i do not want to sleep
in my clothes again
but i don't have the energy
to put my pyjamas
into the dryer.

I could show you such things as you never have seen
But I'd have to go back on my oath
An oath I never made, but which
Stuck with me, the most sacred of things
So sacrosanct that even to say the words of the oath itself
Would be to break it.
Rarely is holiness so raw
Yet when that place is found
When the moon descends
And the water rises
Something shifts: and the veil is slightly lifted
But only slightly, for
Personne ne peut enlever la voile d'Isis
Even if we know how
Especially if we know how
Yet sometimes, gods willing,
It thins itself slightly
But only slightly, and
We catch a glimpse of the way things really are:
The way things could be.

Grim drops slowly through the window
His front door's broken, the lock is gone
On the way home from school he saw an omen
It told him tonight would be long.

Grim shouts his mother get your lazy **** over here
And Grim shouts his father get in here and bring me a beer.

Grim drops his schoolbag and walks to the kitchen
And plonks down a beer on the table for father to drink
With his TV show watching the Simpsons
As mother lies hazily under the influence
Grim leaks slowly up the staircase
Into his room with the chain on the door

He pours himself into bed, lies on his back
He looks at the clock and he's sure
Eleven eleven, it's one one one one
It's the omen his demons have told him about

Wish on a star they said, and if that doesn't work
Wait til the clock pulls you out of all doubt.

Grim waits for nightfall
He doesn't have dinner
He's been getting thinner
But no one has seen.

He seeps from the bedroom
Down stairs and through hallways
He knows he is going where he hasn't been.

Grim please don't do it his friends would all say
(If he had any friends but he doesn't)

You know teachers despair of him
Teenagers laugh at him
Old ladies scared of him

GO ****** GO

Grim sets his face to determined
He runs down the path to the cliff
He launches himself from the edge and he flies

For a wonderful moment
A heartrending moment
A glorious screamingly awesomest moment

And then...

Then all is Grim.

"sturm und drang" sagt ein mann
on the train
it's snowing.

agley they gang, the best-laid plans
plus the pain
of knowing.

the sun sets on a horde of trees,
a flock of birds flying in one direction
then another
one another
one
another.

the screams of the forest are silent
and the chattering of the day for now
has dulled down.

in the town people sit
on benches and outside bars
toasting the day just gone and
bringing in the evening on the back of a beer.

no rain has fallen
and none is falling now
but the earth still holds that dusty scent
an inexplicable petrichor
that strikes deep into the very core of your being
as you observe
the passing of the day.

another one has gone:
another day has fallen and you are left
with one fewer soldier in your army
on the march towards death.

there aren't too many things you can say
to the people who pass by and
greet you on their way home from work
so you just exchange pleasantries
and pretend that is enough
for now.

pretend that you have not just watched
the sun melt down below the horizon
and the clouds sharpen in its orange glow
as if a great cat had ripped its claws
across the sky.

you cannot communicate this
without sounding mad
and so you smile tightly -
grittilly -
down another whisky
and that is enough
for now.

first of all the school closed
for a little while, just a few days
as if in solidarity
but actually in fear
along with all the other schools around it
great hulking buildings cowering silently
behind meagre security systems.

when we went back we couldn't get in
we had to have passes
be buzzed in at the door like strangers
while a fish-eyed camera lens glared at us
metallic, stark, judgmental.

then the drills began.
lessons suddenly interrupted
taken over by escape procedures and gas masks
why were there gas masks?
i don't know.

we, as children,
were taught how to hide
how to cower under our desks
how to build ourselves into corners -
how a triangle is the strongest shape
(i tried this once,
a few months later,
in a different situation.
it didn't work.)

the drill would sound, horrendously loud
a bell screaming at us
hysterical, panicking
but we must remain calm
remain calm, the teachers said
get under your desks
or something stronger if you can
build yourself a fortress
don't try to be heroic.

our friends died in that massacre
and other people did yesterday
over the sea (ande bari pani)
and i cannot stop thinking about them.

i can't say i know how it feels,
because everyone reacts differently
in situations
like this.

but i have been closer than most
to this particular fire
to the feeling of ragged helplessness
as you stand at the sideline,
praying that the next person to stop drawing breath
is not one you know.

these thoughts haunt you later:
how can i be so selfish, you ask yourself
what could possibly make it ok
for someone else's loved one to die
as long as their path had not crossed my own?

tonight i sit
huddled over a notebook
crouched on the edge of my bed
as this gnawing physical ache
pierces further into my stomach.

i stay here in the silence,
try to write,
because i need to get out
what i'm thinking about
but there is no way,
not really.

no way that i can adequately tell
of the horror
the realisation of what has happened
that these awful things that you see in the movies
can also be real.
no way that i can eloquently speak
about the look on a mother's face
as she discovers that her child is gone.
"it's the wrong way round!" she'll scream later,
"it should have been me first!"
but for now she just crumples
her face folding within itself
her mouth collapsing in a silent scream,
she drains grey.

no way that i can really speak
of what i actually want to say
and so instead
i say simply:that

my thoughts are in connecticut
there are no words for this.

"did she pray?" i ask
weeping gently, they reply
that she came, but slowly
softly stripped before their eyes
withered down so neatly
left her petals on the floor
in a pile so as not to
cause any mess.