children feeding ducks

stumbling through questions beyond the phone. I keep seeing you in my dreams. you were visiting my island home, another adventure we had contoured for the future. we drift in a raft on the river, pass the children feeding ducks. a little like us; blissful and oblivious to the consequences of what we do and all the time we spend. you get a haircut and enjoy me when you want to. I can't tell if it's a disguise or more calculated; a spark to resuscitate the validation of half-buried infatuations. they never lie for long. I'd let them fly to you if only I knew.

but you escape around the corner in the afternoon sun. the river drains into dusk and you're gone. some new reason for distance and time. I swear at my uncle over dinner and upset the virgin Mary hanging in the hall. my parents are speechless and I too can't find the words to fit the shapes you've taken from the sense I need to make. the clouds aren't any clearer when I wake.

non-lethal

before common error: drifting like a storm past windows over tramlines. hunters and collectors drawing tears down the parade. familiar bells ring to stop with a friend on the way to school. eyes dry in a moment. I leave the song unfinished on the road.

eyes hang lower than the bar we dig the grave for. I remember when sleep was enough. seven of clubs at house of cards: regular and large with just as much inside. the screen is hostile to the lids that want to close. too much chatter in the basement, too cold sitting in the shade. we look out over the green for something else to laugh at. eyes shut city limits. playing mum for someone else's colonoscopy. I keep the car keys in the bag with empty books.

my phone tells me what to do. take my meds, 'grow and flow'. I brush my teeth to sleep and greet another day of genocide. at least the arms we use to kill are non-lethal in nature.

neglected prayers

the writing on the facade tells me to go home and sit by the fire. I ride as fast as wheels will spin along to sirens or saints, passing pyramids and haunted homes I might have seen in movies. bricks and future funeral pyres I'll only know in passing. signs to places I will never go.

in my room the bed is how I left it and the washing hasn't dried. neglected prayers decorate the walls I can't quite cover. she scratches at the window and cries until the rain comes back again.

the cat will keep me warm

forgetting the time that was with wishful thinking that you might see a little more than through the glass to what you wanted. what did you tell your mother on the phone? remind myself to remember what matters and the rivers of blood spilt into forever by our taxes and silence. we play ignorant and draw each other blind on the train. I keep both pictures in the book. you already have one on the wall.

on the last page you insist on walking me to the bus, as though there's more to say or do. we stand where we first said goodbye and thank each other for spending time. you say something about de ja vu. there's also something different in your eyes, just for a moment. I can't read what it means and it's well and truly time to go. rays through fingerprints on lens? just a smudge or a passing thought to never see the light of words.

my brother wraps his head round new chemicals. we talk when we can and wish we could more. off the tram I lie in bed and fall into my phone. play house and watch a holocaust with cashews in my mouth. the kids are getting thinner. I spy the flames and feel the cold of a new home. maybe the cat will keep me warm tonight.

at this height

a dream in someone else's bed: escape the sweat of summer sun into a house I used to pay for. red brick walls and barred front windows in the shade of a chapel I've never prayed in. I'm running down the hall and losing rays of rest and relaxation to errands from a list that never ends. too much forever. a thousand failed attempts to clear the fridge into the bar across the road. I forget my clothes every time and return to a home swarming with masks of people I have loved. once familiar ghosts want to pitch a tent in the hanging gardens. others dance through the kitchen and our bedrooms with each other and children I have been. I see myself at different ages: confused, in search of flowers and new friends from the crowd of people I haven't yet loved or lost. flies on the wall for a moment of a life of time to come. the kitchen writhes in nighttime colours and the wine flows from the sink. well and truly past my bedtime. I can't reach my phone or the news from the bench at this height. we dance to laundry vibrations loud enough to shake the night.

like kids

they kill another thousand with the stuff from America. I sleep and dance into your orbit blind, back to chase a dream I'll never reach. arms around waists like a few times before. you laugh at all my baggage and let me wear your jacket. someone smiles at our packs in the city, insisting it's the best way to travel. wait with the black dog at the pier for the boat to take us someplace further from the city and our phones. when it comes we sit on the roof and choose future homes from our view of distant lands - forgotten village of sleepy dwellings without roads or cars. lost dog escorted back to her father by a neighbour.

we sing and twirl round questions in the sun like kids. sandcastles and confusions by the fire. you cook and I clean and we think of ourselves through days without signal or rosaries. we look out to the lights across the bay and maybe we could make a life inside the hologram. ice cream clouds and at least nine types of birds. sharing gentle light to at night for different books (same author). we don't really enjoy what we're reading but neither party surrenders. I forget to check the news or pray for change.

my portrait still hangs beside the office insect pleading you remember what you want. I wonder why my mark remains - if only the heart would open just as easy as your diary. I fix my hair in your mirror and you walk me to the bus. you’re looking out the window at tomorrow and the clouds. I call my brother on the way to somewhere that makes more sense. we sigh alone together, holding onto the leaf. forget the line of beauty and reach for nothing in particular. accidental theft of kitchen tools. take a shuttle to the cinema to watch the end of days with zombies. 

seek out something new to worship on the scenic route to hell. pray for perfect from the mirror, watch another hundred starve to death. the man on the bridge stands silent by the students with his sign: ‘christ will return’. the kids sing nursery rhymes at the departure gate. I watch the heavens roll the day to dusk over the tarmac. lights dim and babies scream into tomorrow. breathing fine at thirty thousand feet from home and truth and consequence. maybe it’s time to wake up.

not affected (Tallow Beach for two)

in your light

I can squeeze myself into any shape to only disappoint

as I am

not affected, etc., unless I hope

too close to the sun

or dumb enough to dream words

more than what they mean

on a dying star

of burning kids and Babels

the boy from the corner split open for you

around and around

bottomless combat in the sand

abandoned driftwood home

the stars, or what we didn't drink

(Tallow Beach for two)

we don't touch each other anymore

and subscribe to rules you've written

I light the fire with your matches and watch you dance like it makes sense

forget about the headlines

where we started, how it felt

polarise the night:

sing my favourite songs

and tell me everything you want about the boys I couldn't be

cast me hopeless on the edge

play friends

and take my picture

til we're waiting where we were

and it's time for me to leave.

close to the edge

sitting still on the cusp of potential. distracted from the screen: restless and unfocused. pixelated thoughts and familiar brushes of a feeling I once knew well. a current pierced through daydreams down my spine.

the lack of answers only invites further dreaming. I glide through pools of what could be and offer sleep as sacrifice to the wonders of perhaps. no eye hangs too heavy for the cloud of curiosity. you spin a score for my ears just in time for flying. I count the songs I showed you sewn within.

to kick the cage

I watch the new world order bursting open on my phone. the fat pig wants more and the little ones are still too fat and pathetic to even think of trying to kick the cage open. the mud reeks of death and I am covered to my neck, iced thick enough to confuse my own hands for hooves. we squeal and snort for something more than water from the fountain. they play silly movies on the ceiling to send us to sleep. the slaughterhouse speakers rattle with the laugh track and we forget about the other sounds outside. screeching of late night trams on the breaks or the scream of every child that should have lived to see tomorrow. we’ve heard it all before and only ever wake to more. armageddon in the name of progress.

I read the signs in the city for answers. flashing green man and ‘do not spit’ on the wall of the tunnel passing under the station. I ask the heart what it wants and play with hope. from the pillow I can watch the currents gushing over state lines into limbo. maybe they know where they’re going. maybe I should know a little more.

ants and sugar

white walls welcome me to sleep in a room I'm yet to make my own. I dream of Gaza under the weight of someone's cat. the skies change in flashing greys, static between telegraph poles. soldiers run amok like ants over spilt sugar in the pantry. I watch them scramble to shoot children in the street, at school, what might once have been a playground. some dash to hide behind crumbling corners of wall as though the blood won't stain unless they're caught. when I catch them they protest, claiming accident or misfire, sulking off like school-kids called out for detention.

the kids hiding in the diner want to go out to pet echidnas in the carpark. their parents won't let them risk getting shot. they play ordinary times and chess in a burning shell of childhood as I've known it. I spy them through a frame without a window. the bombs raise hell somewhere else, reduced to little more than ambience to shake the pawns on the board. the kids don't flinch or look beyond the game.

chasing after the soldiers I stir to realise they are children too. they fidget with buttons on their guns and uniforms, sing crude songs through streams of blood. I follow them in and out of the smoking remains of hospitals they've bombed, skipping and laughing, school kids through the mall. another ordinary day of play around the grave of human conscience. despite my disgust I can't tell if I'm against them. regardless I am safe at their side to witness the terror. their weapons never point my way.

like you

fulfil me with a kiss

or don’t

you could just use your words

like armour

or the tools they used to make the statues

before the bible didn’t matter

when people would pray

and dream

they knelt and wrote psalms

without checking their phones for something else

they made love in stone and paintings

angels sang

and everything was beautiful

like you

or the memory

of a feeling

lips or nose or fingertips

laughter

in the space before I wake

violent reign

of every night that should be mine

as though I could be what you want

in the dark

when you’re here but you’re not

and I reach

and you’re gone

but I still hear your voice

and you’re still on my phone. 

three aliens who brought their own lunch

we find people to be to pass the time. I wait for the tram and scroll through faces on my phone. every smile matters to someone. sometimes they show teeth. I think about the tracks in the asphalt and the fact that almost everyone I’ve ever met I’ll never see again. everything is memory until we can’t remember. 

the days are light until they’re not. I wear a shroud of guilt for nothing in particular. premeditated tax for fare evasion or knowing where the money goes. conjure trials and tribulations just to give the mirror edge. I pass the aliens in suits frozen on their way to work. between briefcases and boulders we’re never anywhere for long. stoney eyes see more than most. stoney mouths stay shut although their secrets could be answers to my prayers. I wonder if they’d share them if they could.

livestock

the rhythm stops for sliding doors. an army of God's children waits for arguments outside. banners with photos of lifeless pigs hanging from bars in the slaughterhouse. I feel for the vegans fighting for converts with such a noble cause. haven't they heard? change is a daydream - there's no stopping the machine. what hope is there for livestock while we kill our kids in thousands? I want to tell them to watch the news. the men in suits have sold our souls: we're all just hanging meat. I settle on a nod instead. a smile of recognition spins me back into the sales.

I cross the street to lose a sense of knowing who I am. in the fog I mean as much as gaps between the tiles that make the path.

in the shade of Vogue

a dream: I wake up on the island where he saw the end of days. they've made a luxury resort of the beach. money glitters between the tiles through every grain of sand. I watch the people squirm and dance about the remnants of a city we will never know, repurposed for our whims in excess: to drink and eat and look in the mirror. the young stay young forever, pose for photos from the cave. swing into the Mermaid Bar: you can drink your weight in Aperol where he spelt out the apocalypse. supermodels bask in the shade of Vogue outside. everything shines gold against the sun.

the hand of a child reaches through rubble, clawing at the sky for nothing. her blood stains the dusty stones under which she’s buried. I can’t tell if she’s alive and wonder if she'd want to be knowing this is how it goes. the people scramble like water to pull her out. walls and legs of chairs and more debris of former homes between the body and breathing til tomorrow. when they lift her from the dust her face is washed in blood and tears. a shell-shocked daughter in double denim. I close my phone and look away until I think of her again. motionless fingers reaching from the graveyard of our greed. a sight to cast in stone and haunt the new world of tomorrow. I wonder what she’d think about where all my money goes.

last night's cup of tea

the city passes through the window like a film. at the rally the writer sings a song about hiding from the bombs in her mother tongue. the melody is a knife to the heart, or a curse to haunt the streets of stolen land forever. she reads a passage translated from a play she's writing: ‘when the world burns we peel garlic and keep our souls fed’. no choice but to keep the rhythm through the nightmare. there are always empty plates to fill.

pedestrian lies on sidewalk at the feet of the preacher pleading the city to repent. he waves his hands and shouts something about salvation from our one true saviour. on his soapbox in his beard, animated fresco of a prophet from the bible. he holds the book to the sky with a judgement day warning. we pass with shopping bags and more important things to do. nobody stops walking. but the lady lies at his feet, closed eyes, open hands. maybe she believes.

the colours soften in my room. gentle beige and peace on mute. it's all quieter here. life happens outside; I return to fold and sleep. the silver swan watches over the bed I come to dream on, softer than the heating humming through the floorboards. I take a photo of the fly asleep in last night’s cup of tea. 

hell is here

a crow taunts the smaller birds from someone else's garden he laughs and I miss the comfort of the rain against the window. static I can live without but relish all the same. I turn to my screens and pour the hours into spirals leading back into myself.

some headlines claim that hell is here, some won't yet verify. yesterday they killed a hundred people. fifty were waiting for food. I hear it’s laced with poison now. the news is fixed; the audience depletes. we have emails to send, oxygen to carbonise. apathy is armour. my faith wilts like compassion. I follow doctor’s orders, dig for something else to hate. a monster in the mirror and the patterns that we share. no pleas through the ceiling change a single cell. at the edge of the bed I’m the same as my shadow: protected by my self obsession from the nightmare on my phone.

I vacate the spreadsheet to livestream a funeral. I learn about a life spent before I knew him old. he studied latin and recited Virgil as a child. collected wines and friends from all over. whilst enduring treatment he became a student of his own illness, researching the cancer that was bringing his breath to an end. his daughter-in-law reads for her mother, something about love and consistency. I spy the back of her head looking up between the lectern and the coffin. the words matter because they are hers and I want to hug her but I can't. I choose a shirt and close the lid. places to be and hours to upset.

in the kitchen someone makes a smoothie. the blender wails just loud enough to keep me safe from thinking.

adults in the igloo

lost in self obsession on the tram leave bed and go to market just for somewhere else to be

they make sculptures out of ice

and take cash or card they’re selling dog toys and old postcards from dead places candles and art made by computers you can buy on shirts or mugs there's a lady waving flames like ribbons from her knuckles passing smells of foods I used to love in a scarf somebody made me that I’ve never worn offstage join the queue for something warm a prop to hold or make me drowsy a ticket to permission for eavesdroping on the tourists or dj duk duk’s silent disco under fairy lights like Christmas with the couples and the wine I dip my tongue in by another tarot reader

and watch the adults in the igloo

dance and buy the imitation of some kitsch game we’re all outgrowing on the uphill hike to hell I drift within the stream make myself invisible in my scarf on my phone behind cinnamon and steam ears open for nothing at all the silver angel sways on stilts I stop and watch her pose for children’s photos while the sirens sing in spanish drawing cameras from the bar casting curses on the city I should know a little better spinning on my heels

I track the way home on my phone

modern leper of the year 

playing hide and seek alone. 

cutting clouds open

the cat jumps onto the bed as I’m taking off the sheets. he stomps into the duvet and curls up into his spiral. it’s the first I’ve seen him in my room since my arrival weeks ago. I scratch under his neck and he kisses my thumb. the sudden affection fools no one. he gets sulky when any of us leave, as though a packed suitcase threatens his reign of the house, or the doting of four others isn’t enough love to lap. I run my bedsheets through the wash with clothes I can leave at home, the right armour already bound tight by a zip. the prince stays put on the bare blankets until he wakes and wants to eat.

at the departure gate I wait between strangers and flights to and from the city I used to call home. uniforms rush in and out of doors I’ll never walk through. they call out unfamiliar names to board and I laugh at the idea of sneaking through onto the plane in their place. there’s a foreign mischief pulsing down into my fingers. I couldn’t tell you where it comes from, but tonight is a little different. I don’t dread the return as I would have had I left on time.

in seat 16c I rub my eyes and think about you. ready to make another mess without a single word. watch the lights dim and remember what you are. does any of it really matter? cutting clouds open in the dark at however many thousand feet. we’re in between at any height. I let the siren sing because she knows more (when I don’t). Virgin has teeth. eyes closed and it’s raining inside. the lady with the trolley gives me orange juice for free.