Native

We got separated at the station.

She boarded an almost full bogey and the doors closed behind her.

I took the next train and her hand found mine on the platform a few minutes later.

She had missed me and I was pleased.

Hand in hand we walked to her parked blue van.

A few moments later we were driving down the narrow winding streets.

Trying our best to interrupt the longing looks with witty banter.

It felt great to be back.

She fumbled with one hand in her messy bag and pulled out a little device, put a tiny straw into it and said “Pull gently”

As I did,the tiny straw came loose and my mouth was filled with the strange pink and purple fluid. 

It tasted sweet and my mouth began to crackle and pop.

She looked at me,scared and curious at the same time and I was beginning to feel warm and wonderful.

She said we must get off the road and took me to a cafe where a few of her friends were sitting on a bench, playing with their dog.

As they talked I could feel myself drifting.

She looked at me and smiled with all the love I had ever felt.

“Come with me” she said and gave me her hand.

I followed her up the stairs to the first floor of this strange place.

There was a man behind the counter who I then came to know was her father.

He seemed kind but stern and she whispered something into his ear.

“Follow” he said and beckoned me down the hallway.

And though I didn’t want to leave her side, I couldn’t refuse him.

I found myself in a room with all sorts of strange people.

Talking to themselves.

Talking in pairs.

Doing little tasks.

I discerned that they had all  taken what you would call…a heroic dose.

Of anything.

As had I,

I was beginning to realise.

I walked to the end of the room and sat on the armchair beside the window.

The only empty seat available. 

Right onto a handful of empty plastic syringes that poured on the floor like many little dead fingers.

The room laughed.

And I felt quite stupid.

There was a sick mangy dog on the table in front of me that stopped biting itself and began to growl and bite at my hands.

 I knew that I was meant to convince the dog to stop.

A little test maybe.

I truly believed I could

With all my being and in a forceful meaningful tone I said “Stop!”

And it did.

I found a book to read.

About a conversation between two madmen,

Trying to convince the other that they were there to help…

Through parables.

The book seemed confusing and I closed it as a man walked through the door,slowly shutting it behind him.

Part scientist,part babysitter in a tweed jacket.

Clean shaven and clinical, he seemed to be running the room and the only one not on anything.

Our eyes met and his attention turned from the man he sat down across from,

To me.

I had my pen in one hand and the book in the other.

“You seem to be full of words” he said jokingly.

I looked down at the contents of my hands and chuckled in agreement.

“I am a bit of a wordsmith” I replied.

“You have been quite quiet for a wordsmith”

We were now in conversation.

“Well, we tend to hold on to them until they are formed into something quite beautiful “

“Tell me,when did you get so calm?” he asked as he pulled his chair closer to me.

“I attained a deep calm in my soul a long time ago” I said.

He turned his body towards me,closing the remaining distance.

“And how did you do that?”

All the wild eyes were now on me.

A pregnant pause in the madness.

“I went though deep trauma”

The whole room knew what I felt.

And the girl next to me stopped her chattering and screamed “FUCK!”.

They could all tell.

◦

After all

I met god

He gave me a clock

And told me

One day you have to give it back to me

And tell me 

How often you smiled

As you spun its hands 

Chrome

My dogs were being taken care of so I felt comfortable staying a little while past sundown.

Part scrap yard,part museum of abandoned junk.

The ward time and the municipal board forgot.

Hidden in plain sight, it seemed like they had been squatting there for decades.

Keeping their shadows low and their voices down.

This space was theirs as long as no one fucked up.

And no one ever did.

Niko and I had finished our yellow tea with pepper sprinkles.

A thick,vague concoction that tasted like everything and nothing. 

We were making our way back down the narrow dusty staircases when I saw it.

The hand buffed chrome moped straight out of the 1950’s.

It was beautiful.

A raw metal art deco time capsule.

I couldn’t believe it was just lying there.

So much potential amongst all this ruin.

I sat on it and moved it back and forth in the tiny space it was allowed.

It seemed solid and squeaked ever so softly.

All the bits seemed to be there.

Mostly.

Then a curious face emerged from a door to the right that we never saw until her eyes met mine.

“Hello I’m Nasreen..” she said,inquisitively.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes it is mine…”

I couldn’t argue with the provenance.

Her eyes betrayed her ownership.

“I must have it.” I said.

She contemplated for a few seconds in silence.

“I will sell it to you but it will be expensive..

And I need to fix a few things on it.” 

Niko and I looked at each other knowing what complete examples such as this go for in today’s market and decided to continue the negotiation.

“Give us a number” he said and she disappeared for a short while behind a dusty cupboard.

Rummaging ensued for a minute or two and she returned hurriedly scribbling on a small scrap of paper,as if doing a long list of calculations.

“8900” She finally declared proudly.

Niko and I looked at each other.

We could barely contain our excitement.

“8000” I countered.

Almost as a force of habit.

“And you should bring her home to me when she is ready” I said as I penciled my address down on her bill.

She was beautiful and naive and I selfishly didn’t want her rusting away amongst all this squalor.

Chapter 1

“Read this” she said.

As she handed me smattering of notes 

Scribbled on the ripped out soft covers of trashy novels 

“This is writing!” she proclaimed.

“These are rejects” I retorted.

She looked at me disappointedly.

“So you don’t consider what I do writing?” I asked.

“You’re not for everyone” she replied.

“And this is?!

These are incoherent rambling’s made to appeal to intellectually vacant groupies wanting to belong.

What I do is distilled from a thousand curated thoughts.

Do you know how much of my work you haven’t read because it never made the cut?”

“So what do you want to do…”

She interjected.

As if what I had just revealed after 3 years together meant nothing.

“I know you’re leaving”

She sat quietly, and

stared ahead,as if willing me on.

All the while feigning the deepest sadness known to man.

“Do what you want to do

But I have one request,

Don’t do it here,

Because this is where I also live”

She got up to leave as the safety regulatory agents came into view.

Suits and briefcases and prejudice .

All rolled into a slowly advancing wall of doom.

As they sat down at the coffee table

It seemed as if the birds all suddenly stopped chirping.

“Tell us captain” one of them blurted out.

As a sort of crude introduction.

“What made you wake up?”

“Divine intervention I guess”

But my focus was elsewhere.

Mostly on the river.

And on her walking up the hill back to the house.

Coffee cup and book covers in tow.

On the phone to her lover,

To tell him the good news.

I guess I am the reject

Carpe Diem

There are a very few things left on earth that compare to a good cup of coffee in the morning. 

The rich woody aroma of those magical brown beans releasing all their secrets when crushed.

The time to contemplate during their slow steep in hot water. 

The anticipation of that heady brew coursing through your bloodstream while you slowly stir the precious dark liquid. 

The pep in your step after. 

It really kick starts the day and gets you ready for your upcoming fight or flight. 

Although, since the great 'event', one must consider oneself most fortuitous to find whole beans. 

Mostly, a jar of good old freeze dried chicory laden factory produced is what reveals itself after a short rummage through what used to be a pantry. 

But today we are lucky. 

And so I write this to you, dear former owner of burnt out rubble. 

In gratitude.

For you, like myself, were a person of discerning taste with a penchant for the finer things in life. 

Life, as precious as your beans, must be preserved and to this endeavor I must be on my way.

I hope this letter finds you in better times and intact. 

Regards, 

a survivor

Redacted

When we first met, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Perfectly picked out for its balance between hard and soft. New. 

The same set up would not be good enough for us. For her. She deserves better I thought. 

I bought us a bed. Hard wood, dark stained and expensive. 

Worthy of her warm resting body. Of our innumerable unions in the early hours of those cold mornings. 

We each chose our sides. To sleep on. To reveal to each other. 

Sometimes as I lay in the darkness I look over to the emptiness that was her side and I remember the emptiness that lay in her eyes. Misconstrued for love. 

And the heavy heart I carried all those years after she left. 

It's weight indented on that once new mattress like gravity in time-space. 

And her side, still new. 

Like she was never there. 

Parchment

Suspended in all its wonder 

         The heavy dot

Spun out from the universe 

And willed itself into being 

Into time-bound reality 

Into primitive carbon vessel 

      Flawed and perfect 

The ink remembers the pen 

       The invisible hand 

That shoots comets and opens petals 

May it's stories be worth writing

Close

I became addicted to the smell of your neck.
Your tea.
The sliver of truth in the stories you told.
But you have sharp edges, 
And I cut myself.
Over and over,
Trying to handle you differently.

I could not know that you coveted the light in my eyes.
That you stole and hid away.
In one of your many dark boxes.
All is black in your weaponized absence.
Still I wait.
Needlessly,
Counterintuitively,
For us to be how we once were,
Close.

Lush

From the primordial soup 
Molten love flowed through my veins
Forming an island
To be mined and exploited

Turbid

As we both sink to the silt below
Let's us reminisce how
You skimmed your heart
Against the still waters that was I

Don't sleep where you lay

I keep awake for hours
On even days
I spend my time
Waiting and wondering what if

The big ones coming

Been a slave to many masters
i can't
Seem
To
Shake my leash

Its not real anyway

Don't sleep where you lay.
No don't sleep where you lay.

Today

I hear shots ringing out
But they are far away
I heard people were being killed
But they were not my kin
I heard ideologies were being persecuted
But they were not my ways of thinking
I heard rights were being given up
But these were not mine
Mine were safe
As was I

I hear shots in the distance
And they are getting closer
I see people dying in the streets
Of another town
Another country
They almost look like me
Almost

Twice shy

The circus continues
Chemical and bioluminescent
Monetary foreplay counts for most
Credentials and famous last names
All glittering under the neon awesome

Floating Jackpot

Onward through
sunlit grass
shake the reptiles out
and make for the waters edge
where all will be revealed
through the delicate play of skimming birds
before she moulds granite
at your feet
Take it like a man.

Trinkets

In a perfect world,
You'd fall asleep on my shoulder
On a train,
On a tuesday afternoon
Even though you fought for the window seat.

Saline

In exile
The parched earth that offers only salt
Where rivers once
Fed and nourished all
This is home
Bleak and dry
but full of promise
That the heavens may once again open
When enough time has passed
When past regressions have been paid for twice over
For this life and the next

Garden

Maybe its now
Time that isn't yours
Freedom hard won but never tasted
Summer citrus lost to the worm within
Poured out like water on concrete
For the burning sun
For bare feet

Scales for the troubadour

Stir crazy sipped sane
Southern gothic
Penny lane
Snakeskin
Sink
Swim
Its all the same

I'm the warm jagged edge
When your spine shimmers
Carnal
When your blue blood simmers
Glow
When you fan your flame

Haiku #2

Spit venom on white
Dissolve archaic mindsets
Make your own Rorschach

Sunburst

Plug in
Play it out
Distort it
Kiss it and save it for later