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How long have you been watching?
- Long enough to see the digital distortion. Why do you ask? The audio programme seems to be scrambled. - Is there a replacement channel? No. Just wind batting the palms along the street, the occasional spats of rain while blank screens leave me wondering if I will ever get back on the horse again. - I didn’t know you rode. I was being figurative. - Did you mean to say back on the cart, because you had fallen off? I am in an empty room. A painting of an empty row boat without oars hangs on the wall. The boat is moored in shallow water without a tether. It just sits there. Three palm fronds dip into the picture from the top left corner, hills across the bay beyond. The water is clear. I am unclear. A haze. Fog through the window. Ambivalence draining motivation. Jumping isn’t an option. Running isn’t an option. I only have floors and branches, arms and legs, and reflections on the water. Clear, still water. There are voices in the wild, and salt on my tongue. Conversations down the corridor where light is hiding from the ashes. Am I my own son? The one, who was born again on the side of the ambivalent river; the one, who shed the umbilical cord into the water, rose again washed and fresh, and welcomed the morning sun against retired eyes? Time to stop looking into the past; into the future; Time to start living, as mindfulness is imparted upon the fabric of existence. I am, and is, me upon the stones, Dreamer who let go. Feather on a discerning breeze.
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Rats live around here
shuffling bones from wall to wall, I shuffle along with them The smell of shit on my hands reminding me of growth, While laughing cockroaches invade my home. I think I recognise these bones: they sound like the ones I guarded under my skin once. But now they are instruments clanging rhythms for the hallway service, While laughing cockroaches take out their hammers and claws. What is that noise? - silence to ignore, silence to placate. What is the source? - of the noise? No, the silence. Why is there silence? Where is it coming from? - that is the sound of me listening. But why do you not ask questions? - I thought you were speaking. Don't you care? Renovators are removing the door. Can I have my door back, please? It opened a new world to me. "Silence!" speak the laughing cockroaches. What are these walls collecting? Instruments rattling backwards and forwards. Are there ghosts living lives down this hall? No, there are only rats beating rhythms on bones that once clattered under my skin.
And I emerged
from the void that is silence to erupt with fire over the horizon. I smothered the tundra, creeping vines, and willow branches; I laughed at hyenas, as they scattered from the ashes; I claimed all the homes, and disowned the occupants; I incinerated every treaty proclaiming peace and friendships, And I returned from the blackened earth with vengeance and renewed desire to corrupt the liars hiding in the rafters, to have them ply their skills with half-truths for the vines to grown gullible opinions on. Where the soft crusts will pluck their budding agreements from and nod along righteously, Where the hardening weeds will feed their determined antagonisms through dribbling jowls. You see, it was not your gardeners tending your soil for you, it was not your harvesters discarding rotten fruit, It was I, bleeding into your brain delusions of division, chaos, and foolish pursuits. To have the lambs lie down in submission, To have the pack of dogs rise in retaliation, and then to have, one-sided opinions flavouring the conversations, accusations based on hidden agendas, hard facts forgotten in exchange for soft truths comforting. It was I all along with hand in the cookie jar laughing at every courtesy your enemy took from you, so that you could refill the jar with blame, and never see the hand that severed you from your own humanity. This was my greatest achievement: To forever dissuade all from joining hands to grow peaceful prosperity. And you all heard, And you all listened, And you all played a part in my raising of the lands, the destruction of temples, the raping of wives and daughters, the murdering of fathers and brothers, the killing of your children, While your beliefs grew, and grew, and reconfirmed all you believed you knew.
Fell down on my knees, show me something please Will you show me something please? Will I still be here when you leave? Standing alone on a bridge of dreams? A flower on the door, a cross on the floor. I have steps to climb, but no burdens to bind. This heart on the shelf, beating bated breaths; This empty lung exhaling expired tests. I’m a late night wake of wakefullness, rolling through the hours of wide-eyed emptiness. A free loving hippy snoozer without the snooziness. I sleep in between the rays of the moon and ride the coattails of evening stars. Love me two times and I might come back for more, shy me once and I may never return. But the other out there welcomes me, saturates me, harbours a full sea of something. Something filled with tentacles and slippery shoes, reaching arms to entangle my hair in the rush of void-winds. Gas, the breath of giants encircling my mind and forever orbiting each thought with tidal moons. Saltarello, Saltarello, Scherzo in the depths, Smothering Sunday into each other’s steps. A violin in the spheres singing to the absent audience and awaiting their applause with bated breath. I dance on the boards between each crescent watching rockets take to the skies, and laughing each moment that rushes by. A hand for two, palms and skin sensitive teachers.
For you I ache and fall apart,
For you I tend these tender scars, For you I hope the stars will shine While I lie in dust upon the stairs.
Bells are sounding on the ocean floor
Calling en-masse quietened voices, Though grumbling feet pass with heavy countenance Through every remembered door. ~//~ Bells ring out sounding forlorn: The remembrance of a past unshorn; Life now swelling into mists of time Scrambling as naked countenance looks on. ~//~ Because it is here, this taste will stay An end to pondering, An end to wandering. Should these ends meet, Driving sand into studied toes And gathering gulls into a flock of followers, Bells will ring out overhead To remind a sullen face Of the debt owed to paper thoughts Stranded on the ocean floor.
Here it comes, young man
Clouds on every horizon, A fire burning bright into the long night. We waged war on our heroes, Dug graves for our ghosts, Sneaked love into tents as though We had forgotten the lessons Our mother taught us Over this timid plate of hors-d'œuvre. Tally the falling giant upon the stones Where we once built a wall to obfuscate glory, Dismembered parts levy the starved and hungry, Equal among us are the stomachs that remember this fate. ~ ~ ~ Are we old enough to harbour the wisdom of age, See through the soft glaze Appropriating kindness on a stage? Can we forgive our sins when all is remembered, Chipping away at our present state And ushering in the endgame? See that smoke rising, Bristling with static energy, Coalescing with storms and anger, Birthing the new frontier. Frustration mates with the enemy And gives conception to holiness and penalties. In this hour, In this day, In this year I hear you say: Lay your bones down now upon this hallowed ground.
This beautiful life With stars to battle over, Longing to swim in an ocean of, Feelings to dwell in the haven of; Where we search for meaning and assume learning through reflections. Have you held enough hands to warm your heart with integrity's shadow? Have you felt enough grains fall loosely through eager fingers of morning's sorrow? This beautiful life so lost in tides, Here I swim again returning thoughts to horizons Where ships spread their sails like birds on the wind, Breezes for salt spray and crustaceans, A laughing northerly and biting southerly, The creaking wood that needs caulking, Sealing boards of their sulking. Yesterday’s tomorrow has yet to arrive and harbour intentions with harmless playthings. This beautiful life is yours for the keeping, This beautiful life is mine for the taking. Have we these thoughts together, Or are we separate like the sea and the sky? Love without a bridge between earth and stars.
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