What was meant when we said now it's

The paper is thrown to the floor
A contract at the tail-end of the comedown
You didn't need a guarantee, assurance
Anyone can say spiteful things
Just by word of mouth

Breathing and walking often don't match
At any rate, not before the comedown
The street simulates hyperventilation
Worries for you
Does all the legwork
You can just relax
And stroll on in to this unfounded moment
This episode of concern
This ritual of fixation
And Tradition of The Fail

But a gentle tap always comes to the shoulder
Fingers brought down at the correct speed
Calculated, tender
And exploding with pleasure
Electric, they sit
And you turn to greet the release
Gentle comes the end
So much better than the beginning

You turn to embrace the change
I am out of it now, you whisper
But nothing will hear
The space making it so much louder
Concern evolves into a mild shame
Aware now of that which didn't need such Olympian attention
Was that really it?

Out the other side
Muscles can step down now
The crater is filled
Didn't believe we'd have enough to do that

But what of those that witnessed
Will they be shamed by such corporeal distress
Look up and count all eyes watching as

The paper is thrown to the floor

Icelandic jaw

Gently, you laugh,
As if not spoil anything,
Or let anything fall.
The seconds are suspending
Holding tight to one and all.

Debriefed and documenting,
I secretly want to hear no more.
Did you have flames for eyes back then,
And speak with that Icelandic jaw?

This moment is my currency,
And I'll spend it god knows when.
I'd give a fortune to be him,
The one you loved back then.

Second draft (unpublished)

It is eleven at night
And am I really that old?
Youth is to will fire into existence
And to have optimism like arrow heads
Wielding pessimism occasionally like a blunt axe

But enough of that
Age has nothing to do with not saying what I wanted
At least I don't think it does

This is what I wanted to say
But couldn't put onto the page
It's more than just not being able to be truthful
It's about the paper repelling the truth of what is written

Pen to paper and out comes the words
But they are starving, covered in flies
Truth written down is tragic for you, nightmarish and comical
Yet it is not you making it so
But the process and the way it reads
Truth, right here on the page
And nothing more than heroic and pitiful

And so, here is my truth
For you and for you only, but presented here
Before others, where it will be healthy
Another's truth can be seen by strange eyes
Yet is often overlooked by the intended

I would have held you that night
Not just that night, every night
Let's follow the sun around together, I wanted to say
I felt lost next to you
And you were ancient and wondrous
As much dust as earth
I was new, inexperienced
Ignorant to the point of coma
You were the timeless state I yearned to catch up to
This living knowledge
Breathing the years of awareness
As I whispered in the dark
What do I do now? Do I want this?
Do I want you more than just naked?

You think too much, you would have said
In a tongue as wise as Saturn's rings
I would have traversed this vacuum to be with you
I still would
Except you don't know the truth
Which is here

And it is more than truth
It is what keeps me awake all night, every night
It is what helps me sleep, the surrender of clarity
And is is also nothing more than truth at the same time

We bestow kindness upon each other all the time
When in each other's company
I need to know, what does it mean?
Does it add up to more than what I see before me?
Sorry

Asking will pull it all apart
The ancient will crack and never be reformed
Do not question that which has all the answers
They will naturally unearth themselves
Eventually
One by one

More welcome than gone

Everywhere has the slow road back,
So take your time and run like hell.
All smiles ache, often like the dull light from the wrong bulb,
other times like a bloodless limb.

Your profile is lit under this, the curing, cleansing, lamp outside.
Eyes as black as the drowned.
Smiles here look like blisters.
Put your finger in and withdraw your last statement,
Safe in the knowledge that this will end,
This will end,
This will all end.

Now you're holding too tight. Let this go,
All goes anyway.
All will move away from all else, the healing of cuts.
Grasping at the mind, wet and sinking deep for a while.
The great confusion.
Solemn, graceful and murderous.
All will leave,
Will change.
This will all end.

The staircase made you shadow.
At once feet first, up and up,
Fingers gliding against the wall.

The crow sits on the wire,
It gives the slight pressure,
Pushing the thick black cable down to the earth,
Making an impression on the landscape.
This straight line, pressed into the heads below.
Crushing the cars beneath it.
Taking out windows, buildings and laughter.

All will be gone.
Have what is now, and lift the poison out.
Be thirsty for what appears.
The dark wound, beckoning, moaning,
Needing to be emptied.

Take this moment,
Sap it skeletal.

Folding, viewing

A knock at the door.

The paper is put down as attention is shifted, like the gentle ripple in a pool caused by some unseen object, submerged, changed, altered and continued.

Fold the paper once; now half its size in appearance.
It is folded again, as if this was its purpose.
Be still, be folded.
Represent this neatness which must be attained before one can shift their attention, which cannot have fold, cannot have creases.
Cannot appear half of what it is.

Yet attention can be supplanted with distraction.
A gentle change in temperature, where the room takes on a more comfortable form;
Unexpected as it is, because
I was thinking of something else.
What was it?

Oh yes.

A knock at the door.

Now at the pathing of this street, and the amber betrays the gaps between the concrete, black and beckoning.
Step over the fold and the creases.
Keep attention lean.

Arrive at the place, and there should be nothing to fear.
Rubbing of hands, making them warm before shaking them.
What to expect now? Pay attention.
The wet teeth of conversation.
Comment on the cold which cannot change it anyway.

Is this the right place?
I haven't been paying attention.


A knock at the door.

Brown stamps

You've pushed me this far,
It's a tiresome walk back.
Sing "Dearest of friends,
How my teeth grind and crack!"

Your memories must fail
Where my own struggle on.
Sing "Dear friend of mine,
Prove my sadness is wrong!"

I'll gather this list
Of the times gone to waste.
Sing "Friend, words of sorrow
Mean not much when in haste!"

And still it goes on
This forgetful routine.
Sing " Once I'd say friend,
Now I've found I'm less keen!"

Friendship; a meeting
On a two-way dust track.
Sing "If meet me you won't,
I might just well turn back!"

And slowly comes change,
To what I thought known
Sing "League was not nurtured,
Now this bird has flown!"

I often look back
At the promises lost
Sing "Friendship is summer
Yet it still has its frosts!"

I'd like to tell all,
But you'd just soon forget.
Sing "Goodbye, you stranger,
Here's my brown stamps, full set!"

An ocean in the drop

That look you held me in
Silent although surrounded on all sides by this city

The air conditioning is on in here
And your lips are red and shine like plastic

I am now a mile away
Am I on your mind

I am now two miles away
Are you still there

Down there at the bus stop of the soul
Embarrassed to be moving on

You look it but that doesn't mean you should be
It's only travel and you're only homesick

Nothing (all at once)

See, see.. yeah.
That's what I remembered to tell you.
I was going to tell you this thing, like, next time I saw you right, but, yeah.. but..
I forgot it, and something just reminded..
something just reminded me of it, yeah?
Must've been that guy. That guy who you got together with.
The rock climber, is that right?
Right.
Cool.
I don't think I could do rock climbing.
Too scared of heights.
And falling onto the rocks below.

What..?
Oh yeah, sorry.
The thing I was going to tell you.
Yeah, cool.
So, anyway, what it was was I just had to say that one time, last summer..
or was it the summer before..?
No. It must have been last summer. I was coming down that hill.
You remember that hill we used to climb?
No, the less tall one.
That's it.
Yeah, well I was coming down it one day, and.. and it was so hot.
I remember the sweat stinging my eyes.
But on the way down, I kid you not,
on the way down, five deer walked right across the path,
about ten meters in front of me.

I kid you not.
They didnt.. they didn't even glance at me.
they knew I was there, but they just wandered past.
Elegantly walked out from one side of the woodland which covers the hill,
and just wandered into the woodland over the other side of the path.

Yeah.
Beautiful, I know.
I mean, I just stood there, like, amazed.
I was just amazed.
And I looked back up the hill, and no one was behind me.
No one else saw it.
It was like.. it was like nature went.. went..
Here you go, friend. Have this one on me.
Totally amazing.

Kinda reminded me also of this thing I heard about a Buddhist temple..
or reatreat, of whatever they're called,
that's all, like, enclosed.
But in there, with the monks,
they keep all these, like.. tigers! I'm not joking.
Tigers.
Yep.
In with the Buddhists.
And the Buddhists, okay, believe that the tigers are the soul of..
the soul of.. you know. Past Buddhists.
Ones that have died and, you know, transcended.

So, as you can guess, once in a while,
a Buddhist gets, like, picked off by a tiger.
I know. It's insane.
And all the Buddhists, they're like, pretty cool with it.
Could be me today, they must be thinking.

I mean, I just don't get it.
How is that peaceful living?
The thing about the deers I saw was..
well.. was that it just happened.
It wasn't this.. pre-meditated..
Ha! Pre-meditated!
Get it? They're Buddhists. Buddhists med..
Never mind.
Anyway, my point is, what's so spiritual about men trapped with tigers?

Where is what? Oh.
I have no idea where the place is.
Tibet?
India?
One of those sorts of places.

No, no. I agree. Buddhism does seem to be the, you know,
coolest religion and all.
But tigers?
That's just insane.

In the reptile house, eating skin

Time is not a hole to fill during hours like this.
It is a wound, bleeding and unhealable.
The day has been thrown aside; let's move on. There's no life left in this one.

Everything drags so heavy.
There is a wasteland next to the mall, and that has more to say about anything than the stores and eateries next to it. What do you put in a wasteland when you have everything in the world right next to it?
You put the dead there.

Take the night by the throat. Do it, or else there will be another wound.
Take the night, and think not of the flesh, of the fat. Think of the eyes, blue and awake to the world.
A lesser person would not be desired the way that desire has arrived at this door, nervous and shaking, but with purpose in mind.

The reptiles are beginning to shed again.
The air is thick with it, and breath feels like heaving sand.
They move slowly across the moments, towards the new, towards the raw exposure of everything's nature.

There are some houses without windows.
There are some homes without open doors.
Some hands cannot hold another.
Some minds cannot move away from the skin, the fat, and the sickening warmth underneath.

Letter to her son, with all her heart

Dear Patrick,
(No. Scrap that)

My dearest Patrick,
(Yes, that's how I would start things off. Like that)

I am writing this to let you know how happy I am
(- hang on, do I say how happy I am, or how happy we are? I'm writing for the both of us. How happy we are? Okay)

I am writing this letter to let you know how happy we are to be here, at the Yankee Hotel once again, reliving our honeymoon, thirty-five years since we first came here. I can't believe you managed to even get us the same room! What a delight it was to walk back through the doors of room 340 again after so long.
(We would have told you this was the room number, because your brother, Nicky, knows this was the room number also)

The room itself looked quite different. For starters, the decor was much more modern - which was to be expected, of course. But the room also seemed smaller. This is not a bad thing, still plenty of room for us two. Instead it just goes to show how memory can make things seem so much more grand than they are.

When we booked the room all those years back, we had no money, so your father asked for the cheapest room with the best view. Never one to mince his words, your father.
(you would no doubt have a story or two by now of how your father had caused you great embarrassment over the years, Patrick. Probably much the same as your brother has such stories, especially as a teenager when people can be so sensitive and everything seems so loud and up against you)

Well, the view from room 340 was magnificent back then, and it is still magnificent today. You can see right along the river. Ferries silently gliding alongside each other in the distance. The sunset fills the room with a gentle amber still, just as it did back then.

We ate breakfast and dinner on the balcony each day we were here, in silence, but so happy. I haven't seen your father this content for some time.

And do you know what we did each evening after dinner, Patrick?
(Did we ever teach Nicky the dance moves? I think I remember teaching him them. I did tell him about the dance, I know that)

We went into the dining hall, where the band had started up, and we did the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yes, after all these years, we still remembered the exact moves.

Sadly, nobody working at the hotel today knew the moves. They said they had heard of it, this dance, invented here, at the Yankee Hotel. I told them about how there had been evening classes on a Monday and a Wednesday, where people from all over town came and did the dance here, in this very dining hall. I told them how most of the tables were cleared to the side of the room between half seven til ten, and people danced the evening away.

I said how we had managed to be here for lessons on the Monday and Wednesday of our honeymoon, and we loved it. We never forgot the moves.

We ended up teaching the steps to two lovely young people who work there today, and they said they would look into setting up the classes again.
(Patrick, there are no secrets between a mother and her son. I would have loved you, but I would have somehow loved you even more for doing this, for setting up this second honeymoon for us. As if there were new reservoirs of love that I never knew I had)

The plane journey home was a little turbulent, but it was alright. I didn't feel that I was going to die this time. I was too happy for that, and it made me brave. Your father was asleep right the way through, though. Missed his evening meal, which made him a little grump right after he woke.
(No surprise there, you'd probably say to this. No surprise there!)

But, yes, all in all, it was wonderful, and in many ways even more wonderful than our actual honeymoon.

Thank you, son, for the time of our lives,
(Do you agree with that, or should that be the holiday of our lives? Little too game show-y? I agree.
But, anyway, that's how I would word this letter anyway.
This is how the letter to you would be worded, Patrick.
This is how the letter would read if you had been around to read it.
This is how a letter would have been worded by this mother to her son, her youngest twin by nineteen minutes.
And with all her heart)


your loving Mom and Dad.

What 1978 did to Emmett D. Maddox

January 21st:

The Maddox's youngest child, Walter, gets a B- in his maths test. Although mother and father display outward signs of pride and reward him with coffee-flavoured ice cream, Walter still believes that part of the reason for his slipping from A territory is down to having to sit next to Lee Crowe, whose clothes smell so bad that Walter wants to just throw right on up over his desk at times (especially when Mrs Bywater won't let him open the goddamn window).

February 6th:

Emmett gives Pink Floyd a try, at the recommendation of his best friend, Jack MacKay. Emmett, being more of a Led Zepplin fan, isn't taken by Pink Floyd's elaborate and constantly changing song structures. He gives his copy of Dark Side Of The Moon to his daughter, Sandra, who instantly takes a liking to it. Later that same year she will go to a Pink Floyd concert where she will meet the man she will later marry, yet Emmett will never trust this man and never quite know for sure why. Maybe it's those eyes of his, black as eight-balls. Who knows.

May 25th:

Emmett takes the family dog, Stacks, for a walk over the back fields for the final time. Stacks is so slow by this point, and Emmett gets the impression that Stacks is doing this more for him now than anything. Stacks cannot pass water.

August 29th:

Emmett attempts green tea.

September 1st:

Emmett's wife, Daphne, visits her sister, Jean, whose husband, Ron, has taken off with another woman. Emmett claims that he saw this coming, and although Daphne agrees that Ron must have been having an affair all this time (why else would the phone bill be so high?) she does not verbally concur with Emmett for fear that her husband is just trying to point out how pathetic Jean is for marrying that jobless son of a bitch anyway. At least he isn't much of a drinker, Daphne would diplomatically voice once in a while. Emmett occasionally felt this was a dig at him, but never challenged it.

November 13th:

After the accident with fireworks which cost the new family cat, Mr Gorgonzola, the use of his left eye, Emmett vows to never attempt to set off a rocket on the front lawn again without first checking the area for pet cats.

December 3rd:

Emmett is woken in the middle of the night by a passing truck riding over a cola can. Although he knew within a split second that it was just a cola can, the images in his dream seaped into waking life for a short time, and he thought that it was a gun shot from his grandfather shooting himself through the head. Emmett wonders what his grandfather, William, was like, seeing as the only memory he has of him is when Emmett was seven years old, and William was sitting in a chair in Emmett's father's house, wearing only a vest and insistently asking Emmett if he was his sister, Claire.

Who could have forseen Miss Havisham?

Back down the road, the car moved and at speeds befitting a vehicle such as it was.
And it suddenly dawned upon the driver and the driver alone, who could have forseen Miss Havisham? How can anything be preordained apart from the most simple of deduction and guesswork, the driver thought, as the car took to the darkness as much as it did the road, and Venus was shining incredibly bright by this point, prompting the driver to wonder at first if it was some form of stationary aircraft, lingering in the upper ether, and how long a vehichle could actually stay in such a stationary manner, because all is designed to move and if you don't move the moving will be drawn out of you, and if you are not alone the aloneness will be drawn out of you, as it was for Miss Havisham, no matter how still she should sit.

How the spiders work

With precision.
They move at night and hide by day.
Could be sweat thats seeping off you and onto the bed, but it's really them.
They just make you feel that it's sweat.
A head filled with pressure, enough to blind. It's them again.
Enough have crawled in there to make a dwelling; warm and safe, and you cannot get them out.

The sky today is the colour of tobacco-stained walls.
Light isn't getting through this solid wall of filth.
Everything has a sharp edge today; everything is a warning.
Head's pounding.
If there was a pistol nearby, then we'd find release.

Something is caught, thrashing to be free.
But there's no chance of that.
Soon, they feel the fangs sink into them, and the poison pours in, warm as death, and cold as the loneliness they feel.
Close your eyes; it won't help with the feeling, but close them anyway.
At least you don't have to see your life being stolen.

Eyes open in the dark.
What is that, by the door?
Is that a man?
How did he get in?
He's moving toward the bed.

Let's see what happens.

The Great Procrastinator

Yeah, let's just put it off until tomorrow. Hey, in fact, saying 'Until tomorrow' is too much pressure in itself. Why not just put it off until the time is right? Actually, even the term 'Put it off' sounds a bit.. well.. too much of a connotation of avoidance there; pushing something away, fending it off. That's like implying that I can't actully deal with the thing I'm put.. with the thing I'm currently chosing not to do. To undertake. To get on with. Yeah, 'Get on with'. Getting on with things. That's another term that makes all of this sound so very.. lazy? Is it laziness? I think it's something else other than that. Laziness is when someone is unaware of the importance of the thing they know they should be doing, and therefore do not get on with said thing. This is something different. I know about the importance of what I should be doing, I'm just chosing not to do it yet because.. well, because I don't have to. Now, some could say that this is bordering on laziness, but I diagree; it's different to that. It's not as negative as that. Perhaps it's no more positive either, but it's different. This is about siezing the moment. Doing the thing at the best time to do it. 'Now's the best time!' I hear you cry, but clearly I diagree. The moment has to be right, believe me. Obviosuly, the clock is ticking, so the 'Right Time' better hurry along soon, but I'm sure it will come, this 'Right Time'. It usually does, and just in the nick of time. Until then, I know that I spend a lot of time thinking about the thing I should be doing rather than doing the thing; but thinking about it has to count for something surely! I mean, right now, I'm even talking about it. Talking about how I should be getting on with the thing, instead of just.. instead of just.. I don't know, wasting time on the internet, browsing sites, or checking out cinema listings, or writing a blog..