breathing quickening, pillow over the head, eyes open, brain dead

alive yet dead

black wings, pretty eyes, thick thighs, wide cheeky smiles, can chuck out people's lungs for soft words in return

hardened, dark, dusty, wrapped in shiny black clothes with secrets, scars and threads

brain so colourful will get colourblind soon

hands catching gentle water kisses, losers they are
failing to gravity, failing
put the feet on the floor, forgot to tell--****
gravity they call


hot, hot, cold, cold, cold, cold

volcanic, explosive, misguided conversations, orange fingertips, blue knuckles, purple lips, green heart and round hips

Sooo shivered from
a deluge with heed,
at the naked and as nerves
bundled half as much
as I curled in to gasping.
They reminded me to call upon
the book of a Spanish
painter of the souls
as substance course clocked,
splattered with a trail
of blinding sunset upon gold rouse,
flowed constantly like rims
of Gaudi’s great work,
placed as a silken fabric
of blue paint yet

The texture of
My lips

Slur the notes
That drape my hips

Staccato
Across my midline

Crescendo
Look for us

when I was growing up,
our hallway had the most peculiar floor:
not quite carpet,
not quite planks,
but something in between.

like a wicker basket
stretched out over several metres,
or the rope you find
dangling off a dinghy's mooring,

it scratched and screened
at the soles of your feet,
tickling and tormenting
bare toes or
pulling the threads out of
well-meaning pairs of socks.

I hated it, or at least,
I thought I did —
until the day it was replaced by
laminate panels.

fake wood didn't cut it,
neither would expensive pile,
or any scraggly synthetic offering
to do the trick.

our painful, hessian homecoming
was a path to beds, and tables,
and welcoming arms.

it marked a definite departure
from sensible carpets and
suitable floors,
to the place between comforts.

for who would dally in a hallway that hurt?
or who would pause to feel the prickling,
pinching of strange interior decor?

of course, sense prevailed —
wood would come,
wood would stay,

and our peculiar, prickly past,
would become a story for some other day.

Extend your hand, palm up
Silk - a long bolt of it,
unfurls across your palm
Cold on contact
And smooth
And smooth and smooth
Dragging a crisp wind behind it
As it falls away like a solid liquid

Extend your hand,
A gelatinous orb, almost sticky to the touch
But not quite.
Rubbery, resilient, responsive
Pulled under the weight of gravity
To bulge and droop over the edges of your hand
When you drop it, it hesitates as it lets go.

Extend your hand
Feel the weigh of a solid masonry cube
The greyest concrete
Each crenelation of its surface
Like a dry-skin pore
The corners and edges hold their shape sharply
Dragging fingers make a rasping sound
And a ceramic-like ring as it slips from your hand

Extend two hands together
Like to catch a stream of water
But instead you cradle
A tired and content weeks-old kitten
It adjusts its position, and curls up
Content with the warmth of your hands
You feel the soft, purring of velvet fur
It feels implicit trust, warmth and security
For its always-pending next nap.

Life is a natural  painting,
Make it lively and stimulating.
Use strokes of hope,
Tone it with varied patience,
Texture it with kindness,
Brush it with confidence,
Use exotic colours of love and care,
Happiness and laughter.
23/3/2019

The texture of your voice
in the dark is soft leather
and coffee in the morning
stones on hot afternoons
to sweaters in the evening
but that is just a single day.

your scarf traces your cold skin, a warm smell of rain

wrapped up in favours, not your particular flavour,
                        
       x Wrapped up in webs, in the attic of my head x
  
          it’s bad now//it’s bad now// it’s bad now

                Do you just let things
                              IN?
Fly with it on a
                    WHIM?
            I could never be so thin,
      Holding up a barrier caging what’s
                          IN

   x How do you just let it in, let it in? x

It’s numb now// it’s numb now// it’s numb

  
   Let them flow, oh let them flow
           right through
               your tainted soul
             Show them what’s real

  x Please can you just show, how to let it in now x

      It’s real now//It’s real now//It’s real now

My work day woke to Monk,
the click of typing keys,
clock watched, Spotify playing,
random thoughts rose like bees
to freeze in these jagged lines,
then swarm in threatening flight.

Hours of data entry later,
on a stool, in a bar, a clock's
hands tock, I flick a wrist,
and slur my words concluding  
an anguished monologue,
“They call it work, you know.”

Awash at home, in the strobe of
pixelated panel light,
visions surge and dissipate
with the pulse of the night. Osip,
were you tempered to embrace
attention’s fugitive caress?

You etched memory’s texture
with candle soot for ink,
and the gulag’s blackened gaze -
I type lines by hunt and peck
humming Monk’s WELL YOU NEEDN’T,
hoping for an adequate phrase.

Copyright © 2004 Gary Brocks