------------------------------------
 \ why is it that time slips /                              
   \she slides and slithers /
     \right through these  /
        \ infinite crevices  /
          \found all over /
             \my greedy /
                \ hands,  /
                   \ like /
                   /    •   \
                 /       s      \
              /            a       \
           /             n            \
        /                 d              \
      /                                      \
    / in the dainty hourglass \
  /sitting aloft my skew shelf.\
-----------------------------------------

I could split atoms, spit feathers,
light fires on the tundra,
go under and who would remember?
not many
ask anyone
they won't know me by name.

In the index marked selfish economy
above the last line is where you will
find me.

I want for, but
need nothing
she brings to me
everything,
and
when I fall she'll be the one
to recall me.

In these optical collisions
she is one of those visions
that torment me
in the best possible way

We don't talk about things we don't talk about
which is a roundabout way of saying something,

I said something once, but it was carried away by
a wind that came in over the bay to some foreign quarter.

Innuendo as far as these things go and I'm not so sure
that I know what it means.

Blunt and pointless, this
existence under duress or
in a harness, but
I am tied to it by these
sinews which tie together
my bones,

I don't get that less is more
it seems to be more or less
a placebo.

The tape remains blank
thank silence for that.

I come from sunlight,
      The sweeping of leaves,
      South London streets,
      Lurburnum seeds;
      Hot semolina,
      A spoonful of jam,
      Hands full of gooseberries,
      That's who I am.

      I come from rose petals,
      The sound of the fairs,
      The smell of candyfloss
      Mist in the air;
      I come from warmth,
      My parents hands,
      Outings to parks,
      Both small and grand.

     I come from knowledge,
     True and false,
     From nursery rhymes,
     And stories and pictures of God;
     I come from gentleness,
     A quiet afternoon,
     From visions of loveliness,
     Sewn on a spool.

    I come from two worlds,
    With different ways,
    A threaded pearl necklace,
    And sensible soles
    A mother and father,
    I think I knew,
    I came and I wandered,
    I looked at the view.

       By Mary **

(exercise madness)

put him to death and
in less time than it takes to draw
one single breath
the history of man began,
that's modern history and
not Neanderthal stuff
although there's not nearly enough
known about them,

and we end up with **** stars
and rock stars and star wars
and more ****** who keep scores
and play out the old wars to settle
old scores.

I'm lost in the maze of a manuscript
tripped up by Tryptanol and
being killed slowly by Kryptonite,
you'd think Superman might have put
batteries in this cheap watch he gave
to me
nobody will save me and
I'll go to the grave
unnoticed.

Friday
as reminder
of how cruel the time.
(Invariability)
Of how intractable the wind and weather.
(Inevitability)

I cry the cry of the reformed mean spirited;
the once-unholy-then-unholy-again;
the backslid.
It's been so long since I've sinned,
come short of the glory,
come at all (costs)
It would feel good to make a fist again.

Please render me in subtle shades
when you paint me into your masterpiece;
barely discernable from the canvas.
A ghost in achromatic acrylics.

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

She has never built sandcastles.
She has never toed the surf along the Gulf of Mexico.
She's only ever known these mountains;
these cold, granite monuments to impassibility
that reduce the sky to slits,
somehow managing to make the heavens smaller.

Half closed eyelids with their own trap-door gravity.

Short lives last eternities too
and there is beauty to be had
- even here -
It's just that everyone should get to build sandcastles sometimes.