I don’t want to sound like a ******
Accidentally pretentious
I sense this, prevent this
With pausings in musings
But consciousness, man
It’s a whole thing, isn’t it?

Moving, zipping, travelling
Across time and place
No shifts in space
Ultimate game of Pong
Bats are half images,
ghosts of smells,
light or heavy ****** impacts,
sounds, songs, poems
Triggers lightly but firmly bouncing us from
now to then,
then to when,
but always here to here
Across time and place
No shifts in space

Sometimes transitions are smooth and buttery-safe
-- I didn’t even realise I was thinking about trains and now about dinner
-- ping, pong, ping, pong
-- a metronomic, Wimbledon soundtrack
But then one player hits the ball too short and too high
and then the
Echoing crack
Bats us into sometime somewhen darker
The feckless defensive player manages to scoop the ball
just before it touches sod, but too short and too high
and then the
Echoing crack
Strongly, crisply, sharply
Smashed into jangly memory
Clear and incomplete
Real and impossible
Laser focus on The Bad Thing
Other details, window dressing
Breathing quickens, heart keeps the beat
The Image, or
The Smell, or
The Grip on My Ankle
Is faithfully replayed
Full colour, Dolby surround sound, Memory cut
The Grip on My Ankle
Is faithfully replayed
The Grip on My Ankle
…
…
…
Mind taps out for a bit
Consciousness slide into foggy nowhere, no time
Breathing slows, heart keeps the beat
Might just stay here
Cool, fuzzy fog is my best friend
Until fog-resistant, persistent stimulus insists
that I return
Ping
Clear-eyed now
Pong
Pasta sounds nice
Triggers lightly bouncing me from here to here

". . .ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE. . ."

The War? I was so
glad to get out of it alive
even if it was as someone else

who...I was...died
it was the only way to survive
I became a stranger to my self

I had been so scared
I was going to die
now I'm scared of being alive

I watched better men than
me...die so...easily
I hated me for surviving

I still hear their laughter
how real they were
more realer now than I

the dead stare at me
silently
envying me this life

"Here: have it...take it!"
I scream at them
they stare at me silently

i feel as if I've cheated them
out of their future
"I got...lucky...that's all!"

when I get to
the bottom of
the bottle I

put the ***** top back on
trap them inside
the bottle's emptiness

the passing midnight cars
light up the ***** yellow walls
wallpaper roses blossom out of the dark

I reach for the next bottle
they stare at me silently
"I got lucky...that's...all!"

*

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

George Eliot ~  MIDDLEMARCH"

THROUGH CENTURIES OF JUNE
(  for Pinakini Naik )

The stone
stood its ground.

And waited
for me to run

after it. . .

it had flown through the sky
attached to my cry.

Now it was asleep
in the sun

wrapped in its own
silence.

I grasped it
in a fist.

Let my warmth
enter it.

Then spoke to the stone
in the littlest of sound.

"Stone.?" I addressed it
"Do you want to fly

again into the blue
of summer?"

The stone gave a little shadow
of a smile.

I took that
for its: "yeSSSS!"

My hand flung it
to the far away.

Then: raced after
its parabola.

Time chased me
to a tree with a bird

trapped inside
its song.

My stone lay
at the tree's feet

awaiting the next
throw. .

This world
of two

when friend stone
and I

played
with forever.

The great big blue
smiling with all of its summer.

Parfois, j'ai tellement peur.
J'essaie de me cacher dans ma chambre.
Recroquevillée sur moi-même, les yeux fermés.
J'essaie de me cacher de mes peurs et de ma douleur.
Le monstre ne se cache pas dans mon placard.
Il n'est pas sous mon lit.
Il est à l'intérieur de mon cerveau, caché au plus profond.
Il est le fruit de mon imagination.
Il me laisse terrifié.
La cause de tous mes cauchemars.
Un monstre qui semble bien réel.
Je perds peu à peu le fil de ma réalité.
J'ai du mal à réfléchir.
Je vais me débarrasser de mes peurs.
Avec l'eau de l'évier.

(Sometimes I get so scared.
I try to hide in my room.
Curled up, eyes closed.
I try to hide from my fears and my pain.
The monster isn't hiding in my closet.
It's not under my bed.
It's inside my brain, hidden deep inside.
He's a figment of my imagination.
It leaves me terrified.
The cause of all my nightmares.
A monster that seems very real.
I'm gradually losing touch with reality.
It's hard to think.
I'm going to get rid of my fears.
With water from the sink.)

Tonight I am 26
At a concert
Standing so close to the girl in front of me
I can smell her perfume
And coconut shampoo-
I am swaying with the crowd
And the person next to me
Has an expression of pure joy across her face
Vibrant lights race across the room
Revealing hundreds of people
Who are feeling what I am feeling.
We throw our hands in the air
And allow ourselves to escape reality
For just one night.

Tonight-
I am alive.
We are alive.