The Travellers

It was amusing for them to be right there where a country fizzed, but they did not pay much mind to the repercussions. A pair of suits speculated upon the financial impact of the possible, in that one graph might climb, while another may descend, they adjust their investments accordingly. Yet when the hiss became a boom, they sheltered from a reality they could never imagine. Still, as the town collapsed around them they speculated upon how to adjust their procurements. The guns popped and the grenades rang and they found no signal to reach the realities beyond the war. Some afternoons the silence came, and they wondered how a soldier sleeps, or if they just wait watching the bait.

_____

In the dark

Green leaves reach as far as their stalks allow. The plant is in a pot, sat in the shadow, on a Moroccan table by the wall. There is never light there, but the plant looks right there. A seed has no say in where it sprouts. Man certainly makes more shade than any place nature could create, but for caves and mountains. There are certainly plants forever in the mountain’s shadow, waiting for a sun that never comes, too numb to know they are dropping their seeds further into the dark.

_____

Hat

They could not offer
us a rain hat,
so they offered
some sand
upon our heads.
This sand
got damp,
it irritated and
it melted away.
So we went back
and we got
some more sand
upon our heads.
What we thought
this sand might do
is a mystery.

_____

Cash or card?

Mr homeless looks forlorn, your change is gone, pat your pockets wander on.
Cross the street, avoid those eyes, walk convenient alibis. Distracted in dreaming jujitsu, one shabby calls out “Big Issue?” If the seller proffered a card machine, would your pockets still come up clean? No conscience sips tight fisted guilt, this is not how suits are built.

_____

Snug

I am coiling
my anxiety
into a ball,
a tight snug
impregnable
ball, which
will repel all
and every
attempt
of life to
pick it free,
It will tighten
in every shriek,
harden through
imagined fall,
my anxiety
will be
a cell
to shelter
me.

Foreign Affairs

He has a seeking mind. He scrutinises knowledge in books and news outlets. He investigates a point of view, to locate that kernel of fact. But he is cursed with a brittle spirit. His bright whisper goes unheard in the pub, he nods at the ignorant nonsense brayed loudly at the bar. He returns home with false views he repeats contraire to his gathered wisdom. He is one more coward unwilling to confront the brutish lie with truth.

_____

Indignation
at the innovation
invocation initiation
invitation on vacation.
Time share.

_____

Insouciance
insurance
voided
with each
numb blink.
Lassitude
the attitude
anosmic to
the stink.
Lethargy
for apathy
un-energy
no longer
needs to
think.

_____

In the house
there is love.
Beyond the fence
there is a fondness
for the neighbourhood.
Pride is imagined
for the city, and the town.
Your country
is held up above.
Yet beyond your shore,
care begins
to evaporate,
gaseous humanity
a haze.
You’d chew
on the foreign
as you would a nut,
eschew imagination,
that idyl thought
we are the same.

_____

NYers
have their
repetitious
shibboleth,
dry intellection
of humour, a
self sucking
theme-park,
NYers hail
themselves
touched by
erudite cap.

_____

To write
is the hiss
of pressure
from the pot.

160

Proselytism is
always peaceful,
until they struggle
from the bindings.

_____

I read
that paint
is worth more
than life.
Just pigment,
curated
and repeated,
precious to
a fleeting eye.
Press print
and save
the lives.

_____

Depression is a creature that crawls in while I look away, I was feeling well just yesterday. Now my body is haunted by whispering ghouls, why are they loitering in my vestibules? They found the slightest sliver to slither through, malevolent lies, the gossip they spew, Flush them out with adrenaline, before they drag me to the loony bin.

_____

If the conversation can continue past reaction, it will evolve into the truth and self contradiction and the realisation that we are no different at all.

_____

I used to condemn
terrorism without pause,
until I learned of oppression.

_____

Pepperland is out of luck
the submarine has sunk
all is in the Suckophant
nobodies coming back.

_____

Sit in the sun
pop your gum
the day is done.

All the twinkling

The TV flickered an ever-changing light upon the coffee table, dancing for attention in the corner of my eye. The lamp watched from over my shoulder, illuminating the book as I read. A steady blue light shone from the modem’s internet bloom. The stereo played old strings through new cables. In a moment there was a faint click as all went black, my ears began to ring louder than the silence. I immediately went searching for my torch in the top kitchen drawer, clattering through old batteries, scales and serving spoons. Pushing the button, a pale blue pool wanders the darkness, showing me the way to the fuses and trips. All is up, all is on. A power cut. The ghosts have blown out the match, so we can listen for a whisper in the ashes.

_____

My Nan told us stories of when she reached up to the moon in a dream. She would recall how she felt the moon’s dust give within her grip. She said look, her finger prints remained.

_____

It is so perverse that we write good-hearted stories of victories in kindness over hate, while we celebrate the brutality and violence, in patriotic fervour in blood we decorate. We contradict our wishes in our actions, our hearts are lying to time.

_____

My Nan had a gold grillz and a steel jaw, so when she spoke she sounded metallic. This would lend an authority to every tall story she told. At the conclusion of her tale we would be handed a printed receipt, her robotic equations.

_____

The dwarf sperm whale is the length of a ping pong table, while the blue whale is the length of 32 ping pong tables. So whales are only as large as a certain number of ping pong tables.

It didn’t shock the whole world.

A cup to pour,
raise a cup for the poor,
a balm for a sore paw,
a balm to cleanse
our clogged pores.
A pair for two,
a pear for three,
then pare it down
to two from three.
A peer into the peephole,
see a pier tickling the sea,
how it all appears to me.

_____

If you pick your belief correctly,
you can attain divine Starspeed.

_____

And if these people are to rise up and be the evil that would wipe away the world. And if we could gain the insight to travel time, we might return to preempt this evil, to extinguish the steel before it became a sword. Yet we would halt this act as evil itself and coil in time’s illusions.

_____

The last pawn in the middle of the chessboard, empty but for the blood of the queen. Limping onward, to defend the shivering king.

_____

“More stuff to go wrong on cars today” I would hear all the time. Yet cars are more reliable now than they have ever been. The fear of change has little to do with reality. Window winders would fail all the time, yet I have yet to encounter an electric window failing. I know they do, I have heard they do, yet I have never encountered it, and I encountered many ways I wind down window failed. I imagine it is the consistency of a motor, apart from the spasmodic wrench of a human hand.