Blazing brightly in the night miles below on
Crete. Icarus plummeted. And puzzled.
The Phoenix shattered ablaze and battred

The phoenix Glances to the night sky.
As a bird of prey whizzes by.

Struck to ground.
Thundering sound.

Phoenix pauses beats his wings.
Flaming feathers burn and drift.

Rises slowly from the ashes.
Icarus crumbles in broken waxen wings.


Youthful tragedy. Never to rise.
No reclamation.

Silent hubris.
The dirge preceeds.
Then quietly

Receeds.

There's something tragic about Brisbane; the city speaks of an older more Romantic time, though the people speak of a newer, modern; more disposable age. It seemingly looks at you with a lost lovers eyes.

Though the city still retains some of its antique glamour; take a stroll down any street in the center and around you will be found the remnants of that age.
Victorian Red-bricks dot the city like proud sentinels, keeping watch over the ever expanding invasion of its contemporary neighbours.
What tales would these monolithic madmen tell is if only we had the ears to listen, who's feet did once trample up the now year-stained wooden stairs, who lived and died and loved and uttered curses and birthed within those walls...and what tales would they have to tell if we only listened?

Ah, gentle reader, you see how your mind wanders at the mention of these thoughts?
The City certainly has its landmarks: the Clock tower of Town Hall, over looking the new modern space of "The Deck" in King George Square, the facade of Grand central station still retaining its grandeur and majesty; now turned into theme bars and a nightclub strip. The old houses littering West End and the strip of red bricks running like a sepia toned river up Elizabeth Street. And of course the dotted remnants of Old City Life being ever encroached upon in the center of the City's smoke filled heart.

The most curious of these is the impression wrought in plaster and cement, white over red, of a window in the city center, with a set of stairs leading up to a place that no longer exists; 50 feet in the air.
Whenever I gaze up at that window, that reminder of the past, I cannot help but wondre who would be staring down at us, on this date in the last century.

"Suffer them not" I wish to say, "for these people are of a different age, with different Gods and values than you."

Suffer them not, ignore their slings, suffer them not.

I love Brisbane.

It's mish-mash of centuries, its people, the tales of its unwritten past, it seems as if the city exudes both a sense of joy and one of unutterable melancholy.

I'm on the train, homebound now to my modern house in the ultra-modern Gold Coast. This is quite depressing. The freedom, the movement, the chance, the ebb and flow of the people soaked tide of the city is leaving fast behind me as this electric trap with seats barrels under facades and tunnels, with enormous neon snakes glittering down from the peaks of modern and ancient towers and we find them reflected in the winding river like innumerable fireflies...dying and twisting and being reborn in the soft moonlight.

South Brisbane Station.
An immortal Victorian construct, still surviving to this day. The same architecture, the same route...different paint though. This Industrial Relic is overlooked by the shining modern whirlpool of THE EYE, a gigantic Ferris wheel giving you the chance to see the city by air, to one side; and a multicoloured, four story glowing monument to the hairdresser franchise god Stefan on the other...which I dub "Stefan's Pintle".

It's garish as hell.

Passing through the night the train goes ever on, powered incessantly by the ticket payers seemingly endless dollar supply.

There's a strange transition from City to Coast, the outerlying towns left in the dust and wake of one and unsure whether they belong to the other. Places such as Kuraby, Banoon, Runcorn, Altandi, Logan and Eden's Landing.

Yet the train ponders on into the night, as it's denizens relinquish themselves to its discretion and desires.
Yes; the train ponders on into the night...

We slowly pass through Woodridge, one of those last bastions of civilisation, neither here nor there. A glittering town trying desperately to be a city. They have a McDonalds. Yay. These places always scare me, and confuse me.
What are they like? Their people? I guess I'll never know, i've never stayed in one long enough to realize.

Welcome to Loganlea, this is a strange place...the funniest thing about it is the fact that it IS a hole. Yet the sign into it shows a shining beach with palm trees and boldly proclaims "WELCOME TO LOGANLEA".
As you draw closer you realize it's pock marked with bullet holes and rust stains.

A train whizzes past, and we find ourselves reflected in its windows, our reality traveling one way; our ghosts another.
Into the long, pale night, coloured by the stars of a thousand distant streetlights. Like a million tiny man made suns; created to fend of the darkness and keep our fears at bay. We truely live in the age of endless day.

The melancholy of the city is far behind now, it's streets, its smells, its people all gone. As we are lost in the brightness of the endless day and the night grows ever long, touching those distant, far between places with its natural, velvet splendour, running its hand down the cheek of time. For there will always be a night, even when we create days, and the city will always be melancholy, and the coast will always be a glittering sequin on the dress of a cheap, soulless *****.

I love Brisbane.

WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?
  
Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering "hot-dog" to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night's nothings? am I the spieler? or you?
  
Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?
  
Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?
  
Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
and remember
as a woman remembers?
  
Who gave the night
this head of hair,
this gipsy head
calling: Come-on?
  
Who gave the night anything at all
and asked the night questions
and was laughed at?
  
Who asked the night
for a long soft kiss
and lost the half-way lips?
who picked a red lamp in a mist?
  
Who saw the night
fold its Mona Lisa hands
and sit half-smiling, half-sad,
nothing at all,
and everything,
all the world ?
  
Who saw the night
let down its hair
and shake its bare shoulders
and blow out the candles of the moon,
whispering, snickering,
cutting off the snicker .. and sobbing ..
out of pillow-wet kisses and tears?
  
Is the night woven of anything else
than the secret wishes of women,
the stretched empty arms of women?
the hair of women with stars and roses?
I asked the night these questions.
I heard the night asking me these questions.
  
I saw the night
put these whispered nothings
across the city dust and stones,
across a single yellow sunflower,
one stalk strong as a woman's wrist;
  
And the play of a light rain,
the jig-time folly of a light rain,
the creepers of a drizzle on the sidewalks
for the policemen and the railroad men,
for the home-goers and the homeless,
silver fans and funnels on the asphalt,
the many feet of a fog mist that crept away;
  
I saw the night
put these nothings across
and the night wind came saying: Come-on:
and the curve of sky swept off white clouds
and swept on white stars over Battery to Bronx,
scooped a sea of stars over Albany, Dobbs Ferry, Cape Horn, Constantinople.
  
I saw the night's mouth and lips
strange as a face next to mine on a pillow
and now I know ... as I knew always ...
the night is a lover of mine ...
I know the night is ... everything.
I know the night is ... all the world.
  
I have seen gold lamps in a lagoon
play sleep and murmur
with never an eyelash,
never a glint of an eyelid,
quivering in the water-shadows.
  
A taxi whizzes by, an owl car clutters, passengers yawn reading street signs, a *** on a park bench shifts, another *** keeps his majesty of stone stillness, the forty-foot split rocks of Central Park sleep the sleep of stone whalebacks, the cornices of the Metropolitan Art mutter their own nothings to the men with rolled-up collars on the top of a bus:
Breaths of the sea salt Atlantic, breaths of two rivers, and a heave of hawsers and smokestacks, the swish of multiplied sloops and war dogs, the hesitant hoo-hoo of coal boats: among these I listen to Night calling:
I give you what money can never buy: all other lovers change: all others go away and come back and go away again:
I am the one you slept with last night.
I am the one you sleep with tonight and tomorrow night.
I am the one whose passion kisses
  keep your head wondering
  and your lips aching
  to sing one song
  never sung before
  at night's gipsy head
  calling: Come-on.
These hands that slid to my neck and held me,
these fingers that told a story,
this gipsy head of hair calling: Come-on:
can anyone else come along now
and put across night's nothings again?
  
I have wanted kisses my heart stuttered at asking,
I have pounded at useless doors and called my people fools.
I have staggered alone in a winter dark making mumble songs
to the sting of a blizzard that clutched and swore.
It was the night in my blood:
  open dreaming night,
  night of tireless sheet-steel blue:
The hands of God washing something,
  feet of God walking somewhere.

Buzzing emerald jungle swoons—
           hip kitty soul eyes embrace the red wanderer.
It’s a tactical chess game,
        both aware of the other’s presence.

Nebulous black perched in shadows,
     desert red fool skips like a rock.
          when eyes eclipse each other
an electric hummmmmmm buzzes
as their hearts start glowing like a peridot ember
the wind whizzes and twists
through their perfect curly hirsute
           rushing luscious aurora energy pulsing
           to and fro like giddy hearts exchanging notes in class…
Their blurry bodies bound forward
    fox scorching ground while panther burns branches
        lightning leg movements paws calls thunder
          sun red hot fuzz lunges up
           midnight cool moon goddess panther slams down  
            colors collide and crash and cling and clap
            spines ignited in tye-dye holographic rainbows
their claws singe each other’s skin
their eyes swirl black holes
holy howls and breath coalesce
as one love
as one sight,
all encompassing
mythical tail told to all
through campfire gypsies and artists canvas
panting the dancing fox and panther
the bhavacakka.

Got that feeling in the gut?
Tummy stuck deep in a rut,
try and think of other things,
not of spewing up my ring.

Bleugh!

Give up almost right away,
cannot fight or hide today,
belly brewing like a storm.
Here it is, thick and warm.

gruggle (sound effects)

Tastes real bad up the wrong end,
whizzes round the toilet bend.
Like Senna and that Alain Prost,
my tummy has the last riposte.

Wuk, wuk, wurg.(I am NOT anorexic)

Shall I try a biccie now,
maybe milk out of a cow,
perhaps a swig of orange juice?
Whats the point, it's no use.

There's a demon in my guts,
giving duodenal butts,
feel it having so much fun,
did it get in through my ***?

Have to get the pills in soon,
hope that I can keep them down,
sat here shaking like a jelly,
heres some more, wow that was smelly!

Since I came here past the border,
exported with my gut disorder.
Need a rapid puke solution,
to end my Solway Firth pollution!

Your life is linear, but your mind is sporadic.
You could be anyone, anywhere.
Time stands still.
Suddenly you're seven.
Tugging on your mother's floral print dress and begging her for ice cream money.
Time speeds up.
Suddenly you're behind a register trying not to laugh at the bitter old man cursing you to the seventh layer of Hell for your purple hair and tattoos.
Time freezes.
Suddenly your ten and your mother is shaking you.
She wants to know, where is her son?
Where has her baby boy gone?
It's the middle of the night and she won't stop shaking you.
She stares out your window and mumbles something about drugs.
But you don't know what drugs are and it's three in the morning.
You're ten.
You blink twice and click your heels.
Suddenly you're sitting behind a desk,
And the school system is trying to tell you how to feel.
You don't buy into it, but you learned early on that fighting them will get you no where.
You play the game.
A snap of your fingers and once more you're seven,
And your mother is making you swear.
Not the "f" bomb or the "c" word.
No, she's making you say something much worse than that.
Swear you won't tell your father about the man she kissed on the park bench.
But you're only seven so the words flood out of your mouth.
Before you can even finish your story,
Your father smacks your jaw so hard that your head spins forward until you've turned fourteen.
Fourteen, and now you know exactly what drugs are
And why your brother does them so much.
Fourteen, and you hate your mother for making you lie,
And you hate your father for punishing the truth.
Fourteen, and the only way you can cope with all of the ******* that's written in the fine print of being a teenager is to annihilate your brain cells.
The memories swirl around and all you want to do is burn them down, but there's no more matches and the butane's run dry.
It's all happening in flashes.
Christmas cookies.
Late term papers.
Igloos.
Glass bottles smashed to pavement.
The day you got contacts.
Flip flops.
The icy chill of pumpkin guts on your skin.
Her overdose.
Hot tea.
New York.
London.
Maui.
LSD.
Alcohol.
Vicodin.
It all whizzes by, and you barely know who you are anymore.
Or where you've gone.
Or who you've disappointed.
And these people are still trying to tell you how to feel.
And then you're dead.
And all the memories add up, but it's not enough to fill your coffin.
There's all this space floating around.
All of those lives you could have lived if you just stopped for a moment.
Stopped letting them tell you how to feel.

Such a waste.

They all had tambourines for faces
which jangled when they laughed
fingers made from untwined
basket cases
and dusty jeans filled with the wind that caught them

they all sat down for dinner
It was spaghetti again,
"Spaghetti! Spaghetti! Spaghetti!"
They all shouted in chorus
and then they all laughed
and a butler made half of
giraffe bought wines
to the table out stretching his limbs to fill each space,
a few bottles of champagne
a cork whizzes through the air and hits a face
a drum and melodic rattle snake sound
and then the guest had fallen down
and fell apart
and the rest of the guests
realized they had no chests
and fell apart too.
It was time for the butler to tidy everything away again.

All through science she has thought about him, scribbling his name on the palm of her hand, doodling his name on the inside cover of her exercise book. The teacher rattles on about chemicals, about combinations, of numbers, but Christina isn't listening, she's gazing out the window at the sports field over the way, there where she and Benedict go some lunch times if it's fine and she's not stuck in the girls playground watching other girls play at skip rope or other childish games or chatter. The weather looks fine, the sky blue, clouds sparse. Good. Be out there. He will be there, too. Miss him when he's not about. A piece of chalk whizzes by her head and the teacher calls her  name and to concentrate and not daydream. She turns to the front and picks up her pen and takes down the writing on the board. The teacher scowls, eyes like hawk's. She saw him at morning break in passing by the tuck shop. He gazed at her. Sent tingles through her. Watched until he was out of sight. She scribbles in the exercise book, writes down the script on the board. Last night she dreamed of him. Had his photo under her pillow. Her head inches away from him. She pretended he had come to her room at midnight(the parents were downstairs still) and stood by the door looking at her. She told him to come closer and he came and sat on her bed. Seemed so real. Mere inches away. Hand near mine, pretended to touch. The teacher talks on boringly, she writes faster. The other kids seem to focus, make effort, look up, write down. At breakfast her mother was in a mood. Dark mood day. Moaned about state of my bedroom. Clothes everywhere, she said, books, paper, I won't have it. Christina puts down her pen. Inky fingers, pen leaks. ****. She wipes on a tissue, rubs away. Still stained. The other day she held Benedict's hand palm upward and read his lines. Wanted to see how many children he'd have or his wife. Couldn't decide. Wasn't sure. She liked his hand in hers, his fingers, the smoothness, the skin on skin thing. They kissed briefly, other kids were watching, making silly sounds, comments. She thinks her twin brother says things about her to their mother, not out of spite or telltale, but innocently in chatter over the dinner table or by way of idle talk. Her mother invited Benedict to lunch one school day. Studied him, questioned him. One of her black mood days. She managed to take him to her room for a few moments while her mother was out and showed him her bed and her doll collection and such and kissed quickly until they heard her mother's return. The lesson will soon be over. She cannot wait. Bored titless. She closes her exercise book and puts the cap on her pen and stares at the teacher as she finishes her talk. Her big brother has books under his bed. She saw one the other week while looking for his record player to borrow. Magazines of naked women. Piles stacked neatly. She removed one and opened the pages. She stopped at a page where a woman was kneeling dog like. A man was there ,too. She blushed, closed the magazine, shoved it back under the bed and went out of the room and to her own room. What the hell was that all about? She tried to push it from her mind. Her big brother had touched her in her room and she said nothing. The magazines were still there, she supposes, watching the teacher answer questions of those who were interested or pretended they were to get in the teacher's good books.  Hands rose in the air by those with questions of science. Christina ponders a question:  why do some women kneel dog like? She doesn't ask. Imagines the teacher's face, giggles from other kids. Best not to. The biology teacher was best to ask. But he will probably blush. So would she. She wishes time would fly. The sky is still blue. Clouds drift lazily. Her big brother lifted her skirt under the dinning room table and touched her leg. She said nothing, but stiffened, he smiled. Mother moaned about my untidy room, the ***** clothes under the bed, put in the wash basket, she went on. A bell rings from the passage, lesson over, thank God, she thinks, shoving her books in her bag. She goes to the washroom and enters a cubicle. The fingers are still ink stained. Benedict's name is written small there on her palm. She kisses her palm. She remembers the first time she saw him. He was new to the school, came just before Christmas. He stood in the assembly hall in a year above hers. His sister was in her class. They talked about him. She introduced him to her one lunch time on the sports field. They talked shyly, sat near, didn't touch, uneasy the first time. She left the cubicle, washed her hands, scrubbed her fingers with the white soap. Cleaner, still slightly stained. Try again later. She leaves the wash room and goes along the passage  hoping to see him. Crowds of kids pass by. A boy and girl by the gym door smooch, his hand on her thigh, her hand on his neck. But no Benedict. She stares about her. No. Not about. She moves towards the next lesson, maths, double, time passes, boring, wants to see him. The bell rings, next lesson, his sister walks beside her, not him, o if it was him, if only.  The passageway is dull, her life seems dim.

The first thing I notice are the wrinkles, reflected like dark dancers, moving and bending with the contours of my face. Dully reflected in the vase they join hands and circle around my eyes, my tired lips, my forehead, nestled alongside wisps of silver grey.
Stretching out my own hands I imagine that each line holds a secret, more mysterious than fortune, more real than the future.
I refold my napkin and his, into perfect triangles.
Perhaps some wise prophet could read; not my future; my past - from these creases - and yet I wonder if such a thing could ever be interpreted, translated.
I set them in customary place beside our two bowls, dinner warm within.
I know if it ever were the story would be only half written, most of the paths find destination in those of my husband’s wiry hands.  Those strong and gentle hands – our lives intertwined with a complexity of memories, hardships, pleasures.
I straighten the cream table cloth, draped over loved and well-worn oak.
Those creases remind me of the sand dunes before we leave slow footprints, the rain-trails down our caravan window, Harold’s shirt before pressing.
I watch him return from the stove balancing our hot tea with a delicate concentration, 51 years familiar.
I wonder if his favourite red shirt actually is fading, or if it is just my eyes, or the candlelight.
He calls me darling and sets down my Earl Grey. I smile.
It does seem as though much outside our dining room is waning in its pastel thrum, and I can almost hear the resonance of grandchildren’s gadgets from here.
Just to announce my thought, the telephone rings. And again. And once more.
Technology whizzes around my ears like an unwanted fly.
He says, like he always does, that we will answer the world later, it’s not going anywhere.
He is right, as usual, and I ponder with amusement that we might be going somewhere sooner. A holiday, perhaps.
I smile and nod in gentle agreement.
Perhaps forever.
Unspoken we bow heads in perfect symmetry and he murmurs blessings, move our hands to a perfect cross.
With a sincere Sunday love, he tells me I am beautiful.
I do not reply with words, I cannot. My voice; gone with the tumour.
Reaching out to hold my hand, he turns it over in his. Rubs my ring. Like he always does.
He says he loves my wrinkles more than when I had smooth, porcelain hands.
One single tear, abashed sneaks from my eye.
He says that every one reminds him of another year together.
He converses with my eyes, and listens. Like he always does.
Our hands meld into one in the soft light.
One flawless map
Completed.

I've got this dull energy
Pulsing through my veins
Distracting me from Reality-
Making today less significant
Than a dream

Life whizzes by-
Blink an eye
And you might miss it

Expand your vision-
The world's a walking contradiction

So don't be so submissive
Take a risk
and kiss him!

And when he turns away?
Know you saved yourself
from another scumbag

Who's to say that all is truly fair
In this game of love, deceit and pain?
We all live the same way-
Killing to see and breathe another day

As he sails around  

eyes blurred by the motion of the world as it whizzes by

                                    
                        ­                                                               A smile escapes him
Not even the wind can chill his mind
From the rolling boil of the ecstasy
Which bubbles and dances in his shell

                                             The greens, the blues

                                     The fresh air burning his cheeks
                                 The rushing wind pummeling his ears
                                           All play the song of life

                                                                ­                        For the first time
                                                                ­                    He can hear it in all its
                                                                                       syncopated glory

He exists

And finds solace in being lucky to exist

                                                         
In this life…

                                                    On a bike…
  
                                                                ­                                      Going home
                                                            ­ …

A sadness has come over me
As I pass this corner bye,
A junction on the highway,
A lonely cobalt sky.
A sodden pale blue teddy bear
Stands pinioned to a cross
And the glassy glint in Teddy’s eyes
Transfix a sense of loss.

The traffic whizzes past this point
Most people fail to see
The sadness manifested
In his glassy stare at me.
The sadness of a lost young soul
Who failed to take the bend,
Who with his motor cycle crash
Did meet his Maker’s end.

I know not why he died so young,
I know not why he sped.
But know I do, the child like love
He felt for his blue Ted.
The sadness of a pale blue Ted
When pinioned to a cross
Stands sodden on a lonely road
Invoking tears of loss.

Marshalg
At Blue Ted Corner
Highway 20
Taranaki
14 August 2012

Sometimes I think maybe the world needs more empathy. So I buy some
ice cream, try to imagine what it’d be like to be so cool
I’m dripping sweet, so sugary that I make people’s teeth hurt when they smile.
At first I want to be a big sundae with hot fudge
arteries and the candied-cherry heart no one really chews up.
Then I decide I’d better get two scoops of fat-free bubblegum,
because nobody likes that junk and it must get awful freezer burnt
waiting for someone to notice it behind the chocolate chip. I dress it up nice
in a waffle-cone exoskeleton so I can get a good hold on it, but it looks strange:
two violent colored plops like a flamingo and a blue parrot are mushed  
in a khaki tuxedo, snazzed with ice crystals and sprinkle bling. Tastes weird
too, fluorescent and sour because someone made it that way
by using artificial sweetener instead of the real stuff. My lips pucker
like a drawstring bag tugging shut: I've had a taste
but it's too hard to swallow. Just as I begin my bubblegum death
march to the garbage some kid whizzes by, abstract blob
of bone-dry hands and sharp teeth glinting: whiter than a deep freezer frost and dentist-approved, spiraling my cone into a lethal nose dive.
Wafer tip fractures on asphalt and splatters: open-cone
surgery. I watch sidewalk cracks ooze neon blood
as I try to wipe my fingers clean on denim pockets.
But even when the ice cream is gone my hands are still sticky.

It's ok to be exhausted as you're speeding through the night
As you race along the freeway, it's alright to look a fright
No one there is going to blame you because they've all done it too
And they know just how you're feeling when there's nothing left to do
So just jot the thoughts down quickly, don't take time to find a rhyme
If it happens then it happens if it doesn't no one minds
Spit those thoughts out as you think them
It's the feelings that will count
    But remember no one's scoring you.
There's nothing you should flaunt.
As the darkness whizzes past you
and the cold air stings your face
Even though the pavement 's still hot down below...
and the fumes from the exhaust pipe might be seeping in someplace
You turn on the radio
                                 [even though you know] -
All you get is country music filled with static
and the crackle seems as much a part as song -
and the coffee 's black and burnt like it was brewed somewhere in hell
                                 [and that howling isn't from the radio]
We can't bother to keep rhythm we don't care about the rhyme
We don't really even ask ourselves if this word or that is fine
And maybe we're just sleeping as we drive along the road
or we might be only dreaming in our beds somewhere back home.
Can I hear a kitty purring or is that just the engine roar
and when does this journey finish - cause I don't want it any more
but I haven't reached the depot so I can't disembark my ride
so another cup of coffee and again I'm going to hide
But the few who really count are never fooled by that for long
They know where I am really when I'm weak and when I'm strong
And they help make life worth living, not that we really have a choice
But I'm glad I have someone with me even when I have no voice.

a butterball sun,
sits low in the
morning sky.

as the weekend peloton, whizzes on by and down
the hill.

in the council's headland park precinct,
the illegal nomads,
are being rousted
and evicted from, their overnight, purlioned and picturesque views.

the early fishermen,
in their dinghies,
dot the teal sea and
the sail boats,
are racing out further,
white sails, against blue sky.

in our pond,
the koi leap in a frenzy,
trying to catch,
the itty, bitty, midgey bugs.
and the old blue tongue,
comes out to settle on his
rough log .

the bees work tirelessly,
from flower to flower.
as the blue wrens,
gossip and preen,
in their lilac bower

the dragon flies dart
about in distraction.
while over at
the milkwood patch,
you can see the caterpillars,
are busy decimating,
leaf after leaf.

i sit on the porch,
coffee in hand.
newspaper forgotten
on the side table.
slowly taking this beauty all in.

as the aroma of eggs, bacon and pancakes, drift from within.

There I am in this white room
my hands over my ears
elbows straight out
my eyes are shut so tight it hurts
and I'm screaming at you,
spitting fire in between my teeth
a book whizzes past my head
I hear a chair collapse
it's you throwing things again
loosening your tie
cuffs unbuttoned
that one piece of hair in your eyes
All we ever do is fight anymore
yell at each other about stupid things
like why I didn't introduce myself properly
why you forgot to do the dishes
but those stupid things
start to grow into big things
like why it is you never call anymore
on that sin black telephone
why does it never ring!
Why I'm such a ***** about people coming over
how I can't understand how to let things go
all we do is fight
all through the night
until my hairs a mess and your skins hot
until the liquor wears off and our close-knit screaming
has turned into us sitting in separate rooms
boring holes in the walls and biting our nails
until the pain sets in
Neither one of us wants to make the first move
to reconcile, to give in
of course it's never you
it's always me
the one apologizing
it's always me
kissing your neck until you'll forgive
You'll say it's alright,
pat my hand
get dressed and leave again
while I jump in the shower
turn it as hot as it can go
as I watch the dirt slide off my skin
the slime from last night's meltdown
because I know it'll happen once more
I know I shouldn't be sorry
I know you don't really forgive
I'm so sick of being lonely
I'm so tired of being without
So I'll just stay in this white room
and scream until my lungs give out.

Running ,she whizzes past a gentleman fellow
His nature confuffled, a feather in his hat, yellow.
I glance once more seeking a quiet spot to mellow
Catch my breath , before i bellow
A crane grazes the ground beneath me , to which i look up hearing his "hello"
A street musician strums sad tunes on his chelo

Have you seen the girl
Walking down the aisle alone
Hands in pockets
Of her furry black jacket

Yearning for somebody
To talk
To laugh
To share her stories with

But the world
Whizzes past
In a frantic stampede
Leaving her behind

Loneliness
The force field so great
It's destroying her too
(Have you seen her?)

i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it for you every day
for you to see.
so i found the bridge your car whizzes under
every day to work
and sprayed it in blue
with toadstools and fireworks
pretty girls and tampons
was it enough to wipe the yellow from your mind?

i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it down every day
for you to see.
so i shimmied up the sky and hung a banner
of azure eyes and white, white teeth
and waited.
but next week i saw it
floating down the river
with two empty cans of chewing tobacco
and a lemonade carton.

i knew you would forget my name
if i didn't write it
big enough
so i held my breath
with my head on the tracks
and waited for the rumbling to stop

by chance i relived that scene
in the cosmic cloister where i'm still waiting
saw that my head was smeared for a mile
trying to spell out
Hello!
but the trail was an unripe cantaloupe

i turned away
and wept

all day,
moping around
crying to myself
and doing
nothing
while
the world whizzes by
and my life comes
to a stand-
still

there is more beyond this
and I cannot stand to not
chase it

I’m getting up!

I yell this,
silently,
to the paper
I write
on

I’m moving on!

I scream louder,
the page not changing
except for what I
add

I’m better than this!

I cry,
tears welling up
but refusing to come
out

and the page sits uninterested
beneath me

this is what I needed

to be completely ignored,
to be told, without any words
at all, that I don’t matter
to truly know, that there is
nothing I can do

anger swells within me
but it turns back
and burns my insides
refusing to hurt
anything other
than what is to
blame

I sit here

burned out on the inside
torn apart on the out
and I have no words

not any more

for what it feels like to be me,
right now.

punishing myself for being pathetic
challenging myself to be better
knowing only, that  I cannot be
stirred

The pen I clutch is speaking,
With words that are not mine.
The paper beneath is echoing,
Laughs as fear shoots up my spine.

The window I see taunts me,
With visions I cannot see.
The tree branch grasps me tightly,
Watches my still attempts to flee.

It whizzes by so quickly,
You'll miss it in a blink.
They do not yet know me,
My ships not one to sink.
For though I do not say it,
I'm closer than they think.

I was put on this merry go round. I did not coose to take this ride. Now we are spinning. Faster. The World is spinning and I am still. The kids push harder and the world whizzes over my shoulder. Shouts of joy and laughter. A boy is crying and clinging the bars. Faster. Spinning spinnning out of sight. The boy cries louder. I want to get off, but the world is dizzier and dizzier the louder he cries. Spinning. Life is twisting. I want to get off. I didn't ask for the ride. I desperately want to let go of the bars and jump into that swirl of the world. I want solid ground. I will jump. My focus fades as quick as the flashes of the world around me. Spinning. Now I'm dizzy. So dizzy and the spinning is... I want to get off. I am going to jump. I brace myself but the boy is crying. So much crying. Why won't they STOP? And I just want to jump off the spinning circle but he just keeps crying and they are laughing. I want to get off but I can't stop crying. The world is spinning and I can't even move.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Your honour.
Play the evidence”

The sound of a projector whirrs
As wind in a snail shell.
TAKE ONE.
REPLAY.

“The defendant knew the man,
Had talked to him on train stations,
But kept it as hidden as a brief encounter.
He knew this man liked that band,
Not liked, loved,
And the defendant had a whole playlist to recommend and a whole compilation of
Critical readings on Post-Britpop to articulate.
However!
the defendant being
Slow and mollusc minded.
He kept his oyster shut.
SLOW THE FILM!...”

The whirring whizzes to ticking,
As nagging as potentially productive hours.

“Slowing the footage,
we can see
That his mouth even hesitantly gaped for a second.
Not one of his greatest hits was it?”

Ha,
I think,
No need to punish me.
I do that deed upon myself.
My pen scribbling, clicking,
Ticking,
Whirring,
In my head at night,
With conversations I never had.

I look out the window
As the world
Whizzes by

I sit there
And create this poem in my mind
Miles away from the earth

Me with my head in the clouds
Constant ideas and constant dreams
Being born in my head

I used to try to write those ideas
And express them in a story
With my own characters

That was before I discovered poetry
Now I have no need
For all the uncompleted stories I have made

From myself
Lost in the debts of my own mind
Blessed with gifts mishandle
Strangled by fear of failure
Abducted by violence
Saved by love , Kissed by lust
killed my regrets, Left sadness for dead
Emotions once split
Blended until the lines blurred
Unable to correctly detect which one to feel
Attack by the swarm in my beehive
UnImmune to the stings
Swollen from the venom
Drowned in the honey
Life whizzes by
Liked the wind
When I’m high upon a swing
Landed deep in a maze
Sold my soul to false prophets
Hoping to be saved
Happiness can be addicting
But am I willing
To **** parts of myself
Just to taste the feeling

Time flies by
when you're having fun.
Time is life, so don't waste it
because you only have one.

But is life without fun
a life that's a waste?
Very boring and lazy,
nothing done with haste.

If life is fun,
then you are living it up.
things are always bright,
like a half-filled cup.

But then life, it goes by so fast,
passing in a blur,
always laughing and happy,
life whizzes and whirs.

Different people believe in different things,
it often depends on what a single life will bring.

So what will it be?
excitement or not?
lazy before death?
or give it all you got?

Climb the steps, one by one
Feel the breeze refresh me
Hands can nearly touch the sun
Golden rays drip down around me

Love and splendour encases my heart
With the world shining out all its glory
A brand new day, a glimmering start
New beginnings, new days, new story

Top of the slide, secure on the mat
Fluttering lungs fill up with excitement
The world whizzes by with a song in my heart
Slipping forward towards my contentment

Faster I go, slithering side to side
I struggle to grasp a breath
Plummeting down on this endless ride
Catching up with shame and regret

Down and down the light disappears
And darkness consumes every turn
Losing sense of myself and fuelled by fear
My insides begin to churn

No life and no love, no heart and no soul
Confusion, despair and resentment
The mat slips away as I lose control
The metal fulfils it’s defilement.

Further down I go, to torturous pain
To ignorance, to loss, to desperation.
The blackness of the night cuts through me again.
Beyond hope , beyond love, beyond rejection

The descent abates as the end draws in
Left unwanted, broken and apart
Needing life, needing love, needing somewhere to begin
Like an ending that needs a start

Through floundering thoughts, gasping for air
A moment of clarity shines
Your angelic voice rings through my despair
One word. One beautiful word. ‘Climb’