"Hello, police."

"Good morning, officer.
My name is Ashley Williams.


I am in the woods, at the end of Autumn Street.



I will be hanging myself.

Please come and get my body.




Thank you for your time."

I wandered the desert wasteland
A pack of burning sun on my back
It tore my eyesight in two

Oases loomed and dissolved
Nothing but blue sky overhead
And circling scavengers

Helium shot to my brain
The taste of tainted blood
And numbing wounds

Streets lined with confetti
Cheering crowds waving flags
Delighted squeals of the young child
Even destitutes on holiday
And the sun burning its merry way on the sidewalks

Ascent of the podium
Big bow to everybody
More cheers
Slogans read: long live the hero
Happy days to come
and, no one shall stand in our way

The people hush
they quiet as the microphone moves closer
a smile:

I am no hero

––a pause––a cheer––

I am no hero

––another pause––no cheers––

There is no glory in killing
no honour in ending a life
that could have gone on to be so much more
a person who
had their own hopes
dreams––––––––––

––all is quiet over the square
and the sun continues to shine––

––––and people who loved them

There is no joy
in dealing pain
––and pain that never heals

––––silence––––




––a child cries––


a pain that is my pain
a pain that never goes away
a pain of hearing the last words of someone
who could have easily been your friend
your neighbour
your teammate
your best man
your brother––––

They always say: tell them... I love them
and who shall carry out this task?
the one who slew them?

––––––––––––––––––––

so I keep it with me
forever, and perhaps in time
someone will pass it on

––––mostly they stay ungiven
until this generation passes
and that unhealing pain follows us away
and then we go on over and over again

So I don't think that we should say
that we are heroes today
we are no heroes
we are only survivors
victims of a dying breed
and ebbing slowly.

––––a silence––––

The sun continues to shine.

Tell me stories
of a honey-coloured love
Time immemorial
and sweetly scented doors

Fine me heartaches
in the absence of the stars
Gazing forever
through the silence of descent

Urge me gently
on the road of reveries
Rising dawns
in the howl of morning bees

Miss me terribly
from the quiver of your lips
Haunted softly
by the touch of kind strangers

Watch me tenderly
of thoughts in dreary days
Fondly forgetting
our many silhouetted ways

Every yuletide it comes the time
under the blanket of nirvana
where I remember you for brief flickers
in the light of better days

Chatter, as I watch the snowdrops falling
It blends in from the street, the pavement, the everything but me
and the lonelier soles who walk their own ways in the path
Taking their own hands against the cold.

Distances there into and always with the twilight
Strings and biscuits in the dawn of the twice
Winds pass and monsoons sweep through
Often I watch them in the memories of you.

Cross the sidewalks, mirrors, delights
Christmas parties and silent enchantments
Invisible but dwelling in the darkness of the stars
So humbling in all the georgian opacity

I yearn for the lights of the morning essence
Dream of the warmth in the hearth of men
Assuming in vain the welcome of all night blankets
And grieve in the vacancy of the traveller's awe.

Who takes the broom of the closets past
Who walks the dawn and evening stars
Who fawns over the reflection of the moon
Who tells of my works in their brilliant cocoon?

In the hazes of a distant dream land
I see you
Shrouded in the hearts of dreary dawns
Smiling

and pulling me aside you would
smell and caress me all over
a gentle wink and the lightest kisses
and the night would break the spell

On the borders of the smelting fire
A pyre awaits for the burning star
Skits on the shadows of the darker waves
Grim and tied in the locks of the hair

In the wearied low-lands of the outer earth
I see you
Spinning in the many colours of our lives
Beckoning

Child's play at the sound of the horn
Cacophonies and running home
Splintering at the daze of the day
And grinding in silhouettes

In the wake of the latest day
I see you
Eating tomorrows in the cream of love
Smiling

Take off your clothes, you said

Morning
The light simmering in
Sneaking up on our sleeping souls
Waking us gently
Making you moan

The breeze
Through the boughs that we
Had spent the night rocking all over
In jubilation
Quietly

Meandering
The streams washing off
The dirt and grime of our happiness
Rolling down
Evanescent

And the moon
Lighting our nights
And the next nights
And the ones after
Ever smiling

I could close my eyes
Lose them
Feel only your breath
Peeling at my skin
And the scent of love
Creeping around me

How I could deny my infatuation
In the arms of the goddess
Joyfully lulling me to sleep

Several moons before
when we were still strangers
under the darkest veil of the velvet curtain
we lay dormant beside each other
whispering words of white wash
under the cover of a deceiving peace
waiting for the next shell shock.

Dizziness would rise
quickly in as the water in the brain
fizzed like soda
bursting into effervescent bubbles
lining oozing cracks
smelling like petroleum.

And then we'd rise
from our self-made graves
sprinting across no-man's land
leaping over the gorge of death
playing with the volcanoes below
and dancing snipers.

Juggling that we'd be able to
sweep through the next jungle
burn its corpses
gorge on its juices
dismembering the world

and in its infanticide the clouds
would wail in their wake
spitting contempt on our rejoicing backs
while we danced our hollow victory
and onto the coming thunders.

Days and days passed and here we are
lying in graves dug for others
watching the star trails as they pass us by
oblivious in all eternity.

Yesterday
in the cotton folds of the black eye
a startled sentience exploded with atomicity
building up in power and decimating the dust lanes beside
as we lay in the comforts of our littlest cores

and spraying its jets across the galaxies
touching the oldest star lights beyond
crimson and aqueous in all amber echoes
crushing down our systems of eternal purity
pulling together and dissipating

for millenia distances meet by vibrations
conflicts of heart and the love of joy
rearing their ugly colours in brevity
but shattering consciousness for moments––––––––

My head spins
I can't sleep
The world whispers its memories of you
And in the bay's reflection the pain
Lurches like sandstorms.

The butterflies take off
The oceans swell and crash
Trenches dissolving into sand

The forest bursts with splendour
All the delights of the world
Shining the glory of the day

Buds just before the bloom
Breathing through their succulent lips
Peeking out into the sun

The eyes of the storm meet
Colliding and merging together
Sharing their inner peace

And the cores of the universe
Kissing into all energy
Melding from the warmth

Light from the ever-earth
Motions of life from within
And no tangible darkness.

Spurious words and spinning wheels
grasping the unmade road
crossing streams of deserted hinterlands
sparing no weakness

Plenty in the fork of the day
shining down like twilight
whittling down the breeze of night
and smashing up the stars

Meandering past the lazy groves
grain in corsets
musk in roses
pushing the littlest hearts
and raising their eyes to the sky
a glimpse and a glimmer
sparkle of the waters
and we were unshackled
lost

In more ways than one
you whispered in the tiniest hours
and I heard the edges of your echoes
resounding slowly and gradually
rebounding for more
filling the universe.

The lines on her flesh
The slightly closing eyes
The breath
Just barely

Everyday I'd wait for you at the top of the stairs
Hiding in the shadows as the morning glare peeked through
Shining on the boxes that I had stacked up in the night
While I gnawed on my hunger

You'd come up for several minutes
Whisper to me in our stolen time
Let me smell you all over in brief embraces
And then leave

Moments in the breaks of my lightwatch
Nights and the descent of the wolves on the hunt
The scent of dusk and the ever blinking stars
And the creaking of bicycles treading through the woods

I'd look you all over in the darkness of the moon
Taste the weariness through the souls in our eyes
Mildew and the chirps of homecoming birds
Warming our bodies in unison

The whips of sunshine would come again
We'd scramble away from each other
Dislodging our joints and other such things
Tightening the knots

Every fragment I'd wait for your silhouette
Luminance granting me brief glimpses
Drawn through the curtains of prying eyes
And the numerous opuses creasing our hearts

The dots of Orion in the amber snow
Greeting our hands and chalking the rain
Pyres of pain make the distances scarce
And burrowing in my chest we'd sit
Burning in the ashes of twilight.

A whisk of alpine pollen
The whisper of the wind
Bowed heads and unheard murmurs
And the songs to cleanse their sins

The casket enters ground
We seal the doors unmade
Grind through the formalities
And shuffle our separate ways

The breath of breezy flowers
The scent of reveries
The many hundred hours
We spent in drudgery

Gone high and low in hunger
Dim tides and hues and aches
The earth shut off forever
and in the death of wake–––

I watched your eyes open in joy
I watched them shut in shame
Time gave you less than all my years
and leaves me crying in vain

Moonlight, daylight
Time in all my days
Light the fire of the hearth
Crease the wrinkles in my space

Moonlight, daylight
Hope in the sparkle of dreamland
Take me to the seams of time
How far my sight will span

Moonlight, daylight
Pull in the shores of memory
Mirror me in the ocean
Take all the weight I will carry

Moonlight, daylight
Grasp of night in sound
Eclipse my soul of division
To what chains we are bound

Moonlight, daylight
Spear the winds of spice
In my heart of yesterday
Time can wane the price

Moonlight, daylight
Speak in all ways of life
Choke on wishes of longing
We watch the sunset
in daylight.

We huddle beneath the dark curtains
psychedelic lights illuminating our walls
despite the dimmers––––––

and the silent hum of machines
whirring about outside
their blades cutting the night

day time would bring carnage
and so I prayed for light
never to come––––––––

murmurs and whispers from
solemn men whose eyes
were the only things I could see

clear blue skies inhabited
my blankest mind as we
lived our dying moments––––––––

and in the slipping warmth
the squeeze of my mother's hand
a smile and a whisper

momentary bliss
quiet and silence
before the war begins.

Rake in the leaves
Sweep out the memories
Exhale out the dust
Take in the reveries

I love the swaying of the trees
In my summer sunshine
The gusts of winter courting the scent of lime.

Acres of yellow
Flocks of the white
Greeting yards of children all in plain sight.

Wonders of the ocean
Salt and water and sky
Blueish like the reflection of the clouds in your eye.

Rise of the light
In the glory of the gods
Singing in the full expanse of the prairies of love.

Empirical quests
In the burst of the works
Inhaling in the gorgeous yuletide of the earth.

Time in the nothing
Worries of the trite
Enbosom me in the absence of the darkness of the night.

The landscape is colourless, featureless
What defines it is the sky
The crashing clouds and circulating wind
That flies beyond our human sight and
Cuts the horizon beyond its borders.

Sometimes it changes like the flow of
Time, the universe and everything
Can you see it morphing?
In your deep eyes, those flashes of light
Mean nothing but colour.

What is colour to us?
What is colour to me?
Colour is nothing
For colour only decorates and
Says nothing substantial
Giving it life while
Taking ours away
Like blinking specks of diminishing light.

You are colourless in my eyes.

Imperial palaces
sweeping the landscapes for
miles beyond the eye's vision
gleaming in their perennial silhouettes
sparkling down the dies
shimmers of light rebounding off their sharp heads
piercing the sky

and the eagles
soaring round incessantly
until the clouds move to their momentum
spinning on apparent winds
grudging none their splendour
printing the ages.

Thinking about it, for example
Sometimes I was astounded at how I used to be able to
Do everything with such confidence

Examine the flight of a bird, attempt to copy it
See the world in my eyes and laugh
Because it all seemed so wonderful

How there were times, when the littlest of things
Could make me tear at the eyes with happiness
Or burn in my ears with rage

Now everything fades, like the colour that dissipates
I see the sunshine sliding through my eyelids
But only just, never reaching its destination

I always told myself that it would be okay
The world would shut itself away, but I would
Like I always had, continue smiling

The sky has shunned me forever now
It takes its pride in something else
And leaves the petals of the closed flower untouched

Maybe there were times when I should have
Tried harder, done better, does it matter?
I don’t even know whether or not it would have changed anything

The world keeps loud and racing
Nothing silent for me
All the entry-points blaze with fire

I am heathen, and all that has passed
Is testament to its existence
Though somehow I cannot see

I can barely make out the sunshades, and they
Twinkle at me with delight
My last rays of light

While I missed the morning star.

Wait
There's something coming

A twinkle somewhere far away
A sparkle in the distance
You'd always run for it notwithstanding
All the pain and hurt for falling

Maybe the caricatures were true enough
Maybe you were always crying
Maybe I never saw it real
Or maybe you really were lying

It's raining
Beastly thudding down on the warped iron
Time and universe spinning on the axes of doubt
And we dance like there was no other way out of it

It's raining
Slipping down the courtyard of breeze
Climbing the ascension to the mountains of the gods
Scaling the pits of our own little daemonium

It's raining
Ringing in my ears there are
Yellowed jackets and fighting roars
Decrepit words of the random past

It rains
Like thunder and lightning make no sense
Pouring into the concrete jungles and sealing
Sentience in its benevolent hands

Spiders grasp our flesh
Tear it apart
Who would say otherwise?
Take it and rend
Rend and grate

Whispers of the darkness
resound in my head.

Light petals flowing off the creek
And gentle breezes whipping through our hair
Watching the idle clouds smile at us
And lull us as time sleeps on

Grasping the stars the moment they appear
Sparkling in their early sunbath and laughing otherwise
Greeting us in careful glimpses
Mesmerising so

Days we spent dreaming of the oceans
And wandering our boundless expanses
The horizons and the sights
Soothing as always

I used to always wait
In the dusk of the day when the fireflies were awake
Watching the last rays of the sun streak out on the sky
Thinking that she would come home again
And then walking away whenever night fell and
I was too tired to make sense of anything.

In the many times when I stood on the grass
Thinking of the many things that we would have done
It was a smile I held on my face, believing earnestly
That someday we would do all those things all together
In the warmth of each others' shadows.

Time tears the soul into parts
The drudgery of the days that I spent
Sealing away the parts of the world that I didn't want to see
Because I was a coward, still am
Taking the essence for granted.

When night fell there would be a silence
Veiled by the darkness of the evening stars
And I would lie on the ground and look at the sky
In the wake of a series of tear drops, moving
Wondering what would come to me.

So easily were the days torn away
Now it's rain after rain and the snow in the sullen earth
Pulling the strings, spring and summer and winter
The autumn light failing to shine any path
As I throw the leaves away with my feet.

She would always tell me, sometimes
That it would've been wiser to just walk away
And I know that it was the right choice, but the bad choice
So I stayed and stuck it out even through all the times
Chilling my bones and giving me frost bites
But letting me grit my teeth and bear it.

Life wastes away like that, and yet
Somehow it feels as though I have lived through a lot
The pain that grinds, the emotion and the helplessness
How time and people prepare you for that
Innocuously toying with you and saying
That everything would be okay.

I am able now, to close my eyes
Dream of the day when footsteps will sound behind me
I will turn, and after all the reveries and empty waiting
Find that someone else was waiting for me instead.

Coriander sprinklings and subtle tastes
as we lean together and giggle as children
exchanging nibbles and pecks of love
at the gentle lullings of our sleeping boats

And the sun would shine on our dark heads
burning our hairs and lighting the fires
echoing our laughter while we filled the earth
with eternal love that would span the sky

And all the distances would pull us apart
taking our lives this way and that
winding through the darkest routes
enshrining our happiness to the past

But we would - as always - remember well
clinging to the smells of the world
keeping our hearts closed to disruptions
but letting our confidence sway––––

And yet the world would bring us back
to hear our giggles and childish banters
taking delight at the slightest triggers
and painting lives in watercolour

So moments pass and times repeat
clear in the eye of our observers

But crimson shades and all spring scents
watch our bonded rains and shines

And for every moment I reflect
you shine brighter than luminance.

We went stargazing yesterday
The prairies of light shining our way
Watching the comets and the sky rise
But I always prefer watching you

The clouds buffeted and the birds whistled
Their pathways home lighted by the dusk
As shimmers of light sparkled in our eyes
Illuminating our souls together

Then the aurora spread its essence
Beacons of hope exploding in our hearts
Waves of trepidation gave way to awe
And the hammers of reality ceased

For a few moments in life I think
Tamed by nature and spoiled by love
Echoes of my memories resound in your head
As we watch the dyeing world coloured by rain.

The fireflies of the summer dimmed into the past
So many things fade like dust and winter’s gusts
I’ve taken the empty words and trembling hourglasses
To sail the world with me in dazzling, chapped horizons

Endeavours upon disguises, silence in our minds
We envy the buzzing timelessness of the lighted fireflies
Chalked and restless grey, a distant opal of deceit
Unmasking, silent, and you, ever discreet

Cooling rain and sauntering songs, words and echoing tunes
Joyous dances and tittering ladies, potter through the dunes
Nostalgia and nausea rush to me, seeming none so different
While we talk and smell the hallways, so dried of yesterday

The chapel rings in amber mist, rays of tomes and light
Choral bells and bowls of memories, shine in blinding sight
Moaning in the shadow of the past, cringing past the ocean
Cloaked and yielding in the needs
Of explicit and deceptive motions.

I see you in the scent of autumn
Waving distant goodbye
As we raise our hands and talk the emptiness
Of vague and hollow skies.

Sleep

I have the hallways of dawn
buried somewhere in my soul
gripping me tightly in our bonds
as we travel the stars and wandering lights
blissful and forever
spinning threads of sacrificial innocence
toying with the clouds of the earth
and pulling the effervescent strings of our universe

Paying the price for our solitude
leaving our eyes behind
settling for wings half-broken but
never letting go
and to be free–––––

Egging me on
hushed in the whispers of infinity
invisible for fragments and
tracing all others on their way
glittering terras and daylights
hiding together

Dreams
always holding my hand
all along the way

Falling asleep on the pavement
I think of all the seamstresses I’ve met
The barmen that I’ve talked to
The fishermen waving to me from the ocean

It occurs that there are stars
Mingling in the minds of my memories
And the distance between my friends
Wandering the silent world

Rusted and littered the sidewalks
We still kicked the cans and laughed
Hustling through the burns of the wave
Making it through the day

Lying on the gravel, I
See the trains of the passers-by
Rushing to their stations, adjourning
Riveting to another impression

The inference of question, treason
There was no need for us to speak
Because it haunted always from within
And we knew it and we threw it as such

Dying on the ground, I know
The reaches of the dusty universe
The follies of the ground of man
Circling in the woods again.

Spring water ebbs
      slow floating towards the end
           and such gentle whispers
                 empirically so–––

It's the
Last day

Tomorrow they said they'd come for you
Sure I believe they'll be on time
They always are

Then I suppose they'll take you to some
****-house in the middle of nowhere
Work you till you drop and
Die

Underneath all that grimy face and ***** hands you
Still grin at me in that childish act
Waving maggots in my face

Tomorrow they'll come take you somewhere
I don't know what to do with the cash
But it'll feed the other kids enough

It's the
Last day

Thought I'd give you a treat
Went to the outside and brought back
Some meat
Chucked it in the fire
Let it singe for a bit
You gnawed on it like chocolate

Tomorrow they'll come take you away
And there's nothing I can do about it.

I watch, at the
prairie of time
the unfurling of nature
the dissertation
of saints

and in the hinterlands
a bare cry of
entrance
barred into the heavens
whispers of the world

residues
of fate and light
and devils
grieving for their
sacrifices

and slipping
into the worlds of men
the partakes in
grey barriers
and lossy colours

periphery
the ancient coliseum
the warface of dread
and acquittals of
memories

moments in time
spinning on the axle
grappling onto thoughts
and endless flows.

Life speaks itself at the flicker of a lantern
bridging the gaps of the heart strings for a fraction
and then disappearing

Melting on the silence of the fireflies like
dreaming clouds of the winter
effervescent blindly

Life spearheads itself into the deepest chasms
watchful for the oncoming spurts of unknown
and frightful always

Whispering on the darkness of watchers
whisking down the road of the past
coloured dark blue and grey

Life has passed me by like time
crawling along at its own providence
harming no one

Spring comes, and
woos the bougainvillaeas away
courting bees and dancing butterflies
in their own kaleidoscopes of rain
and summer would sweep the rice fields dry
washing down the cascades of eternity
tumbling into the weight of their knees
fearful just––

Mum would speak of distant memories
forgotten oceans and blinding seas
the salt on your lips and the wash of the waves
burning into the heat of the day



––and we would soak our dreams in the idleness of summer
wander the ellipses and the dunes that were lost
grinding our toes into ever cooler sand
letting them sink deeper

Lifetimes would pass in an instant of thought
flashing by prairies of dancing light
striking in our eyes in countless shades of colour
painting the sky.

Checked myself yesterday
wondered if my soul was intact
that, and the seams that hold it together
its sense and social competence
its gait and many faces
its sainthood and devillish endeavours
and all other things

Washed down everything thoroughly before
I reckoned I was ready to see you
the perfection down to the littlest detail
at least, what passes as perfection
glazing over and stopping short
of reeling and swooning at
the mere whiff of your scent

Cleared the hoops between
the long sidewalk jog of endurance
hearing the cars whisk by and wishing
that they'd give me a lift - for what seems important
that brief moment when my eyes find their sockets

The sun will rise as I
slowly make my way into the compound
find the snug spot between the walls that they
seem to have left empty for me
while I might watch from the window panes
wonder if you would look over
and pay me some attention
though often, I
pass the entire day
watching but never found

To work the night shift and spend the daytime waiting
tailing your silhouette like an empty vagrant
grasping onto nothing as the world ignores my presence
like they did always
like they did yesterday