the good times fade, they vanish.
I'm left standing looking at you through my eyes.
But is it you I see?
Certainly, your venom lurks beneath my skin. But I know love.
She saved me with love, so don't let me hurt her.
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We are both broken for different reasons, but for glimpses we appear whole.
In those glimpses I'm home, but you're not there.
At least I think you're not.
But maybe you're here now, seeping out of my ink.
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I try to flee from us sometimes. On occasion I get far.
I've known real love from the kindness in strangers.
There I'm new, no habitual traps, strangled by routine.
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When my foot touches down I get that relief.
A world of freedom from you, from us.
But it always starts again. That fear of being loved.
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So, thank you for that, a duty to protect not known.
In solitary moments, I've got my escape,
To be with her sets me loose.
Those are the times I feel sorrow for you.
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You are empty and devoid of love.
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I wish I could show you love, but it's foreign between us.
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Maybe on repeat it could all be different, but that's not meant to be.
The worst part is, I want to love you, but we're strangers.
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Rather than hello, maybe 'thank you' is better suited.
But that'll never happen.
At least my scars feel relief with these words.
Your gift to me was this after all.
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Going into this poetry collection, I was very hopeful for some hard-hitting, inspirational, and emotional poems that took me across the continents and made me think about the nature of humanity and myself.
Unfortunately, while I found some of the poems exceeding at just that, the collection overall fell short to me both in cohesion and execution. There were gems that I read once, twice, and noted because I wanted to be able to read them again, but the majority of the poems were, for me, generic and uninspired. Cliches and ideas that have been expressed elsewhere but better took up more lines on the pages than the fresh, interesting, and tight lines of prose that I occasionally came across. Coupled with the frequency of grammar issues that, after parsing the collection in full and coming to the conclusion they were not artistically intentional, took me out of the poems and made for more distractions than anything else.
That said, I did enjoy a few things about this collection.
The stand out in this collection, for me, was the first poem, Hello, Pablo. I felt a connection to it that made me want to dive into this collection, and a similar feeling was echoed in entries like Forget me nots, Musique, and Passing Lights. These poems were the highlight for me; they came from the heart and didn't read like they were written for the sake of platitudes. Particularly with Hello, Pablo, these lines:
In those glimpses I'm home, but you're not there
At least, I think you're not
But maybe you're here now, seeping out of my ink
This poem gave me heart, it gave me emotion, it gave me pause for reflection. It made me think about my own personal Pablo, and I believe that JF Bartley, despite this particular collection not hitting its mark, certainly has more Hello, Pablo poems in their pen. So, while this collection wasn't for me, Bartley certainly has the ability to turn out a perfected collection in the future.