Around and About

Along a nearby street
A mother readies her children
For school…If not for life

Along a nearby street
Is a girl selling relief
One man at a time

Along a nearby street
Stands a man selling escape
One bag at a time

And who are we?
To assume, presume and judge?
Do we have a stone to throw?

New Friends

What joy
To rip and tear this flesh
To grasp twist and tug
Leaving bone nude
And scratched

What joy
To squeeze
To pulp and crush that flesh
Pound beat and shape
Remould and slap pack it
Back on bone

Who will I become

Quitting

Knife -
Quit
Life.

Contemplating simple acts
Yet so hard
Such strength required

Driven or pursued
Pushed or pulled
Coward or not?

Place to go

It turned out
That Earth is flat
And my spirit level
A state I can
Deal with

~

For horizons are
A limit to see to
A target to strive for
And a level fellow
Can walk those paths
~
Walk those paths
Until feet are sore
And that horizon
Is no closer
~

Wrap myself in
Frenzied optimism
An opaque bubble
Self worth and hope
Lifted up wafted on
Soaring forth horizon bound
~
That goal, that flat line
I see so far, never nearer
Never nearer.
Never nearer.
I wonder why…
~
I wonder why I bother
And so
My bubble burst
My esteem escapes
Soar no more…
~

...That place
I saw

That place

I sought...
~
It comes to me.

Free Will

Folded foil carefully peeled
Reshaped and lifted
Raised up above a flame
And swiftly I become
Bound
In liberating chains of smoke

Listen

I’m sorry
For tipping water over
That scribbled picture
You spent hours drawing
It wasn’t an accident

I’m sorry
For throwing mud on
Your Sunday best
And getting your day out cancelled
It was purposely done

I’m sorry
Your favourite doll vanished
She’s in our pond
With rope and rock
Better a doll than you

I’m sorry
About your kitten lost
She’s hidden under your bedroom floor
Sealed in Tupperware…
I had no choice

I’m sorry
So sorry
But they won’t shut up
They won’t be silent
They’re whispering your name…

Moment

Two steps across humped bridge
Glancing right and down
Cold crisp still air
Soft night fog
Muffling the edge of sound
Reveals rippling river
Snoozing below and past
A moment of belonging
Of unity
With night scenery
Lost and broken with a third step

Displaced Displays

A face for every stranger
A face for every friend
A reflection of what they want to see
Unwitting lies that never end.

A truth of self long hidden
Blurs beneath demands
Shattering masks sling shards
Of hurt and anguish; causing pain

And revealed at last
These scars of use
Parody of desires from self and them
In warped and twisted visage

2 minute sum of eternity...

50 light year Cloud
Fragile equilibrium
Dissipating no further
Random condensation
Globule
Cloud collapses
Almost in free fall
Motion is non homologous
Protostar
A core had developed,
Heated by its concentration
Of matter
Matter becomes
Opaque and free fall
Is stopped
Sun
Fully convective
Contraction phase
Varying in luminosity
And surface activity
To then keep shining steadily
Steadily, steadily,
We will come
We will go…
Red Giant
Sun core starts slowly collapsing
The Sun will be disturbed
Swallow Venus and Earth,
Outer layers will keep expanding
White Dwarf
All matter
Will collapse
Into a small body
White dwarf
Rapidly begins to cool
Black Dwarf
No further collapse is possible
Old cold, cold old, Black Dwarf

Statement

It’s not
A fear of death
I have;
Of being ashes and dust
Or that long sleep
In a sunken bed…
It’s a fear
Of being left
Or leaving behind
Those that are loved
And who love…