It was a cold night for a concert. There was frost on the windscreen as we got into the car for the short drive to this city church. We drove because we were going to be late, and it was cold, and would be likely to be colder still when the concert was over. I had wondered if part one would be enough. Could Bach and Rameau be enough? Might the musical appetite cope with Mozart and Beethoven too? Were we about to sit down to a large meal, possibly in the wrong order. Can the cheese course be a transcendental experience I wondered? Bach to begin certainly, a substantial starter with one of the mid period keyboard toccatas and two ‘distant’ preludes and fugues, but then a keyboard suite by Rameau?
 
When I listen to Beethoven though I want to hear a work on its own, unencumbered round about with other musics.  A recent experience of several hours driving to hear a single Beethoven symphony has remained close and vivid, and an experience that brought me close to tears. So I imagine that I might only hear Op.110 to make that opening sequence of chords so ominously special. The introduction seems to come from nowhere and does not connect with musical past, except perhaps the composer’s own past. It is as though the pianist puts on a pair of gloves imbued with the spirit of the composer, and these chords appear . . . and what is there that might possibly prepare the listener for the journey that pianist and listener embark upon?  Certainly not the soufflé of Mozart’s K.332.
 
The audience is hardly a smattering of coats, hats and grey hair. There is another piano recital in town tonight and this is but the artist’s preview of a forthcoming concert at a major venue. Our pianist is equipping herself for a prestigious engagement and sensibly recognizes the need to test out the way the programme flows in front of an audience, and in a provincial church where she is not entirely unknown. I admire this resolve and wonder a little at the long-term planning which makes this possible and viable.
 
Now a figure in black walks out from the shadows to stand by her piano. Coming from stage right she places left her hand firmly on the mirror-black case above the keyboard. She looks at her audience briefly, and makes a bow, almost a curtsey, an obeisance to her audience and possibly to those distant spirits who guard the music she is to play. We will not see her face again until the next time she will stand at the piano to acknowledge our applause after the Bach she is about to play. Her slightly more than shoulder-length hair is cut to flow forward as she holds herself to play; her face is often hidden from us, her expression curiously blank. Perhaps she has prepared herself to enter a deep state of concentration that admits no recognition of those sitting just in front of her. Her dress is long and black with a few sparking threads to catch the careful lighting. Without these occasional glimmers her ****** movement would be unnoticeable. As it is the way the light is caught is subtle and quietly playful, though not enough to distract, only remind us that though in black she is wearing the kind of starry sky such as you might perceive in crepuscular time.
 
Thus, we already sense so much before she has played a note there is a firm slightly dogged confidence and reverence here in her approach to instrument and audience. And in the opening bars of the Bach toccata that is manifest; and not just a confidence born out of some strategy against nervousness, but a ritual of welcoming to this music that now spills out into the partially darkened church. The sonorousness and balance of the piano’s tone surprises. It is not a fine piano, but it has qualities that she seems to understand. There is a degree of attentive listening to herself that enables her to control dynamics and act resolutely on the structure of the music. When the slow section of this four-part toccata appears there is a studied gentleness and restraint that belies any ****** led gesture or manner. Her stance and deliberation at the keyboard remain determined and in control, unaltered by the music’s message. She does not pull her body backwards as seems the custom with so many who feel they have to show us they are stroking and coaxing such gentleness and restraint out of the keyboard.
 
As the final fugato of the toccata flows at almost twice the speed I’ve ever heard it, my concentration begins to disengage. It is too fast for me to follow the voices, I miss the entries, and the smudged resonance of the texture hides those details I have grown over so many years to know and love. This is Glen Gould on speed, not the toccata that resides in my musical memory. I am aware of missing so much and my attention floats away into the sound of it all. It seems to be all sound and not the play of music.
 
In this stage of disengagement I sense the tense quality of her right leg pedalling with the tip of a reddish shoe just visible, deft, tiny flicks of movement. She turns her face away from the keyboard frequently, looking away from the keyboard through the choir to the high altar; and for a moment we see her upturned face, a blank face, possibly with little or no make up, no jewellery. A plain young woman, mid to late thirties perhaps, and not a face marked by children or a busy teaching life, but a face focused on knowing this music to a point at which there is almost a detachment, where it becomes independent of her control, flowing momentarily beyond herself.
 
Then she reins the toccata in, reoccupies it; she is seeking closure for herself and for her audience whose attention for a short while has been, as the Quakers say, gathered. Gathered into a degree of silence, when breathing and the body’s sense and presence of itself disappear, momentarily, and musical listening moves from a clock time to a virtual time. There is a slowing down, an opening out, even though in reality’s metronomic time-field there is none.
 
There is a hesitation. With more Bach to follow, should we applaud? With relief after holding the flight of time’s arrow in our consciousness, just for those concluding minutes and seconds we acknowledge and applaud - the beginning of the concert.

In a museum, or forgotten barn,
A small red twelve inch two wheeler
Hangs on invisible wires,
Or is covered in pigeon droppings and dust.
But Tannehill rode it once,
Like something in a dream.
He was too long-framed for it.
He controlled it, rounded the corner,
Pedalling hard down the sidewalk,
Across the street from our new house.
I gawked from the front yard:
He was a boy with his bike,
Like The ****** on T.V.
It was the first I learned to ride,
And the falls were magnificient,
On grass or asphalt.
Girls' bikes were easy,
One size fits all.
Then I learned to pedal
Beneath the cross bar of the big boys'.
Push the pedals,
Shift the midrift, and be gone.
Always from somewhere
To somewhere else,
Far from the soft front lawn.

He almost let out a sigh of dismay,
Knowing this stint would be short lived.
The common sense in his head seemed to say,
"No one could be this lucky, don't have yourself deceived".

His wheels wobbled and shook; squeaked and wailed,
Under the collective weight of the two.
Screaming threats from worn bearings that ailed,
He did not want to appear weak so his legs pummelled on through.

The ease of cycling was only temporary
He pedalled harder to gain more speed.
Then the ground began to ***** gently
His lungs felt like bursting as he pounded his iron steed.

The journey uphill had been more laborious than he had expected.
All the while, the beauty hadn't uttered a single word.
His mind had drifted off even though he was worn and ragged,
The thought of emerging as a couple seemed less than absurd.

The crest of the hill was a cool, long anticipated welcome.
He could finally ease up on the pedalling.
The view from there was nothing short of handsome,
The downhill would take charge and he could catch up on his breathing.

The wind met his face and whistled itself tuneless.
The bicycle rattled as it rolled down the uneven trail.
He felt a sense of flight, there was an air of calmness,
Almost had forgotten about the quiet guest on his tail.

At the bottom he thought he should check on his passenger,
He looked ahead as he addressed the lady.
When he had expected an almost immediate answer,
No response came, despite his calls for her repeatedly.

He pedalled with little effort as if there wasn't added weight
The bicycle slowed down to a clearing where it was dim.
Fatigue was setting in as the night stretched late
His curiosity won the battle and got the better of him.

He stopped his bicycle and maintained balance with his feet,
He twisted his torso so he could speak to his fare.
The moment he did so, his heart had almost ceased to beat,
To his horror, he found that the lady was no longer there...

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.

Bike
tryke
unicycle

Pedalling
with both feet
and no hands
-gaudy helmet
for safety-

Still inevitable
the blackness and
scratches of
pavement

Ride or die

He motioned for her to take her place on the back.
He braced himself steady as she slid herself onto the rack.
Once she had settled, he handed her his gunny sack,
He told her keep it safe as he tackled the offbeaten track.

The night was quiet, save for the crickets chirping in unison
Hiding behind the clouds, the moon gave out a dim ominous glow.
The tapper finally felt a tiny sliver of trepidation
He wasn't sure of the outcome, that night would eventually show.

The whole time, he was thinking in his busy little head...
He tried to devise ways to thwart this playful, mischievous being.
But those thoughts of his were quickly derailed instead.
For her perfumed presence was very much intoxicating.

Soon they had arrived at the foot of the hill
He hastened his pedalling to meet the uphill *****.
He would have continued slamming on the pedals until...
He felt her hand on his shoulder clench into a tight *****.

He tilted his head back towards his beautiful passenger.
In a calm manner he mouthed the words asking, "What's the matter?"
Her voice came right after in a nervous stammer,
*"Would you mind slowing down because last night this was where I had fallen over..."

The peacocks were behind wire
the sun warm
cloudless sky
and Monica had ridden

beside you on her bike
knowing her brothers
were out with the older brother

you not knowing had gone
to the farm house
to meet them
o they’re out

their mother said
didn’t they tell you?
no they‘d not

you walked to your bike
and got on
where you going?
Monica asked

don’t know now
you replied
I can ride with you

wherever you decide
she said
her mother
hands on hips said

don’t go bothering Benedict
he doesn’t want no girl
hanging on his tails

he don’t mind
Monica said
looking at you
her big eyes pleading

don’t mind if she comes
you said
giving the mother

a smile
if you’re sure
she said
and walked back

toward the farmhouse
her backside moving
side to side

in her flowery dress
and you watched
until she had gone
sure you don’t mind

me coming?
no I don’t mind
you said

where we going then?
the peacocks again
o I like them
she said

climbing her bike
foot on the pedal
ready for the push off

her sandals open toed
bare feet
the off white skirt
contrasted

with the mauve top
her hair dragged
into a bow

at the back
ready?
sure am
and you rode off

along the track
from the farmhouse
into the lane

between trees
and hedgerows
she followed at your side
keeping up

her eyes seeming
on fire
her hands gripping

the handlebar
white and pink
and the small fingers
holding on for dear life

her legs up and down
pedalling
you felt the wind

in your hair
through the open neck
of your white shirt
pushing down

the jean covered legs
up and down
the lane narrowed

then widened
there they are
she called
the peacocks

she dismounted
and laid her bike
against a tree

and ran to the wire fence
and peered through
you put your bike
by the hedge

and walked over
to where she stood peering
her eyes bright

and fiery
how comes the *****
are bright and colourful
but the hens are so dull?

she asked
that’s how it is
in the bird world

you said
hens are just dull
I’m not dull
she said

holding the wire
with her fingers
making noises

at the birds
am I?
she said
looking at you

beside her
no you’re not
you said

nothing dull
about you at all
I’m like a peacock
she said

bright and beautiful
aren’t I?
sure you are

you said
you peered
at the strutting peacock
nearest the wire

out of the corner
of your eye
you saw Monica

nose inches
from the wire
call to the bird
her lips pursed

and opening
and closing
her arms soft

and reaching up
I’m a peacock bird
she said
her arms in motion

like wings
her hands flopping
above her head

her feet in dance
stepping
and dancing in turn
you watched her dance

and twirl
Jim and Pete’s sister
the peacock girl.

R.J Calzonetti


Screaming cross the skyscraper’s windbreaker tapering

Aether vapour- trailblazing ****-sapien wafers

Of machinations psychotropic doppelgängers

Aristotle throttling menagerie’s philosophically hypnotic obelisks

Mind-boggling astronomical chronological esophagus

Antioxidants phosphorus catastrophic mitochondria

Beyond anaconda onomatopoeia

Of hallucinogenic Armageddon biblical umbilical cords

Swarming northern lights of aurora borealis

The chalice a battleground of Evangelion belladonna

Metalica candelabra swallowing the monochrome Hanukkah

Of a cold winter’s eldritch disintegration photosynthesis

Of innocent infinity stretching wretched beckoning requiem

The words that fall upon my page, are really just a shallow grave

Of the dawn of nighttime in my eyes, calm upon the twilight sun

Wrong is done draped on the blood moon wraiths

Skyscraped fields dusk a hollow thud below the dunes

That thumps the consumption of our fate, fumes to glow in darkness loom

Left blind in light of day you cannot see, the little pieces silver sheen

For blinding light may fade to grey, and I will never have my way

Nightfalls on another daybreak, dawning darkness, sundown on another day

Twilight plays with sparkling haze, the sky a wildfire made ablaze in patchwork scarecrows

Who etch rainbows black as a heart of coal, sold flatlining railroads

Gold wraithlike halos of stained-glass cathedrals unreal in the fever-dream of human beings

Bleeding Elysium from the seabed of dead worlds, gourds of incorporeal cornucopias

Born orchestra morsels of sorrowful oracles predicting crucifixion of ellipsis’ antithesis


(MC) Aurora


Absonant  as my pen writes the twilight, the red swallowed on horizon and bright

As through a sea of blood under my feet and shrinking mast of my mighty ship

A shadow I make on that red snow and peep into my heart’s hollow

It’s deep as much as my pen spake of grief.

I blinded in that last light and hurled like a beast dreading the songs of holy lies

That have just pained in bright and made me grieve.

They dragged me on my wings and deplumate  me as so fallen humans

They wrenched my limbs and rive my heart out and flinger me in air and I laid forever

On the stones that dank my blood.

I wait for the troth  of  demise but betrayed as it didn’t come to detract,

I laid when the horizon grinned red on my face and poured the last ale

And brutally drank the last sip of me.



R.J Calzonetti


People are sleeping under the blankets of a tranquil streetlamp

A sunflower in the damp bed of concrete

Soon they’ll be pushing up daisies

Underneath the foundation of what I stand for

Nip the bud of the flower pedalling the root of all evil like fallen leaves

Breeding paraplegic freedom from the pollen melancholic

Anarchistic polycrystalline shapeshifters drifting vilified

Buried alive like asphalt constellations crowning metallic gallows alcoholic in my solitude

See the clouds bury the ground in half a heaven’s heartbeat

Limbo’s limitless abyss the photosynthesis of the sepulchral diablo

Revenants of redemption dancing with death

Evanescent in its bioluminescent crescent moon spooning illuminated illustrations

Of Himalayan mayhem cremated avarice of ethereal onomatopoeia unravelling catacombs in God’s palindromes

Homeopathic saplings decapitated in the dismembered September wastelands defibrillator

Invigorating the nightshade white wraiths plane-walkers of Apocrypha documenting entropy

Pent up sentience avenging the endless demigods of discombobulated proclamations nocturne graceless, octaves eldritch, evangelic

Elegant elevators to flights of staircases where the air is fragrant with the fragments of stagnant stained glass asterisks

Written gospels to masquerade hostage to the faith the man misplaced the sacred hate, the passageways of apathy apostrophe

Apartheid of serpentine survivors carving smiles on the sidewalks

Farming diamonds and their detox

Arming giants like a phoenix

Carnal nihilists with their secrets

Stardust quiet as the bleachers

Start defiant still a reject

Art discipled to our freedom

Shattered hearts pick up the pieces

Jigsaw puzzles, smothered treasons

Sow the seeds and **** the reaper

Even legions rhyme and reason

Tattered flags without a penance

Good men do not go to heaven

Buy your burden at 7-11

Your exit is the only the next entrance

Resurrection prepubescent

Asymmetric biomechanics

Anguish to be reprimanded

Megalomaniac in our sabbath

Living life is just a sentence

Psalms of seance death’s senescence

Baptize vengeance lest it ventures into heaven

Ventriloquist omniscience of rhythmic equilibrium

Earthly hurricanes reemerging insurgent as the sugarcane purgatory

Primordials metamorphosis contorting rigour Mortis oracles horoscope cloaked in cloaca hallucinations

Induced irradiated amalgamated retaliatory incorporeal chlorophyll

Born from the sorcerers' spell, the cathedral of doubt

The only darkness is within oneself, light shed within a holy shell

Isolation is a lonely hell, scythes of moonlight blight of bells

Nightingales fail to halo word of mouth

Enveloped in the clouds cast shadows hex

But resurrection cannot hide from the eyes of death

Fresh as babies breath

Rank as the body festers effigies

Bless the Nephilim the questions beck

And call for some god to collect the rest

Is there any answer?

Even growth can be a cancer

Lifeless corpses once were dancers

Devils waltz on top of canopies

Heaven’s hands have touched serenity

****** brands that crushed His enemies

Stained glass sanguine dismantled entropy

Calamity ran dry insanity dabbling in humanity

Unravelling the candy wrapper saplings of happiness

Pitch black irradiant dull edges sharpening archangels, darkness reincarnating

Blinding bioluminescent glistening abyssal rakshasa sarcophagus parting monarchies

Metamorphosis coruscating fornication immortalization Tartarean

Reverberating ****-sapien scintillating hurricanes palpitation circulating ricocheting oblivion

Shining crepuscular homunculus dully illustrious

Sunless avatars, mannequins of Abaddon stygian as fallen leaves on the breeze of Avalon Evangelion

Incarceration breeding Elysium’s jailors in the cathedral of double helixes

Bethlehem's’ new genesis of Lucifer’s crucifixion

Brighter than a fallen star

Mourning in the dark

Doppelganger apostles night stalkers of phosphorous

Pockmarked arcanum bloodstained in gravestone Salem

Where the braves’ halos dined on maelstroms alone

Heirs succeeding failures of the empty throne

Filled with nothings’ own

Brimming bound by Babylonian poems

Deus ex Machina's apocalypse coughing prophets of Samsara blossoming diabolic

Life is but a Holocaust

Death the moment God forgot

Breath the only psalm we sought

Kept within a hollow box

Shedding devils, angelic, lost

Finding metamorphosis


(MC) Aurora


A world often synonymous with beauty on the horizon,

Meet my eyes you mourned demon load the strength on thee.

Crestfallen light on your wrist burns down your girth

And you can plead, just plead your twilight sun.

Watch the dead sea swallow you in the salts of agony

And drown in the anguish, hundreds of angelic bloodsheds,

Press hold of the thumbprints on your throat, you can't roar.

Sore lugubrious melancholy aired atmosphere,

And downhearted souls dispirited dragons dragged along.

The sob grim hiding in a blue funk rusty smog choking wind,

The nyctophilliac animals howl long the cold-blooded love song

In your lungs and burn.

It's the twilight sun,

Just that twilight sun.

five years old.

a wobbling mass of uncertainty
perched haphazardly on a bike.
daddy holds me upright,
his strong hands refuse to let me fall.
pedalling, pedalling, faster and faster
a weight releases
at last, I'm flying.

six years old.

first day of first grade
I clutch onto my mom's hand
so many children, both familiar and stranger
letters, numbers, a line on the wall
a smiling teacher. I let go of her hand
sit in a green desk, grab a crayon
one last glance out the door
but she is gone.

ten years old.

suspended in the cool water
skis strapped awkwardly on my numb feet
a lifejacket rises tight around my neck
my mom behind me, holds me
right side up in a firm embrace
suddenly, a massive force
pulls me up out of her comfortable arms
through the deafening spray of the water
my mother cheers.
I'm gliding, and I've never felt so free.

sixteen years old.

my hands caress the steering wheel
dad's in the passenger seat
cautious, careful, I proceed
the open road ahead of us
we pick up speed, but then
a deer. his hand grabs my shoulder
my foot slams on the brakes.
I'll pay more attention when I'm driving alone.
we take a breath. we're safe.

eighteen years old.

I scan the crowd as I sit in
my crisp blue robe. my strange square hat.
no more unfamiliar faces.
just layers and layers of memories
blended on top of each other.
my name is announced
I stand up, cross the stage,
again, a mass of uncertainty.
again, awkward in my high heeled shoes
my dad holds my mom's shoulder
my mom clutches his hand.

once more, I'm forced to let go
in order to move forward.
a diploma replaces my mother's hand
crushing realization replaces my father's security
again, I'm flying
but things will never be the same.

c.l.c

She shuffled into the dull green room
Perched on the edge of the chair
Dressed black on black
Lace mantilla over a dark scarf
Black dress so worn that
the white threads were showing through

Face the color of the adobe
In the shadows
She did not walk in the sun

She clutched a rosary in her hand
It trembled as if from prayer with no sound
She called me mister
Never raised her gaze
Still focused on the rosary
I didn't want to
but I had to ask,
"What brings you here?
You seem so sad---"

Like a striking snake
She looked me in the eyes
Pupils hard black shiny
Thin tracks of tears run down wrinkled cheeks
"Mister, they said I must tell you everything
I must confess it all so you can help me"

Mumbling appropriate therapy stuff
I began to listen

"Miquello--quello--ah ah"
She spoke very fast
A story repeated many times
Still filled with pain and longing
"He was so beautiful, my boy
Only he would talk to me
Every day, he would tell me his stories
His time at school, what he learned
My hijo, he was so smart
He would hug me, kiss me
I can still feel his arms
Oh Madre de Dios!"

She bought him a new bike for his paper route
Every day she would walk out to see him come home
To see his face, to feel his happiness to see her

He was coming home just at sunset
She called out, "Miquello"
She saw him smile and wave
Pedalling home to her, excited
He never saw the truck that ran the light
Crushing his body and the new bike

She stood there as the sun set
Watching the ambulance, the police
The little crowd gathered
The officer came to the house
And saw her frozen there
Senora, Senora!!

She keeps his room as a shrine
Everything clean, candles burning
His picture on the dresser
His mangled bike next to the bed
She will not let anybody touch a thing

After the funeral mass
She went to the confessional
The priest told her God forgives
She said that she could not

Black eyes burning
She told me, "If I hadn't called out
If he hadn't seen me, he would be alive,
With children!"  Her thin chest shudders
"Besides, I loved him too much, Mister
God took him from me as punishment
I loved him wrong--malo, malo"

Black lace shuddering in silent sobs
"To **** myself is a greater sin
I'll wait to die--then I'll see him again"

In the quiet room all my empty words
Fall like dust in the emptiness
Silence stretching out to more silence
Her guilt to be resolved only by
Her own slow death.

In the morning
before the day gets too distracting
your piano’s at its very best.
 
Say Hello! to it with a scale or two.
Nothing quite like the harmonic minor
(in contrary motion – 3 octaves please)
to get its hammers hammering,
the pedals pedalling, and those
black and white keys
to skip under your fingers.
 
Bach today or shall it be Brahms?
Gershwin maybe, or just a little Grieg?
No matter what, they’re all your friends.
Nice people composers, no trouble to anyone.
All they do all day is sit in their studios
and dream about music.
Sometimes they write it down,
​carefully,
measuring every note and rhythm
​for your piano to play
before the day gets too distracting.

When you have low serotonin levels.
When you have low serotonin levels, exercise has never been more important. Unfortunately, all the shaking from said unknown anxieties doesn’t count.  So instead I usually find myself on a bike pedalling furiously away from all my problems.  Or I slip on a pair of sneakers and sprint away towards the greener side.
When you have low serotonin levels, sleep has never been more needed. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to come easy for someone like myself. For some unknown reasons, I can’t get my eyes to shut.  I can’t turn my brain off and my thoughts run wild.
When you have low serotonin levels, coffee has never sounded any better. Coffee seems to cause my shaking to simmer when for most others it would go out of control.  Nothing too sweet, just enough to trickle down my throat. Afterwards, it’s like the fog has been cleared.  The best of course is shared with friends on a cobblestoned street in Europe.  Watching people pass by with smiles on their faces.
When you have low serotonin levels, music has never been more relaxing. Suddenly, all the thoughts are drowned out by someone else’s worries. Instead of my foot bouncing anxiously up and down from nerves, there’s a beat.  If you can give me music to listen to, then you can hear the beat of that rather than the non-rhythmic beat of my anxious feet.
When you have low serotonin levels, friends are the light in a world full of shadows.  They allow me to laugh and smile.  They are what push me to not be afraid.  I talk to them, and suddenly I’m more myself than I have been in months.  I’m laughing, I’m smiling. I’m making jokes.  When I do cry, I have them to lean on.  And I’m forever in their debt.
When you have low serotonin levels, optimism is key. You have to believe you see.  Try and wake up and smile.  Love yourself and those around you. Laugh until your stomach aches.  Cry until a small river has been made.
These are the thoughts from an anxious worrier.
And I don't want to tell you. I don’t have to tell you. Things could be different and I could be somewhere else. But no. Instead I am here.
I don’t want to have to tell you. But maybe you should know.

Little ******* a rusty bike,
riding through the streets in light,
throwing papers for front doors,
greeting folk glad to the core ...
pedalling in a town in peace,
riding joyful with great ease.

Hey Mr. Wall! It's your ******* up friend!
I've cut her wide open; will she ever mend?
She came to me, tears streaming, but did I wish her well?
No, instead I freaked out and she said, "Go to hell"
So it's been quite some time since I talked to her last
And I know what she speaks of, that event in the past
When I said, "I've no right to hear all of your tales
You've med all that clear; but just tell me what ails!
You're closing the doors, all the walls are air tight
You said you'd say something, well, how about tonight?"
No response did she give, so I started to worry
So I texted her, back-pedalling this time with hurry
It was next afternoon when I got the reply
Another came later: "I was bit by a guy"
I replied with an "oh" and "How'd that go down?"
She said "After, he kissed me." And I started a frown
Then the frown turned to tears and I said "Well, that's neat"
She said "Yeah" and " 'night" 'cause I guess she was beat
Well, it went on like that: nights of tears, days of silence
Day after day I had thoughts of self-violence
The White Room* was no help, and venting no good
I was sure she had a new guy like I figured she would
I just wanted a clue for me to grasp tight
With no contact from her, I hugged my pillow at night
I would openly cry, and that bugged me to hell
Because it wasn't about me; was she doing well?
I felt like a ******* and so **** needy
I wanted to hear her and that made me greedy
But **** it I loved her and wanted to know
How'd I ***** up and make her hate me so
I wouldn't find out for a week and a half
From 11 to 23 and maybe you'd laugh,
But that time was torture and helplessness thrived
Into pools of depression, I stepped forth and dived
Because I missed her so much, even before all this started
And now I had opened my mouth and we parted
My shoes were the same my own sign of depression
Then she called to say goodnight; relationship regression?
I didn't know yet, but I asked her that later
I didn't force an answer like a high school debator
She didn't want to talk, nor was that up for discussion
But at least she responded and my heart did percussion
I wanted to clear this; what did I do?
How can I fix things so we were ok, us two?
I was starting to think, maybe I'd end it
Make a noose with a chain, hoped my body didn't bend it
String me up, say goodbye, leave her better without me
Then there'd be no more reason to trust, hate, or doubt me
But I knew that'd solve nothing, So I stopped all that thinking
Because I knew she wasn't well; like myself, she was sinking
Maybe she just didn't want me anymore
Maybe dealing with stupidity was too big of a chore
I talked to my father when he caught me crying
He said, "Send her a note. Let her know that you're dying
To hear her at least, but you've got the wrong cat.
I was a no one in school. So I'm not hip to all that.
But maybe if you drop a little 'How do you do?'
She'll reply in the like and start talking to you.
I don't know her too good, so I can't gaurantee
But that's what I'd do; I mean, if you were me."
I thanked him for the talk but it didn't really aid
Me in my mission, I felt like Doug Quaid
I wasn't sure what I'd done to get this girl ******
But unlike Doug and Melina, we had never kissed
I was so afraid we'd ended, that she was moving on
While I awaited her return, she was already gone
But this wasn't the case, as I found Sunday night
When she caught me off-guard and ended the fight
"You said something upsetting." She told me right then
"I'm not sure what it was, why you said it, or when
But I know it upset me and kinda made me mad
And what's worse is you said it when I was already sad
I couldn't speak for a moment; I felt like the devil
This new info took my stupidity to the next level
I whispered, "I'm sorry" and I've never meant it more
I hated that I caused her to be so **** sore
"I don't want to be mad anymore" is what she said
"And why I was mad has just slipped from my head
We talked for some minutes; about 32, I guess
I asked, "Can I call in the morning?" and she said yes
So I'm hopeful that maybe quite soon we'll be fine
And maybe there's still a chance that she'll be mine.

Mother Nature is a nihilist sitting with friends
Around a poker table in the dew drop inn
Playing Nasty Canasta and the loser draws a limb
On a voodoo hangman, the cut of her kin

The high-wire committee say she’s way out of line
So they’ve sent in a crack-team of their most earnest faces
To blow 40 shades of blue, red and lime
From the very corridors our Mother paces

She croaks through the smoke “the first sons a novelty
The rest are just relics of muscles unclenched
Too smart for their own good and that doesn’t bother-me
But the reaper is hungry and hustling for rent”

Lackeys line the lawn, flunkies on fleek
To cover the crack of her chunky cheeks
“To stake lives may well seem immoral and bleak
But to play for cash prize seems horribly cheap
For a Lady of her esteem”

But the crowd spoke, she hung up the wardens trunchbull
Left the skeleton key within reach of the cells
“They’ve aired their opinions and I’ve had a ****-full
Let the hungry ******* impeach themselves
I’m sitting this one out”

“And I’ll  hide, while my dead snake wriggle persists,
On Elba with hairy pits, freckled wrists,
Openly practicing romanticists
And other hapless things that can’t exist
In these times”

Every second Sunday, the search resumes-led
By a dawn-chorus of confetti festooned-plebs
She can dance the devils limbo cos she’ll not be presumed-dead
While we’ve Holy Grail Package Holi-vows to renew-said
The green eyed usher on the door

The newsstand screams “Mother Nature was a fascist
Sher natural selection was the **** manifesto”
And they’re pedalling placebo to the shell-shocked masses
While the editor shoehorns a scotch into his amaretto

Yeah the world has been orphaned and the orphans smothered
But go easy on her sordid soul cos that’s  our mother, after all

The sun sets and rises
From earth's perspective
Drink a cup of water
Wear the left shoe
Then the right sock
Put some lipstick on
Or shave the little prickling hairs
Go to school, to work
Come back
The light dies
Some die too, momentarily
Others try to
Until the void disappears again
Momentum
And the vicious circle has us all
Trapped, caged in between it's knuckles
Was it destined to be?
To go on
Try to change and the world rages against you
In the shape of a flame, with shattered sharpened teeth
Devoured and mourned
Tears are spilled above rusty tombs
Go back to where you came from
Or take another step into oblivion
Enter the darkness again
Or a room splashed by billions of suns
So many
That every little dark patch merges with each beaming corner
The hollows are hard boiled eggs
White
So shiny, so bright
So full of blankness
Blinded by the similarity
That looks like that looks like that
Luminosity rushes throughout the corneas
To the brains, travelling on neurons
Rush of brightness
Concussion
Loss of stability
A smirk, a wink
You die
No more probability
Everything drops to zero
And the sun rises again

I can still see Stan pulling his hair and
off there to the right, Oliver with his,
I can never remember if it was a bowler or a pork pie hat, but I kinda like that, like the haziness of a memory that comforts me, it's a
part of the comedy of growing up.

Once, like I was two or maybe three an eternity ago, on a trike, pedals and a bell, pedalling like hell was on nmy trail,
but
the word constituent, constituant, ringing in my head, must have repeated and said that word for hours and hours.

Mum Said, i had ABC, well that's waht it sounded like to me,

acronyms, CIA, RAC,CBI,

I went to the citizens advice bureau
the CAB, WHICH
if I really had OCD, would be the ABC, BUT YOU SEE the alphabet is what we get in tinswith tomata sauce and Mum OF course had the last
word.
They always do when you're two or maybe three.

We thought of us today as single cells
'Ciliating' across the universe of colour
under the coverslip of time; a microcosm
of pedalling plants or fettuccine of cells.

The hues of darkness are pink and bright,
in beach slippers tracing paths on glass,
and those springing Vorticella are flowers
we created in our fictions of science ...

But all possess a veneer bound
cytoplasm of affection, crawling like
Annelids across the void in a world
bursting in avatars of the invisible

or their transparent real selves
glowing like gemstones in the sky,
or simply opaque as we are, each
to the other under the play of light,

polarized views secreted within some
dark muddied pond, harbouring
the cells of love, shedding cuticles
of sorrow, laying the germ of tomorrow

or funneling delight in little green globes
that make food ... are food. We must be
blessed to be cytoplasm like them or cursed,
I don't know which, but it's all profound.

Run a hand along the arc and wooden edge and a splinter
leaves the grain
sharp, is the pain
marked by a drop of blood.

Pedalling fast two feet, two circular wheels
no hands, straight faced delivery,
no guts, no glory,  youth and temerity,
gravel bits where rubber meets the road.

Trembling hand, no two, follow softly,
the rolling of the satin surface, accepting,
pressing for more, hands directing hands
where to press in to the curve, yearning
becomes burning, so much to this learning
                                                        ­     curves.

Words are auspiciously chargeable, and none more so than dynamic.
One ought never find oneself to be compromising the feeling of seeing something
for the first time, the ambitions of a romantic imagination,
for the overtures of adulthood austerity. Nothing is as void, or
irredeemably defeated, as a desire to open oneself to holidays by the hour, open
only three times a year to the feeling of rich, warm neurological
flow of these feelings. But when you see it in someone, how do you let that someone
know what you think of them, and still be adult? Of course,
in repertory galleries and leafy city-outdoor sculpture museums,
at the bustling dinner tables of locomotive-speed European restaurants
and at times when liquid-crystal green glowing playlists
of sombre jiving guitars, drenched in wine, are most appropriate.
Thankfully, this way looks like a panel of canvas, broken up with obliques
of red. If not yet adult, I hope its playfulness will be enough; if poems are to be
dynamic like Juliette, then they need to learn to play, excitedly and secured.
  
In a fluorescent coffee cream glow of walls, in a Parisian
photography gallery I can’t say the name of— let alone
write—we are trapezing into Plossu’s dichromatic
vistas, leaning on the curb, the sand dune, and the rock.
You ask if I can hear the cicadas, the hum of Italian country in the heat;
when in this gallery, I could only hear the ultra incandescence of lights
percolating in the mezzanines, new clarity espousing with the knowledge
that Paris, and you, are both wonderful.

Yes it was when later, under a dousing of amber lamplight,
lying legs bent at the knee with poise, and their flurries we settled on a bedspread,
you stroking at the plexus curved round my libido, the cream top of two palettes,
me imaging brisk black leggings strolling gently over the tarmacadam,
the delta central to your collarbone and the breath from the valve in
your throat during a Latinate vowel.

Somewhere in this is included a constant sexuality and tempo, film reeled,
jazz drumming us on the back row of the theatre, touching for an instant,
noses, the distillation of character, and the glee with which
I can remember that Sheffield was good for an amble.
Somehow, lightly, we slept off modicums of speech platitudinising my fears;
and instead had pulses of an unfelt issue, which encouraged my
seeking of mythical and tautened realisations hereon.
The sound of your voice weaving reason was so nice, even the flyers
for life alterations didn’t turn up. (And they commonly do.)
Invariably first was your witticism and the red baubled trees,
hanging as the art lesson adventures of January children,
I was duly counselled on the court. And dually were your eyes,
obliquely there: sublime, looped, your irises were round, hypnotic,
like the bold city distilled in a noetic, emulsifying some trodden
exquisite foreground in the mind, the faint pathway of a childhood walk
wrapping me happy, and certainly pledging me warmth,
easily running a finger down the apex of my face in profile,
and pedalling breast stroke into expanses of memory pools,
dark hair tucked into a pink cap.

Should the memory continue to dive, meander and keep,
I would have it that it will usefully pacify me when I sleep.

I wish I were a bird
On the top of the world
Flickering my wings
Funding cushiony twigs
I wish I were a butterfly
On the sweetest petals I lie
******* the nectar
As I freely chatter
I wish I were a fish
Pedalling my fins
With fresh bubbles
And immortal fervour
I wish I were that innocuous kid
Rampageosly messing up barefeet
Denying distinctions via poor and rich
Indicating candid camaraderie
Towards his pals in poverty
Life would be pretty on the upswing...

Pedalling through the park
I pass dog owners,
maybe two or three

Arriving on the main road
with frequent passing cars
the wind gushing through my hair
entering the unsealed areas
of my clothing
and spreading around my skin
sending a cold breeze

Conversations flow from my Dad
As I answer in agreement
I loved how there was no one around
I can be cautious about
Oh how I sometimes wish
It was as simple as a morning cycle

(c.r)

The emergence of the concrete jungle
Epitomises the barrenness of life
Embodied by the disconnect from self
Back pedalling from the core
Whence it all began

A land filled with history beyond measure
Characteristic of the richness espoused by kings and queens
Manifested in the wealth of the gold and diamonds
Sacrificed for our progeny
How we seldom relish in the lushness of the land
Where the spirit dwell in the people
Choosing to toil into bare existence

Pedalling along singing a jaunty song
I cycled along the grassy way,
The air was crisp, the sun shone fine
And all the world was merry and gay.

The flowers bloomed, the bee danced happy
The poet in me dare says
Alas, i did not notice in the distance
The black bulls steely gaze

His amorous self had been denied
The love of the village cow
He was upset and wanted to vent
At the puny cyclist now!

God does his miracles
But they were not to be
For i did not pay heed
To the Beastly bovine running behind me

The bull made its move, Its horns charging clear
I knew not what hit me,
just lightning struck in the rear

The world went dark, the stars twinkled
I started eating dirt
I swore in holy anger
The poet in me was hurt.

But what chance do you take?
What do you explain, to an irate bull?
His pious wrath now sated
He watched me with an eye so cool

Never again do i take that way,
Nor do i sing the merry song
For an angry bull is worth the pass
For he can do no wrong!

Boring
took my bicycle
Pedalling...
on the way.... Girls College
Full of colour
Wow!!!
Human way of colouring..

Pedalled further
a beautiful garden
Full of colours
Wow!!
Nature way of colouring  

Pedalled further
a Bird Sanctuary
Full of colours
Wow!!
God way of colouring...

A lane that connected two extreme differences
One a shabby, littered covered entrance
Where scraps of rope doodled round lampposts
And trolley carts became abandoned aliens
With twirly wheels from mechano sets.
The smell of discarded waste and ash
Made one hurry forth pushing bicycles
Starting the downhill roll leading to Lyles Lane


Covered in a green canopy of trees
The air fleeing past as we gathered speed
Up the steeps and along the flats
Feeling the freedom of escapism
The lane joined the outskirts of the town
With the sublimity of the countryside.
Pedalling on six bicycles.


Love Mary

About me (isn't it all)

Old age is travel towards death, and I spend
the waiting time writing what I call alternative poetry
as I'm not fond of swanky poems full of adjectives.
I have published many books of poetry on the Amazon
and about 30 E-books each book is about thirty pages
consist of poetry and opinion and read by no one.
I have a catering education but what I know comes
from reading massive amounts of books and
newspapers, of a solitary figure, except my wife
have no friend (they are all dead) should she go
before my life would be no worth living.
Every morning I sit pedalling away on my stationary bike,
try to get in an hour, but it is like going nowhere fast.
I comment on what I read in the Guardian and on twitter,
like to read George Galloway's opinions, he is small
of stature, is a narcissist and should be careful not getting
to close to Russia, the bear has sharp claws.
I spend my time (if not wisely) by being active this because
boredom beckons when I have nothing to do.
In the evening I drink wine and fall asleep in front of the TV
I have always been a drinker, but dislike drunkenness.

I accompany my dark shadow...
(many hours before edge of night,
where twilight zone evokes night gallery),
and resumed walking a circuit
around perimeter of parking lot
today, a breezy temperate
twenty fifth of April two thousand
and twenty two, and perhaps
if regularly habituate myself
to said stroll physical endeavors
may one day find me to cantor or trot.

Yours truly realized modus operandi
to kombat (mortal) lethargy;
last year, he did stride rite
around resident parking lot area
(here at Highland Manor apartments)
then usually at approximately
19:00 hours each day
casually bumbling and ambling
one lap after another
counting one hundred and one,
one hundred and two,
one hundred and three...
coordinated with deep breathing
to distract self from repetitiveness.

Modicum of walking exercise
benefits this sexagenarian
in tandem yours truly began
burning ghee (my slang for calories)
while maintaining sitting position
placing each foot in strap
and pedalling lightweight machine
against adjusted tension.

Aside from strengthening leg muscles
choosing to while away time
by disciplining myself with former or latter,
both modes of physical fitness
also help keep anguish at bay
mental duress triggered
courtesy of property management
constituting: Zoftig, the warden
and maintenance man,
(a recent hire),
the first two whose invisible clutches

asphyxiate me and the missus
hounding us to keep
one bedroom apartment in shipshape order
and particularly to wipe away fruit fly feces
(cuz exterminator informed us
said itty bitty teeny weeny insect
breeds within their
yellowish gummy waste matter)
prompting us to Google search
senior low income apartment facilities,
spurring spurious query wondering
whether any anonymous reader
might be able, eager, ready and willing
to hand over keys to main lodging
including carriage house,
we would even settle for a dog house
or (in a manor of writing) Yukon
assign access rights to an excellent outlook.

Sense and sensibility concerning
the emotional fallout
brought about by sedentariness
(essentially affecting me to feel
glum, melancholy, and ruminative)
helped goad generic indigent solitary man
(practically self quarantined
his whole mucked up adult life)
hence not inconvenienced
when coronavirus COVID-19
wrought havoc and mayhem.

Just on the cusp of experiencing joie de vivre,
the triumvirate of Crooks and Quade
figuratively swoop down
to announce re: inspection
of apartment unit B44
whenever they deem appropriate.

Thus series of unfortunate events
(linkedin with bull limey
Lemony Snicket bro)
got sidelined nsync with
contracting a minor bout
with deadly Amish Flu
symptoms found garden variety
reasonable rhymer
bedridden feeling a little horse and buggy (ha),
incapacitated to craft signature poetry writing.

An honest to dog confession
regarding hiatus spewing forth
vociferous versatile vocabulary
mine words - worth their weight in gold
(told woofer I do not know), nevertheless
included perusing a gamut of reading material.

The passion to engross intellect
witnessed courtesy immersing
attention, concentration, excitation
gratification, intoxication;
knowledge prized more precious
than fine spun gold.

Likewise crafting (albeit painstakingly)
elusive notions that flit
to and fro hither and yon
(analogous to ping pong ball)
within parameters of
microscopically crenellated
sixty plus shades of gray matter
also constitutes fervent interest.

One boy told me

'you can ride a bicycle
In a wonderful street
But it will not lessen
Your loneliness.'
The other day
He was there
Carrying newspapers
Fixed to the carrier
And me on the opposite
Pedalling slowly.
One of neighbour of him
Informed me
He was an orphan
like you.
He was right.
We use mediums
To keep moving on
But we need people
To go on smiling.

my soul barely sings
it rasps uneasily
like geese slowly lifting up
across murky water
webbed feet pedalling
on a wind rippled lake

hidden in the dark
folds of the city
nature squeezed
between concrete slabs
peeping out as weeds
or a scavenging ginger fox

beyond the disposable
plastic landfill routine
life thirsts and splutters
a ****** straw
in an empty pastic cup
rattling the final drops

in my dreams I have heard
celestial choirs
fanfares for men
framed in golden wreaths
too high for my grasping
hands to reach