where is that Dettol cream
to soothe these burns
tearing up my fragile skin

can’t handle these
children in conversations,
at the dinner table, like Pinot Noir
a stain on the embroidery,

what has happened to the Panadol
on the twelfth shelf of the walk in pantry
we’re all going to throw a *****

it’s all plasters, plastercine
playdough, dresses with cheap
cliché’ commercial slogans -

such a numb drum melody,
the top shelf
of every pantry is a *****,
might as well lend a little
helping hand, sponsor a child
charity

There are too many things to unsee in this city,
the night street holds dark memories;
traffic jams, phones blaring
the static complacency of the bourgeoisie,
faint screeches of beat up vans
and tire explosions, schizophrenic
sloth of industrial machinery
drilling roads, houses, three metres apart;
the fragmentation of the nuclear family -

if only life were a gothic fable;
we would all be mythical
deities to the dark regions of earth -

for the night is oceanic,
Atlantic, revolution
turns upon a fixed axis;
tonight’s ocean
opening, first ionization,
breath as oxidation -

the middle
the midnight

in the air where the air is alight
and the light contains substance,
the fine saturation of salience,
lust for dopamine, we light

the silk in the fire, remember the earth
spirals around a sailing sun
like a strand of DNA,
everything circumferencing
in swirls of cataleptic cinnamon,
and we are space dancers,
free in the infinite,
the embroidery of all edges,
small, but
insoluble
and dissolving.

the softness of voice is atomic
spoken, static,
lossless

speak to me, and I could not trace you,

follow me into
transience,
dissolution

Sun dust haze
an old wooden door
I reach, locked
handles, hands
pressed splintering
knock,

The newspaper reads EVACUATION NECCESARRY
Exasperation of the lilting seed of sanity;

the clocks unaligned to my watch
the fridge has been off for days
milk curdled, cheese hardened
this Panadol, IbuProfen parachute me
down, codeine
hits me hard upon the ground
the fireplace surrounds
a dragon breathing flames out of our mouths
and the room is no longer hot;
it is supernova.

Stars sound like songbirds outside, shooting,
gargled gin smells like grace,
erase
the drone of Arab spring
the scent of comradery
for a security station
computational bastion;
calculus of reason,
reputation, family, existential crisis
lets circumnavigate

to the window ,
reality split by liquid,
a rainbow in the sea,
children dancing beneath the Pohutakawa tree

“Hello?”
“Hello, were you here all along?”
“Long enough to see
those purple hues of your dressing gown, you
standing aimless across the room,
you came here today too?”

“I didn’t really choose” balloons, still tied to the ceiling
pop
“I must go”
“Stop”

ground dissolves, glass
mirrors, present, past
pop

“take my hand
lets watch the angels carry the sun away”

Fire doors
Fire doors
Push pull doors

Exit on left
Stairs
Lift

No cycles
No cycles
No cycles

Emergency
Temporary
Cycles Prohibited

Stop
Give Way
Open

Humanities
Castle
Burns

The train stops at 8:55am in the morning
broken down on the tracks without warning,
I sink into my seat, half asleep,
of course wishing this would keep
the car wheels from turning.

But we’re already in too deep
in the wires, underground piping
woven through the streets,
now resigned to merely typing
for the bureaucratic creeps.

If I could stop
too, fast forward to the evening
light
the fire, close the curtains,
this time I might,
though I’m not quite certain.

I have no more to give, no more to keep
the ***** is dry, the kids asleep.

The train stops
at 8:55am in the morning.

In my room, I hear raindrops
on my windowsill and  rush outside,
desperately try to stop
my jeans from soaking through to the inside.

In the garden, I can hear footsteps
from the neighbours,
“What a lovely day for it” he says - oh the depths
that his observation labours.

I look over the fence and see the bras
are hanging behind the jocks
in sequence, under my breathe I pass
a slight remark about the colour of my frocks (for the sexist lots).  

The beehive is so ironic,
neighbourly love is so platonic.