keep the photographs
the city is overexposed again

take more walks in the nearby woods
the world we knew as children

watch out for frogs and detonators
mind the wires

new aerial boundaries at dawn
no one steps inside by choice

adapt to the proper order
and no sleeping under tables

the reflection tower is a good place to start
tourist trap, a certain approximate

bring the thing under the couch
in case of an unexpected visitor

more nightmares cut out of the newspaper
what is an Astra 600?

three different hat sizes
Hannie says yes to ménage à trois

the joy in discovery
the joy in forgetting

like God without a compass
not a lot, just forever

I was busy placing detonators under the MIRROR FUN HOUSE,
pitching
piveting
images of
itself for and by
itself,
when I heard over the rusting intercom
the main fuses were being turned off for a
routine check up and I would be
again left, as every one is, every night,
in the dark and
all the better.

The bombs in my pockets reminded me they were
awake and impatient or otherwise
alive;
otherwise, their life,
like mine,
wouldn’t growing steadily
shorter.
The ferris wheel in the
distance without my glasses
a slowly rotating
flower of blinks;
I wished I could hear
the pistons
the generator
understand whatever is making that
Big Wheel turn
but instead I sliced at the end of
the plastic ends of my explosives
to make them a little more
homely and different and
mine.

I looked up into the
rectangle framing my face
while behind me a
rectangle framed the back of my
head framing the front of my
face framing the back of my
head framing the front of
me.

I ran my fingers through
the wires petting them
something pretty then
wished I could hang this
night above my kitchen sink,
just above my rubber plants,
as good luck for
the future,
the wishbone of my
gratitude.

Instead I pushed some
dirt with my fingertips
purposefully without reason
then let the
wire follow me from my back
pocket,
leading the way
for the end like
I would lead a be-speckled French bulldog,
if ever I would give in and
purchase such a friend.

I walked some distance
I don’t dare guess and
laid my body against a
tree,
I hope an Oak tree,
the roots
coddling my thighs and I
can see my breathe in the
darkness and I thought of
the spinning, blinking
stars.

I took the detonator from
my boot and before I
pressed the
don’t press
red button
I glanced over my shoulder
wondering why
I should make it,
before,

presto,

everything shattered,
every light seared the sky in a final
collision with it’s end sister
in the falling dark
and every piece of my
face and body leap
from the ground with it,
flying into a place
the darkness seemed
much brighter
from
here
and
I
was
happy
someone
had
left
the
light
on
for
me.

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

Who quiets the detonators song
who stills the beast within he wills
the refuting wrong, the ill he feels
a lance pierces longing to wrong
as its victor rides away alone
outer places no one calls home

another victim will rise again
reeling in my pain, until he falls
spilling innocent blood, colder
then the darkness wading in heart
flooding my breath, I'am breathless
as useless as death warmed over

I no longer feel the sun or wind
or a siren bleating in the grasses
she dares me come, die in my arms
for I am soft and wanting your cares
fold your fears into me for I am not
she quiets me, so with it my tears

BB2015

They told me what didn't **** me would make me stronger.
They lied.
What didn't **** me made me damaged,
Defective, unable to function at "acceptable" levels.
Traumatic experiences didn't build some great wall to fortify my resolutions in life
Instead, they shook my foundations with ferocity,
Slashing cracks down my walls, crumbling rooms to rubble

They planted bombs for later,
Little surprises once the aftershocks faded
With triggers tucked away safe, wrapped up like gifts.

No, what didn't **** me made me want to disappear
Over, and over, and over.
And even almost 7 years later,
There are still detonators being uncovered.

Sure, now I know the paths to avoid
The piles of broken memories, loneliness, and displacement
To keep out of sight.
And still,
There are some days, but mostly nights
When the bombs go off in succession
And I have to bring myself back from the dark
Over. And over. And over.

And there are some nights
Where I'm the one holding the switch
I'm the one willing my world to explode into shrapnel.
And someone else has to bring me back
Over. And over.

They lied.
What doesn't **** you doesn't make you stronger,
It makes you a survivor, even if you sometimes don't want to survive.
And it leaves you with the scars every survivor bears,
Seen and unseen.

The red lines on his wrists don’t belong to him.
Gun fires! Grenades!
They drink coffee from a cup
between glass doors.

he rubs the red patches away,
             they still leave a slight stain.

“Mothers’! Come out into the streets!”
The little children hold tiny daggers up to heaven
blind, to the stars and oceans.
Lost screams under rail tracks,
their eyes twitch.
“Mothers’! Come out into the streets!”
See the blood of your children run down in streams.

the red patches on his hands fall in love;
                                                  they became contagious.

Standing under a grey sky,
on a ground marked with an X.
He prays.
Comrades become detonators,
when the living start to die off.
He prays.
There are more bullets in the bodies
than in guns.
He still prays.
(Orange is his favourite colour.)
He sees a sunset before the dark invades.

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

An Awful Harvest

I went a hike up to Wawa in Montalban and up the mountain roads. Here I was to go past the peaks of Mt Parawagan, Susong Dalaga and Mt Lagyo plus others. The road had been improved by engineers with trucks and plant equipment. I wanted to hike a big circle right back to the beginning. This was possible a few months ago but not now due to the building of the Pamitinan Dam. It will take four years to do this and flood a complete valley near the peaks. A guard told me no entry by the construction site. I talked to a head engineer and he told me more details. The dam will be eighty metres tall or deep more than the Kaliwa Dam of sixty four metres. These are big structures. Hikers wanted to hike from Wawa to Casili by the newly improved mountain roads but the dam construction stopped this. In time a new road will be built above the dam level replacing the old road. Even if the road is built in a year the dam will still be unfinished so still no entry.



I saw a sign saying beware of UXO Unexploded Ordnance. A local man told me about this, of how the military was looking for it and would defuse any found. His details matched much of what I’ve heard before, like finding shrapnel in the soil. The sign was for the road improvement and dam construction. Sleeping shells waited to knocked awake and ****.



The digger, bulldozer and plant drivers need to be paid danger money. No joke. The area they work on is a small part of a huge World War 2 battlefield. An awful harvest litters the land with unexploded ordnance being buried in the soil having not detonated. Mortars, shells, bombs and other things; these all need locating and safely defusing by the military.



People live in the area and many have found live or exploded shells. The live shells are complete and the spent ones are in varied sized pieces. On my hike up there I was given a piece of one five five millimetre shell from a local. This was in two parts, the biggest weighed many pounds. I estimate between one in four and six fired never exploded. On the stone mountains like Mt Lagyo the shells and bombs will explode on impact if the detonators are triggered. In soil covered peaks the shells can just dig in and don’t go off. The army went up to Mt Lagyo looking for unexploded ordnance. They found nothing.



The road that has been improved and widened would’ve yielded many unexploded munitions. I’m curious how many were found and wonder how many thousands still hide unfound. Sections of the trees/grass by the road are taped off. This is for safety of any munitions and also due to the steepness of the terrain.



The local people within the valley are being moved away and compensated for thus upheaval. Their valley will be inundated by what is now a small river in coming years. Any remaining homes and unfound munitions or Japanese tunnels will be underwater.



Every time I hike the area from Wawa to Mt Mataba to Timberland to Casili I read about or am told or shown evidence from the war and battles; that old actions from 1945 has outlived the people of that time be it locals or soldiers. History is not old and boring black and white photos. An rusty Arisaka rifle with working bolt or blasted shell fragments tell more than any story or photo ever could. Only fate and God knows the unnamed soldiers names now.



When the dam is built I wonder how many unfound unexploded ordnance and dead Japanese soldiers will be now forever unfound? I suspect many thousand Japanese soldiers are buried on those peaks. Remember, these hills are the first high ground above Manila. This was the start of the high ground battles that went on for hundreds of miles at several huge mountain ranges. It was Tier 1 fighting equal to anywhere involving hundreds of thousands of opposing troops, of which tens of thousands were killed.



Now the 1945 legacy is coming back to bite us. Not just buried shells on a dam construction site but the risk of them still exploding when not even found. This is due to corroding fuses. Buried bombs in Europe have self detonated several times. I’ve been told of two large unexploded warplane dropped bombs, one near Timberland and the other near Mt Parawagan. Both need to be found again and professionally defused. History is never boring; the lethal harvest is a testimony to their dastardly deeds.

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

© Matthew Goff

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

We can manage a dull afternoon
When punished lilies
Imitate the army of rebel waters
Sneaking away on tiptoe
From an empire of lawful soil

Watchful of flood signals
We will wait for a jealous wasp
To peel back the detonators
For springboard demolitions
Fancied on limp petals

While soldiers of nectar’s plight
Talk over plans with bees
We see an enemy of discreet magnitude
Inside us, a showering of infernal degrees
Our hearts soaked in criminal teas

What those jampacked detonators could've meant...
But time skipped ahead
They are partial duds,
My brain's anticlimax

I employ a jolt of levity,
In Zeusian style
And calamity meets calamity

Life is good again
And sweet Clarity is here
I am the little spoon,
She is holding me gingerly

if you go outside. The US is
now topping the list for the most
Corona viruses. The sons of *******
that are careless I would like to

put a gun to their heads, myself. Hospital
workers killing themselves to save
everyone else. The supermarket looks
like a scene out of some B-Rated

movie. People donning on gloves
and masks. There’s a security guard to
separate the ***** like eggs. And a taped
line on the floor that measures six feet

wide. Because idiots can’t read
signs. I go home and drink myself
blind.  People are chemicals bombs
with detonators going off. There’s a

******* war outside. When will these
******* open their eyes?  If I used toothpicks
to keep their lids open to seeing this –
read the statistics. This is no time for apathy! Arm

yourself with the facts. Stay alert! You can’t
relax. I won’t be a casualty of this war. The president
is washing his hands of everything. I’d love to fill
his floppy mouth with soap; hang his **** on a rope.