I see the light
in the corner of my window
before it morphs
Into the face of Hades

Death will guide my breathing
into this open space
and drown any meaning
Of air and it’s grace

I will see beyond all
that explorers have yearned
and the city heads tremble
Forlorn

For the street dusting folk
have accepted this fate
long before they were born
And will sing at the face of Dawn

When the sea reaches down
to take my hand
and sing me a cry
So foreign

I’ll remember that sleep
is no different from waking
and I’ll wait with no hurry
No claim

And we will soar
through the fires and
hailstone histories of man
Spit oil and embers on brand

For smoke becomes smoke
And poison becomes poison
And our bones a lovely crown
for our children

I love the same way
the bees love my carcass
Cause my body feeds the ground
for flowers to grow

And I hope that you feast
on their honey
Cause that’s the only way
it’ll get to you

I love the same way
a bomb loves the fire
Cause when it kisses that is all
it can see

And I hope the war ends
in your favour
Cause only then all the deaths
will have worth

I love the same way
the birds love the horizon
Cause to follow it is to fly
forever

And I hope at their end
you will find only feathers
Cause then you’ll know that their freedom
wasn’t free

For a moment in
this handheld darkness
the world is but
an option

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of tree branches and fog
Of mechanisms in the rotting mulch
Dragging heads of eclipses
On wish bone sticks

That was a metaphor for conquering
Unknown
But also the story of choosing
Unknown

The frogs write
their last will and testament on
Quivering mist and
Echoing answers

The fish know their place
Minds one ball of red string
And pass their history to their lawyers
As suggestions

The city is lined with
Street signs and traffic lights
One foot after another
One person and then another

Did you know the dictionary has no word
for the people who rely on patrons?
dependent
client
protégé

all these stolen words
and none to paint the world

Life is sheets of white paper
There’s a note when you’re born
And a note when you die
And a note when you eat

And behind each word is
A dept to be paid
In money in love or in pain
in quiet moments when you stand and wane

Perhaps I ramble too much
Mindless this and that like
the terms and conditions
of a tabloid subscription

Hah
Law metaphors from
Someone who’s not a lawyer

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of ink spills and crooked grins
Of mechanisms in the infinite machine
Nature following nature
Until they cease to breathe

History is written in prophecies
And radioactive handshakes
Yet the world with all it’s felonies
Cannot lay down in peace

It reads here, in the fine print:
Non-exchangeable
Non-refundable
Non-redeemable

The ouroboros of humanity
of plant of animal
of ocean of sky
of faceless crowds in an empty mirror
of lightless stars in a distant future

We will return
For better or for worse
It’s written in the fossils
And carved into our cells
And a written statement
is evidence enough

Lungs are His cathedrals, on this night A
Boeing 737-7 cuts a spotlight
between twilight and dream
Gods breath carving alveoli with a 10:35 flight across rib bone
and destiny
It is the curse of existence, trajectory
Neither sleep nor sunrise will stabilize me.

There is a lull in being
a singular heartbeat among
the mess of your room

The window is dark
with the suspension of city quiet
and the hum of incessant silence
Existing, existing

Sitting with hands bleeding
fire and flowers and fraudulent feelings
and the floating ache of lungs

The perfume stings your nose
and you learn to love it
and then you learn to hate it
Hear a voice (your own):

The apple falls, crisp, red
It fulfils it grand role
Eaten, sacrificed
The seeds see far,
noble, shinning destiny

The apple falls, clinging, dead
It rots as it descends
Putrid, abhorred
The seeds grow an executioner
choking, mindless hunger

I’ll tell you a secret
You smell of corpse-sweet

You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not yourown
Youarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyou

My fingers tug my limbs with puppet string
on a stage made of automatons
and I’m so scared I’ll blindfold every smiling audience
who’d come to see me dance
that one day I’m left with an empty room
only filled with audio studio claps

Every eye in the grain of the walls
Center at my spine
It crawls
Searching, staring

Fear
It’s white and blinding and
it sloughs off my throat like
An invasive buzz of
“Why”
“Meet me”
“I know”

I clutch my hands tighter to my chest
Cradling the last untouched petal
From my rotting person
Skin marred with unspoken rules
Flesh scored with glares

And even that is ripped away

I’m so tired
So very tired
It’s so easy to sink
Fall back to black
Dark
Silent waters

Every noise is a spider
On a web of vibrating consequences
I’m a doll splayed for dress up
On a stage made for the world

And now look at me
Crawling along the ledge
I tiptoe on the ice but
My feet are strapped with coals

Blind me, deafen me
Put me in a grave
If the day I get to keep my story un-judged
is the day my book burns
Then set yourself a campfire
Upon my weary bones