There is a peculiar comedy to rubbish
Drawing from us capital
A rat race to refusal
Of extinction
We are all here, criminal
Making trenches to hide the nuance
That folds us into animal
We are all here, origami children
Hemmed in at the edges
Becoming nuisance
All bring crushing impact
With a grudge to hammer home with.
Needing no rehearsal to contradict
As we lay inside this labyrinth, the matrix
Bourne by identities.
In short, we are addicts
Living at the tip.
poem
Bogus pedestrian
In another dimension I was a bogus pedestrian
Lacking flesh
A mere idea at the whims of flow
From creative rivers seeking verdict, a memorandum
Anything to glean what it quenched to know
Maps of hate
The underworld Twists and trawls
Tearing at the strands that thread our masks
A beast Writhing in the crowds amassed
Hatred prowls the tips of Tongues
And the grey man with a yellow grin
Gathers the squall
We bear witness, this shift of fate
Criscrossing new maps to the temple of infernos gate.
Pink Fiasco
Plumes of nascent rumour dispersed by a breath of wind
Whispers abuzz with pollinators.
Straggling the walls, you bloomed
pink fiasco blush.
Detritus & Rain
The clouds loomed low from the clothesline
hung out to dry
An omnipresent dread preached a pregnant silence
holding us awry
whorls smeared windows
trying to put our fingers on it
this thing amiss in our lives
the streets rustled with paper and plastic bags
time passing slowly, interminable
the roads wore a sheen reflecting traffic lights
nothing was astir but for white cloaks of bags willowing on the air
with long fell swoops arching as a bird
flying on the wings of an impenetrable blur
a predator in concert
a plastic pterosaur
before falling, inert.
Grief is a Crow
He’s the spirit of the greyest days
When he’s not perched on the mound
To watch the body go underground
Light glinting in his trickster eyes
He’s the jester of the skies
Sometimes, he is grief
Spiralling from the clouds
Hearts beating with the beat of his wings
Heavy is the black cloak and gown
Something sweeping us
From bare remembrance
To make us look up at the stars
While we bear our reverence
He’ll make us laugh in spite of our severence
Catwalking down the runway
With chic elegance
Feathers softening the senselessness
Grief is a crow
And crow is benevolence.
Old boot
We felt ourselves hapless victims of childhood
arms folded, sulkin’
not another five minutes to play
gotta go back to school on Monday
childhood didn’t fill our boots
so we outgrew them quicker than we meant to
I’d already been under the scalpel
chest wide open with the swirl of finger tips in gloves
digging to the heart of the matter
then sewing me back up in blue
like blue laces
knotting up my chest
the place where secrets get kept
I worried they’d seep through
now that I was a boot
what if I wasn’t weather proof?
the rain would fall and the soul of my socks would squelch
I heard the other kid died in surgery
I wondered at that, but not for too long, because I was young
but it left it’s mark
I grew up with bubblegum breath
and a sheen of tears
’cause the other kids said I was weird
I played on the street after school
I thought my friends back home thought I was cool
which was a different aspect to what I knew
in that place of learning
but they got pulled up by their ears
soon saw me for being weird
and that was that.
I felt a discarded boot
a bullseye only a target to shoot
so I ran in the woods to the river
skipped stones and became greener than my roots
Fox cub huskie terriers
Me mate strolls in says, ‘They pack thee fannies over’t pond’
he’s ever a husky if ever he were a dog
he whines and howls like one
i’m a fox cub already battle worn
hounded down by men in flatcaps from’t conservative club (me da’s mates)
‘What ya on about now?’ I glare ‘im down
‘Woman on tele asked where ‘er fanny pack was!’
‘Bumbag’ me da said over’t newspaper
‘Bumbag t’ you too!’ me mate replied, candy fresh smile broadened his cheeks
‘Now you little…’ me da started, the newspaper all rustle and bustle in his huge paws
‘Ya git on outta ‘ere ‘fore I gi’e ya mother a reason…’
He needn’t finish that sentence
me mate ran out howling as he meant to prowl
the street wouldn’t ‘old him
ever a terrier in his blood
ran up the ginnel up to the woods
he ‘ad scent on a fox
trailed it to our den under a dense canopy of trees and bushes
he pushed a glacier mint into his maw
and I ran in breathless after ‘im
‘A shouldn’t’ve called ya da a Bumbag.’
”E don’t care. Jus’ wanted us out of ‘is ‘air’
we sat in’t den and scribbled our names in dirt with twigs
when paper mill siren blew it’s horn
we ‘unkered down as if it were’t blitz
mud on us faces
films we’d seen on little screens played in our ‘eads
anyone passing by was soldiers not merely men
we ‘ushed ourselves with sweets and glacier mints
we felt alive, animal, primal
a fox’s den, territorial
we didn’t know war
just the mood of cubs hidin’
wild eyes ablaze
licked clean by mums
a wilderness still alight in us.
Algorithm’s mutants
A wild beast scrambled
The writhing of discarded pieces
worming their way into the periphery
picassoesque faces
grotesquing beauty
the eyes of luck impervious
to our talismans
transparency smudged
with the swirl of fingers
pulling our jaws from their hinges
the art of a horror show
agape on the dials of our features
metamorphosing into Dr Algorithm’s mutants
Scuttlebutt
The bees buzzed the latest scuttlebutt of the land
petals a quiver with all the critters
creeping and crawling
the buttercup highway
The sun gleaned the morning
bursting forth rumour of a hot day
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