Collection Of Works, Original Essay, Research Paper

Collected Works, Vol. 1

The Collected Works of Nicholas Cottrell

Disclaimer and Copyright Notice:

All works within are copyrighted to Nicholas Cottrell, hereafter known as “the author”.

Unauthorized copying is prohibited. Each reader is authorized to make five (5) copies and

distribute them in any manner as long as profit is not gained.

This contains subject matter that you may find disturbing or inappropriate. Please do not read

it if you think you may become offended.

Table of Contents:

0. Introduction

1. “Spring” – The one romance poem in here.

2. “Spiral’s End” – a poem of revenge

3. “Of Teenage Sorrow” – A short story

4. “Nomad” – loneliness in writing

5. “Frat Boys” – anti-drinking

6. “Reflected Waves” – a poem of surprise at oneself

7. “Phoenix” – a poem of redemption

8. “My Friend In Misery: An Ode to Missa” – a poem of thanks

9. “Bleeding” – a poem of being drained

10. “Observations of Corporations” – A partial view of life.

11. “Fallen Hero” – Read the disclaimer

12. “Singularity” – the one way out

13. “Short Views” – More views on life

Introduction

A while back, my poetry won me a statewide award. Ever since, I’ve been pressured to make a

compilation of some of my crap and send it around to be published.

This collection is just a bunch of stuff I threw together, not much thought to it. If you like

it, tell me so! My e-mail address is [email protected], write me. I’ll write back each and every

person by hand, I promise.

Well, on with the show, I suppose.

1. “Spring”

A rose with gentle petals

in the garden grows

amongst the weeds

Love, like the rose

thrives in life’s turmoils

like the carefully planted seed

- Nicholas Cottrell

2. “Spiral’s End”

Too long have I spent

Explaining what I’ve meant

Too long have you heard

my ominous words

Whimpering, you cry

on your knees, you die.

-Nicholas Cottrell

3. “Of Teenage Sorrow”

A child’s cries in the night awaken the mother, who stumblingly finds her way to the crib. Is it a bottle, or a diaper change? The mother does not know. Inadequacy fills the teenage mother, and blinds her to the child’s needs. “Rot in Hell, kid.” she mutters, crawling back into a bed where a father should be but wasn’t. The child’s unrelenting tears force her from her nighttime reverie, abd drag her back to the nursery. “Shut up, kid!” she growls drowsily. “Don’t you know I have school tomorrow?” But the baby does not know, and her howls fill the night. Lights come on in neighboring apartments, and shouts reach her ears.

“Shut that kid up!”

“Some of us are trying to SLEEP!”

As much as she does not know how to help her tiny child, she remembers how to defend her.

A torrent of curses and insults streams unladylike from her lips, and vanquishes the neighbor’s

screams. Breaking into tears at her inadequacy to help her child, she drags herself to her small

refrigerator and withdraws a beer. “I just need more money… I just need more time…” she

mutters, and almost believes herself in her half-drunken state.

In the morning she awakes, seeing that the baby cried itself to sleep. Kicking over the

beer cans from the previous night, she looked at her alarm clock. Too late to go to school now.

Might as well spend time with the brat to make up for last night.

Dragging out a stroller from beneath half-eaten TV dinners and beer cans, she reflected on

the time when she still loved her child. When Stephen was with her… when she had money to

spend… when life was good. She packed the child into the stroller, and rolled out the door

and down the road to a little park.

Stopping at the pond, she threw stones into the water and watched the ripples rise. She

pondered how easy life would be without her little brat. How easy… and that pond was so deep..

and so dark…. her knuckles whitened around the stroller’s handle. So easy…

-Nicholas Cottrell

4. “Nomad”

Across the Earth I stride,

wandering

These sands I’m cursed to ride,

thirsting

Alone I nurture pride,

crawling

And with myself I die,

smiling.

-Nicholas Cottrell

5. “Frat Boys”

Amongst the company of others,

I find myself alone.

These men who act like brothers,

it chills me to the bone.

In salute they raise their beer cans,

(I alone stand without one)

and dub each other “Man”

thinking that getting drunk is fun.

-Nicholas Cottrell

6. “Reflected Waves”

A river flows

beneath my feet

reflection glows

and life seems sweet

I smile at myself and see

the person smiling back

is… not…. me….

-Nicholas Cottrell

7. “Phoenix”

I am impure

for me,

there is no cure

I crawl to light

to try

and fight

the dark within

consumed

by my sin

I see the light

it is so bright

wash over me

and make me be

I become one

my sins are gone

the darkness lost

this light has taught

my life is new

enemies few

I come to terms

my flesh not burn

I look to the sky

and wonder not why

Because I made peace.

-Nicholas Cottrell

8. “My Friend In Misery: An Ode to Missa”

In darkness I shone

Held by Death’s bones

Fingers around my throat

Thrown into the acid moat

It ate away my flesh

with darkness and death I meshed

Inside refused to die

because then no one would ask why

On brink I stood and stumbled

around me world did crumble

With friends I went

to you I spoke

My darkness spent

Courage awoke

Inside I live

and to you I give

this little rhyme

in immortal time.

-Nicholas Cottrell

9. “Bleeding”

Can give no more

My flesh is spent

Feel like a whore

To home I went

and ask they did

for more of me

I’m just a kid!

They don’t agree.

A man they made

of just a child

To them I’ve said

“Give me a while”

But time is what

I do not own

that door is shut

freedom, gone.

-Nicholas Cottrell

10. “Observations of Corporations”

Swords locked in a battle of the titans, unknowing people standing beneath continue with their

lives. Those that buy and sell us continue the petty squabbles that to us are financial wars.

CEOs send their army of lawyers and accountants to do battle on the market, a more bitter field

of battle than any foreign soil ever has been. And the foot soldiers of the war go home every

day to a wife and two kids who love him only for what he brings in, not for what he is.

-Nicholas Cottrell

11. “Fallen Hero” ***This one is graphically psychotic***

Black trenchcoat flapping in the wind

Dear Lord I know that I have sinned

But I still do my very best

to protect her, and all the rest

from the deepest darkest black

Oh dear God he’s coming back

this evil thing that should not be

the responsibility falls to me

from deepest shadows he appears

fills everyone’s hearts with fear

Oh my God he has a gun

I’m screaming at them all to run

fast enough is what I’m not

blood is all those bullets bought

filled with rage, I turn around

because now I hear another sound

he raises the gun to come at me

I guess that he cannot see

Everything I care about

Already gone, their lives snuffed out

He is the very worst

he’ll kill me, unless I get him first

leaping with a single bound

over the bodies on the ground

I’ve become a complete wreck

My hands reach out, and break his neck

I won’t think about what I’ve done

After all… I just killed my son.

-Nicholas Cottrell

12. “Singularity”

Above a void I ride, stumbling

and on the ledge I stride, crumbling

inside the hole I fall, screaming

I wish for a quick way back, dreaming

There is no quick way, this I know

The straight and narrow way to go

is the only way back to life

if only I can survive the strife

Kicked in the side, to ground I fall

Stabbed in the back, for help I call

None rush to aid, none come to help

No one loves this discarded whelp

I look up and see a man

hung on a cross, and to me,

he smiles.

I ascend.

-Nicholas Cottrell

13. “Short Views”

Every day is a trial by fire that each man must face to reach the true freedom, the dreams of

the next night that bless a monotone world with a little color. Trapped inside himself, the

men of the world look to nothing as guidance. A little bud on a little plant gives freedom to

some, and death to others. Is it worth it? Kids die every day wondering if it is. Freedom

comes with a price. With a car, you can choose where to go, but you cannot choose when to die.

Pain gives freedom from reality by making reality so harsh it cannot be faced. Love gives

freedom from reality by making reality so rosy that it no longer exists. Greediness lets you

see everything through hundred-dollar-green tinted glasses and everything changes into a $.

Music and writing gives freedom by putting your entrapment onto paper and passing it onto other

unsuspecting people. And thus the world goes round, the trapping of one man going to another.

-Nicholas Cottrell

If you liked anything you read, write me at [email protected] or my home address:

Nicholas Cottrell

5888 Fornof Rd.

Columbus, GA

31909

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