the thing about time

she won’t tell, but he will

oh, he’ll leave out the bruises 

& the fact that she refused,

make it conquest to his buddies

say she begged him

& that part is true

runner
what thought
keeps you going,
is it question
or answer
& do you hear it
still
between breaths
when the race
is done

this is a wind that cuts & claws

it is winter     bone-thin starving

& lashing out at its survivors

i read a story     today

that came down like a hammer

sent my own broken works cascading,     

words slipping from their pages

to flip and twitch there on the floor

just pretty dying things     useless

round mouths gasping in the air

fins pressing for remembered depths

within these four words

these four words within

four words within these

words within these four

when you return to parts of the city once lived in

it is memory you visit     that ghost city whose streets

do not always align with the real     whose buildings

have been uprooted leaving gaps     a broken smile

the landscape an ill-fitted glove      the coat you pull on

at the end of a party      only to find it too large and not

as you once thought     yours

general malaise the doctor told me and good lord, i thought, has anyone said that since queen victoria felt the same then grew incoherent in her speech and bled into her brain, but no perhaps it was an introduction made too late, my doctor’s undisputed rank as five-pill general his stethoscope a medal over his own purple heart now waging his campaign against illness, or is that happiness, after all his bedside manner has a little of the drill sergeant bark and excuse me sir but yes sir no sir i mean sir no sir i wasn’t talking back sir yes sir you’re the doctor sir it’s just that i was hoping sir for some orders that were a little less general, general sir and now i think the malaise might be spreading yes the enemy on the move sir and what can we do sir while we are pinned down here in our beds sipping soup sir morale is low and we need to know to proceed     general are you there    sir?

always perched 

above some change

looking down 

not even knowing

if i have wings

i’ve grown fur sleeping curled here in the den of my home

waiting for a restless spring to wake me with flowers

water & windows

the instruments

of rainy music

virus teach me

how it feels to

be a colony

& i     in turn

will teach you

the crush of

my rebellion

who was i

while dreaming

so far from myself

that i woke

remembering nothing

from either side,

my life seeping back

like a lesson

barely recalled?

you built a girl

    insubstantial from photos found

online     gave her quirks

imagined to be real

mannerisms to amuse     you

weaved lusty fantasies

of meeting      her

    this invented one

in cafés     forests

& later to bed

the hotel’s or     hers

      your plastic girl’s

your own room just too

real     too full of stains     

too grey     with dirty-sock     

reminders that     she

    the real one

    the one you do not know

is alive     out there

has pimples at times

shaves armpits     eats

too fast at dinner

has friends     complains & 

does not love

you

        does not have to

on a night

so white

who 

could imagine

darkness?

what price is fun when the mountain beats and bruises,

but no matter     i will kiss the ripening colours of your skin

until they grow pink & we slip into the safer valleys of sleep 

there is a memory in the body

etched somewhere in muscle

     for writing old phone numbers