Tuesday 25 December 2012

bloodless

the room is edward hopper,
dusty sun beams shedding light
across the unmade bed.
i pin myself against the
shadow crucifix
created by the window frame
but there is no stigmata,
only the gentle cushion of the pillows
and the tousled, slept-in sheets.
across the road,
the bright white church stands
tuesday quiet
as i lie in patient, painted nostalgia.
armageddon, i am waiting. 

atrophy (for JW)

you lie in green silence,
a paused VHS -
still but still flickering.
your skin
like snow
flakes
ever
so
gently
falling down
graceful
and cold
to melt back into the world.
i hope that you are dreaming, not just dying.

infinity condensed

through this lens the night is blurred
and there are pixels where the stars should be -
infinity condensed and smudged
by technology's myopic eye.
there, beyond the ill-defined darkness,
lie planets and galaxies
uncaptured and uncharted,
solar systems snapped with imprecise wonder
to be uploaded as instant nostalgia.
but i recall the real reality of old
lying with my arms out in a daze -
"staring at the stars through an ocean haze" - 
and joining the dots of all the gods
that hid behind them then
and hide behind them now.
are you, too, still there that new year's eve
when we were in your parents' garden
with empty beers
and a bottle of wine
and much older hearts
than our teenage minds?
the wonders of the skies,
stretched out tight around us,
seemed well within our grasp.
little did we know,
when held inside our palms,
we'd render them redundant.

drone

above its piers, three tiers of traffic
tear through brooklyn heights
where elevated eyes stretch towards
manhattan's wounded skyline.
it stares back defiant.
beneath the sunstruck promenade
the rush of trucks and cars
- a driven drone of restless lives,
all engine noise and toxic fumes -
is an exhausting sea of calm,
an infinite endless murmur.
across the water,
vertical ghosts shimmer blue and white.
impossible, then, to now not think
of tumbling towers
crumbling to dust,
rising and reaching
and clouding this picturesque platform
with dark grey smoke and distant sirens
and the putrid stench of burning flesh
and apocalypse death.
so take my hand, my love, and let us sit
and wait and wait and wait
and watch the world burn down.

bloody mary mornings

the page won't turn itself
but you can't turn it either,
holed up in a hotel
in the city where you lived once.
you drank yourself to death last night
and tried to talk to god
but you don't know what was said.
there's just the trace of a half-remembered smile
from a half-forgotten life.
but those bloody mary mornings
when you slow-danced with the world
on sunday-quiet streets -
you'll never get those back.
and 3 o'clock is morning
and 3 o'clock is night
and 3 o'clock is always on your mind
but 3 o'clock will never be again.
beyond the window,
the city is silent.
you lie awake
and listen to the years pass by.