At the base of a hill, a grass bank
unripe daffodils poking through
beckoning spring, while curious crows
hop around unkempt, a corridor
with a kind face, lights overhead
taxiing towards departure?
the raindrop running down
window overhead, like a tear
images you can’t place,
flit through your mind
skip, pause at random, while
the clock, relentless, counts down
hours, minutes, to an unknown time...

The waiting room, unawake
rows on rows of beds, sheets
unsettled disarray
save the few, clean, pristine
and in the shadows, collared,
for more without a clue

The end? a new beginning?
, some kind of vague middle? thoughts
muddle through the semi-conscious
chains of command to a general,
lounging back, cigar in mouth,
whiskey in hand, triple distilled,
“You’ll be fine, just count to ten,
nine...”
a soft laugh, echoes
and, as I close the door
peace at last.

The earliest memory is running
through a field, touching just,
new buds of the dry, burnt grass
with my outstretched palm
but I saw a film, and someone else
has had this dream, got there first
so I’m left with the next, you
over me, fists clenched, while in my mind
I was running away so fast, yet
in reality, I saw that film too...

You say that I’m a fool, deranged
brain diseased beyond repair
you give me white walls for white thoughts
but all I see, leaching through
are the colours of despair
you say acceptance is the key
stop denying the truth, yet
my world is working perfectly
it’s yours that doesn’t fit

Last night, the visitor returned
I’m not supposed to know, so I didn’t
just watched her lying lips, reveal
the missing tooth, which
I remember knocking out
I don’t feel that anger now, just
cocktails of numb, mixtures of vague
like chemicals, coursing through
always this time, or roughly the same

I was alive, I was a child,
a girl and then a mother, briefly
now who? white gowned, defined
head to toe, dressed to press
against windows that conform, yet
you refuse to bend, but iron
has its own will too, ox eyed,
looking, with dulled senses

A life sliced on shards of glass
without a suture to fix, the truth
that died so long before a mind,
needing to be free of this body,
chained, without future,
the next page, simply promised more
a simple note, like blood, pathetic
hanging lifeless, limply by the door

My mind is plowed with deep furrows
a thousand canals
through which hapless fantasy
rushes with such ease.
But on occasion
when I least expect it
the realms rain upon that soil
sprout seedlings
that glisten and giggle
turn this way and that
wild and tender
and full of life.

a purple apple tree abides

on a zephyrous hill.

wearing undone blindfolds

on its branches.

blown naked in the trust of

her figure eights, when they

came of her eyes.

as a pair of hands exchanging

crowns, to marry a Self-contained

undulation.

whose flux will never fade, with

the shock of imagining whose light

has suddenly been thrown on.

i've learned well
what it feels like
to be both happy and unhappy
in the very same moment
in the very same breath.

in this transience
in these heartbeats
comfort, joy
and despair
all become one in the same.