CHAPTER 1 - Part 1


The lone figure hobbled painfully down the road, one hand clasped to his bleeding thigh, the other just hanging aimlessly by his side.

He wore a filthy white shirt, the collar now dog eared and embedded with stale sweat. The baking sun bore down on his navy, army-style, jacket - burning its fabric so intensely that the colour pigments had actually started to fade, giving the whole coat a washed out purplish tinge at its fraying edges. Upon the jacket's left arm was a peeling smiley sticker, the actual curl of the paper contorting the smiley's face into a strained grimace.

The other arm was stained with blood.

"Go... go... with the flow -" He whispered quietly to himself, head hung over, cast in thick shadow by his greasy hair. With every jaunty step he took, a spurt of blood escaped from his clutching hand and dripped onto the tarmac road - where it sizzled in the sun.

He wheezed and gasped, as if his throat was lined with dry sandpaper - and yet he still whispered quietly to himself, those same words over and over again.

"Go... go... with the flow."

Fields of daisies surrounded him - their once canary yellow petals, now scorched brown; dead and lifeless. Everything dead in this world, apart from him, the punishing sun in the sky, and Death itself.

He shook his head swiftly once - for no apparent reason.

["You don't have to, babe - we can work it out!"]

"No... we... ca-n't..." He groaned to himself, shaking his head side to side, his free hand starting to twitch.

"Can't... just can't -"

A slight wind suddenly blew from the north, lifting up his mopped fringe, scantly revealing his face. His skin was sickly white, the hair only moving enough to reveal a circular scar gouged all the way around his right eye - the pupil of which, was pooled with blood.

He smiled, a lopsided grin that revealed pristine white teeth.

["No, no please - just put it down, we can sort it all out!"]

"Baby, baby, babyyy..." He spoke clearly, his tone now remarkably smoother and refined. In some eerie way it was as if he was trying not to laugh at something, the same sort of tone a school kid would use when trying not to laugh at a joke as they're getting told off by a teacher.

It was as if... well it was as if he was in his own little world, talking to a person that was only existent in his head.

["I don't care what you've done... I still love you!"]

"No you don't."

His leg continued to bleed, and the sun burned even brighter, but he stood up straight - well almost, one shoulder sloped slightly to the left side. His leg was bent at heavily at the knee, blood running in rivets down his pants.

["Jay... l-listen, j-just put it down - there's no reason for this!"]

With a flick, he shook out a seven inch carving knife straight out of his sleeve - the hand holding deadly still.

The blade glittered in the sun.

["Jay - no!"]

He lurched forwards, holding out the knife to his side and flicking with a menacing flair.

"Baby be still... just go with the flow..."

AJ

it saws old rain in my skull
and your thoughts take a tour; wet and heavy
and quietly, the dirt shifts in the metal tracts

you break me every single time
my internal spilling is entangled
hopelessly

my summer-psyche enmeshed in your season
and forever swallows a few more ribs
don't wake the children of the light
for their feathers will burn beneath my nails

a storm hangs patiently on the wall
like a delighted painting made from frantic crystals
and I skitter from your towering moods
yet the moon dances in and out of every calm abyss

the lid is no more vacant than my veins cursed with
your silence
like algae, I slip on

my terror squeaks like a vehicle possessed
cheeks go ashen in my gay smiles
you will blush, in secret at what I will do
to you

sails lift on garlicky air in a port where ships don't wait
and my tongue loosens another melody only doubt hears
I'm completely in your hands
and willing for that crush

my acts for coins fall meaningless in embedded frustration
       don't come to the table, then
       keep the shades drawn
only the sense of phantoms
will be hanging in my smoke
intoxicating me to radiance
racing through to the ripples in your day

I'll keep lancing pebbles across the ocean's surface
they will never really reach the riverbed
frosty comes in agonising diamonds
a feast of distress sitting urgently
a shudder flutters through me, imperceptible

reduction of sweetness
a date with the cherubs from a netherworld
my nose feels the snows you carry
and I know you constrict still
my language falters and thinking shatters
and although slumped and vulnerable, it flourishes.

on windy plains
flattened panels beneath tight-pressed scarves, they stand
on the edge of the highway
seeking the last streaks of eve's sun
bodies on windy plains where, in the lap of poverty, kids play and listen
the ***** little words mothers spill
a hapless world in flats steep, laundry billows on higher
than most dreams can possibly reach


1.
song to be sung, yet youth's golden mouth swift-ripped away
by hungry-crones topped in white hats and over-spiffed lines
poor boy couldn't hold it together, they fell apart
scatter the crowd in fold-up chairs to make it look less empty
spread the tea-garden in the hall, circulate those tiny packets
so much **** noise, is that all we waited for?

revolutions were built on disparity's hand ****** in the face of the poor
pity the drug of current day keeps all so well glued to the system
somebody wise once said that royalty awards knighthood
                                                *exactly for the same reason
to keep gentry where they are seen fit to belong: below
                                                           ­                   the swirl of understanding
so, there won't be enough cake for everyone.



2.
when saviours ring in the new, for a short while
and new heads bring down the old names
and gut the bastions of the past
surely, when we destroy the ugly parts of history, we conceal truth
with pompous new plaques and road names for petty achievers
even bad press is held up as recognition these days
and too many are numbed, hopelessly foiled by the feed
peck, peck.. nice, little chikken
                         (mind stuffed with trash, mouthpiece occupied)

some content to catch a few crumbs on the way down
while others tread lightly on their way out the back exit
the more we so blindly buy into the whole mess
the less we see the big pic
                           (the real one)
nebulous covers the screen so well: away from organic life
life on a farm, growing your own stuff
       needing less of plug-in
       more of play
I steadily tire of the filthy streams we're led to wade in
thick and viscous with the stench of decay
and no way out but the meeting with barbed-wire walls

oh, for days of simple pleasures.. walking in the park
                                                      swingi­­ng high into the blue sky
with eyes on the rim of the planet
a ten-cents pineapple-popsicle
and no fear of the unknown
       but beautiful discoveries, good and not-so-good

now, a man will die in the hands of a stranger's care
at the mercy of their kin's timetable
busy, busy, busy.. loved ones moving on
ah, no time to enjoy a tot, some oenomel.


3.
say, God.. you got a moment? I'd like to address a grievance or two
are we forgetting what you told us?
what was it again -- on the day, we tried to understand your identity
                                    in a tongue this world's memory suffered lapse
there was a time we understood your meaning
today, I hear your voice in the rustle out my meadow
right here
in the green leaves

I think I can hear you right
loving your remembrances.



*silent anger brews in the streets, common folk took enough
tired of threats and crumbs left by chunks others gorged on
retaliatory mountains grow, a surge in march
a touch too late to retract some acts.. for haste & judgment hurt
where many struggle to breathe, so hatred cements its template
slowly, time may crumble them to stones, then dust
            or hope build a rope from heart's twine
            or love blow breezes of care on this fiery circle
faraway, where queens live on ginger cakes and ale
on windy plains.