When the force is strong enough to move us
we move to make our feelings heard
in a way to satisfy our breathing
to make the moment significant
after reading about it
I just want to sit in zazen all day
but I won’t today
we have work to do
and this will be our time
to move through a million thoughts
throw the waste away
build new
build now
breathing in and out
in this darkening season
encased in sleepless joy
wake up to banish fear.
And so the wind wont blow it all away
we shoulder into it
along the sand swept coast into our unknown forever
four boys moving in and out of life
against a force stronger than us
the sand whipped up in a smooth curve against the lip of the esplanade
we love being together
can’t stand being apart
cluster like the grains against each other
hot coffee against dark hearts
this trip will stay inside these words
it will help to hold them safe
which is all I ever wanted to do for you.
Farmers’ Market
Writing to survive writing to stay alive to stave off intensity
you put a stick in the shit and sent it
you put up with life’s admin
yes no sense because it ran off
you live in a
chaos of words
in the night dance daily
lifting sighing breathing
stalk DNA
drug test countermeasures
the struggle is moments away
regional police force
do not have the manpower
to fight these levels of criminality
festering in the margins
of a burnt out welfare state
what hooks hold us up
no dynasty to connect with
walking the phone to work
a life’s worth of direct debit follows you around
like a magpie in the periphery
trying to catch those shiny moments that gleam off centre
make it all worth while
go college get knowledge
I’ve got ADHD and maybe Autism or a combination of the both
if I could rent them out I would
like trestle tables at a country fayre
slap a massive pumpkin on the forehead
work the vegetables make them pay
pickles and punches produce for sale
spiced apple chutneys lined up and labelled lovingly
go for a run now
don’t look back.
'Capitalism is the virus'
Under the low concrete roof of the bridge in a shelter the shape of a triangular coffin. Sealed in a secure dwelling. Goodnight to the world. Edge-land sanctuary make daily forays across the marsh. To claim a place in the world. You wouldn’t know the anxiety and the necessity to alleviate it in order to live. Fresh daily produce market nearby. The virus is in the water. Survival instinct kicks in. Everyone like this looks worn out. Just existing is not enough. Is it? Life so precious to us, we spend millions to save lives. Yet so many lives are a living death. Autumn’s chill brings dead leaves at the onset of winter. Transition seasons hurry us along. Remind us of what we all share. Birth and death and re-birth, maybe. Move the pieces around the board in a clever post-modernist dance; that reveals the mysteries of modern life. And how the privilege of money and health can only go so far in the explanation of it all. The virus makes us sick, it makes us doubt ourselves and most of all it renders us helpless. Once in this state we are captive; held prisoner by economic binds that allow us just enough to keep going, to feed the machine that makes us sick. All critical resistance must be nullified and culture must be reduced to consumer distraction. Sounds old, because it is. It just got more refined. So smooth now that it is barely distinguishable from Ordinary Everyday Life (OEL). But we can resist, we must. Resistance is internal, ideological, individual. You matter, you exist. Keep breathing.
Let go of the horrors today.
Real or not, they just don’t help.
Moving forwards with grace and dignity.
The power is in us all.
To be kind.
It’s not wrong to feel joy.
Let it flow through you.
Sarcasm and irony are old hat.
We all make mistakes.
Yes the world is going through some difficult times.
But when has it not?
We try and we try.
And that is a life lived.
Garden of Infinity
The cac cac cacophony of a magpie, temperate, humid dawn of grey clouds closed curtains uncertainty everywhere life skills should be a qualification
you failed
sorting through books you fell
into the world’s word
unleashed
a fantasy model of yourself
it went of roaming for years and now it’s come back
an itinerant lodger parcels papers packages
strewn across the library floor
in this repository of the imagined nation
memories of expeditions float downriver
hacking through thick brush
corpulent bubbles rising giant catfish whiskers
hog weed and periwinkle line the banks
fronds brush against the skin
leaving scar tissue that reacts to light
you are completely alone now
they let you go
movement in the other room
shuffling strike out for action
there is much to be done
much to be gained in the doing of it
In the green folds where we lay
star light from creation reflects
base ideas that explode in the sky
at once jettisoned and refused
real pain diverts from faith
in essence to revere night vision
we looked at the Hubble at its shining future
peeling back invisible light
to behold our essence
in machinic grace
the long extending arm of love
reaching through a hole in the cosmos
to pull us back to love
