Dread, is when I took step after endless step on the staircase of death.
No. ‘Death’ is too extreme - ‘staircase of scattered limbs and self-esteems.’
The summit wasn’t far now yet it wasn’t getting any closer.
My cousin Keya was behind me; her breath cooled
my sun-blistered calves and I looked back at her.
Her almond eyes and her thin lips came together
in that customary way that moved anyone to her command.
I turned back and took the steps two at a time, too quickly to think.

Was the sky really this blue?
When it isn’t crowded out by buildings, planes and industry
it could be mistaken for the smiling reflection of an unbroken ocean.
It was a strange feeling, to be so tall and no taller. I thought:
‘if I were to live here,
I’d forever be looking down at the rest of the world.’

Keya’s little head scans the ground at my feet before she joins me.
I grit my teeth and
ignore my knocking knees.
The clouds had stood still as if they had stopped to watch and right then, it was hard to see
how this moment could possibly end.

Braying, restless braying shook me out of my reverie.
The clamour of the fiendish contingent below us clashed violently
against each other. Some
were new challengers.
Others hoped to reclaim the dignities they had lost up here.

I raised my foot; ‘I am ready’.
A hand gently pushes the small of my back.
‘No’ I thought. ‘I’m not ready at all.’
My bony bottom bounces off the sides of the slide to cheers from below. Keya laughs, and follows.

Young people have yet to learn and
adults have learnt enough.
But, do we ever stop learning? when
the Earth changes face at every turn?

What is the difference
between a child shmushing mushy peas into his giddy cheeks
and a businessman *** husband *** father *** success
drinking, driving, sweating and snorting.
A lady friend is unimpressed;
she scolds him for the mess he’s made
on her lovely red dress.

Two silhouettes muttered through cigarette smoke next to the tall, black double doors at the head of the corridor
unfazed by the white rectangles flickering above us. The doors parted
next thing I knew, I was in
a black box of four tall black walls, and a clammy black floor
made of the same padded fabric as the entrance doors.
Riotous bass pummelled through the room like a tortured bull.
There were hundreds of people here; maybe more
but they were all lying docile, faceless and still
against each other.

They were all young. I picked up an inconsistent rhythm of chests rising and falling
like ripples ushered across the sea by a gentle breeze.
Yet it was the overwhelming sense of flesh here that
lit a snarling viciousness within me. How it excited me and how
I feared it.
I was a butcher, afraid of what he could do.

I saw someone I recognised – her brown hair was tied back, her eyelashes
twitched in her slumber. I stepped over and sat behind her. She pulled herself closer to me
and kissed my cheek. I buried my face in her neck and placed my palm on her bare stomach
took my index finger, and ran a circle around her navel.

I can’t remember what happened after that.  Images slip through like
water in cupped hands.
But I remember the raw beat, and the gentle ripple of chests
and how it reminded me of the sleeping new-borns in a maternal ward.

your hair is chestnut brown
your feet,    soft
pointed upon the other
oblivious to the other sixteen pairs
sat   flat upon the ground.

your eyes are wide
through habit of being surprised,
or showing an interest,    where
sixteen foreheads  crease and look down.

your pen dances  across the ruled lines of your page.
though time passes  in this taxing classroom
you don’t age.

  
dumb words
try jealously to tie down that which
extends beyond their square brackets.
when communication is as  broken  as it has ever been,
how can I hope to express to you what I  see?

so I know that these words are in vain.
I know that I have failed
to frame your fire in a portrait
that honestly reflects you.
and so I apologise,  for this ode aborted
but, anything else  would be untrue.

Ben stands deliberately imposing,
his arms crossed and his stern face
reminding us all we’re x minutes late.

We are each a cell.
Circulating the city’s veins
by foot, tyre and train.

The city doesn’t die, but it does grow old.
And when its veins tire from carrying its load
necessary roadworks interrupt its flow;

Like open wounds. Each yellow hardhat
a fingernail on the invisible hand
of an omnipotent surgeon.