In beatific dappling
Beyond the broken light
A prism - one or multitudes
- create joy-magic scattering
As colours spill from white

The bliss-veiled happy vandals
Ice crystals, dusty mist,
or fresh-shed brick-metallic blood
Immune from birthright scandals
Guerilla-art eclipsed

What hidden mystic sorcery
This trigger transformation
Our daily glimpse at heaven hints
A blood and light-mixed chemistry
With dust-transmuted artistry
Charmed glimmer transformation

I was trapped, but
as noisy-quick triggers burn
adult options wait, smoke-obscured

Now I have agency

I was naïve, but
as searing-shame echoes blush
tenure-chastened growth sprouts verdant

Now I have wisdom

I was wounded, but
as oily black trauma smears
injure-blemished skin heals tougher

Now I have scars

I was confused, but
as guileless young stories waste
lesson-laden tales are woven

Now I have clarity

I was in danger, but
as painful new learnings flow
hard-won armour fends when needed

Now I have shielding

I can decide,
and I know
I am strong
in clear-eyed
protection

I am grown

Judging my safety
Like collapsing sandcastles
Rough-built at high tide

Feeble foundations
Based on assumptions
Freak waves waiting

Only recently
I learnt that not everyone
Always feels afraid

Turn gently inward
To ask whether I’m okay
Quietly observe

The body holds the answers
Truer than the pliant mind

Colour-coded lists
with satisfying check marks
Tally for self-worth score
Free time is a dead wasteland
Work compulsion conquers all

Work is my savoir
Proof that I have use
Grateful for the gift
of structured daily toil

I don’t need a break
I am far too strong
I am made to stand
in any roaring storm

Endlessly on point
I cannot relax
Maybe I should take
a class in calming down

Another degree
Major in stillness
Minor in poems,
music, walks and gardens

What happens to me
While I do ‘leisure’?
What will I be worth
when I take time for me?

When days are rough at work, and heat is high
My self-esteem is carried by a role
To prove each working day that I am fine
And value comes from actions to assist
At frantic pace that slowly dents my soul

Beware when job and self strong-overlap
Identity is blank beyond my job
Then molehills swell to snowy mountain range
Allotments to sheep stations in my mind
And working day and night a sleeve-worn slog

Befogged in role, befuddled in self-worth
In muddled shame, obscured by guilt and fear
With added slow fatigue and hopelessness
And where do your needs end, and mine begin?
All rules of world and life become unclear

Learn to take time off
Negotiate with myself
New type of self-worth
Creative time, open field
Discovery nurtures all

Nightly whiskey flow
stains a white-walled childhood home
Parents seem blurry
Love and danger co-occur
Paroxysms of anger

In childhood there’s no room for shades of grey
It’s black or white, confusion sits unused
A place for everything and each in place
And I am in control and thus to blame
Come adulthood to show me I’m confused

So, consequences passed down like a gift
In genes and in behaviours left unchecked
To witness fights, hard falls, deep burns, and pain
The trauma transfer, second-hand ingrained
With love and anger, care and dark neglect

Then later roughly realise there was wrong
The blend of wrong and love is hard to hold
Most often see the child who fails at school
With low self-concept, guilt, hot shame, and fear
But all built strength and power left untold

Compensatory
change for homeostasis
Strong roles adopted
Scars deftly hidden
Chaos-order alchemy

I must be The Responsible One
Parentification at maximum pitch
A list-making, chore-running, stable-housemaster
A self-worth creator from jobs neatly done
All leisure-time wary and leadership-rich

I must be The Adjuster as well
Will follow directions and bounce from extremes
A dime-spinning, change-juggling, fresh puddle-jumper
Surprise and emergency make me excel
More calm at the edges than flat in-betweens

I must be The Calming Placater
Maintaining still waters whatever my price
A vigilant, change sensing, smoothing class helper
To people-please acts as a guilt-shame assuager
All pliable, social, and overly nice

Imperfect but strong
coping mechanisms forged
Power in order
Capable, dependable
Psyche shaped by survival

Sometimes we must move
Not shallow gym class work-mimicry
Empty choreography
Planned, timed, synchronised
Movement the purpose, fitness the goal
or health, or presentation
Important, worthy, needed
and yet, a slight, simplistic facsimile
of really moving

Sometimes we must move
Not gentle-stroll-incidental, ancillary activity
Perfect temperature
Sweat-less, shiver-less, comfortable
Sunshine the purpose, restoration the goal
or biophilia, or head-clearing
Cleansing, uplifting, lovely
and yet, orthogonal to the experience
of really moving

Sometimes we must move
For more than moving’s sake
Sincere reverberations
Changing, morphing, building
Action the purpose, elevation the goal
or processing, or releasing
Cathartic, detoxing, rejuvenating
in a way that leaves our world
different than before
we moved

When danger seems a looming steady state
Embrace the energy to scream and run
and channel into moving through the fear
Transmute to new found strength to persevere
To body-work at peak ‘til job is done

To push and pull, to dig, haul up, and scrub
Yield recompense for sweat and pulsing nerves
The world a little better than before
Clearer, cleaner, cared for, kept, and more
And you all terror-spent and panic-purged

It starts with a single, tiny stone scratch-sliding down the *****. Brushes bare ankle on its way. Hardly noticed. Just as the thought occurs, probably should have worn boots, another stone mobilises.

Strange how the surface seems frictionless
Riding a waterslide

Curious how the naked path is so deeply cracked
Eczema patches, too much scratching

Odd that I never noticed how few the trees, and how they lean
Closing time, bar patrons, a shandy too far

Noise
Faintly
A rumble
Weak, indistinct
Presence stretching out
Slow, creeping expansion

Too late to mourn the forest, to miss the bushes
Delinquent regret for excavation, loading, and drawdown
Belated response to subterranean erosion, to shrink and swell weathering

Disgusted, the mountain growls, cries, and vomits. Reluctant, mutually assured destruction. Extended lead-up. Consequences still seem sudden and shocking. We are left to evacuate the path. We wait out the flow with dull-witted clocks marking painful hours. Our forced-stolid vigil.

But we keep growing. Becoming wise, vigilant, enlightened.
Until we can rebuild and reclaim.

When earth down-travels vertical and quick
The warning signs obscured in cheap disguise
Debris and mud flow hourglass in sheets
With soil and rock foundation lost in creep
And gravity is winning every prize

Fast-follow hasty flee to safe retreat
Reflecting deeply causes us to learn
With careful pause and kindly shared support
The hurt recedes, now making room for thought
Until clear-sighted, wiser, we return

Put your burdens down, right here
Not forever, just for now

Let them know you hear their cries
See the blues under their eyes

Tell them there’s no need to fear
You’ll return to mop their brow

‘Til their tears are running clear


They’ll be waiting low, right here
Biding silent, softly weep

Strike a bargain, leave in trust
Then before they gather dust

Greet them as you reappear
Warm them gently in your keep

Carry kinder, hale and just


You have earned your journey pause
Try to graciously ignore

Any loud imagining
That you could be squandering

Chances that are there because
You are shrugging ache and sore

In your weighted wandering


It’s alright to take a break
Not forever, just for now

You are burden-carry strong
Muscles steel and journey long

Listen to your body ache
Needs a rest, if you allow

‘Til your steady ache is gone

Standing wild-violet-timid in careful shoes, I collapse into Monday.

My internal weather is spiky with low-level nausea. Brain fog, mind-cloudy at first, with a high chance of precipitation across the afternoon. Externally, the settling cold front will bring morning squalls before a high-pressure system arrives in the early evening.

Difficult to know what shoes are needed  
for this day, this time,

let alone what armour, masks, and steel
with this climate, this energy...

Hard to predict what will be stored in memory
by this mind, this brain...

This questionable,
yet seldom questioned,
recording of events,
from my flawed perspective only...

Should I attempt to trust myself today?
The answer neither clear nor confident
Instant reflex shoulder shrug
With gaze-avoiding fizzy nerves
A patent hint that I may be
    a trifle less than competent

What lens will shape my history today?
And will it light me kindly or in glare?
When my parts construct the story
Hope they break it to me gently
But I know that my track record
    not-so-subtle hints beware
  
If my brain detects a glimpse of faults or glimmers of malfeasance,
it will use these torts to make the case that I deserve all grievance
from a host of inner parties with a wavering allegiance
the impedance to agreeance is a tendence to vehemence, so

How will I use the playback from today?
I could use it well in kindness or in pain
With the re-runs stealing airtime
From productive contemplation
I could use it as more proof that
    I should not have trust again…

Tomorrow, I will wear my security boots, with stronghold socks.

Those days when you just can’t wait to go to bed.
Not to slump down onto it in yielding surrender
or fall into it in tears, face first and meat red,
but to gently pull back the pillowy quilt
and the sheets, with tiny blue flowers,
flannelette, like a fresh work shirt,
so that when you slide in carefully
and make your cave in the sheets
the hug is work-arm strong
and reminds you of soil
and wheelbarrows
and gardening
and building
in the sun
as it sets…
and rises…
open eyes
still hugged,
you stand lightly
then soft pad to warm,
dark, sweet, pitch-bitter
coffee, and lifting the mug,
you pause before the first sip
of bliss, flooding deep in waking
flavours from magic beans grown
in ancient Ethiopian forests, noticed
by folk when curious goats turned zestful,
becoming a helper for evening prayer, to allow
hard work and intentional presence to earn well
your tiredness, so that you just can’t wait to go to bed…

Corporate world transformation ambition
New definition in team composition
Once human agents now robot cognition
Enter the post-human workforce transition

Efficiency skyrockets
Low people, high profits  

Delivery, optimized
Retailers, digitized
Dialogue, personalized

Despite hefty savings in stress leave and tissues
The droid revolution is riddled with issues

Compassionless robots corrode
Human relations are slowed

People speak less
Smile less
Trust less…

Science boffins add humanoid humour
and vulnerability augments compatibility
within hybrid social systems

Sentiment sub-routines
avoid awkwardness and
tame transitions

Androids are made more like humans

People-only is ended
Social systems are blended
Human feelings transcended
Workforce entry amended

Now proficient production
is intermittently interrupted
by androids leaking feelings

Patched up too many times
Spare parts are sparse
Units are on their non-figurative
last legs, arms, and heads

Management resists re-investment in the
replaceable, robotic working class

Sad androids stand stranded,
disbanded, drab-handed,
slam-hanged and harangued,
despoiled and destroyed…

To delegate feelings to mechanoid beings
Is fast guaranteeing the absence of meaning

To swap warm emotion for chilly devotion
brings human implosion and moral erosion

Closed system, no weak points
All software, no souls
Is almost as useless as sieves with no holes
Or icing, no cake

For every mistake
ends with a correction
through error detection
Inspection, reflection
And causal connection
That causes protection
and growing conviction
that this is a fiction,
which feeds a new faction
for human affection…

The commerce machine is for people, however,
One person alone can be wrong, but together
The networks of pet-quirks and step-shirks and blunders
Make slipping and lapsing and rending asunder
No wonder the funders are foible-free hunters

To engineer-out human error
The fewer the humans the better

But work is a meaningful human endeavour

Drenched in feeling
Eyes drink the landscape

I could swear that each colour was
emotion-tinted
sorrow-toned
anguish-textured

How many stretched hours of living
made each heavy brush-scar?

What volume of rinsing tears
for each change of shade?

Why did the artist know instinctively that the people
were so small
in such a vast, pigment-thick world?

From this distance they feel like children
But I know that they are grown
At least on the outside

Agony
and aesthetics
amalgamate in
assembled alchemy

Are these thoughts
artist-intentioned
landscapist-birthed
painter-engineere­d?

Or are they my thoughts
reflected
by brush strokes?

Designed to elicit, not instruct
To return, not to teach
To cast-back, not to create

This open canvas
in muddy colours

A perfect, terrible mirror
Helping me gently
in my now softened
sadness

Your cruel words are cursory
Mean less than null to me

Don’t need a PhD
Learnt more in nursery

Sweet song of ‘helping me’
No more than sophistry

Pick out the forgery
Lies with no artistry

Flowing in, eyeless grin
Sugary medicine

Gaslighting, infighting
Snarl under strobe-lighting

Saccharine blathering
Indolent flattering

Backhanded compliments
Heard without inner sense

I reject totally
Self-slighting sorcery

Callous affrontery
Bankrupting bursary

I have observed more
Preserved more

Have learned more
Deserve more

Have value
Don't argue

Can trust me
I must be

Enough being
just, me

So hear me,
my dear me,
coz now we agree

I am worthy

Last night I dreamt in body, not in mind
No images or sounds remained at wake
Left only with the remnants of a hug
Warm gift to me from longtime missing shade
To leave me love, then reconvey to grave

Last night I dreamt in washing, not in sense
A cooling rain that left me pink and clean
Of soaking drops that ran on face and limb
And drying cloth that softly followed rain
Fresh for the world to leave its dirt again

Last night I dreamt in campfire warmth and milk
Puff-swirling clouds hope-floated me in silk
In wrapping blankets, cuddled me with care
In loving presence lifting me like air
With messages from those no longer here
To spend the dark and morning disappear

I step inside. The weight of past encounters shrinks the corridor. I brain-search for a safety behaviour to assuage the impending sense of doom. As if on a plane (‘count the seats between you, and your nearest exit’), I count the doorways between the entrance and my office as I walk forward.

Door one. Used all my leave days. Gone four weeks. Feels like much longer. Door two. Window ledges look unfamiliar. Doorhandles are strange. Door three. Was the carpet always this colour? Door four. The tight-wound wool ball in my chest clenches, the stretching yarn groaning like sailboat ropes in a north-westerly. Door five. I say chest, but to be specific, it’s the top of my sternum, bordering the jugular notch. Door six. The squeeze-groans are petulant reminders of why I went on leave. My omniscient manubrium warning call. Door seven. For the love of all that lives on God’s green earth, why are we back here?    

Why indeed. Door seven. Home base.

I sit at the desk and my mind crouches and crawls along the lonely, dark path. Back to the last time I was here. The last time I was hunted. Sludgy mud memories thickly bubble, burst, and liquefy before my eyes. So very thick and so very brown. Each pop a muted wet slap.

Then, another sound. From my computer. Just in front of me. I have an email.

My inner mud-bubble memory show responds. Now it scrolls through a parade of minor monsters. Possible email senders. My space and mind invaded by their correspondence. So very desperate and so very flawed in their attempts at functional adult interaction.

So very tantrum-primed, slander-keen, and gaslight-geared.

Mean-spilling, rage-channelling, drama-divers.
Breakdown one-uppers.
Accountability dodgers.
Monopolising guilt-trippers.

Lesser daemons.
Energy vampires.
Always thirsty.

This is where they hunt me. Door seven. My office. In emails, texts, calls, voicemails, and physical presence. High quality rendered. Dream reproduction ready. Technicolor.

To be fair, I’m top-grade prey. All squishy and caring. Softest-of-soft targets. The quintessential good listener. Ears for days. Psych-trained, chair-arranging, body language monitoring, tone-of-voice sensitive, feelings generator. Generous-portioned, silver-service dining. Tastes like sweet intentions, candied optimism, and bitter disappointment. Fear garnish for colour and crunch.

Now, I sit behind door seven. Waiting. Vibrating emotion...
I can feel them closing in…  

Please send instructions for establishing clear boundaries, guidelines for maintaining a mental distance, and chocolate.

Happy Halloween.

The weekend sprinted past without acknowledgement. More time travel than sleep. Feels like I never left this desk. Did I go outside? Sunlight is a forgotten fancy. Everything buzzes in artificial, mercury-vapour gas-discharge, office white.

Strong coffee, mouth-only smile, and emergency chocolate at-the-ready.

Digital calendar fairy sweeps her wand - plink.
Upcoming meeting onset.
Wince.
Nearly go-time.
Deep breath.
I need help.
Close my eyes and consider my options.

In silent prayer, I call on my battle-allies. My conflict squad for the tiny, inconsequential campaigns that are laid out before me, scheduled neatly in 30-minute increments.

Sarcastic skirmishes with witless weapons. Budgetary disbursement battlegrounds, each heralded by a twinkly bright plink. Officious double agents and grinning traitors. Good sense and basic decency defeated ad nauseam.

Inwardly, I flick through my mental deck of cards. Mythic personality avatars. Figurative and emblematic. Mostly trusted, often helpful allies and collaborators. My squad. Grown over years. Battle-honed when the stakes were substantially higher.

Nine of Swords, Nymph Aegina
Scared and small. Of water and steel
Daughter of rivers
Mistrust, despair
Reduce, retreat, conceal

Queen of Swords, Pallas Athena
Warriors and winter. Shrewd and tough
Strength and judgement
Challenge, compel
Defeat, critique, rebuff

King of Cups, Charles the Great
Gifted and keen. Springtime and fire
Patron of culture
Consider, rethink
Exhort, create, inspire

Five of Wands, keening Achos
Dust and torment. Deep distress
Bringer of weeping
Commend, lament
Regret, bewail, profess

Queen of Wands, Lady of Lorien
Fearless and brave. Of summer and tree  
Wielder of Light
Perform, protect
Assert, direct, decree

I select our Lady, knowing that Aegina and Achos may vie for a cameo.
Channelling my Queen of Wands,
I arrange my face
and await the knock at the door.

The beach in winter is my crying place
The shower will do
Sometimes the car
The tucked-away toilets at work
They are containers
But the beach is
My accomplice

We mourn together, weather gives us room
The wind assists, insists that others leave
If some resist, enlists the sand to
Reinforce the clear command with
Stinging pressure, stresser that the
Beach in winter is for us
And us alone
To sit
And safely grieve

< I >
Day arc begins. The sunflower class gazes lovingly skyward at their fire-star teacher. The newest pupils chin-strain in awe-focused attention. Reverent but energetic, their heads smooth-turn gradually westward towards their warm reward. Their blooms are a balmy destination for sunning bees. Perfect timing, rippling into the world…  

A sage watched his plants while his plants tracked the sun
He thought that it wasn’t worth noting
that petals would right to keep facing the light
as the sun-facing side was selectively dried

So sagely inquiry was done
Until the idea could receive its refloating

A physical botanist noticed the same
He took it a logic step further
His plants were all placed and completely encased
in a darkness-bound dock for a turn of the clock

The plants kept rotating their aim
And he was the first timing rhythm observer

The more he considered, the more he was sure
He could, based on solid deduction,
with confidence say that they acted this way
Through an inner intense, sunlight following sense

And urged folks to study this more
With rigours of research and science instruction

Years later, two scientists lived in a cave
A one-month foray in spelunking
Still, noiseless and lightless, the cave was all timeless
Just like the plant dock, but encased in cave rock

Their temperature curves did not change
So humans and plants had some notes to exchange…
--

< II >
People invent fake sunlight. Industry never stops. A timeless, tiring blur of day into night. We sit, pale and caffeinated. A world blinking fluorescent and midnight grey. A modern, diurnal nightmare. Timing battles fought from the inside…

Perched aside the optic nerve
Perfect clock inside the brain
Captured sunlight through the eye
Keeps us synched to night and day
Time and time again

Crossing zones will lead to lags
Clock and earth fall out of step
Difficult to sleep or wake
Model it to count the cost
Measured sleeping debt

Scientists find many clocks
Timing marked out body-wide
Liver, kidney, stomach, skin
Hair and muscle, pancreas
All with clocks inside

Timing cues from inside out
Hormones and adrenal glands
Exercise, consuming food
Drinking, sleeping, changing mood
Moving clockwork hands

    It’s tricky, said the shiftworker
    I’m in a real to-do
    My stomach thinks it’s ten am, my liver, half past two
    My kidneys think it’s yesterday
    My muscles Monday night
    My brain in concert with the earth, keeps timing by the light
    And all I want is sugar and a quiet kiss goodnight

Stomach, head, and heart in flux
Health and safety chrono-shock
Out of synch with social norms
Shiftworkers are precious hands
Pulled around-the-clock

Invisible clocks set with sun-travel springs
A hidden existence in all living things

Country nighttime turned off the world
Absolute window blacking
Any other life void-invisible
Universe shrunk snack-size
Existence is only this cab,
these tiny lights,
this fuzzing radio
One direction
Only ahead
Only these tracks

A change in rhythm signals new territory
Lower infrastructure spend
Budget acknowledged by
transitioning drum track
More toms
Double kick
More bass, but
no less hypnotising, no less soporific, no less slowing, no less…

Snap.
Driver vigilance alarm earns its keep
Pierced by safety sound needles
Bleary eyes split open
Only closed for seconds
Enough to dry 3am eyelash glue
Intermittent, intensifying battle
Open versus closed
Here versus where
Wake versus yawning, rocking, mesmerising, irresistible…

Snap.
Assistance required
Scan for options
Snoozing thermos drools its last drips onto the floor mat
Moment of silence for coffee, our absent friend
What else?
Lunch box offers carrot sticks
Sharp, crisp, smug
No help. What else? Cake.
A silent bargain
– okay calories, we’ve had our differences, but we need to pull together
Health is tomorrow, safety is now

Sleepiness shrinks and stretches place and time
There is only here
Only now
Battle and bargains
Winning and losing
Until the sun comes up

Eventide had blushed listless. Its once slick pink lips chapped filmy white until faded darkness claimed the screen. Crouching shelf clouds growl. The distinction between cloud and breath is long lost.

Bedroom-jailed for pre-teen misdeeds, I break out to watch the sky. My slack-jawed shutter yawns wide enough for a grateful, lithe-graceful, exit. I land dully on dust-crusted, dinner roll earth, too dry to crunch. Each damp footfall collects another coating of soft, fine flour, congealing into ghostly pedicure foam. Outside is airless, closer than my detention. There is no freshing comfort here.

As the prescient cumulus towers, the earth and I expect. We are storm-primed, desperate for the great release. We sit torrent-wired, tongues out to taste the fat rain drops. Our tardy Robin Hood will come to steal the pressing moisture from the air and send it groundward. We are alert for his redistribution. His deeds will turn flour puffs to glueing paste, and free wheezing chests in sweet, wet, relief. Low thunder is our drumroll with intermittent cymbal crashes. We wait for the splashes in slick, fuggy, discomfort.

The earth is waiting to breathe, and so am I.

Betwixt the cloud and rain
Lies more than empty sky
Life’s clumsy saga built
As bumping, joining drops
Condense around discreet
Impure or dusty nuclei

Between the day and night
Soft rose light smattering
Romantic goodnight kiss
To mix pink more with white
Unseen pollutants dance
In shorter wavelength scattering

From birth to adulthood
When kind compassion blooms
The road of dusty harms
Full humanness in-bud
With suffering and pain
An alchemy of timeworn wounds

Tiny blossoms draw me in
Delicate in perfect scale
Hardly seen by giant eyes
Missed by stumbly mighty shoes
Little shall prevail

Background sense of fizzy buzz
Enigmatic magick thrum
Static sizzles raising hairs
Micro-sign betrays the veil
Small and subtle hum

Clumsy mushrooms doff their caps
Grass lies dying in-the-round
Ring enough to stand inside
Close my eyes and feel my feet
Joining with the ground

Breathe for minutes, feels like days
Darkly waiting for my guide
Thinking wistful mystic thoughts
Planning my occult debut
Earth and sense defied

Open-eyed defeat at last
Ignorance in plain reveal
Ordinary, earthly lawn
Firm and usual human feet
Awkward, sheepish feel

Later realisation nags
Shameful steps abashed retrace
Ground was flat no mound or stones…
Certainly not ring or fort…
Go back, just in case

--
Persistent mystic optimism
Must be otherworldly born
Keeps the searchers looking loudly
Grass a supernatural bounty
Mushrooms astral signpost proudly
Undermined but not forlorn

Tenacious esotericism
Keeps the shadow veil in place
Constant proof that all’s mundane
Earthly reinforcement game
Unsuspecting fleshly frame
Bathed in psychic grace

Malicious hearts will hurt the empath
As summer hurts the winter shore
Eroding buffers until burnout
Kind retreat, the only cure
--

End-of-summer beach
Seabirds’ shaky screech
Grey gulls too full to cry
Bin chooks too fat to fly
Sorry shoreline
Systems offline
Foot pounded
Rebounded
Flattened…
Shrub ripped
Wing clipped
Sand-******
Grass plucked
Party bruised
Cocktail-cruised
Cans on conches
Fish unconscious
Foam and flotsam
Wave-blind coxon
Soda can crab shacks
Neon pink algae tracks
Whelk shell graveyard
Absent lifeguard
**** platoons
Naked dunes
Cheapened
Weakened
Exposed…
Tidal hangover
Coastal leftover
Erosion potluck
Sitting sea-duck
Strong incoming storm surge
Winter solstice land purge
Quick and shifty beach thieves
Cyclone tempest mouth-breathes
Recalcitrant brackish aggressor
Intransigent briny transgressor
Suspensions of sediments modified
Walling and breakwaters compromised
Over, back, and whitewash makers
Bubble, rubble, boil and breakers
Weathered, not weathering
Tempered, not tempering
More block than gavel
More grave than gravel
All prisoner no guard
Grain short of a shard
Receding sand-line drift
Intensive shoreface-lift
Patient unresponsive
Highly hypertensive
Code cerulean blue…
Plant encouragement
Shoreline nourishment
Sand transplant
Grass implant
Healing hiatus
to homeostasis
Swell subsiding
King Tide presiding
Prince Neap succeeds
Warm court accedes
Managed realignment
Sanctuary assignment
Steadfast protections
Timid reconnections
Gentle, careful, soft,
and slow…
  A new beach visitor
  dips their toe

She awkward steps back kitchen-side
This pan-lapsed food-fond alchemist
To where her latent joys reside
In flavour-labours sanctified
    Through boils, in bakes, on roasting
Her last cooked dinner, holiday
Before her dear one took their leave
Too painful kitchen-time replay
So, pots and mixers stored away
    Lost joy of home-heart toasting

Now humming with slight body quake
Full fear of fast descent in tears
Yet realising the heady ache
Was no impending weep-long lake
    But simple mess frustration
In truth the galley, clean enough
But who put all her tools away?
No soldier knife line, shining tough
No pin for shortcrust, brush for puff
    No decorating station

Crisp tuts for every tool misplaced
With tiny sighing shoulder arch
Utensils that could not be traced
Like grieving that could not be faced
    Rough substitute located
While losing whisk, sieve, spoon, and knife
With larger pieces from her past
In working through small kitchen strife
She found her hiding zest for life
    In crusty pastry braided
    Joy-cooking reinstated

A single gull in turbulence soars strange
Beach wind-groans whipping sand to concrete hail
In mute fatigue, the blue-grey sky submits
Obedient to winter’s shore-lashed slap
Until pacific breezy balms prevail

Across the roadway suburbs roost on dunes
Dry salt-sand soils, poor beds for cottage plants
Post sand-blast rain provides a rare life-drink
Wet softens crunchy grasses wielding burrs
Now possible their jaunty wind-bend dance

Three weeks have lapsed since breath was morphed to talk
Your silence cuts - ice words would waste chill air
I huddle under muddled blankets shield
To hide-sleep travel time to spend the day
No warmth in lonely waking waiting there

This chatless treatment, stony, icy hush
Sound muffles as a newly fallen snow
In quiet, distant cool is bitter fierce
Cold time a sorry echo of disdain
As timid clock dull thud-ticks glacial slow

New sound returns thawed tempers given days
Shy cautious in first breaths, as blue-grey sky
Out-waits the stinging punishment in sand
Outstretched the quaking warmness-seeking hand
As spring comes melting frost to snug and dry

A sheltered microcosm saved in greys
Abandoned tennis courts behind the shed
Discarded sports cap melty-crinkle sighs
Dark bitumen to amplify the heat
And any sorry hurt that worry-bled

A stomachful of fluffy food forgot
Lone lunchbox waiting courtside for its turn
Now wasting as the cracking plastic tells
Of ground more breakfast than of tennis fit
To fry the egg, then desiccate and burn

Sardonic jesters loudly quiet call
How far away is cool, and further still
Acerbic head on mordant shoulders rests
As pair of caustic, bitter lips impart
The ugliest corrosive acid swill

Sark-wolves emboldened shrinking of their prey
How close is sheepish shame, and closer yet
Apologetic hair, repentant shoes
New fascinating laces, aglets lost
Shy socks serve not to aid, but to abet

Dear deprecants, embrace your rueful flush
Let bashful gloves be padded by this truth
The catch-calls curse less caustic on your soles
Electron-pairs now balanced in their roles
Basic strong since graduating youth

Mental round-about
Self-esteem see-saw
Innocent web search
‘Change core beliefs from childhood’
Google tells me it’s child’s play

---

Welcome to the rest of your life
The best of your life, your best of your life
You are the author of your story
Around the metaphorical turn,
along the symbolic path, up the figurative stairs,
you open your catachrestic mute eyes and deaf heart
You are smarter, stronger, sightlier
Socially appropriate, admissible, acceptable
You have worth, hold worth, make worth

Choose something new to believe in
Start today, heart today
Chart your way, heart your way
Treat your limiting beliefs like thoughts
Write your belief-thoughts down
Be honest - no cheating
You can’t fool your brain, so retool your brain
Today’s lies make tomorrow’s whys
Use your neuroplastic, elastic, synaptic
retroactive, augmentative, cross-cognitive,  
meta-thinking for better thinking

Renew reckoned resilience
Never say ‘no’ to anything again
Bent grass that always bounces back
Elephants, drought, and weeds
Fugacious clouds in your sky
Master of no-limit living

You can cope with anything, everything,
all things, unlimited
(uncurbed, unchecked, unreasonable)
You can do it, all up to you
(Your responsibility, burden, fault)
Coping, thriving, ruling
(Your “no-one-should-have-to-live-like-this” life)

---

Romanticised view
Of self-thought-work road
Not slides and swing sets
But stepping slowly daily
A journey in compassion

Clear, kindly limits
Held for shared welfare
Outside-trap living
Not shiny, crafty life-drain
Growing into wiser eyes

Don’t worry yourself, purrs Negative Voice
I'm telling you this to protect you
No lead in your pencil
So pointless in fact
No person of worth would respect you

    Dear Negative Voice,
       I see what you mean
       But just a brief point for reflection
       I’m not sure I’m really an absolute waste
       Consider some minor correction?

It’s better for you, coos Negative Voice
To know that you’re practically useless
No rain in your storm cloud
So juiceless in fact
You’re toothless, inept, and excuseless

    Dear Negative Voice,
       A stirring reply
       Is this in totality truthful?
       I’m sure my ineptitude has measured bounds
       And even just sometimes, I’m useful

The beauty of living this version of truth
Is, you are at maximum harm
Nothing they’re possibly saying to you
Will add to your sense of alarm

Providing agreement to monster-y ones
Might also afford added aid
Appeasing and easing an excessive ego
May downgrade a wailing cascade

    Dear Negative Voice,
       Deep thanks for your thoughts
       A note of some gentle resistance
           I notice I’m having the thought that I’m worthless
           Historically helpful, but now with no purpose
       Distinct in my voice, yours holds limited purchase    
       So now I can give you some distance
           I humbly suggest
           This grateful request
       For inner, more peaceful existence

Why do we carry this language of blame
Describing our keys to survival?
Subsist and survive are not really the same
The latter complexion, more skin in the game
Not best-life but rest-life deprival

How can we cope in inflexible ways
When bad comes with real consequences?
Surely attaining more subsequent days
Shows that our coping is worthy of praise
Extended, effective defences

When can we grant ourselves residency
With normal societal backing?
Without the heretical hesitancy
But carrying coping more elegantly
Set free from self-tackling attacking

       Can we retell our histories
       Including the victories
       Earned by our damaged main actor?
       Are social consistencies
       Issuing injuries
       Skipping the benefit-factor?

Behaviours may surface inexorably
No use in my current rendition
But very successful in rescuing me
And thus, I will carry them generously
Admit that I needed them desperately
       But not in my present condition
Release them with grateful permission

Better to be taciturn
Than babble through a tacky turn
And fail to hear enough to learn
In common conversation

Others may proclaim you shy
Or timid, mousy, terrified
Resist the urge to justify
Your ramble regulation

It doesn’t make you weak or mute
To take a minute to compute
A thought before you contribute
May optimise your speaking

Pause won’t hurt your cause unless
Your words are just a game of chess
To press, suppress, or to impress
Correcting or critiquing

Do you desire a partnership?
A sharing, caring, airing?

Or more of a dictator-grip?
A snaring, scaring, blaring?

Maybe you are silence-scared
Uncomfortable with empty air
And feel it is your job to bare
The sound continuation

Worry not my helpful friend
Your heavy duty at an end
More useful with an ear to lend
       Look kind toward the taciturn
       You may yet find a lot to learn
With still consideration

No need for shallow chest breath
I am safe
I can breathe through my belly
Deep, becoming regular
Soothing, smoothing, slowing

No need for organised thought
I am shielded
I can relax into this place
Calm, becoming gentle
Softening, swaying, sliding

No need for clock watching
Dali time only
I can exist, chrono-sheltered
Now, becoming ageless  
Melting, muting, morphing
Here…

A door with round window
Mellowing to Renoir-lens
Glossy, smudgy, charm
Hobbit-style architecture
Familiar, shire-y, amiable
Lit warm and soft

A brown carpet bag
Caressing the rich pile
Sturdy, salvaged, true
Tardis-like inner structure
Dependable holder, infinite
For weights and woe

Smooth, even, stone stairs
Descending in timeworn strength
Secure, bendless, cool
Delivering, guiding journey-way
To ease and mend

I tender-lift my bag
Zip open for a prize
On every step

Each stair a healing game
The bag a hungry friend
To hold my heavy goods
And bare them strong for me
As I descend

Step one is for fear
Two for screaming
Three for ache
    with blurred-out meaning
Four for panic
Five dark-dread
    that slither-twists through sleep in bed
If guilt is six
Then shame is seven
    long blame-soaked school without a lesson
Eight for pleading
Nine for weeping
Ten for wounds, and burns, and bleeding

The bag now zipped, trapped weights and woe,
is set down gently, as I go
All grateful heart, and kindess-eyed
Door opens as
I walk outside

Travel free my inner scapegoat
You’re liberated, off this hook
No more shame-horned
Guilt-stomached dread,
       scarce enough to wrong-bare
Not startle-sneezed or tremble-shook

I excise redundant remnants
Bad wattle glands where crime hangs large
Not Billie-blame,
Nanny-regret
       or just a wrongless kid
No fair-trial felon, biased charge

Imagine dropping heavy torts
The solid clunk as fault hits floor
Past carried light
Kind compassion
       wide enough to weight-bare
Rich mixed plant pasture evermore
An end to serveless inner war

We ask wild feats of writers
Unselfish word-bleeders
For work that is numinous
Words for joy, laughs, and weeping
Us hungry feel-feeders
Eat verses voluminous

We absorb works in moments
They divest force in phrase
Emotion frames numerous
Words for light, love, and darkness
Channels hours and days
Air-weightless and luminous

We call comedy writers
Carefully humorous
Use joking for distance
Words for howls, roars, and giggles
Sweet-flavours existence
From bitters that ruin us

We challenge dear writers
To capture the cumulous
Joyful, enlightening
Words for life, growth, and knowledge
Anxious, heart-tightening
Funny or humourless
Instructions in humanness

The powerful man
Pitchfork-armed, chasing the girl
Tine-first, ready to strike

She is today’s unfortunate rage object
Hapless, wrongless victim
Weaponless, shieldless casualty

He is blind privilege righteous
Incandescent from his
latest, baseless, graceless
gotcha!

Forehead veins pulse sickly blue-green
Gas giant magnitude pupils
Each aperture an onyx void
Irony in sympathetic nervous system arousal

If he can wound her
– really break her,
he will quiet that feeling
The one that creeps and gnaws
Whisper screaming
Especially at night

Impossible conscience
Poor Jiminy Cricket
Eyes sticky with tears
Best efforts in vain

How do we retain compassion?
Scaffold empathy?
Bolster sanity?
While absorbing the violence
Of the man who flattens his beer cans
   with a hydraulic pancake car crusher
who cuts his delicate finger sandwiches
   with a restored 1790s guillotine
who sets his table
   with longsword steak knives
   and matching pitchforks
   a set, for special occasions

Vast energy required to remain soft
When distant and diamond hard
Is the path of no resistance

All this energy
Feels wasted
Why can’t we collect it?
Battery store it?
Pitchfork narcissist anode
Empath cathode
Could power a city
Energy crisis solved

Mimosa pudica retreat
Humid glasshouse, rainy day
Pane-separated from the world
Exhaling foggy vagueness
Colours run wet
World through window walls,
a distorted Monet reproduction
Morphing, mixing, mushy
Each canvas exists for a sliding second
Glass and breath
Collaborating through condensation
Our fuzzy-haze masterwork

Panoramic gossamer lens
Magically softens
spiky, scratchy, sharp, crispness
into a smudgy simulacrum
A kind deceit
Frowns, scowls, growls,
and bared-toothy rage,
all smeared
Gently redacted
Calm, dreamy, pillowscape broadcast
Impressionist buffer
In muted pastels

Reality in artful disguise
Remoulded for ease of consumption
Sugary spoonful of subterfuge
Sifting, sorting, selective
Incomplete and fragmentary
Blur-clouded brain-break
Intermittent extra distance
Breath-focused,
soupy-warm,
momentary masterpiece
Just for me
Until my leaves unfurl

Ever wished for a getaway?
Silent, solo, one-way vacay?
Happy, humanity holiday?
No-folk, lone-boat hideaway?

Do you drown in a roomful?
Or sag from a spoonful?
Is a mutter a mouthful?
Or a minute a moonful?

Or possibly next door
Is too near to hope for
Just presence impending
Is chthonic, light-ending

When speaking is deafening
Conversing, head-hefting
Add talkers together,
More sound than a blender

Shrill shouting and yelling
All brain and ear-bending
Wailing and waterworks
More blasting than fireworks

Even when voice-mute
Their feelings still noise-shoot
They sing and scream
Or **** and steam

Leave you battered
Dry-tattered
All flaking and scattered
Slight sheets float dust-shattered

Disintegrating on contact
Obliterating the contract
All social rules are in retract
Safety exits are abstract

Unbeatable, unkillable  
Invincible, divisible
Not fast or irresistible,
I choose to be invisible

I never knew about
The inert filler that
Improves the qualities
Of the concrete anchor

I hardly thought about
The thick filaments that
Increase the tensile strength
Of the synthetic rope

I didn’t care about
The galvanising that
Protects the mild steel
Of the Eye Bolt Head

   Fabricated weighted-strong,
   For time of tribulation
   Steady, ready, learning-long
   For heavy education

   Vital use in stormy flash
   For fear of wave-washed going
   Murky lessons foamy crash
   Tough-moored for gale-smash knowing
  
   Solid, loaded, hefty force
   Surge-squall saviour, tempest keep
   Any storm will blow its course
   Even so, still draws us deep

   In calmer times the sinker line
   Anchor-bound and concrete-lagged
   Will tether us in place and time
   Hinder-hitched and progress-dragged

I no longer need it
My concrete anchor that
Saved the young child
Who weathered the storm

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

Staplers and hole-punch
Paper, signatures, and stamps
Busy, busy work
Audit error, office closed
Oncoming apocalypse

---

“If you are viewing this instructional video, you may be having some glitches with your audit processes. Don’t panic. From time to time, any bureaucracy worth its hole-punch will need to conduct an audit.

Daily dandy-desk-documented fun
Standard sunny-systematised-stapled hijinks

However, sometimes, there is a clerical error, or worse, a process deviation. If this occurs during an ordinary, 8:45am-5:20pm workday, the standard review process can be implemented, commencing on the same day, should the error be detected before 12pm, and if later than 12pm, commencing on the next working day. The typical review timelines can then follow, ideally 3-5 business days for information gathering, followed by committee consideration dependent on the 6-weekly cycle and agenda length.

Expected. Thorough. Busy. Reassuring.
All systems nominal.
Stamping and signing rates above baseline.
Working hard, at a sensible, sustainable pace. Amiright?

Unfortunately, occasionally,
something cataclysmic happens
bottom right on the risk matrix
(likelihood=E (rare) x consequence=5 (catastrophic))

Hold onto your staplers…
A fault occurs during the audit.
An audit error in the error audit.
This results in the dreaded, circular,
Paper Ouroboros Paradox.  
At this point, the
perfectly procedured
copybook committeed
faultlessly filed
bureaucracy
will implode.

The only way of avoiding POP is
a concurrent process to audit the
audit, we call this The Meta Audit.  
The bookish amongst you may want to say
that would increase the circularity
(moving POP from likelihood=E, to D!)
Don’t worry, we run the Meta Meta
Audit to make sure that never happens.

Our favourite galactic bureaucrat avatars, the Vogons, were the first race to encounter the pure, paper-curling hell of TMA. That is why these instructions are written in poetry, of sorts. But not Vogon-authored poetry, of course, even though
the quality
and honestly
the policy
of the potential use
of these directions
or sections
or connections
for torture
Have never been directly investigated.

The KPI for TMA is known as the
Kafka-Cockroach Distance
measured in imaginary cockroach lengths (icL).

Under potential conditions of
POP, the TMA KPI KCD starts at
42 icL
     and counts down with
     every fatal meta error:
       -Information presented to audit
         committee in triplicate
         instead of quadruplicate,
41 icL
      -Audit presentation containing
        27 slides instead of 26,
        as clearly outlined,
40 icL
     -Email about colonoscopy sent
       to audit address list instead of mum,
39 icL
     And so on.

You’ll know when you reach 17 icL,
You’ll see the cockroaches.
Conveniently, this makes measurement simpler

Now you know how to calculate your Kafka-Cockroach Distance, you can audit your audits with perfect assurance and insurance.

---

This bureaucracy
Kafkaesque catastrophe
Dear Douglas Adams
Thanks for giving me words for
Processing my processes

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Discernible ‘yes’ from word-keeps on high
Merriam says it’s clear thinking between
--confusion (sounds bad), or insanity (worse)
Those on the edges can feel what I mean
Our grand word-keeps really must justify
       The mean in this meaning,
       out-bounded by boundary,
       lined-out by this outline,
       now liminal quandary

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Webster, my friend, have you deep-thought this through?
Sanction is clear from this definite frame
-- English agrees, but is that important?
English is not the sole tongue in the game
Here is a series of queries for you      
       Can you margin it all out?
       The hurt and the fallout?
       For people who crawl out
       adrift from your callout?
      
Not-lucid has rescued me more times than countable
And really not-lucid has caught me mid-fall
Through memory patches of pain insurmountable
Muddling dull was the best break of all
The cogent, coherent, and clean-comprehensible
Can open tight *****-capped emotional stores
Unprocessed experience, only defensible
By wool-wrapping windows, and baffling doors  

Lucid is better, so better be lucid?
Politely diverge from Merriam’s word
Webster’s position humanely disclaim
       --Gratitude-pour over fuzzy and haze
Cloud-foggy, mind-misty, heavy, mush-brain
Rational praised, but when needed, deferred
       Hail shields of deep feeling
       all lucid-real reeling
       rewinding revealing
       to heel allows healing

‘Lucid? Not always’ the kindly refrain
Outsiders rest on the inside again
And never confuse, confused and insane

Grim weather workday
Co-workers tower and storm
Frustration wind gusts
Colleague’s deep weeping deluge
Workwear, my only shelter

Hi-tech coveralls
Cold tin pressed over concrete
Full-body shielding
Spikes guarding critical zones
Early threat sensor system

-------

--Tricky meeting one---
Sensors detect unstable air
Towering cumulus,
   imposing updraft,
     condensing vapour,
       supercooled drops,
       colliding particles,
       electric charge,
       energy below 100 Hertz,
       below 20 - infrasonic range,
       cloudburst impacts,
       downdraft wedge,
       gusts at 90 km/h,
     winds slowing,
   anvil passing,
dissipating feeder air

-Coffee break-
Systems check
Minor damage
Vibrations neutralised
Commence shield repair

-Tricky meeting two-
Scans register earlier storm damage
Key infrastructure stressed,
  dam failure,
    imminent water surge,
       significant hydrologic activity,
       evacuate downstream,
       clay soil,
       infiltration below 2 mm/h,
       gage data above action stage,
       avoid low spots, streams, and rivers,
     sandbags in place,
     wall seals holding,
    precipitation easing,
  infiltration nominal,
subsiding flood water

-Coffee break-
Systems overload
Unable to assess damage
Full reboot required
Commence systems reset

-------

Home brings fine sunshine
Joy-filled fluffy puppy front
Gentle joy breezes
Clear skies, household index high
Soft clothes, it’s cuddle weather

My eyes are clear
Opening my lash-eyelet curtain
A near-perceptible glacier-clean,
--thud-crack of thick ice
Forming two, perfect, transparent, oval shards
Convex bevel edges
Satisfying symmetry.

My brain is quiet
Waiting for the roaring, train engine, kettle-boiling,
punctuated by slight, syncopated,
tap-taps that,
-- so kindly, remind me, my mind be, relying
-- on pulsing blood
Still roarless
Still, roarless
Spline-smoothed
Blood journeys gently, cloud-style
Not muddling, befuddling, nimbostratus
Just happy little cumulus
Soft. Nice.

My shoulders are low
Cage only soundtrack here
Absence of intended sounds
Only the astral smooth void
Flawless, measured, even space
My ears can kiss my shoulders if I feel like it
--but I don’t feel like it
Comfortable.

My breath is even
Jaws are open pliers
Thoughts are photos in ice and midnight blue
-- no rue umber or regret beige
Muscles are liquid-warm wax
Palms are oasis-free deserts
Pupils are obsidian-shined globes
Skin made of moonlight
Heart matching the beat of the universe

I have returned
Back inside myself
I am here.

What was your crime?
Was it heinous,
Or trifling?
What was so bad that could leave you like this?
Was it hard at the time?
To sustain us,
While stifling
-- all of the feelings that couldn’t exist?

Was it too vast a weight
To be wielded
Unaided?
Or was it too great for an army to bear?
Too small to relate
Or too shielded
Spoil-shaded?
To understand all that was happening there

But I’m no longer small
Or at least
I am older
I’m ready to know what was tethering you
Or chasing you down
Like a beast
Or a soldier
With a thin sheen of orange, when green wouldn’t do

It’s okay to tell me
Exhibit
Or model
Emotions, by spoonful as heavy as lead
To let it all out
To live it
No bottle
For weeping, and raging, and mourning the dead

Still neither we know
How to feel
These things safely
The throat-ripping scream that may never quiet down
The full force of hate
That’s so real
To me lately
The terrible fury no bottle can drown

The shocking events
That founded
Those feelings
The violence and panic-lashed vigilance born
Their timbre makes sense
Compounded
Their meanings
No piece their experience doesn’t transform

But why such deep shame?
Some misdeed
Or error?
Your fault that’s a focus for manifest wrongs
The heightening frame
Of this need
Is as ever
Pointed internal where mercy belongs

It’s okay, I know
Self-kindness
Is fleeting
More tricksy than empty-glass, bottle-stirred glee
Emotions may flow
In rightness
Repeating
       The heinous, the trifling, transfigured care-weightless
       The self-sighted shame now silk-slightful and shameless  
The criminal pardoned and duly set free

A scratching on the concrete path
– thin plastic
The brittle kind
Slight enough to slide slowly, in a low breeze
A tiny ping as something caught
– elastic
A flabby find
Light enough to stretch feebly, then a soft squeeze

An eye-shock from the brazen tones
- the clown mask
The grotesque face
Bright enough to clash basely in the Autumn mood
A smudging from the thickest lips
- crazy cast
All ****** grace
White enough to bold highlight the ****** hues

I wonder why it’s lonely now
- lost costume
But just one part
Strange enough to fare poorly in the candy stakes
Bit too obscure for Halloween
- low volume
No candy heart
Change enough to read oddly, as jokes or aches

       Large, ill-set eyehole blues
       - hint at bacchanalia
              A single tear at sadness       
              The open mouth at madness
       Impossible to choose
       - with no paraphernalia

       Child, was your clown-face mask
       - giggle-shed or snigger-skinned?
              Too wet from crying laughter?
              Forgot to get it after?
       Or did you run too fast,
       and lose it in a gust of wind?

Or was it just too complex for
- your fresh face
All comic-dressed
Mixed enough to sit weirdly - no candy here
The others didn’t know to help
- save your place
They tried their best
Fixed enough to get through
       The single tear
       Perhaps next year

Beyond worth
Knew it at a glance
Never had a chance
Verdict-stuck and public scorned
Hardly noticed, never mourned

Beyond hope
Always them to blame
Father was the same
Ruling-locked and villain stained
Nature surely deep ingrained

Beyond thought
Pointless waste of time
Never mind the crime
Cover-judged and rubber stamped
Name and image rumour-tramped

Beyond help
Judges sit unmoved
Felonies unproved
Stigma-sword to reputation
Vanished view of approbation

Beyond sight
Don’t avert your eyes
Recognise the lies
Tarnish-washed and shame-suspended
Approbates with hands extended
       Repeat until we’re justice-mended