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.

I leap across steppingstones in the grass
that lead out to my washing line,
wait for the wind to come and pass
then drape my socks out in the sunshine.

Somewhere, it’s grey and cold
they hang clothes indoors on plastic frames
walls and windows gather mould,
those with wet work uniforms go insane.

There is hidden wealth in the economy.
There is no such thing as inequality.  


(When I was twelve
my family moved to Dunedin,
my brothers became Christians
then travelled to Asia to spread their Religion -
they said “there is no class system in New Zealand,
there is no faith Cambodia” )

There is hidden wealth in the economy.
There is no such thing as inequality.

I am inundated with irony,
stuck in the spell of satire,
my eyes can’t see cars
free from the metaphors of stars,
but this evening
me and you

(we’re speeding compartments of light)


and eyes





you see,
you are my subtle hue
you are the coloured iris that enfolds my hollow pupil,
opening and closing in front of me like
hands catching sand in the sun by the ocean.

I grew up in South Auckland, Takanini
the only Pakeha in the caravan park,
I learnt how to be tall, smart and skinny
how to raise the end of my sentences in an arc.

At school, we were told words held power;
but for teachers words were flowers,
and my friend Cruz had two brothers
Harley and Davidson - they belonged to Black Power,
their fists tattooed with something like “Smother”.

But there was never violence on our street, gang was family;
I usually never felt more at home around Bourbon,
loud Reggae, bags of ****, and men so manly
they’d cry over love, and I wouldn’t get a word in.

Though my Father votes National and thinks Michael Laws is right
so moves us to Dunedin where it’s ninety percent white.
I stopped reading Lenin and picked up Rousseau  
became a vegetarian, thought it was so cool you know,
even wrote a blog that discussed rise from below.



But I’ll never know below again
until I’m drunk in an old shed at 3am on a school night
singing along to Bob Marley in Maori,
sunk deep into the mattress propped against the Harley,

the one you and I would cruise on until dawn together
as police took to the streets in riot gear -
we’d get lost in the country and learn to smother
our thoughts in starlight then stagger over,
listen in to the darkness,
and just slowly breathe
the crisp, cool air of the kiwi tundra.

They say New Zealand has two flags,
but in the country, when you’re blazed
on the benefit, ****** on the disdain
for positive discrimination, you can pick out
all the small bright koru unfurling in the stars.

Come over to my house,
let’s build a fort out of blankets,
stain the quilt with Merlot
play last card with pocket torches

let’s build a fort out of blankets
we’re both in the deep of it all anyway,
play last card with pocket torches
my queen of hearts,

we’re both in the deep of it all anyway,
in the dark of the ocean, play your cards into
my queen of hearts,
smile,

in the dark of the ocean, play your cards into
my hands, draw again, restart
smile,
there are suns collapsing into

my hands, draw again, restart,
we kiss
there are suns collapsing into
your freckles

we kiss,
your lips are like mangoes,
your freckles
come over to my house.

outside, my
professor lights a pipe beside the daffodils,
and we make small talk about the cigarette butts in the dirt
and the history of natural science.

He travelled south in a small blue wagon,
for no particular reason
except the summers are dry
and the air is silent,

….



inside mould grows on glass
windows, wood rotting damp
dissipates the rain through its splinters
cracked rooms containing muses, alight
with the glow of creation, reinvention

I am taught to eat with chopsticks at a fast food restaurant
each Friday night; I learn
to break them in two before I eat,
dissect myself in certain manners of precision
indulge in cakes with sprinkles
spires
lining streets
the lamps in the evening
dull for flashes of traffic
souls in sachets about to be added
in a hot drink, or instant frappe
we dissolve



into particles
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate

in the rooms,
in the mage’s quarters
dollar bills are sniffed and sorted
LSD and Ecstasy crossed, contorted
butterflies have patterns in conversations
on their wings, in teacups, sipping Spanish ***

drag my son up a hill to **** him,
in the ash tree foliage, faces in the sky
and ask of grace
deliver me to the divine class of men
what am I if only captive to contagion?

After all, I spread across windows
like mould each hour multiplying
to become sporadic, spatial,
discovering the heart’s variation

insofar as we are variable
asking Sophie, my daughter, to empty
the dishwasher, I pray she wonders
why we have cups
of coins in our pockets
why we ache

atoms
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate

maybe we need each other as much as we need trees for air,
to breathe each other as though we were incense
sensitive to even the slightest slip of intention
but we are lost in superficial reinvention
hapless in this haptic rush,
razor shaving, internet *******
I bleed every time I try
to forget we are the air
that rides the vales of a topography
too variable to be drawn on any map, image,
I try
to forget we are the air
maybe we need each other as much
to breathe each other

As I inhale,
I catch your breath
next to mine in the hallway,

your hands
are covered in blue veins
and you tell me
about the amygdala
and the chemicals
in our brains.

I tell you how
there are subtleties
in the dark coronaries,
there is a linger
that assembles in the blood
before it takes in the breath,
there are secrets to the cells
and the capillaries.

Your hands are shaking
a small bit, pale and blue,
in the middle of the hallway.
I grab them,
you close your eyes,
I know you wish you were elsewhere,

but you must remember
this life is a caricature
of biology;
we are all elsewhere -

I wish I could tell you,
that all I want to do is stratify you,
lay you out across millennia,
until you are everywhere
in every rock
every mineral.

Tell you to remember,
our birth is before the first day;

we are
                        the light
   before
    the dawn breaks -

we are circulated
me and you,
like breath,
like the morning star,
effortlessly,
orbiting -

do you think we would fall off
if the earth stopped spinning?

“I do wonder
if there would still be oxygen”

Our blood pumps
at an irregular rhythm ;
but still,
I am inviting you
to entrance me,
envelop me,
listen as I saturate you
in melody.


Pull your ears into
your heart,
delicate dancers,
wizards of words,
our rapture rises in the night,
separates the earth from the sky,
pulls together
this, our fortress of fascination …


everything is enticing,
elastic, multi-dimensional.

You are recurring,
effervescent,
dust on light streams.

I am elsewhere,
static, immobile,
a 30ft depression
in damaged concrete -

though still
we unfurl together,
lean towards sunlight
like Japonica’s  in bloom;
you are the coloured iris
that enfolds my empty pupil,

you are
my subtle hue,
I wish to paint you
in a surreal saturation,

a sincerity that breathes in between our authenticity.

Before we leave to write essays on realism,
come meander with me
into the depths of profundity.

Meadow Fresh
Our fuel for life,
Redzenergy
and the 500mL V

“William, William
stay where I can see you ok”

Stop                                            (neighbourhood watch patrols operating)
In here
Enter the fusion
Stay clear of the fire
Sprinkler inlet

Open
a Woman’s day

Enunciate your words
We cannot hear your muttering
What was that? There
There seems to be something wrong with my mouth
What was that? There
Seems to be something astray

I think it was a cat.
A frigid black cat.
I think it was a cat
there.

These shadows shade
the temporal rifts
of mind
these temperamental taps
of mine

D-d-d-do y-y-y-ou want to adopt a kitten?
D-d-d-do you want my kitten?
I have a litter

Spew the garbage from the pipes
scrub the grime off the machinery
unclog the arteries

keep it pumping
keep it pumping
everyone loves a good ****

As it all ensues,
sewn to the fabric of seasons,
these illusory illustrations,
they tickle every discourse.

But take a look at this here
isn’t it a quaint wee thing,
isn’t it so fragile

in all the frantic years
passes but an instant
of it all

oh, isn’t it all so dreary
surely soon enough
we will all strap multi coloured
wings to each other, hoist each other
to the skies,

we wear the flag of each other
my nation is you,
my culture is you

my loose leaf like sway
situates in light, right in
wind, life

leaves me loose
along the precipice of this
coagulated noose

oh hoots and *****!
my boots cannot take me anywhere
today, they
lack distance to stretch

as string stretches all along
our stratified souls
they say, oh
give me a rest

so,
      death;
must you
                  be such an ending
to this terrible mess?
I guess not, i guess
it is not the correct thing to discuss

Let's discuss the
superfluous stuff,
the dramatic tease of interest,
the emaciated conversations of puff,
please, please, situation
and
     nothing
               else, nothing
will tough the brave disguise
of this stuff

the life of this everything stuff

Into our rooms, we scurry
into the comforts of chairs we can spin on,
screens we stare at for hours;
there is so much we have condensed
into the slight rhythmic movement of the wrist.
Only twenty years old and where have I come to,
on a desk with a jar of money beside Derrida
(with a cartoon where Plato instructs Socrates)
and the tattered pages of
Foucault, madness and civilisation -
those sick lepers ride a boat, which reminds me:
the Leith overflowed today, gushing
rushing into the harbour. I
looked out the window, imagining
it was Styx
and the ferryman had come to get me.

There is so much
artistry to it all, sometimes
it overwhelms me and I stutter
and remain silent for days;
the swirling air encloses
around; leafs tear,
wind flurries, shuffling shoes
shuffle shoefully
marbles that drop down stairs
knock knock
tick tock, tick tock
old Clock tower ding ****
ding, these clocks, Burns, don’t you get sick of them?
it is now time to begin
the lecture. Open
the rows
for late students.  I am definitely
going to be late today. Look, someone has inscribed
“you are the yellow bird I have been waiting for”
I feel great
Can we write our stories with passion today?
Can we speak to each other properly today?
Can we see the sky rupture today?
It’ll be like walking the beach at night
at sunset.

Oh, god
when will
I ever




Forgive me, forgive me, I was distracted
for a second there
with Lear’s fool who implores
“Give me an egg and I’ll give thee two crowns”
and the funny looking cat that stares at me through
the bathroom window.

When she walks towards those stairs
through the gate
she is not afraid
this impermanent suffering, these
suffrages
I have seen the cloaks uncover
those invisible eyes,
felt the white breath of the air
linger in the dark
and travelled to those places
below the horizons of man -
not this breath, this hour, this day
this life, no, she will not fear
horses in the sky.

you have far too far to travel,
give up the burden of this stilted air

cherio, cherio
adios, adios
make haste while the rain falls
while the rain falls

As it sit, here on peninsulas
extensions into oceans,
tides that drag, pixelating
parameters opening
to peering places,

my eyes squint
at blurred horizons;
everywhere horizoning,
circumferencing me
in swirls of cataleptic cinnamon
(you know, that pop cultured
coalescence of sensation)

And while I swim
through these streams and unconscious rivers,
on peninsulas (of dust)
placidly pouring  soft summer rain
onto concrete souls like treacle on crumpets,
it occurs to me that
we are just madness becoming
into something astonishing

My limbs are gushing while I walk
down towards the seaside pier,
these endings and these beginnings
ascending again into mere cycles,
the rising and falling chest,
beating heart,
transcending

I walk
hand in hand with you, restated love,
the new and the old clothes we wear
wrapped around our breathless poses
our heads filled with thoughts
of rose ridden gardens, and of course
children dancing, playing games between
our spacious Pohutakawa branches
where you first taught me about romantics
without that rudimentary triteness
and you sitting, coffee in hand at the picnic table
swearing revolution is never possible
to I dancing, remarking
“you are such the cynic”
before grabbing you and twirling you
faster than the earth rotates

As we drift closer to the sea
the inconstant wind winds the clock to 10pm,
the minutes restoring those now withered days
of woollen coats, new music and Dunedin
I would stand behind you while you played the flute
thinking of that time
where we played in the rhododendrons
till dark; folding time folding into
my arms, the sky white and blue
juxtaposed against the trees
darkened spikes explore the sea
what was it? me, me, me,
of course, I see
and I
remember the melody

(lets go under the covers
we can play games in the dark
we could even try adding to
those stars on your ceiling)

so now, again, for a moment, we reappear
in this hour, this walk, this air
stilted, shaking
we resurface,
and soak in the watery soils of previous deluges
become something overwhelming,
something insoluble

here we are, on the Pier
at noon, dazed, defused
by a familiar grip on the fingers
index snug between the ring

“take me to the end”
“but darling,
we are going further than that”

before we jump
we tie our balloon to the pole

and promise to return, on horses
painted silver and brass

Hey, nice to see you here
come with me
lets watch the sunrise
from the beach,
I think I sense a revolution stirring

,;.;.;.;.;
spasms
.;.;.;.;.;
spasms
.;.;.;.;.;
spasms
-----------­----------------

---------------------------

divisions
creation­s
incantations

So where do we begin?
Well, of course, indeed, rather undeniably
there first comes the identification of a form
(existentialists label this essence)
then certainly some consummation of labour
under out dated regulations is carried out -
then perhaps some degree of manipulation
‘culturally, economically, politically, psychologically’
are some of the common ones to reference...
but then lastly - realisation and overcoming.
The discovery of some truth
in the illusion of this thing.
And finally there, in that vector of chaotic surfaces, that
change and ameliorate, painting life
into this picture to be hung in the Luve ,
emerges a new thing,
something entirely distinct and precise
and we ask the masses of peasants
“what shall we call it?”
and they say
“the ubermensch or some *******”
but don’t really care until they realise
it is invisible, and they cannot touch it
so it scares them into insomnia,
paralysis
and involuntary thoughts
like ‘is it real? god, enlighten me’
and most who have seen it
in full form
lie awake at night

rupturing like tissue paper,
into two soft scars
motioning towards something
in the uncertain wind,
absorbing everything fluid and free
and still of course rather insoluble,
and permeating.

I grew up chaotically
in dichotomy, my hands
in between the walls carrying bi-polarities
“cradles! babies that squeal
for fear of strangers,
mothers, where are the mothers,
where is the family, have you disappeared
in McDonalds and KFC’s?”

Flashing Christmas lights throbbing
in my left eye, so colourful I don’t know
directionality, temporality burning me up
losing me up, inside these sights I feel a, a
maze in again, and up again…like
a ****** on a horse-
“there are aliens outside!!”
though, on the other side
just
air
in my right eye. I see air, extending.
all the gentle blue hum of the air.
it goes, breathes, in and out.

Lalala,
mmmmmmmm
It's so satisfying man.
Tell everyone about it.

While everyone sleeps,
I creep into the boardrooms,
where they hold their secret meetings.

There are certain syndicates in charge
of things like this; devising plans,
scratching heads, drawing charts,
painting on brains,
with paint by numbers.  

But go on, (shuffle awkwardly),
for i am no emasculated lion
courageous in defeat,
i am merely a rose,
left lying on city streets.

take me down
to the ground
where the sun
meets the dirt
where the soul
meets the sea
and the ears
and the eyes
know nothing
but their function

so take me down
to the ground
take me down

drag me down
to the bones
where the touch
meets the tone
where the salt
meets the sand
and the mind
holds no thoughts
except longing

so take me down
take me down
where the light
meets the dark
and the ghosts
meet the heart
drag me down
drag me down
drag me down

revolutions are coming
for the bored children,
of course, just sit tight.

soon the days will no longer
coalesce together like caterpillar chrysalis
clinging onto branches;
wherever situations harmonise
we’ll make gentle gestures, moving
to and fro until we declare

“this is the medieval economy,
we belong with the hordes of ants.”

But then again
sometimes I find myself in the dark
in schoolyards at night
on the lawn grass gazing up
at towers of concrete rain

I feel the apprehension falling
from the balconies,
and I swallow
the anxious murmurings
of productivity, diligence and attention,
digest their nutrients
and spit them on cocoons
in metamorphosis.

Though, I hope the spit does not spoil the butterfly.
I mean, I would not be surprised
if I caught a tummy bug
and it killed the whole world.

still,
rhetorical coincidences ceaselessly
resort into syllogisms,
essays babble incoherent thoughts,
cranes construct rows of identical houses,
times moves forward and backward
to save light, it consumes time
in my mind. oh revolving
prisms,

there will come a tiny time,
emerging, bit by bit, in unison;
there will be gentler things
to caress the subtle
skins of existence,
one by one, all at once,
momentarily again and again.

Sad sun, where are you?
fallen beneath the hill shine
tangled in the air.

Breathe in my mind
sun shine, on your sworded hill top.
I’ll be there dancing soon
over the ridge in shaded grass,
dreaming.

Let your flicker lap
and lick at the light
an existent fragile form
and let it be. Gold gather,
mine the heart.
Shine

like love in the cherry blossoms,
like home in the wintertime.

delicately, our dragonfly conversations
dance in Japanese gardens,
where jewelled concrete pagoda’s
stand stilted, like
timeless geometries, in greening water

then wind rustles timidly through
creek beds and pebbled leaves;
bells ring like wine glasses at a dinner table
and we feel our arm hairs stand on tiptoes,
pricked up to weary voices

(chanting monks, those that sit in circles
monkishly chant, in unison
“there are three meanings of loneliness”)
here, chanting also, we
find ourselves again not alone
enchanted in the fragmented daylight.

but then again, I turn, apathetically, and declare
“let us rest
in the immense imagery of our imagination

for it is easier to sleep,
as rain creeps closer to our doorstep,
than to ***** barricades, levies
and trenches around our house”

Oh, but the way the light reflects upon the Japanese trees
is so splendidly delicate,
and our delicate conversations
feel all so perfect…

so now please, time, lose me
in your whisper.

Politics of saturation and starvation
ignore sleeping imperative intentions
in this passing light wave,
with matter in tension and
motions of presence colliding
into another in to another
syntax

(spectrums)

like that. Colliding,
categorising. "It happens
all the time" again

the flower reiterates
as it opens to the morning sun
passing through into that
clarity in contradiction
while meanwhile, in the mind
of a small worm, dirt
is brighter than blindness.

Oh where does it go to,
this timid, fragile thing?
Are we reaching
or are we lifting?

Once I was sitting
in a lecture            on the philosophy of art
and a    student       asked    
  why the whiteboard wasn’t
being used.
The lecturer    
  responded           “I don’t have any
    pens”
  And the student  asked
“why
not?”

I don’t think
I was sitting under the same light as the student.
I could see the white board just fine.

I gaze into the distance,
silhouettes of cranes stand elegantly on crystal water.
Behind me, moonlit mountains crouch with their
caves and rocks.
And the spirits, charged atoms, flutter
with the wind.
Beneath me, only hope, immortal like Styx
cracked beckoning
as I cross to that other time.
I search for my dreams, one lost between
dark branches.
But in vain; battle, battle, clammer, gather,
go,
I am still….
To fall into the rupturing sky.

-milly and jonte

My mind dances with others;
flirting like a teenager
around their brain.

All I’ve done, crumbles
like a daylight ending cataclysm,
racing through darkening woods,
misty and vacant. To be
everything that hides behind
the curtains. To be
nothing but glitter on hair,
sparkling and broken.
I am. be.
nowhere.
free

like slaves. Again,
moral progress, I entertain;
the parts that constitute the brain.
Like language, ambiguity not in essence,
but expression. What is it, Kant? I can’t,
I can’t…understand you through any mention.
For all it is, bears no pretension, indiscrete
like lavender pollen; smelt
and sweet.

In my hours of ego-less desire
I still tangle round reminiscence
and dread. All my teething thoughts
scatter like Ash, collecting creatures,
wandering through digital landscapes.
I am nowhere obvious, in-between
the mud and electrical cables,
as I spin round an atom
imploding and splitting.

Nervous butterflies
emerging from a chrysalis
of chrysanthemum wings of doves.
Flying towards burgeoning horizons
fluttering erudite on solar winds
lost amongst deranged proximities
bounded by blackened skies
Escaping realisation
subterranean rainbows flicker in prismic identities
diverging depleting
diminishing deconstruction into distinctive dominions
waning light that merges into surroundings
(bound together by the unfortunicity of birth)
[aren't all?]
Falling since conception
“all things are a part
all things are apart”
Loud
crimson daylight
excess is the prerogative of the crystalline
...
time
distances
people
such a petty quality

one feels more distance
by degrees
the closer the surroundings.
(and when I say dancing, I mean jumping through galaxies)
[oh good, I am better at the latter]
(it's like tumbling,)
[was all there ever was]

[a can? Or a cylindrical box of tin?]
…
…
…
[but I digress.]
(My my my
Don't touch the apple pie)
[if you do I will cry
antelope bones down a chalkboard.]
(what?)
[Screaming “sirens, sirens
Sleeping alarm bells
show me madness,
I am cluttered”]
there are no gods
only pillars of marshmallow
transforming, caressing
endlessly

-oliver and jonte

Meaning
f
a
l
l
I
n
g
like sparrows in silent wind
like leaves in seasonal flux
again and again….
into the violent dirt
inflamed mud

where we pity the worms
and their empires of clay and mortar

a pomegranate a jewelled pagoda
moving and centralised
cyclic and stagnant.

Everywhere, I do not see
directed untowards
magnetic poles.
Agni-metic people.

The sparrows song
in underwater caverns
startles ripened ears
(wrinkled, warn, and walled)
between dogmatic slumbers…

ertras, I can hear you
»»»»» —————————————-»  [you]
where?
f’-> : {inside euclidean halls}

meaning, falling
passageways toward
nothing. [frameworks]

-oliver and jonte

First, a lonesome rider comes gently
murmuring in the dark,
riding a white stallion into a bang.
Second, the sweet chaos of quarks…
play fighting like children                                              
on a trampoline.
Third, the life and the love
of unthinking minds, and of molecules meandering
  along our DNA, adapting.

Then the sensing things
      find their place; crafting geology,
   time and taste, into a land of empty waste.
All impressions teeming, ideas wild, dressed
   in sterile suits, this is the reaping
upon the fearing eyes.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,                          
Mirror, mirror, on the wall…
I ask you, one who knows them all
   who walks like Jesus, bathed and masked
into the cave where upon we ask
Who is the fairest of them all?

And in these moments of ferocity,
bright like burning Pohutakawa trees,
     I cower beneath the fury of the sky.
In the timeless and fragile imagination,
I ponder teething things, creeping                                  
   and making their way to Matilda’s
earthly paradise. Take me now;
oh raise me, spirited Fig,
to enlightenment.

Though in my awakenings, whilst light
               finds entry to the eyes
        through a liquid sand,
    I wish all the treasures of the lands
  ka whawhai tonu ma¬tu,
ake ake, ake!
   I wish to find a nightingale                                                  
    with its blood drenched upon a rose,
    staining my withering suit,
  as I pass from fascination
into gentle death.

They say studies show
the reason for reflections
of Christmas lights on windows -
It’s the particles, they say,
that shoot like rocket ships
through the air,
bounce off surfaces
then grip
and reveal their tricks.

We have not yet travelled past Mars
but we have grown wide
and far between
each other, on acid trips
with life long friends
we laugh at the stars
and in book clubs at 4th and Alma
nestled in a quiet apartment lofts
discussing the sacrifice of Éponine,
we too are caught in revolutions.

But it still seems
the pop songs are the saddest songs
to sing on Karaoke nights in city bars,
where a million lights refracting inside
my heart swell and surround
the drunk glistening eyes around me
swaying to and fro
to “She loves you
yeah yeah yeah”

In these times of indecision,
we are thrown into delicate plans
and intricate decisions
about the cracked peppers
in kitchens alongside
peppermint flavoured chocolates,
and I wonder,

though you are stabbed in the neck
with stories of existential writers,
I hope you come out of it all,
with an air of desperation,
or an inclination towards revolution.

Then again, I do not see this
red orange feather dancing
through the sun strokes between the trees
for no purpose other than the momentary
grasp towards these possibilities

So I now imagine,
is it here again in no time
to doubt these transparencies?
Would it see through this
chaotic night without prejudice?

though still tamely, timid feathers dance with flowers
and nowhere is nothing so calm ,
elusive, -

Near the surrounding sea
I lie in the sand; somewhere
else beside the drag
of the water waves.

I see no kingdom here;
no fantasy of mowed grass gardens,
small brick fences with oiled gates
and tightly trimmed bushes of Rhododendrons.

I see no impressions here,
to the subjects cosmic eyes,
of perfectly ordered existence

overflowing like
carefully layered, plucked and picked
lavender petals pouring
over the cliff garden.

I see twisting things overhead
and the tangling of the light
through the air to the forest floor

Oh hallowed moon that follows the Earth;
your plight is not unknown;  I swear
by the fire of Hades breath
and the pull of the heart to the heart
take me, take me now…

I am alone in the sand
turning to glass.

“Ah Palinurus, you were too trustful of the calm sky and the sea.
So you will lie, a shroudless form on an unknown strand”

The streetlights dawn at dusk
like imitations of the sun.
And the perfect flowers of the
perfect garden fronts enclose
and curl their eyes within.
And we close.

The twilight tears of night surround
the somber sights and sullen sounds.
The single hearse goes by, goes by
blackened by the starless sky.
As watchers watch with their dark eyes
not afraid to cry

and we wonder why
the earth is in rotation
but there is no
revolution.

Oh the dive and the descent…
for the waterless, washed out years spent
on nothing, shedding petals like flowers
on the dirt

are nothing

but straight lines on refill pad.

So, I’m sorry to all of you
But I would rather bathe in the sun-sewn air
streaming through the bronzing leaves
than breathe the air
of your sordid torn tomb
where your heart aches
like a desolate sun
in the dry, withered realm
of reason.

Now the road is vacant
and they have nothing to see,
so the docile dozens on the street
with their frameless figures there
stand and stare, unaware
that the heart is a shape
and the soul is the sky...
so today we fly.

On weekdays,
privatised ******* trucks
disguise our secret fascinations
and shift the scraps
of our failed dinners
into piles of decomposing waste.

Welcome to the city,
there are buses on the hour.
Better grab a seat before
coffee stained tattoos
covered by sweaty rags
absorb up all the loneliness.
Where do they all go to?
Who eats all the bludgeoned bodies?

Oh, book the saturated dinner table tonight.
I feel like saturation.

In the weekends, somatic mutations
reveal themselves, for if I,
speak, like, I can speak,
then I am not speaking to anyone
save for the flowers. Oh, so
hurray, the garden blossoms again!

But I mean, in the end, I maintain I am
writhing like a centipede in a dryer,
tumbling between hot air, screaming
“Help me! Help me! Where
has the humanity gone?
I cannot even capitalise
first names! You must forgive
my lack of morals!”

“Hello”
“I am here!”
“Hello?”
“I am here!”
“Hello!”
“I am here!”