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Martin Narrod Feb 2014
The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten
Sofia Paderes Jun 2015
We’ve been walking on this journey for years now, and I’ve held your hand long enough to know that when I slip into quicksand or miss a step, it is not you who lets go. Your fingers aren’t the ones coated in doubt or in selfishness, gripping firmly only when it feels right, when it feels necessary. Your hands are not made of brittle bone, shivering and breaking when the cold starts to show. Teach me to never let go.

We’ve known plenty of good weather. Safe landings. Skies full of stars and days of endless wind. Scraped knees were never a problem, we always seemed to be in fields of yellow and green, surrounded by miles and miles of running streams. There were times when I would purposefully stumble, thinking that it would be okay, I’d land elbows first in the faces of dandelions anyway. Other times I’d stray, not because of greener grass, but because I was too caught up smelling that single flower to see that you were calling me to the next meadow, where petals of a sweeter smell and prettier colors stretch out like a seascape. Teach me to give up my little treasures and desires, for yours are far better.

Sometimes I get a little adventurous. I tell you I want mountains. I tell you I want to climb, that I want the strain and the adrenaline rush, the thrill of letting pieces of hardened sand and pebble carry my whole weight, the challenge, the sweat, the blood. I tell you I want to see things from the eyes of God. I tell you I want to struggle and overcome. I tell you I want the soul of a deer, to plant my feet firmly on the narrow heights, I tell you I’m alright but when I’m actually in the process of the climb, in the process of the waiting, wondering which rock do I grasp next, which path do I trust with my steps, I tell you I’m not ready for mountains after all. But you did not bring me here to watch me fall, so teach me. Teach me to keep my ankles strong, and my hold on you stronger.

And when we tire of mountains, you take me to oceans. You know how much I love the saltwater mysteries, how my heart sings when I get to feel clumps of wet sand beneath the soles of my feet. And you know how much I don’t know about the waters, you know that it’s hard for me to tell when an undercurrent comes sweeping like thousands of tiny *****, that I can’t spot the difference between high tide and low tide until the waves are lapping at my door, that I still swim after jellyfish no matter how many times I’ve been stung, and how I forget that not every beautiful thing has beautiful intentions, and especially how oceans also terrify the breath out of me. One of my deepest fears is to die drowning, but still you row us out in a weathered boat into the middle of the sea, no life vests or whistles, nothing. We’ve had calm waters and dolphin mornings, we’ve had rough rowing and storms brewing, and each time you managed to put the thundering and rumbling in my chest to rest, and each and every time you’ve gotten us back to shore. But honestly, there are days I want to jump ship, sail my own boat, find my own sea, and some days I do. Those days I lose my way, those days I’m half drowned, but I turn around and find you there. Teach me to trust the one whose voice the waves and wind know.

Now here we are in a different kind of sea, the kind without water. This pit is abundant in ***** yellow devils, illusions and false promises, but all I have are questions and weary feet. Why are we here? Where are we going? Why did we leave? How am I going to shake off this mirage? When is it going to rain? After all we've been through, this is where you're taking me?

My path is an endless circle, a cycle using my sight, my heart, my feelings, my stocked up wisdom to judge my situation and I come to the conclusion that you have deserted me. But you haven't. And I don't understand how you stuck with me through hills and valleys, and never once thought of leaving, but you haven't. Your shadow is cast on me and peace overflows. Maybe I've been asking the wrong questions. Maybe instead of asking you where the stretch of sand ends, I should be asking you to teach me.

Teach me to love you in every season, whether it be the harshest of winters or the wildest of heats. Teach me to understand that deserts make me thirst for water, that I need to be lost so that I may be found, that without a battle there is no victory, that seeds die before they grow into trees. But before anything else, teach me to let the sound of your voice to be what guides me through winding paths and roaring winds, not which road looks smooth or which sky looks dim.

We've been walking on this journey for years now, and I've held your hand long enough to know that all this time you have been teaching me to fall in love with my eyes closed.
A spoken word poem written for Sali Production's benefit concert for Resources for the Blind, Mata, last month in Ortigas Park.

Also, I can't think of a title. Help.
undefined Feb 2018
I... Recollect times past, to nullify my current state,
to back when peace shimmered our harbor, warm and safe.
My... Misleading memories of honesty, truth, and faith,
sincere and fortunate light sequester, life displaced.

In-the... Deep midst of my being, deluged a swamp of mossy lace,
troubled body of trembling thought, gasping for escape.
Heard... “Open yer eyes boy... I don't wanna ya to swallow yer tongue.”
That's when someone else decided, that I'd had "enough."

Saved... from freedoms of chaos, and now the allure of death,
for catheter and plastic gown, none by request.
How... many beats per minute will my cardiogram play?
How long must I be plugged in, before I get away?..

I'll... likely be spitting gray chalk for the next week or more,
I know these things because, I've been through this all before.
There's such a... cluttering of whispers, that they all try to hide,
when nurses talk about me, they mention “suicide.”

There's... Nurses, and doctors, all hoping I'll pull through,
not one will treat the failure, of who lie in I.C.U.
Next week... We'll identify problems, bits of understanding,
how many groups and puzzles to take, to ease
                                                                        my landings.
This is a very old poem, (one of the first one's that I wrote)...
I've had some trouble finding it, and thought that I should post it here, so that I know where it is next time :)
kirk Nov 2017
The world is such a cruel place due to corrupt world leaders
1000's of innocent people have died because of those fat bleeders
Enforced False Flags and Cover ups all are rich men feeders
Fake terrorism and illegal wars corruption for war breeders
People believe in what they're shown coming from false pleaders
The public duped with news edits, paid actors and news readers
A life long race for world ******* for competing speeders
Those paying close attention the loyal followers and heeders

Roswell and Area 51:
For years its existence was denied they didn't want you to know
Did a flying saucer crash in 1947 in Roswell New Mexico ?
Where's the debris and Alien Bodies gone, just where did they go ?
Was there a Disc recovered by a ranch has it gone with the flow
Military Announcements of a flying saucer crash was this their woe?
Why was it suddenly a weather balloon was this all done for show?

What are the events surrounding Area 51 and the Roswell crash ?
Was there a second crash site, was there an alien body stash ?
Why did RaaF report a captured Saucer then its gone in a flash ?
Did the Deputy sheriff see a 100ft wide craft or was his claim to rash ?
Was an alien autopsy performed we're the Grays pulled from the ash ?
Maybe there's an alien conspiracy or is it political propaganda trash ?

JFK:
1963 in Dealy Plaza 22nd of November was the day
Shots struck John F Kennedy the President of the USA
An open top limo in Dallas is how they Murdered JFK
Gunmen and the Grassy Knoll was it a government betray ?
The Texas School Book Depository a scapegoat had to pay
Lee Harvey Oswald set to fall, could it have been the CIA ?

Moon Landings:
Where the moon landings faked in 1969 due to the space race ?
Was it really one giant step for mankind or was it a disgrace ?
If there was a lunar landing then why are there no stars in place ?
No crater was created upon touchdown in fact there was no trace
If there is no atmosphere how does the flag flutter in that case ?
Maybe it was a smaller step for man and filmed in a NASA base ?

9/11:
September the 11th 2001 was the day America cried
Innocent citizens where killed nearly 3000 of them died
The fall of the Twin Towers, where there ever planes inside?
Aluminium planes couldn't penetrate steel structures even if they tried
Is there more than meets the eye how much did they really hide?
Was this another false flag event when your own government lied ?

The attack of the World Trade Centre in god we did trust
How did 1,000,000 tons of concrete and steel just turn to dust?
Building 7 fell in 7 seconds a freefall with no hits or ******
Can we trust a government motivated by power greed and lust?
****** is not justified there is no need or must
Even if our world leaders think there is cause or just

Are aliens at Area 51 fake or are they specimens in zoos
I wonder if JFK was murdered for is own political views
Was the moon landings faked and filmed by TV crews
The sheer tragedy of 9/11 I wonder who lit that fuse
There are such terrible men who don't care who they use
All power hungry ******* who want to **** and abuse
The inside jobs and murderers with no regard for taboos
They don't care about the pain or any left over residues

From JFK to 9/11 is it a coincidence they where under the Bush Regime
George Bush was involved with both was it all done with Bush's team
Is George Herbert Walker Bush's memory loss really a blaspheme?
Why could he not recall his whereabouts during JFK's bullet stream?
His son George Walker Bush another from the Bush family ream
Was President on 9/11 his involvement is not what it may seem
What is it with the Bush family do they think they are supreme
Surrounding False Flags and Cover Ups that they can not redeem
It seems so strange that these events are based upon a certain theme
The death of the innocent and cover ups are all done to the extreme
Are False flag operations a rich mans trick to gain political esteem
Why are men aloud to rule the world when ****** is there dream
Are events manipulated to conform with the rich mans scheme
I'm not sure about how you feel but its enough to make me scream

Whether you believe the official reports or draw your own conclusions
There will always be conspiracies some doubts and also some confusions
Shadow governments and inside jobs are they just unjust solutions
False flag events and cover ups are they all government delusions  
Conspiracies and theories do you really think these are illusions
Is fiction mixed with fact so it looks different with inclusions
Do you believe in what you're shown even with edited exclusions
Are there False flags and conspiracies to create conflicting revolutions
g clair Dec 2013
I slid along the Avenue until I reached your place
I must admit I'd had a few and longed for your embrace
The steps were barely salted, and I cursed them as I fell
and peppered my possessions on the sidewalk iced from hell.

Face down upon the Avenue I breathed the cold of night
and realized to my surprise my hip had twisted right
And not a soul was present there to raise me from my dread
no not a one to hear my cries or anything I said.

I laid upon the Avenue, each minute like an hour
and I prayed that God was having you come down from your high tower.
to find me there, an old time square without a new years ball
much better to found alive than not be found at all.

Well it's been my vain conception that I'm good in any storm
I'm graceful, no deception, all my landings, perfect form
pride reserved an answer for the blasted state I'm in
only New Years Eve will bring out all the things I've never been.

Well it must have been near midnight, turned my head to hear the riff
distant music on the river and my mind began to drift
when something kicked my ankle like the tip of someone's shoe
could it be the boot of heaven checking if my soul was due?

I'd landed near a tire, whose tread was laced with snow
which buried in the mire, had nowhere else to go
and glimpsing my reflection in the hub which shined like new
I witnessed my deliverance, 'twas the light of God, it's true!

From somewhere deep within the smoky bellows of my ire
a verse from someone else's song which rose up like a choir
"Is it you my sweet beloved, come to raise me from my plight?...
for I've fallen in my drunken state this cold dark News Years Night!"

"And what have we beheld here, it's a woman in the snow
her hip looks out of socket though her face is all aglow"
They rushed me to the hospital and just in time for tea
which warmed the cockles of my heart and thawed my love for thee.

And never I've felt so foolish, though a fool I've been before
and every time I've done me wrong I'm laying on the floor
if maybe someone else's song will save them from their grave
then I'll take the shame on New Years Eve if just one soul I save!

All these years I've been a sinner, running circles, chasing youth,
with my hair as gray as winter I've come face to face with truth
Lying flat out on the sidewalk on that News Years Eve from hell
I learned to trust correction and I hope you're doing well.

Now I'm singing someone Else's song, for me it ain't that true
I don't get drunk on New Years Eye and rarely think of you
Well If one day you should meet me on the street where you might live,
just be sure to wave and greet me if you've got the time to give.

And never you'll feel so foolish, though you've been a fool before
 and every time you've done you wrong you're lying on the floor
 if maybe Someone Else's song will save you from your grave      
then take the shame on New Years Eve, if just your soul you save!
And never I've felt so foolish, though a fool I've been before
and every time I've done me wrong I'm laying on the floor
with roots in Jersey City, bought my boots right here on sale
Bayonne to blame, I'll take the shame if just one cab I hale.
g clair Mar 2014
have you ever felt shot into space
with nothing to hold to without any trace
of the one who was always around
who could laugh really hard and without any sound

and you fear that someday he will see
that you're mind is a strange one indeed, yet it's free!
to be up in the air and then down
hear that music that plays like a carnival sound

and it's something that's deep in your soul
from the day you first met he's been making you whole
cause he won't let you feel afraid,
fix you up when you're ****** and knows his first aid

Five of us kids to take care of
and all within seven short years
Leno then Beano then Bonzo then Labo then Damo
all laughter and tears.

It seems that we share the same feelings
about our ol' dad, and it's said
much better to share them while we are alive
than to wait until after we're dead.
  
and so I will write about Daddy
and because I am long with my word
my poems I will say can go on for a day,
and a night or so that's what I've heard.

To Tony, Loretta would cater
she cooked for the man who would date her
they married and so, and what do you know
three children would come along later.

Born October two four, nineteen hundred
and twenty eighth year of our Lord
at home, the first child of Tony and Rhetts
baby Vinny, was cut from the cord.

This sweet little Vincent Morrone
raised up in by my Nonna and Tony
quickly stuck in his ways, from the start of his days
and could size up the truth from a phony.

He grew up in old Jersey City
where he polished the width of his witty
had a sister named Claire who remembers him there
dear old dad, handsome lad, and she's pretty.

Their brother was born sometime later
our sweet uncle Jerry Morrone
Handsome and good and well liked in the hood
got those genes and that same funny bone.

 After Highschool, staff sergeant in Air Force
guiding take offs and landings, his post
Four years of St Pete, put him smart on the street  
and he left for the likes of our coast.

He was offered a job down in Jackson
elementary dear Watson, it's said
he would fall for another young teacher, a screecher
whose sassiness got to his head

He married our mother, that's Jacquie
they really were some kind of a pair
she knew he was smart, liked his looks and his heart
and respected the good that was there.

So five days a week Dad would teach
and he liked those nine months of the year
but he lived for the summers at Jenkinson's beach
where that salt water pool was so clear.

in a torn old white sweatshirt and plaid shorts
he was sharing a Bud at the fence
loved his mower and pool, and that backyard was cool
much more like a park, you would sense.

we know how he hated the gurlic
and that onions would just make him hurlick
my mother would never use any such thing
he could drive her to sing like Steve Urlick.
( did I do that?)

No qualms about eating cold hotdogs
and cheddar in chunks from red foil
liked his eggplant cut thin, and his gravy could win
a blue ribbon, the secret? No spoil!!

Could deliver a joke like Bob Newhart
or a pun just for fun was sublime
he was always aware, but for crowds, didn't care
unless it was harmony time.

Best one on one at a party
but the life when it came to his cracks
made small talk okay, but preferred just to stay
to the side and be watching the acts.

Old Spice and that weekender stubble
did his thing and his speaking was soft
he was never a man to cause trouble
but he'd tell you when something was off.

McDonalds and corn on the cob
smoked a pipe, did not curse, and was never a slob
though I know he was not always neat
he was clean, never smelled, never spit in the street.

taught us never to take wooden nickels
and he loved a fresh jar of those kosher dill pickels
drove a large Orange bug in the day
with a driver side  SPEBSQSA

he wiped off my face with his thumb
that he'd lick first to clear away jelly and crumb
and he'd always be there in a pinch
if I needed his help, he was there, not a Grinch!

He was always the Good Humored one
bought us Ice cream and took us to places for fun
an occasional "word to the wise
you've cashed in your chips
and don't hand me your lies."

and the one who would walk me not once
but twice down the aisle of heartache and gloom
as a wife I have failed, a dunce
yet dismissing that elephant out of the room.

and tried not to laugh at my lot
at my barrenness, troubles and all of that snot
took me back to this place for some peace
never charged me a dime, not a landlord with lease
but a man with the mercy he knows
he understood sometimes that's just how life goes

and suddenly everything's changed
I am fifty two times around, feeling deranged
and it's not because I need a crutch
feeling lost in this world  
which I've lived in and such

but that I have been shot into space
having lost what I loved, it's my dad's loving face
and I'm here in the house that he bought
it's the one where we loved and the one where
we fought

and I cried here at length at the table
feeling shot into space, as if I am unable
to cope with the loss of my dad,
with the loss of his smile  and the voice that he had

and the place that he had in my life
in my heart....in my head...in my mind...So I climbed
to room where my dear daddy slept
and I laid on that bed and I wept and I wept
feeling shot into space I recalled that man's face
and I reached for the  tissues he kept in that place

and in one second flat, as I blew
from the nose of his likeness,  I knew and it's true
I was beamed back from space
into someone's embrace
and believe me, as if my dad knew...

For my father was known to be punny
always quick with the wit, such a honey
he would tell me to write, for it was his delight
that his children were his kind of funny.

I am never to think I am odder
for I am what I am, my dad's daughter
I hear distant strumming and now my dad humming
the theme song from Welcome Back Kotter.

http://youtu.be/5VlGyMG0ksg
My dad was a teacher and enjoyed music, jokes, puns, crow sounds, barbershop harmony, golfing, wearing certain colors which made him look good,  his own family, grandchildren, crossword puzzles. spy novels, movies. hotdogs, eggplant parm, radio talk shows, good food at the same restaurant, the Chapter House. Singing Barbershop harmony a tear jerker song or movie, peace and quiet. mowing the lawn and working in the yard, his car, a little whiskey sour or a cold Bud in the summer. BBQ out back. Football. Baseball. Ice cream. root beer floats. smoked a pipe ( the smell of sweet pipe tobacco still reminds me), applesauce with cinnamon , apricot jam, my cookies.  etc.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)
See Nat Lipstadt
Juggling Thoughts Re Proximity, in Seat 30B
Emanuel Martinez Jan 2013
Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

Wondering while we walk
Trembling trying to talk
Mankind mostly marred momentum

Humanity how humiliating, hiding
Forefathers frowning, from our fabricated forget
Refusing redemption, requiring rancor and retribution  

Always armed, allured, awaiting angry accusations
Derailed doves, these daggers drag down
Losing level landings, lacerating learning's lifting

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

I implore indignation, it's incarceration of our intrinsic immensity
At the core of our conception, captivating creation captured
Anyone, everyone, afraid of the amazement accrued under our armor
Profoundness, endless as the universe, favoring our existence

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh
January 13, 2013
Jess Ryder Jun 2014
Life's like a big wheel keeps on turning
Time runs away, every day I'm learning
To roll with the punches, follow my hunches
Loving the way it feels
Just to be alive
Getting the chance to ride on the big wheel

I'm takin my share of dead end curves
Had to steady my nerves and steal my courage
Had a lot of hard landings
but I ain't hanging up my wings
Yeah I'm still rippin' down that hill
Still hanging on with all my will
Lookin' back now I still
Wouldn't change a thing
I've had a few lovers leave their mark
I've broken my pride
and I've broken my heart
But I'm gonna live my life
before it all goes dark

Life's like a big wheel keeps on turning
Time runs away, every day I'm learning
To roll with the punches, follow my hunches
Loving the way it feels
Just to be alive
Getting the chance to ride on the big wheel

On the big wheel

Just to be alive
Getting the chance to ride on the big wheel
On the big wheel
On the big wheel
I'm still learning to ride on the big wheel
I'm still learning to ride on the big wheel
On the big wheel
one of my country songs
joycewrites Jul 2016
She was never steady—
always ready for the grand depart;
she lived for take-offs and landings—
she's the girl with a suitcase heart.
(c) 2016 - Mary Joyce Tibajia
st64 Dec 2013
for the growing angel came to visit Earth


1.
beautiful wing-span of such width, white and strong
with powerful-light in the eyes beaming out gentle-rays
hover in the sky’s energy who welcomes this pacific-source

wondrous-silence of the trees and the splendour of the sun
merry-chirping of birds and the secret-gift of the breeze

whispering messages in air-passages Man can no more sense
the angel looks forward to see more of God’s *beautiful creation
….


2.
and the (lucky) angel is granted the benefit of several landings…..


(on school-grounds)
click.. click.. the sound carries beyond the window
hoisting upward, the bright-light climbs onto the ledge
strange sight to see a grown man taking pictures of a boy
oh, perhaps he is a photographer
but why then, the boy with fear in eyes, has no clothes on.. ?


(on college-grounds)
kick.. kick.. spit.. spit..
young people tumbling around on the ground
perhaps it is a game
no, why then blood on the girl and many sneer-faces beating with brooms.. ?


(at end-of-year party)
presents gaily-bowed are exchanged and smiles offered
but silent-sniggering as the semi-inebriated time the punch-moment
perhaps, this is all jolly, yet some end up hurt and run in shame
no, why engage in harm as this sick-comedy prank gone wrong..?


(in a darkening alleyway)
two young women rush to catch the train ...


(in a young child’s bedroom)
an aged-man makes a routine visit...


(in a moving vehicle carrying a family of four)
vicious arguing in front of children… car veers off…


(in a kitchen where a single-parent feeds two kids)
communication to one kid via another....


(on a construction-site where dust lives comfy in lungs)
on the back of poverty, the well-to-do whip some more.....


(in an overcrowded crèche, gummed-eyes of innocence look up to keepers)
hasty-feeding in queues and abed thin-blankets on cold-floors....


(outside a liquor-store, them who succumb to numbing-promise)
many cold down-the-nose stares on the passed-out ....


(in a geriatric-home, hours before her family turns up)
squeaky rubber-shoes get reminded to do offhanded-cleaning of *****-smells....



3.
angel, you learn much… fast



4.
the boy looks to the window, prays this comes to end
how many more months of this horror
couldn’t even tell his mother of the stern-teacher....
did he sense a grace-light there.. by the window?
(he cannot be sure)
when lightning strikes one heart of one


the girl finds a higher-voice in the grit of courage
redeeming others before their pending-fall
by breaking the ugly-code of silence



5.
(we are gathered here today, dear mourners
to remember our esteemed colleague…)


(what a massive turn-around for that bully-group..
no-one can believe their many sudden-good deeds.. )

and..

a young mother breast-feeds her baby
a father teaches his son to read
a teen helps a crippled-man cross the road
an artist inspires ghetto-kids with free-tuition
a politician privately oversees a park for kids
an addict finds his answers in time
an adult uncovers vital-clues in his deceased-parents' albums
a doctor goes beyond duty's call
a neighbour eases suffering of beloved-pet




6.
dear angel.. / / / what have you learnt?
hazard lurks on the edges of existence


dear God.. / / / was I once there?
oh, what have you created?


dear human.. / / / no words, only benedictions
for tears don't feed the poor




and once, an angel came to lift the grail-heart of purity
thank you, angel

you poor thing.. see how you lift off on heavy singed-wings and..
fly home to grace









S T, 18 dec 2013
hmmm, yes.. perhaps angels can bear the face of anyone ------- who will be the wiser?




sub-entry: mercy-walk

mercy me, oh mercy my..
please.. come take a soporific-walk with me?

oh, mercy be walkin' with me.

:)
719

A South Wind—has a pathos
Of individual Voice—
As One detect on Landings
An Emigrant’s address.

A Hint of Ports and Peoples—
And much not understood—
The fairer—for the farness—
And for the foreignhood.
bulletcookie Oct 2023
clouds outside airplane's window
immense, white on blue, cumulonimbus
clutching our flight, as I clutch 'Cocoroco'

takeoff forgotten, along with young eyes
only that rubber rainbow rooster traveling beside

a happy wake-up sound, squeezed in bellow
landing is distant too, billows and below
many loose threads of rain-forest ends

-cec
submitted to a Seattle cultural organization's, "Landings" Literature Project.
Shepard Leopard print not calligraphy double "L's" lively as llamas lily roll roots lull underwater dreams felt from the events of hypnotized by the words of the orator, an ores rating is the basis of the all purpose flowering behind the veil, human as satiated, red as sunsets lewd as an anagram of wed rings marry Saturn on this mourning of the death of time, rocks felt sediment may ties tan in the Sun pelts peeled layered in the wind steaming serpentine smokes coils in the sky Clouds the equipment of the buster Organs play louder than church hymns reigns power blood men straighten in their pews at the sound of the root of all evil the mouth of the whale begging for the message more "S's" in saliva drool without one of Oh now bow before the bow arc in the Know a Self flooded urge elevated surfaced by the pit of the concrete, open your abstract the path leopard prints in the mud escape the boar snarling winters Solar is the limit speed time for the Scarab dry enough for the role of matter being dense as ******. In no sense cures us from our aged protractor, human after all is how I robot rock.

I am earth breathing fire hearing wind moving water beneath my meat eating feet. I stare through the ghost riding I am Equine the warship of the Poised den at landings end I devour funnel cakes within the three circles, I merge the warmth and cool blending the reflections with its shadow commanding paddle cyclical backstroke the Frog's moment chosen amp powered transition form and fathom an alternate realm, I dropped a meteor on a puddle world displacing half of all livin; Lanced a Wasp's nest as a Dragoon steals an egg as a test.
we must remember d day remember all the brave
and the ones who died with water for a grave
the landings on the shore with battle all around
the courage of the soldiers as they stood there ground.

surrounded by the mines  all along the beach
barbed wire and the guns as the shore they breach
the bravery they give as they fought away
we all must remember them on this famous day
Perilous voyages of small watercraft at sea , amphibious landings on well defended beachheads , Clipper ships whaling on distant oceans , military vessels in armed conflict , night of relentless cannon fire , explosive reflections across shark infested waters , treasure maps and chest laden with gold , rubies and pieces of eight , the cry of Viking warriors on the rugged coast of Newfoundland .. Pirates just off the shores of the Carolinas ..  Forts Pulaski , Sumter and Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas ..
Oil platforms racked by ferocious winds on the Gulf of Mexico ..
Union and Confederate battles on Mobile Bay , Riverboats traversing the Mississippi ..Tending barges along the Ohio ..On high alert through Georgia's intracoastal waterways ....
Copyright November 13 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved

** Bath time in '73 with imagination in full throttle ..
Alexis Cook Aug 2012
Tonight Ill lie awake waiting for the reprieve of sleep that will never come. My eyes will bore holes in the night sky for stars. Like a moth eaten blanket that covered up the outside light. My heart will sink to the center of the earth like stones and heavy metals. Arms crossed hugging myself so tight. Thoughts twist and curl through my mind like the dark waters in the sound. I’m sitting upon the breakwall that I’ve built, held steady by the mortar of my past life. Prior planning leads to stable landings.

The water leaked into the cracks that you made. I sandbagged but it meant nothing. It was like dutch fingers in cracking dams. Contents pouring out to water Holland’s tulips.

I held steady so long but recent lapses in judgement left me open and waiting.

This time, like the last, I read the weather report wrong. Sunny days relapse into clouds and rain. My stray into meteorology took me down dark streets at night passing empty parks with vacant swings and lonely slides. Houses filled with slumbering occupants. Tired streetlights lighting up void roadways like ancient nightlights. Somehow I managed to find my way home. Back to where I’ve always been. Stagnant between the surf and the cliff face, I sink to swim
Lael Kafsky Feb 2013
Let me introduce him.
half smile and half manipulation
He will take you out to fancy dinners
and then pinch your inner thigh under the table
He will sweep you off your feet
but forget to grab you shoes
Because you see
he doesn't want you to stand on your own
Like an air traffic controller
He is dictating your landings and departures
But all you want is a departure
Warmer skies
And a healthier landing
But he keeps you
Firmly planted on the ground
And then He bribes you with affection
and later handles you with his tongue
But as his hands cover your mouth
And you feel muffled by his presence
you lose yourself
You used to be a rainbow
You used to be seen only in technicolor
Now you're wearing black
submitting to his obsession
your simple lies turn him into a monster
and you're quivering like a child
Scared to put a toe down
Because his anger lurks beneath the bed
holding the blanket close around your neck
You beg for his forgiveness
He calls you his princess
and builds you a tower
But girl it doesn't matter how long you grow your hair
He will find a way to criticize it anyway
And you're bound to pay
I can't satisfy his anger
He hides behind it
Jabbing your sides with little suggestions
That dress is to short
That's a lot of skin
Excuse me *******?
Who's body am I in?
And I don't need a fairy tale
What's it to ya anyway
I'm just a bird with a broken wing
You see I used to have two
One for luck
And the other for navigation
So why is leaving him resound with hesitation
And somedays I dream of a different life
One that's filled with witty repartee
And symphonies
Cellos play sweet melodies
And I take my two wings and fly between the notes
And I float
Catching air
I'm up there
But he takes his water hose and shoots me down
Because he only likes me wet and vulnerable
I think he is catching on
So I turn into sand
And taking a fistful he squeezes
Jesus
I'm falling through the cracks of his insecurities
And I find myself there
And I dust myself off
And fly

That's goodbye.
g clair Dec 2015
I slid along the Avenue until I reached your place
I must admit I'd had a few and longed for your embrace
The steps were barely salted, and I cursed them as I fell
and peppered my possessions on the sidewalk iced from hell.

Face down upon the Avenue I breathed the cold of night
and realized to my surprise my hip had twisted right
And not a soul was present there to raise me from my dread
no not a one to hear my cries or anything I said.

And never I've felt so foolish, though a fool I've been before
and every time I've done me wrong I'm laying on the floor
with roots in Jersey City, bought my boots right here on sale
Bayonne to blame, I'll take the shame if just one cab I hale.

I laid upon the Avenue, each minute like an hour
and I prayed that God was having you come down from your high tower.
to find me there, an old time square without a New Year's ball
much better to found alive than not be found at all.

Well it's been my vain conception that I'm good in any storm
I'm graceful, no deception, all my landings, perfect form
pride reserved an answer for the blasted state I'm in
only New Years Eve will bring out all the things I've never been.

Well it must have been near midnight, turned my head to hear the riff
distant music on the river and my mind began to drift
when something kicked my ankle like the tip of someone's shoe
could it be the boot of heaven checking if my soul was due?

I'd landed near a tire, whose tread was laced with snow
which buried in the mire, had nowhere else to go
and glimpsing my reflection in the hub which shined like new
I witnessed my deliverance, 'twas the light of God, it's true!

From somewhere deep within the smoky bellows of my ire
a verse from someone else's song which rose up like a choir
"Is it you my sweet beloved, come to raise me from my plight?...
for I've fallen in my drunken state this cold dark News Years Night!"

"And what have we beheld here, it's a woman in the snow
her hip looks out of socket though her face is all aglow"
They rushed me to the hospital and just in time for tea
which warmed the cockles of my heart and thawed my love for thee.

Never I've felt so foolish, though a fool I've been before
and every time I've done me wrong I'm laying on the floor
if maybe someone else's song will save them from their grave
I'll take the shame on New Years Eve if just one soul I save!

All these years I've been a sinner, running circles, chasing youth,
with my hair as gray as winter I've come face to face with truth
Lying flat out on the sidewalk on that News Years Eve from hell
I learned to trust correction and I hope you're doing well.

Now I'm singing Someone Else's song, for me it ain't that true
I don't get drunk on New Years Eye and rarely think of you
Well If one day you should meet me on the street where you might live,
just be sure to wave and greet me if you've got the time to give.

And never you'll feel so foolish, though you've been a fool before
and every time you've done you wrong you're lying on the floor
if maybe Someone Else's song will save you from your grave      
then take the shame on New Years Eve, if just your soul you save!
Connor Apr 2015
Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.
Ottar Aug 2013
four feeble pairs of wings
flapping, beaks preening
                                           imaginary things.

mom bird looking old
pop bird real bold
their four offspring
                                are being told

"avoid the black birds
the biggest and the blackest"

they perch on the rooftop
near the gutter, cheeping
                                          loudly all a flutter

even in the bird world
the squeakiest young'un
                                         gets the greasiest grub

diving, landing, more
feeding on demanding,
mom and pop bird are
in charge, "beware of wings
                                               size, LARGE"

finding a wet garden bed,
beaking the broken ground till
tiny pebbles and tiny insects
                                                feed the hunger digest the rest.

Young wings no longer frail,
flight and landings
                               dive and lift, glide
and swoop, and land alight
                                              on the edge of a solo flight
until the three birdboys and one birdgirl
                                                        ­            find a mate, each

(And give mombird and popbird a wel-deserved rest)

                                                          ­                             oh and as for the three bad birds
                                                           ­                            in all black tuxedos, they were chased
                                                          ­                             and they raced away from six fast
                                                            ­                           fearless finches
©DWE082013
Lenore Lux Nov 2014
I am thankful for the opportunity to feel.

To be here, as opposed to absence.

I am a statistical near impossibility.

Death missed me as stars led me from nothingness

through time to landings where feet touched, and

breath breathed, and hearts pumped.

I am fortunate for the blessing of clarity and thankful

of those moored in the void around me.

Is love? Is love, s/he said, (…) is love.
jack of spades Feb 2016
nothing has ever given me a rush quite like leaving,
like sitting in an airport moments away from getting on a plane.
i’m a little scared of heights,
in the way that they make my heart go racing
and i don’t like feeling my pulse leave my chest,
but i’ve always loved leaning over the edge.
i’m scared of heights in the way that i’m scared of planes:
i love the concept and the purpose and the view,
but nothing scares me like going into airplane bathrooms,
when i haven’t slept in two hours too many
and the mirrors are like a funhouse from a scary movie.
airplane bathrooms are like a portal into the past,
except this time i can see every crack and fissure
and misplaced hair in the outline of who i’m trying to be.
i don’t like airplanes in the sense that time doesn’t exist,
that where you’re landing is different from where you were beginning,
that i can sleep for seven hours only to find out
that i’m two hours behind where i lifted off.
i’m scared of missing things, i guess.
i don’t like airplanes in the way that i’m scared of what lies ahead:
because i really like going,
and i really like getting there,
but landings make my ears hurt like hell and
takeoffs make my stomach churn.
i know where i am and i think i have a vague sense of where i want to be,
i know when i’m real and when i’m dreaming,
but it’s the in between that loses me.
i’m scared of the dark,
but differently than heights or flying,
because that’s just a loss of time.
i’m scared of the dark because it’s a loss of everything.
if you can’t see it then how can it exist until you’re
bumping your knees on coffee tables and stubbing your toes on walls
and the cat’s eyes are reflecting light from nowhere
and you’re waiting for the claws.
i’m scared of the dark because the dark is uncertainty
hiding all the truths that we want to believe,
because the dark is all the spots ahead of us that aren’t set in concrete,
because the dark is deep and suffocating,
because i don’t like not being able to see.
Universal Thrum Oct 2019
i eat a cucumber in defiance of the forces that would overwhelm me
Poetic T Mar 2016
I tied you to the boot of this stolen car, what a pile
of rust but beggars cant be choosy, you do beg but I
chose this place specifically don't worry I tied you
to an old fords car door,  let the fun now begin.

I put the peddle to the metal, I hear you screaming in
anticipation of what happens next. Got to love speed
bumps, 30, 40, 60 then I brake just before swerving
so you sail past then you fly. Screaming all the way.

"I found ford doors have the right weight ratio to land
door side up Skoda's, Audi,

"No,
"The mess of so many to clean up road pastry is not the
easiest to clean away, slinters in my fingers hurt like hell ,


They fly through the air I see them just before some with
eyes closed fear etched on the sweat dripping or is that
tears? I put a three pronged circle to see where they finish
up. Each has a consequence, red, orange and green.

"You land in the outer dam, out comes the penalty stick,

Not many survive that, as I am angry for ill landings a lack
off at least trying, I warn them but some just cry till I give
them a good few whacks. I know silly but I do little sound
effects "bang, bang, splat, then silence and twitching

"Bang, "I hate those that just linger and twitch die already,

Now orange that's ok at least the next one tried, but not hard
enough,I give you a two pronged choice, gouge your sight out
with a spoon or a fork "what at least I'm giving them a choice,
now they scream but some got ***** it must be said.

Some do it, see no evil you know what I'm saying hanging tears
of claret weep from there now semi vacant sockets, and still
they try to blink "look at me, as their head rise, but their still
staring at the floor and I prune the with but two snips. Some
survive others just clutch to a chest and like that "DEAD,

Now those that survive, well lets just say I am a man of my
word I put them in the car to the safety I promise, I talk to
them but understandably their not in the talking mood,
I give them water to hydrate and replenish lost liquid that
has others wise bleed slowly out, and some even say "thank you,

Now what can I say luck, skill, survival instinct but so few have
done it, like a four leaf clover they land in the pastures of green.
I jump up and down like a child at the fair who just won the
big dinosaur on the very first try, punching the air and a very loud
"Hell ye that's what I'm talking about baby,
Then kiss um on the forehead, lips are to personal for my profession.

I tell them what skills what entertainment for some as twisted as it
seems liked what I did, a few even asked for double or nothing.
But luck only goes so far and then the regrettably the penalty stick
came out, I do the sign of L on my forehead then their silent once again.

But those who sighed with relief, as I promised were released, at the
end of a gun mind you a bottle of water given gratefully drank,
then on their merry way, I bid them fair well and as that they never
Divulge this incident as I have their wallets, purses even email
you never no maybe bored and recollect our good times past tense
of course for we all must face what is inevitable,

"Life is moments, where death is a breath that will always last,  

But as is death, freedom is a fleeting moment, and a mind changes
like the wind different direction, different path. Trial and error were
key, things that mattered "weight, height, ***, all factors in the
end result of what is like a momentary freedom to the air then
realization as they descend to a finite moment of death.

I always picked those that drove, why easier to cover tracks of
what was perused in my desires for a unique way to challenge
others need to survive. To breath another moment to exist in this
time of now not to pass. But life is fickle and my fun must last.

I always made sure that they drank the water, a necessity of
what came next ever drop drank, if denied then you guessed
it, penalty stick then "Dam, I do love my sound effects.
But released those with sight no knowledge of their ill fate.

Those I killed in the drivers seat pick a place where
gravity would take president in this delicate manoeuvre
so that they would go through what was needed a accident
of fatal consequence. Then on to the living that was next.


Like jack they rolled down the hill till unconscious they fell,
this little automobile swerving,  ricocheting off boundary and
wall till wheels graced air and the reeve of the engine heard.
A little gift of what was left in the boot a full tank of petrol
and the lid so loosely covered, accidents do happen.

I did one more thing I doubt they noticed there cigarette
lighter engineered to be so slightly hot, just like porridge
to hot would be seen and felt, to cold and would be a waste
of battery not enough, but warmth enough to ignite an
accident in the back and I firework of flames birth forth.

Some exploded they were the best, while others tumbled
flame and wreckage spread out what a mess. I always chose
the location, never the same suspicion would fall and my
fun would expire and probably my life snuffed out in a
breath. always cliffs near by and wall was best.

Now I bid you farewell as other circles must be drawn.
New doors must be had, who will hit the bulls-eye or
who will fail the test. I'll try two doors at once spice
up life's fun a little who will hit green and who will
be the one who twitches and then "Bang, silence is best.
Her Dec 2017
How am I to teach myself
that rage is not love
that abuse is not love
that hurt is not love
that forcefulness is not love
when that is all i have ever known

when you are gentle
you do not speak in anger
you never raise your voice
you always smile
you always make me laugh
only kindness ever leaves your mouth


i feel like a child again when i am with you
before all the badness took over my life

i am hard
rough around the edges

but you
oh my you

you are so soft
your edges aren't even edges at all
they're soft landings

like the way a dandelion falls
onto the grass so gracefully
in the middle of spring

you are my hope again

you are my new beginning
Bruce Adams Sep 2023
A text for five voices.

Note on text: For formatting reasons, this should be read on a full screen, or in landscape mode on a mobile.

i. Blank copy

I look out of the window at
the houses as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                    or glide past
                                                the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
House after house after house after house
                                                dit-dit-dit­-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the houses
                                  as they pass.
It’s 10 o’clock when I arrive at my office
and no-one is there yet
and I turn on my computer.
I sort of just
                sit there
                for quite a long time. Then
at 10.37 I print a document I’ve been working on
and I pick up my mug and I go to the kitchen where the printer is
and I put the kettle on.
I log on to the printer but instead of pressing
                                                Print
  ­                                              I press
                                                        Cop­y
                                                        instead­.
The machine whirs
The light goes
                        across
And out comes this copy this
        Copy of
                nothing.
I pick it up from the cradle.
It’s warm.
And I hold it and I look at it and I think:
                                                This is a copy
                                                                ­of nothing.
And since it is no longer an empty piece of paper but now
                                                             ­   something more
                                                            ­    something
                                                   ­                                imbued
I don’t put it back in the paper tray
and I don’t put it in the bin.
I carry it carefully with my tea back
to my office and put it
                                Carefully
                    ­                            on my desk.
I close the door.
Usually when I arrive and no-one is there I keep the door open for a bit.
It’s my way of letting people know I’m here.
It also helps me get a sense of what’s going on in the building
which students are there and what they’re doing
and once I’ve got a decent enough idea
or if there’s someone around I don’t really feel like helping
                                                         ­                           I close the door.
Today it is quiet.
It is a Friday.
                     Fridays are quiet.
It is the seventh of March.
It is 2014.
              I’m looking out of the window as I recall
              without much interest
              that yesterday was my father’s sixty-first birthday.
The buses tick past the window.
Without really thinking I
roll down the blind
                            Until the window is as blank as my copy of
                                                              ­                                           nothing.
I look at it but I
don’t
              sit
                     down
                                   yet.
My computer makes a noise and a purple box
tells me I have a meeting in thirty minutes.
                                                        ­Oh shut up I tell it
                                                        out loud.
Now I realise that I never did print my document
so I go back to the printer and the file is still there waiting for me
and I press Print All
                     and out it comes
and the piece of paper looks
Obnoxious
                     scrawled over in heavy black print
                     and ****** coloured columns
                                                                ­      and smelling
                                                        ­              Smelling of toner.
For someone who claims to be conscious of the environment I
print excessively. But only at work.
It’s the combination of it being free
                                          (or at least, no cost to me)
and that feeling you get when you
swipe
your access card to log in to the printer
and tap the screen dit-dit-dit to choose this or that.
It feels
       to me
              like being a grown-up.
It’s intoxicating.
I don’t want to go to the meeting
and I’m suddenly annoyed by this ***** piece of paper
which
       I ***** up
                     and throw in the bin.
**** it.
Not even in the recycling.
**** it.
Who cares.
              What difference could it possibly make
              whether I throw this piece of paper
                                                 which I will now have to print again
              in the black part of the bin for waste
              or the green part of the bin for recycling.
I go back to my computer and press Print but
this time
I keep clicking my mouse
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          Yeah.
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
And I go back to the printer and the name of the document comes up on the built-in screen
dozens and dozens of times
the same name of the same document
and I tap
              Print All.
And as the machine spits out clone after clone I
mutter under my breath:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
Then out loud:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
And as I throw them in the bin and go back for more I think
I’m going to buy a car. Yeah.
And I’m going to drive my car to work and
when I finish work I’m going to drive it
to a big supermarket
                            a hypermarket
                            a super hyper mega market
where I will buy and buy and buy,
and on my way home I will buy petrol to put in my car
       And I will go on holiday
       I will book all those last minute deals on the internet
       And go to Turkey or Lanzarote or Corfu for a hundred
                                                         ­      or a couple of hundred
                                                         ­      pounds, every month maybe
And I’ll fly there on a big plane.
I’ll soar over the ocean on a big plane.
And when I come back
I’ll soar over all those people outside Stansted Airport
All those
people
With banners
Moaning and complaining and protesting
Banners saying things like
                                   I don’t know
                                                 “Down with planes”
And as the flight attendant smiles goodbye I’ll think
yeah.
       Down with planes.
                                   And I’ll drive my car home and I will
                                   stop
                                   worrying
                                   about
                                   everything.
I go back to my office.
I retrieve one copy of my document from the bin and I
put it on top of my copy of nothing.
Whereas before the document offended me
                            now I have difficulty
                            telling the difference between the two.
My colleague arrives and she tells me about the motorway.
She’s always telling me about the motorway.
I think about my car I’m going to buy and I
think about being on the motorway.
I think about being on that part of the M25
where the planes are so low you duck as they thunder over you
and they come
                     in rapid succession
                                          dit dit dit
                                                        rapid­ eye movement
                                                        ­radar.
I think about being stuck in traffic there and the air
thick with exhaust fumes
mixing with the air around Heathrow
and all those tons of jet fuel from the planes zooming over
Blink and you miss them
                                   but always another follows.
I go to my meeting.
I realise that I have picked up my blank copy
along with the document I printed for the meeting.
Someone says they wish I’d printed more than one copy
as it turns out it would be useful for everyone to have one
and I laugh in their face without explaining myself.
                                                         ­             I make notes on it.
                                                             ­         My copy of nothing.
                                                        ­              Without really realising
                                                       ­               I’ve scribbled notes on it
but as I look at my spidery black biro handwriting
and think with some real despair about how I have mindlessly
destroyed
something pure
the notes
              disappear
                                int­o the paper
and it is clean again.



ii. Ringing sea

My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough.
What I’m looking at
my rational brain tells me
is a video of two people having ***.
I have seen that before.
But what I’m actually watching is a video of
my husband
                     having ***
                                          with another woman.
And my eyes don’t refresh the image fast enough
So I keep seeing his face.
The whole picture melts away and
I just see his face
                     Which belongs to me.
                                          It’s my face. I – own it.
                                                        It’s my- my- my-
                                                        And it freezes there
just his face is all I can see then the video continues for a
split second then freezes again
                                   His face
                                   His face
                                   His face       It’s him
                                                        It’s him
                                                        It’s him.
I stop the video and I put the phone down on the table
and I breathe very deeply and
every time I blink, between every saccade
there is his face
                            a face I know intimately
                                                      ­         and it’s looking away from me.
I turn on the television. It is Saturday.
He is flying back from Asia on Tuesday. I have until then to
                                                              ­        what?
The sound and light from the television
flicker over me
And I sort of just empty,
Quietly, like a balloon disappearing into the sky.
I don’t know what I’m going to do but
for now that’s
fine.
The brown armchair swallows me up
and I cry for two hours without really noticing.
The cookery programme I’m not watching finishes and I think
the news is about to come on so I turn off the TV
and I put on my shoes
and I go down the stairs and out of the house
and I get in my car.
It’s raining and I just sit there.
Without starting the engine I flick on the windscreen wipers:
                                                         ­      Dit / dit.
                                                            ­   Dit \ dit.
                                                            ­   Dit / dit.
It takes less than three seconds for them to pass
from one side of the windscreen to the other.
And I get this feeling this
unexplainable feeling
that I want to crawl inside that moment
when the wipers are moving from one side of the screen
                                                          ­                   to the other.
I flip down the sun shield and look at myself in the mirror.
There are two lipsticks in the glove compartment.
I pick the darker one
                            and apply it
                                                 carefully
                                                       ­          sensually.
I start the car.
West London ebbs away to the motorway
My car is silver and in the rain it feels invisible
I don’t know where I’m going
                                I follow words on signposts I recognise the shape of
                                without really reading them
and I keep driving
I let my eyes come away from the road and
watch the fields and trees tick past like cells of film
and I look at the cars on the other carriageway
and I notice they’re all silver like mine
                                                        (onl­y mine is invisible)
and I duck as a Boeing 777 soars over near the M4 interchange
and let myself scream soundlessly under the roar of its engines.
I wonder where it came from.
                                          I think about the people on board.
I think about their mobile phones and
all the ******* there must be on them
and I realise
how many videos there must be in the world
of people having ***.
I take the M23 past Gatwick Airport
                                          the motorway ends but I keep driving
until finally I come to the sea.
No-one is here because it’s March and it’s raining.
I have always loved the sea.
Not sailing or swimming or surfing
Just being near it, for me it’s
                                   a spiritual experience.
I’ll lie on the stones and gaze at the sky for hours
but not today.
                     There are some flowers tied to a railing
                     somebody has drowned.
Presumably they never found a body to bury.
The awfulness of that strikes me like a stone.
                                                        It­’s the not knowing.
                                                        ­The lack of 100% concrete total proof.
I take my phone out of my handbag.
                                                        ­But I know now.
The shingle crunches underneath my flat shoes.
                                                        No­w I know.
The cold burns my ears and the wind picks up as I get closer to the water
the tide slips serpentine up the stones
white-edged
                     beckoning me.
Without realising I’ve slipped
                                                 out of
                                                            my­ shoes
but the stones do not hurt my coarse feet
and the wind
                     howling now
                                          catches me behind my knees
quickening my stride.
The spit curls around my toes.
And then I catch myself wondering
                                          whether my husband will call me or
                                          text me when he lands
and I hurl
       my phone
              into the sea.
On the drive home I listen to the radio.
The news is dominated by the Crimean conflict
and the referendum that’s coming up there.
Florence Nightingale
                            is all I can think about when they talk about Crimea.
Until recently I never even knew where it was.
At school you only learn about Florence Nightingale
                                   not the geography
                                          not the conflicts
                                                 not Ukraine’s edges so charred by
                                                               invasion and,
                                                                ­             subsequently,
                                                                ­                                  explosion.
                    ­               We live in so many war zones.
and I’m wondering what else I never learned about when
the story changes and now they are talking about a plane.
A plane is missing
                                   between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing
                                          and the blood drains out of me.
It isn’t like floating away like a balloon this time
it’s like plunging off a cliff.
And at once I see
                            with brilliant, burning clarity
                                                        m­y phone, ringing, on the sea bed
The light from the screen illuminates the stormy water but
I can’t see the name:
                                   I can’t see who’s calling.
I need to know.
I need to know it’s him.
       I drive back at twice the speed limit.
In the dark the flowers look menacing and half-dead; my
shoes fall off in the same place
But the tide is in so the whole beach looks different.
I’m up to my waist but my
top half
       is as wet
              as my bottom half
                            because the rain
                                          is torrential
                                                      ­  and I can still hear the phone ringing
                                                        b­ut I can’t see the light in the sea.
and I howl
       his name
but the wind carries it away soundlessly
       and I can’t tell if I’m
              further out
              or if the tide’s further in
                            and the ringing grows louder
                            as the current takes me powerfully by the waist and
                                                             ­         the stars rush by overhead.



iii. Acid rain

Every time I blink, between every saccade I see
a brilliant but infinitesimally brief flash of colour.
       Purple
       or green
       I think.
                     One on top of the other.
It’s hard to tell for sure because they’re so brief.
It’s like when you look at a light bulb for too long
                                                            ­   or stare directly at the sun.
I see it sometimes when I’m on my bike
or on a really big rollercoaster
                                   going downhill at 100 miles an hour
                                   the wind blasting through me
                                   the screams whirling through the air.
But I’m not on a rollercoaster, I’m sat very still
it’s Monday afternoon and I’m at school.
I haven’t said a single word to a single person today.
I didn’t even answer my name in the register.
I feel a bit dizzy like
                                   everything is turning together
                                   but I’m on a different
                                                       ­                 axis?
I think the bell goes, I’m
not a hundred percent sure,
but I leave anyway and no-one stops me.
       Outside in the sunshine the flashes of colour are
       several thousand times brighter.
In the next lesson I slip in my earbuds and
it looks like the teacher is singing the words.
                                                 I put on the most obscene song I can find.
I must have it on too loud
because eventually she notices and
she forces me to give her the headphones. This is the first time
someone has spoken to me today
                                          it feels a bit surreal
                                                         ­      but the world stops spinning
                                                        ­       a bit.
After school I go into the supermarket on Wigmore Lane
the enormous white of it is tinged in green and purple
and all I want is to buy a drink
                            I have a feeling of exactly the kind of drink I want
                            but I can’t find the right one
                            even though the fridge must be longer than
                            the driveway of my house.
Racks of newspapers and magazines clamour for my attention
       the only real colour in this great white warehouse of a store
       red tops and blue spreads
       and green and purple and green and purple
              and green and purple…
They’re talking about that missing plane in the news
and they keep using the same phrase.
They’re talking about the people on board the missing plane
and they keep saying
                            Missing
                      ­      presumed dead.
Not dead dead. Presumed dead.
I start wondering what it’s like to be both dead and alive at the same time,
as if all the people on board that plane are like Schrödinger’s cat
              (cats)
and we won’t know whether they’re dead or alive until we find the plane
and pull it out of the sea
and look inside
                     so
                         until then
                     they’re both.
Out in the car park I count the planes as they descend onto
the runway less than a mile away.
       One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
       I figure about a hundred and eighty a plane maybe,
       which means fifteen hundred people just arrived in Luton.
Nobody comes to Luton for the scenery.
Soon they’ll be gone,
A town haunted by a ghost population of thousands an hour.
                                                 filtered onto the trains and buses
                                                 and out from the sprawling car parks
                                                 to the motorway, and
                                                 onto connecting flights back into Europe
              but none of them will stay in Luton
                                                           ­                  Missing
                                                         ­                    presumed dead.
As I bike through Luton I think it might not be so strange to be dead and alive at the same time.
I’ve lived here my whole life and the whole place
                                                           ­                         which is a *******
                                                 moves with the mundanity of machinery
                                                 like the big car factories by the airport
                                                 the lights on, the production lines rolling
                                                 but all a bit automatic and lifeless.
But in the airport, it’s different.
The air, with its artificial chill, hangs with a faint shimmer
and the people here move purposefully, and with charge
                                                          ­     excitedly
                                                       ­                      or dejectedly
                                                      ­         but not neutrally
heading for the gates where they are sealed two hundred a time into airtight tubes
like Schrödinger’s cat:
                            dead and alive in the air;
                            one or the other on the ground.
                                                         ­      My teachers say I have an
                                                              ­ “odd way of looking at things”.
I leave my bike outside without chaining it up and go into the terminal.
In a café in the check-in hall I find exactly the drink I want
and I pay £2.75 for it.
                            I look at the departure boards.
                            Edinburgh. Bonn. Marseilles.
                            A green light flashes next to each gate as it opens
                                                           ­                  green and purple
                                                          ­                   green and purple
                                                          ­                                 Missing
                                                         ­                                  presumed dead
The flashes of colour are growing brighter
every time I move my eyes a green and purple streak follows behind like a jet stream
but the bustle and activity of the airport is so much that I can’t keep my eyes still
       so they keep darting
                            this way and that
                                                 until my vision is painted over
                                                            ­                 green and purple.
The streaks roll over each other like clouds of acid rain.
       This is the final call for flight 370 to–
My bike is gone when I go back outside
The front of the terminal is a plateau of thousands upon thousands of cars
and it’s probably in one of them
                                          but I’ll never know which.
The car parks reach all the way back to the runway.
Green and purple acid rain from all the jet fuel mixed with the air
melts a hole in the fence and I slip through
moving purposefully
                            with charge
                                          across the green and purple grass
                                          scorched by a hundred thousand landings
                                          a hundred thousand people arriving in Luton
And there on the tarmac
                     glinting in the rain
                     surrounded by blinking amber
       there is my bike
       its black handlebars spread like the wings of a jet plane.
I duck as an Airbus screams in just a few feet over my head
the rush from the engine lifting the soles of my feet from the ground.
I pick up the bike and start pedalling
                                                 pedalling down the runway
                                                 pedalling towards the blinking amber.
It feels light, nimble, fast
the tyres take the asphalt with ease.
And the faster I go the lighter I feel
       the acid rain eats away at my clothes
       and they melt off my body and pool on the runway below,
                     Lighter
                            and lighter until…
                                                 The wheels lift away from the ground
                                                          ­     and in the air I am dead and alive
                                                 and maybe nobody will
                                                                ­                           ever
                                                            ­                               see me
                                                                ­                           again.



iv. Burning sky

The faster I go, the lighter I feel.
I’ve taken the night watch and the yacht
is cruising across the Indian Ocean
penetrating the black abyss like a white bullet
and the lights in the portholes send shimmering white bullet shapes
for miles across the endless ink.
                                                            ­                 What?
                     We’re not going very fast at all
                     But it feels like any minute
                                                 we might drop off the edge of the world.
I hope we do.
I feel light and dizzy and irrational
                                          and I feel aware of being
                                          light and dizzy and irrational
and I wonder if this is what going mad feels like.
Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
I
       feel like that a lot lately.
Marc is sleeping.
We didn’t speak much today.
I can’t really remember how long it’s been
       since we left Victoria but the fight
       we had there
                            in a bistro by the port we
       said things we
       said things that
                            we can’t take back.
The Seychelles were stifling.
The heat was stifling.
He was stifling.
And the people were stifling
                                   the people kept talking about pirates.
                                   They kept warning us about pirates.
                                   You’re sailing where
                                                        the­y say
                                   You must be careful
                                                        t­hey say
                                   It’s notorious
                                                       ­ they say
I have fantasies about being kidnapped by pirates.
Not stupid Johnny Depp pirates with *** and parrots, no
       Real pirates.
                     Nasty pirates.
                     With dark snarls and AK-47s.
When we were at sea off the Horn I’d see things on the horizon
Dots or lights I couldn’t make out
And I’d imagine the rifle against my neck
Their hot breath
Chains and ransoms.
                          I’d wonder how much we’d be worth.
                          If we’d make national news.
                          Would it be David Cameron to announce,
                                                       ­        regrettably,
                                                    ­           we don’t negotiate with pirates,
                          or would it be someone less important?
                          Maybe just the foreign secretary.
                          What is the worth of my life at the end of a steel barrel?
But it would only be a buoy, or a plane on the horizon,
and I would get into bed with Marc
       disappearing under the covers like a different kind of hostage.
I
              oh
                                   I
                                                 Sorry
I’m crying.
                     I don’t know when I started crying.
The thing is I don’t know if it’s me breaking the marriage
or the marriage breaking me.
I’m watching everything literally fall to pieces and for all I know
it’s me with the detonator.
And then
              everything
literally falls to pieces
                            My mug of coffee falls from my hand
                            shatters on the deck
                                                            ­and the sea rears up nightmarishly.
Above me
a long orange **** of flame
is burned into the sky.
                            No, really.
                            That’s not a metaphor.
                                                       ­        There is fire in the sky.
It’s about a mile up and a mile away.
Look.
       There.
              ****.
                            **** **** ****.
What is that?
                                   Marc!
I call for Marc.
                                   Marc!
       There is fire in the sky.

–              Katherine.

       Fire in the sky.
       Fire in the
       Fire in

–              Katherine.

       Fire

–              Katherine.

       What
              Marc, what?

–              Are you awake?

       I think so.

–              You were calling out again.

       Calling

–              Calling out. You were shouting.

       What
       where
       What time is it?
                                   Where

–              Dubai. We’re in Dubai. It’s 7.
                They delayed again while you were sleeping.

       Dubai?

–              Katy I really think you should see a doctor.

       Don’t call me that.

–              Pardon?

       Katy.
       Don’t call me that.
                                          Like

–          ­                                       Like what?

       Everything’s okay.



       Everything’s not okay.

–               There’s
                 doctors. You’re not well. You’ve been confused since,
                 well actually since before it even happened.

       You think I’ve been confused.

–              Not right.
                Not you.

       You’re **** right.

–              Forget it.

       Thank you.

–              Go back to sleep. ****.



–              Are you still seeing it?
                The plane? On fire.
                                   You’re dreaming about it, aren’t you?

       Yes.

–              It’s affecting you?

       I’m
              just
                     unhappy,
       Marc.

–              That’s not just it though is it?

       What’s that supposed to mean?

–              Something about seeing that
                                                           ­   plane has scared you.

       We don’t know it was the plane.
       The one that –

–                            No. But, right place, right time.
              They said

       Maybe.

–              It’s still a coincidence.
                It’s not

                                   What

–                                   A sign.
                                     From god.
                                     Or
                                          whatever.

     ­                                     Whatever you think it means.



                            Katherine.

       The thing I don’t know, Marc
       is if I’m more scared that it was the plane
       or that it wasn’t.



       Imagine.
       Vanishing.
       Into thin air.

–              I know.

                            No, you don’t.
       Disappearing
                            into thin air
       Or falling
                            out of it.

–              Falling.

       You can’t imagine that.

–              I can.



–              I can, Katy.
                I ******* can
                                          Imagine.
       ­         Falling.
                Disappearing.
             ­   Into thin air.

                *******
                            i­nvisible.

                 I am
                           right
                          ­          ******* here,
                                                        K­atherine.

       I see you.
       I see you Marc.
       But you’re not
                            solid.

       I’m not
                            solid.
                          ­                              See?

                           ­                             It passes
                                                          ­     right through.

       Now you see me.
                                   Now yo–



v. 2015

Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
The hotel room here in Singapore is almost identical
to the room I had in Mexico City.
The heat feels the same and it’s the same
nondescript decoration
which doesn’t really belong to any time or culture.
It gives me a headache. The neutrality of it.
As I check my messages I remember
                                                        ­       I’m not in Singapore.
I’m in Kuala Lumpur.
I haven’t been home for nearly three weeks now.
It’s ridiculously late
The IOC conference is at six thirty
              and I’ve been asleep all day.
                                   I get dressed and grab my camera
                                   and leave the hotel with a large, black coffee.
At the press call I see a man from Reuters I recognise.
       The coffee here is terrible.
I talk to him about his family
              his daughter is four now
              he’s shaved off his beard since I last saw him
              and he’s moving, he says,
                                                 near me apparently
                                                 to Southend.
                                                       ­               “London Southend” he jokes
                                                                ­      with a roll of his eye
                                                             ­         and inverted commas.
I say yeah that’s quite near me then move away to take a phone call.
Inside the press conference there are ten people at the table
       the women are all wearing identical powder blue suits which
       strikes me as idiosyncratically Asian for no good reason.
The men all wear simultaneous translation headphones
                                                      ­                but the women don’t.
I wonder if this is because they speak better English than the men
or if it just isn’t considered necessary to translate for them.
       They have given the Winter Olympics to Beijing.
              I wonder what is lost between the
              Mandarin spoken by the mayor of Beijing
              and the English spoken by the translator.
                                                     ­          The space between words.
                                                          ­     The space between looking left
                                                            ­                               and looking right.
It’s a nice atmosphere in the cool air-conditioned room.
I’m struck by how nice everyone is
       except for the British delegates
       including the man from Reuters who speculates
       that the voting was rigged.
A while later someone else calls it a “farce”.
              I get a photograph of the IOC President’s face
                                                            ­          as it falls
              and email it to my office from my seat.
Outside, the Petronas towers rise above the conference centre like
enormous empty silos.
This is my first time in Kuala Lumpur
                                          the last city I have to visit before I go home.
I get in a taxi and say the name of my hotel
                                          and the city flashes by.
I look out of the window at
the buildings as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                   or glide past
                                                        the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
Building after building
                            dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the buildings
                            as they pass.
The taxi stops and I pay seventeen ringgit and get out:
it has gone by the time I realise this is not my hotel.
I don’t know where I am but I was in the taxi long enough to know that I
am some distance
                            from the centre of the city.
I look up at the name of the hotel the driver has taken me to
and the English transliteration is very similar to the name of the hotel I am staying in.
       I go inside.
There’s a nightclub in the hotel
I order Glenfiddich
                            double,
                 ­           cut with water.
              not because I like it but
              because there’s something about scotch that feels
                                                           ­                         moneyed
              heavy amber liquid in heavy-bottomed glasses
              it helps me buy into this idea of the travelling businessman
              even though that’s a lie.
                                                        I’m just a man who takes pictures.
                                                       ­ And I want to go home.
I sit at the bar which is as long as my driveway.
I swirl my glass and watch the amber legs trickle down the sides.
A moving light above it hits the gloss black surface
with an open white like the early morning sun on my gravel
                                                          ­                   as I get into my car.
A girl from here, young enough to be my daughter, is talking to me.
She points out her friends and I half-wave, uneasily
and she asks what I’m drinking.
                                          A news alert on my phone says a piece of
                                          plane wreckage
                                          washed up
                                                        on Réunion
                                                        i­n the Indian Ocean,
                                   east of Madagascar and south of the Seychelles.
The girl seems nice. She says her name is Dhia
                                                            ­                 it means “glowing”.
She doesn’t seem to want anything,
certainly not ***;
her friends have disappeared so
                                          I dance with her.
As we dance I see something in her eyes that is at once
both young and
                     endlessly wise.
She has deep brown eyes exactly the colour of earth
and a small mouth which smiles brilliantly.
In the half-light they open up to me like pools
                                                 and I imagine
                                                         ­             swimming
                                           ­      in them.
Even though she’s only nineteen, twenty-one at most,
there is something about her that’s
                                          maternal
       ­                                   spiritual
                    ­                      nourishing.
She asks me what I’m doing in Kuala Lumpur and I tell her
I don’t know.
She asks me what I did today and I tell her I
                                                               ­              slept
                                                           ­           then took some photographs.
You’re a photographer, she says, and I shrug
then she leans into my ear and says
                                                        don’­t tell anyone.
What
       I say
and she says
              I’m a princess.
And I look into her eyes and she isn’t lying.
She says no-one is going to recognise her
but
       just in case
                            she isn’t supposed to be seen drinking.
Who would I tell
I say to her.
She grins and finishes her beer and it’s true
                                   no-one is looking at her
                                   but she’s the most magnetic person in the room.
In the taxi I say the name of my hotel extremely slowly
and the driver replies in perfect English
                                                         ­      yes sir, I know where you mean.
Kuala Lumpur ticks by in electric darkness.
I flick through the news as we drive
                                                 I see the photo I took this evening about
                                                 a dozen times
                                                 or more.
There is something bitter about the tone in all the British press when they talk about the Olympics
as if:
Beijing get to do it twice?
                                   What about us?
I think about a country with a quarter of the world’s population
and I think about the tiny little island I’ve come from
                                                        and I feel smaller than I’ve ever felt.
The aircraft wing that washed up in Réunion is from a Boeing 777,
they say.
The same type of aircraft as the one that went down last year.
The one they never found.
                            It was going from here to Beijing.
                            Last communication at 1.19am.
And it’s at
                     that
                     time
                     precisely
                                   my phone rings.
It’s my boss in London
she says the Chinese Olympic Committee
are scheduling press conferences.
                                                    ­    It looks like I’m going to Beijing.
Written 2016-2020.
Kiah Tomatz May 2013
flying is easy,
easy
i
think
minus crash landings that leave you to sink
but i was always able to fly
flying is easier than waving goodbye

they sang in choruses witty and bright
like airplanes across the ocean they flew
darling did you tell them?
darling don’t you see?
i’m a ship stranded at sea.
there’s no body to come rescue me

you were always too scared to fly

too well practiced at goodbyes.

so i’ll drown in this ocean
while you sit on the shore

always wishing we were something more.

— The End —