Where to begin?
Where does one begin at times like these?
Watch the lines and marks scratch themselves across the page
tracing time for a thousand moons.
The blues stir dull aches and alarms
in the lower spine of an anxious heart.
The wind leaves in the bushes and a hooded shadow
guards a cracked window.
The sands of memory whirl outside
scattered amongst the dust.
Amongst thoughts between hairlines
and streaks on the membrane,
I wait within my skin for the bell to ring.
I feel as tired to die and alive to sing
on any given day.
Clouds form,
rain falls
and the water is washed away with the sea.
Absolutely fantastic:
a page done, completed, certified, true,
a drop released now for the next,
hold tight, squeeze me,
squeeze myself and watch as the salt drains from my soul.
Get rid of the salt.
It‘s raining again,
it’s night-time,
a truck pulls up in the window
emblazoned with one word,
'TESCO'
I wonder what's inside;
men with guns?
Big black guns
nestling behind dark panes
thick enough to see,
wide enough to ride,
to suck on
hard,
when suddenly:
LOOK OUT! What’s that?
THUMP! And another!
CRACK! And another and another -
Check-shirted bodies
thrown out the back of the truck onto the wet road
as the rain slides down.
Imagine the images they must've seen.
I have seen things I cannot remember
let alone explain.
I once saw a graveyard in a foothill desert
speckled with wooden crosses
fretted with bones and flowers.
Oh! How the white peaks loomed,
how the white peaks loomed,
how the white peaks loomed.
