All the words on so many pages. Page 1 and look at how much ink there is. How much time to cross a line. The next paragraph a mile a way. I wonder of the percentage of one page in 342 pages, how many is a third. And what did that last line say. How much time to read each line twice. So pass my eyes across the lines without absorbing a thing, just to be nearer completing the book I am not reading. Just pouring it across my impatient eyes.
_____
She grew a thing, she looked at it with pride. No matter how it grew, it grew from her, that was enough for her. It spread salt on the snails and burned ants beneath the lens. It was made robust by her. No give in the pith and spat from the bridge, into the river. It grew it’s own thing, she looked at it with pride. No matter how it grew, it grew from her, that was enough, for her.
_____
The last
drop of blood
perched upon
a skeletal frame,
the snow wrote
renewal but
the blood remains.
_____
Plagiarism is
nothing new.
The branch
plagiarises
the root.
_____
Names make art
as easy as touching
canvas with pigment.
_____
A man was sat next to me, a drink under his nose. I noticed a ladybug paddling in the cup, instinctively I reached my finger into the liquid, to fetch the bug out, but the liquid thickened and pushed the bug away. It stopped moving and sank to bottom, where I noticed through the murk, more dead beetles and stagnant weed in this small rancid pond beneath his nose.
_____
She was studying
mind reading,
so attempted
to read mine.
She said that
I was thinking
her a fraud,
a charlatan.
This is how
they get you.
_____
Tom sings
a liquid line,
stir to taste a
different verse
each time.
In meditation I sit, my hands form a bowl. I imagine the Moon in my palms. Her weight has no momentum, her small gravity pulls at my fingers, pulls them into the dust, an imperceptible powder forms fingerprints, over, around and into the craters.
_____
I was in the city centre when I spied a man in a suit. His attention was drawn to someone sleeping under some newspaper on a bench. The businessman approached the slumbering bum, he pulled a flute from his blazer pocket. He began playing to the homeless drowsing form. I imagine it was some sort of revenge busk.
_____
Impermanence is climbing on top of me, holding it’s hand across my mouth. I pretend it isn’t there, keep my breath deep and calm, close my eyes, so I can’t see impermanence glaring down at me.
_____
Read, scan, absorb and digest, assess the world and gather wisdom.
The narcissist is immensely intimidating. A terrifying force of nature. Their faultless self-weaved image looms above cowering sanity. Lit from the gas of monumental nonsense, the narcissist can turn the most astute scholar into a quivering whimper of self-doubt.
Quashed
We called her delicate and painted her pink, we draped her in lace and called her frail, for she was stronger than us. We bullied her and called her dumb, we cut across her path, we stunted her growth, as she was stronger than us. We painted her wicked and called her demonic, we sang songs to her ghost, we buried her bones, for she was stronger than us. We admitted our fear, we defended her soul, we hoisted her up, we lit her angelic, but she was much stronger than us. We sang of perfection, we stooped and repented, we sullied our breath and perished in vain, while she thundered on, for she was always much stronger than us.
Influencer
She is injecting venom into a tributary vein, poisoning the arteries, polluting the stream, corrupting the heart, still life.
Time
How fortuitous to have just the right sized solar generator, Swinging us on just the right orbit. So precarious this miracle we are balancing on. Such ridiculous odds that we should be here at all, let alone endure without decline, bathing in this consistent burn. What fortune to feel this time in such scale, to witness the flickering in eternity’s flash of sunlight.
No opinion
It looks like rain? Well who made you a meteorologist? Did you study the weather at college for four years? No, you didn’t, so lets leave the predictions to those who know what they are doing shall we, the last thing we need is more false news muddying the waters.
Credit
Don’t read the words, they are just words, not thoughts expelled, not mine anyway, just the ether casting my thumbs, foraging for witnesses to the download. But what if there is no ether, no other, what if this was mine, what if I could not lay the blame, nor shine the light upon anyone but me. Why would an artist have the nerve to put those trophies on their shelf, if they believed in this godly download, they would only mute their gift plagiarising the ether. Is the ether so giving that if would let the receiver take credit for the flow? No, the ether’s anger will come, and the artist’s ears will become embalmed in liquor.
I search for a plain scene to move me, yet I only find saccharine compositions. I arrived inspired, but became nauseous, sickened at the sight of all these cloying Kinkade landscapes. I write in venom instead.
Snatchwild
It happened so quickly, we were there just last week, shopping in the mall then playing golf across the lane. Now it is all taken away. Macaques are there now, sitting eating bananas on the fairway. Wolves are climbing the rubble, viewing their new domain. Bears are scratching on the trees, elk are grazing on the green. No warning was declared, no notice was posted, the wild just rudely took our land away.
Royal tea
Isn’t it odd that the acceptance of a payoff is written as an admission of deceit. Yet paying off the plaintiff is never written as an admittance of guilt.
Bastard frog
A scorpion approached a frog, so he might cross the lake. He asked the Frog “Could you please take me across the river upon your back?” The frog replied “If I let you on my back, you would sting me.” The scorpion hurt by this baseless accusation said “Why would I sting you? I would drown in the lake!” So the frog thought and said “Ok, climb upon my back.” Half way across the river, the scorpion screamed as the frog tipped him into the river, just before he went under the scorpion bubbled “Why? I thought you were my friend..” The frog shrugged and mumbled “Didn’t you hear about frogs?”
Delicate
I am watching my skin turn to tissue, that tissue I once thought alien upon my grandma’s hands. How vulnerable it feels, each brush feels like a razor.
No chance
Imagine actually facing it, lifting the covers and revealing those callous facts, imagine the sheer scale of reimbursing all those harmed in the experiment. But the covers will stay, they will be buried and concreted over. The company could never pay for the truth.
Stoic spasm
While reading, does anyone else have the urge to tear the book in half ? I suspect it is some sort of wild compulsive inversion of this static pursuit. Like jumping from a bridge or throwing the baby. It is discomforting in this purported relaxing pursuit of stillness. The wild panic paddling beneath a man sitting staring into a book. “What is a book?” You say?
Music
‘The writing is depressing,’ they say, so return to the anaemic hug. Is good depressing writing not more uplifting than all the joyous pulp?
I read yet another book by the same author and the ink begins to lift from the pages, the type alights into the space between me and the pulp. I am helpless as the font invades my mind. I am no longer reading words, I am soaking sentences, I can feel the thoughts as they were written. So much time with the author’s labour has garnered a connection. I am possessed by this flowing mind, grant me exorcism from this writer’s soul.
I walk up into the woods to collect dead wood for the fire. The gradient is steep, some forty five degrees in places, the leaf litter adds to the adventure in every step. On my third ascent I am feeling it in my legs, slow pace does not alleviate the burning in my thighs, I start to breath heavily, the cold air stings the stove in me. I think to stop but invent markers in the trees, targets to pass. ‘I must stop,’ I think to myself, but mechanically keep on, to cross another border of discomfort. I wonder what kind of motivation would keep me crossing these borders, how much urgency would keep me till collapse, I wonder how far into discomfort collapse is. Runners do this every day, crossing their borders of distress for what seems to me scant reward. Pushing and pushing till something gives. I cross a final border at the summit and sit before I collect the wood. There is a chemical reward, I can feel it, below the exhaustion, bellow the aches, a rich stream of fulfilment flows.
There is a gun out there with a bullet in the chamber fear that skulking round neglect the empty chambers fear it, or take control take the gun yourself Put it to your temple proudly wear your badge ‘My gun went click.’
If I had the thing I’d be happy. Now I have the thing I realise it was that other thing I needed, so I need that thing. Now I have that thing it looks different from when I didn’t have the thing, it does not look like the thing that will bring me happiness, but I have seen another thing that looks sure to be the thing to bring me happiness. Oh well, it turns out that thing wasn’t it either, those things I thought were going to make me happy now look like stuff. But I have seen another thing, a new expensive thing, expensive equals happiness I read, just look at it! How could this shiny thing be anything less than pure joy to have? At last I have it, but must admit it looks less shiny out of the wrapping, was it worth it? Of course not, it’s just an expensive thing. Now I have learn’t that I should covet cheap things, for cheap things will give me joy for their thingness and their thrift. So, I search for that item where beauty meets value, and I find one, and two, for where there is a bargain I can have more, so I buy three and four and more. Upon their arrival the boxes are scattered everywhere, boxes of potential joy. I unwrap them, casting aside their veils. They shrink in every tear of packaging, till I have a small pile of stuff. I rotate the things in my hand, in search of the joy, but find it is exactly the same as everything else, it is metal, it is plastic, it is wool and wood, it is the passing of earth.
So I waited for the future, but found it didn’t arrive. The future went to other places, but not here. I was optimistic about something happening, I read a reading and heard a prediction, it’s coming they said, the future is going to be a new adventure, an unexpected journey to a new time. I had faith in these words, optimism resided in my soul. So I waited for the future to play out. I am still here waiting for fate to tow the future to me.
Up in the attic there are creatures. It is a tiny attic, not two feet across, but the creatures are large. They don’t scamper or scurry, they step and they stride. They have a weight that belies the scale of their domain. Early in the morning and late at night, we hear them explore the nooks and the crannies in the walls, they then stride the attic, like realtors assessing the space. Unseen I wonder what realm they are are really occupying, perhaps they echo into ours. how leaden the vapour’s feet.
Ink
If the ink doesn’t smear when I touch it, my thought is too old for me to understand.
From wet ink straight into the cornea, freshly picked, the best way to imbibe poem.
Dread
To look forward to. Events and meets, parties and gigs, socialising. All the things we look forward to, are supposed to look forward to. The soup is so full of these expectant feelings that this cube of vegetable soaks in the same, until the time arrives. What I was sleep walking into was just dread painted in some one else’s colours. My fey momentum of anticipation, dissipates swiftly, like sugar in coffee. What I feigned to myself, falls away replaced with panic, people and people and people siphon me away. I fall quieter and quieter, till I find a place to shelter from what my love thought I was looking forward to.
Mask
As long as he was illusive and ambiguous he would remain enigmatic to her eyes she would stay to find out who he was never to open and have her flee.
Goss
From many fathoms down in thought I got the bends from gossip.
Moon Hunting
We are going to go moon hunting tonight, we will come back with her bones on our fender and dust in our teeth.
The sun split the curtains, a silver dagger on the floor, marking the end of slumber. There was no warmth in that lying November light. Icy the crawl between bed and clothing. Layer upon layer then coffee, then coffee. The heating ticked and clunked morning routine, bringing a lie to the blue sky. The milk carton was hollow, giving nothing to the bowl, I would have to get another, the cereal unappetising in this state. As soon as the front door cracked my breath dragoned from my lungs. The few scatterings of people the same, breathing chimneys cinematically. No warm air, no warm smiles, no warm conversation. Stoic the walk under the grey, along the grey. My face numbed and my throat stung, I drew my scarf up, cocooned down into my breath. The feeling in my feet escaped, my fingers ached, as I approached the store glowing amber in the long morning shadow. The teller in a world of her own, scrolling her phone, had little attention for the few frosty strays wandering the store. The cartons stood in cold lines uninviting. I now wanted scrambled eggs with crisp toast, mushrooms and bacon, beans and sausages, and coffee and more coffee. And the warmth of the fire and a warm smile, and the warm bosom in a warm hug.
Stump
I wasn’t prying, not nosy, he left it in the stump, he secreted a book, and left. I was merely inquisitive. A diary, full of ink and warped from damp, but the pages turn legible. The third page read, ‘I am still not without pain, but I am able to walk, which is a blessing I do not take for granted, one year was enough.’ I flick through some pages, it flops open at a crisp leaf pressed between the pages, with a note, ‘First leaf of fall.’ The next page, ‘Autumn has not lost to Summer yet, I walked in shorts today.’ The next pages were too blotched to read, thereafter they wrote, ‘Today I found a diary in a tree.’
Window
If I knew I wouldn’t be here tomorrow, is a thought that offends some, terrifies others. If they knew they would be joining the infinite line of evacuees, they would grasp at solidity, grimly hold on in denial of inevitability. Today I find it interesting to think that tomorrow I may not be here, would I return? Go to some room out there, in there, up there, down there, or to becoming nothing but fuel to something else. This window of light I have is so small, seems like I have seen so little. History perhaps a way to pretend the window is larger, fiction to extend it still. I suppose now is the only reality. I trick myself to believe the stories are mine. Everything will bloom without me, how odd and obvious.
Waka waka
I said I had a Penny Black, but they would not let me into the museum, the Treskilling yellow gave me no free pass into the theatre, even my Inverted Jenny did not turn the doorman’s head. Philately got me nowhere.
One page back into the book, a corner turned flat for a while, I am disorientated. Just words strung in lines, there is no architecture to familiarise, so I often drift away, thinking of crows and clouds. I return to the page, gather my attention and attempt to lock it in. In a page of perseverance I have a little colour to work with, in a few more I have the cloth. A momentum of reality to soak the plot and hold my course.
_____
Why are these glasses so heavy? They look delicate but weigh on my face like lead. I can feel them too much, my head is stirring an ache. My shoulders, my neck, are straining to hold comfort. I read but the words are not giving anything in return, they are just words. Who would give time looking at ink on a page, when the ink is so miserly. Cold stubbornness is all that turns the page, but I can’t face another. Dozens of letters on hundreds of lines, seemingly infinite pages of nothing at all, how studious. Paint me intellectual in my page turning away from the tv. Though I am learning nothing but destain for Kerouac repetitions.
_____
She witnessed the suffering in the village and intended to do something about it. She poured her knowledge of plants into mixing medicines and balms, she offered them to those poor suffering souls. Some took them gladly, others politely declined, while a few, oddly became disturbed and anguished, ushering in an anger and profanity. As the flames licked her feet, she had no regret for her wishes to help, just pity for the ignorant.
_____
Up here the crows have antlers and the deer have venom. A vicious rabbit is not pythonesque, just a problem to resolve. Up in the boughs, I can hear the battles for territory, it is that time of year again. The cows are still falling to the deer and rabbits have put fear into the dogs. If this tree grows any taller, I am climbing back home.
_____
Upon
crossing
the bridge
to heaven,
her first action
was to set light
to the bridge.
The mechanical sun ticks from just beyond the horizon. Awaiting the unwinding. Gears whir and cogs mesh, in the automated heavens, a day is a standardised motion.
Sometimes you eat the bar…
This bar looked intimidating in it’s uniformity. Perhaps if it was my uniform I would feel comforted. It is filled with monsters, wearing monstrous cloth, and thinking thoughts I’ll never have. They play venomous music and serve caustic beer. They sweep difference from the place with caustic stares and whispers. The thoughts immediate, plain and public. I melt away, to the street. Another bar, a cornucopia of all, every kind of thought fizzes on this spot. Behind the bar a kaleidoscope of every liquor known to man. Folks wearing belled slacks, some in leather studded jackets, others in suits, then jeans and thongs and bowler hats. A cacophony of every waxed intrusion bellows from the walls. I sit and look at my ice rotating, feeling the energy of difference. Till I feel the discomfort of a bar full of diverse beings, nothing in common at all, building their confusion into a ball of hate. What once felt inclusive, now hooded and dark, the pretence of togetherness is simmering away, no open view, no swift acknowledgement, to stay is to be shanked in a stall, by some stranger, who cannot take this difference anymore. These are the bars I see.
It’s all in the mind
Is this a crease or a fold? it might be a wrinkle. But it looks intentional, too straight to be a natural bend in the sheet. A crease is a consummated fold, a wrinkle could be a fold and a crease, for it is outside of anyone’s control.
Drawling Narration
This book is taking so long to read. This languid voice that came to read with me has no mind to skip or scamper. He holds each word in reverence, pondering flavour and meaning. I wish I had another voice to babble and chatter through the chapter, but it is too late, this voice is imbedded into the pages, I will take a year to read this book.
Simmering slice
The Spanish sun paints sharp shadows. To cut you if you should try to steal some shelter.
Up into the woods
Out of the back door, we carried the drum. Up the mountain in the back yard. On up through the forest, we climbed, crunching through the leaves. We found a clearing on the steep forest floor, overlooking the valley. Ceremonially we opened the area, we greeted the spirits. Then we began to drum. A droplet of sound swiftly expanded into a pool, syphoning spirits into an audible lake, that built into a sea, that washed down into the valley. Filling the land with magic.
The two kids approached the house with caution, it looked odd, ginger bread houses can’t help but look odd. The flies they draw are somewhat off-putting, the constant buzzing, the hoards of heaving shining black bodies feeding on the sugary roof. But “Hell, lets take a look anyway,” said Hansel. Their dad was away at the edge of the wood not paying these two any attention, he is shrinking a beautiful wood to make poorly constructed furniture from once majestic trees. Gretel glanced at the door then said “The old woman won’t miss a little bit of her window frame right here.” Then scooped a lump out and greedily jammed it into her mouth, chewing with mouth open, no manners at all. Hansel took a piece too and did the same, a large divot sat obviously in the door frame, so Hansel scooped some dirt from the flower bed and jammed it into the hole, pulling the sweetbread across it to complete their deceit. Inside they were no more than a step into the house when they noticed the old woman cleaning in the hallway, her back to them. They quickly wipe their faces, then Gretel called to her “Hey old lady! You got anything we can drink?” Hansel elbows her firmly in the ribs, “Please.” She added. The old woman turned to them, making them shudder. Her face a maze of warts and sores, her nose long and crooked reaching down and tickling the hair on her chin. The children, stone still and silent. The witch said “Well aren’t you a cute pair of kiddies, such innocent eyes, well I could eat you up!” She turned and went to the refrigerator and fetched a large jug of home made lemonade. It was a warm day, so the sight of this tall jug of ice cold lemonade had the kids transfixed, they quite forgot the woman’s strange appearance and pulled a chair to take a seat at the huge wooden table in her kitchen. The witch filled their glasses with a satisfying glug glug glug. “There,” She said “Enjoy, it has been a hot morning.” She turned a big green eye to her oven. A huge iron oven with a huge iron door. She opened it, letting out a gust of hot air that filled the room. Instantly the kids spines turned to ice as their minds raced to where they had arrived. As the old woman bent to adjust the racks in her oven, Hansel and Gretel lunged at her fulsome butt and shoved. Yet the witch was not frail, not a slight old woman to be shoved into her own oven, swiftly she turned, grasping them by the collar, “How is this to treat your host?!” She bawled at the ungrateful swine. But she calmed, she sighed and released her grip, “It would not be the first time my appearance had frightened someone into foolishness.” The witch proffered a chair to each of them, gave them cookies. The children shook quietly, then began to sob throwing down their cookies. The witch tutted and grabbed them once again, she heaved them both into the oven, closed the huge iron door and turned the temperature up. “So ungrateful,” she muttered. But then, she lived happily ever after.
Those hours
Well, those hours
went by like a fish
submerging thought
drowning the wish
foreign the powers
increased by decree
winding the vice
the pressure disease
striking rite through
erased from the list
if you just behaved
would I be missed?
sever the outdoors
then would I exist?
four wall existence
to cease and desist
foiling all outcome
no development
wishing the sane
burn embellishment
wash up my psyche
fruit roll out the door
in comes a new tide
spit pips and the core
boiling the kettle
scold and to scrub
my heart vacated
swirls out the tub
old and rotten
right and sterilised
my new thoughts
are where I reside
now skipping reset
I dance to the store
they tie me right up
to rock on the floor.
______________
To remind, that wordwishes is now available on paper, to peruse at your pleasure.
Abstract Lines, the short, and Mind Blooms, the long.
wordwishes 