Month: January 2020

Difference or Repetition

/ wordsforghosts / 1 Comment

Drifting through a forest,
                lost
between the dark leaves &
frost-encrusted moss,
chasing fleeting insights
                like
cinders drifting into the night,
from a fire now furiously bright.

Stunned, we wait
for the after-image to fade, uncertain
& afraid
of what to do when
the light leaves us again.

So we wait
until morning, then
press fingers against our eyelids
&
try to believe the phosphenes are unique;
when
we open our eyes again to let them
                    linger
over familiar scenes

does it seem
as if anything

has changed?

Are all things still

                    the same,
or have they subtly,
briefly
            changed?

Master/\Slave

/ wordsforghosts / 2 Comments

The Slaves hate the Masters &
                themselves.

The Masters hate both & everything else.

A glacial surface is crawling across
our collective imagination,
while the world burns
                    waiting
to destroy civilisation.

When we stare into mirrors or
out of windows every day,
do we admire or look away?

Do we know that what we see is only
one more object
                consumed
& constituted
by an infinite sea of others?

Do we feel the horror of that
brief tremor
beyond the horizon of thought;

a something that is nothing
at all,
        &

when we chose to avert our gaze,
to pretend that everything will remain
        the same;

when we shatter the mirror & the shards
dig deep into our hands,

will we realise that

we have no one to blame but ourselves?

Desire & Idea

/ wordsforghosts / 2 Comments

Forever out of reach
it exists as if,
            born blind
they presented you with
an audio description
of a visual medium;

permanent distance, something
            missing,
no way
of knowing
how to affect the movement.

The desire exists
but the idea resists,
a furious rebellion
against simplicity,
            insisting on
misunderstanding, infested
potential
& perpetual ambiguity,

like the painful birth of conjoined twins,
who grow to want nothing more than
to love & be loved,
                beautiful & ugly,

                            just like us.

Haunted

/ wordsforghosts / 3 Comments

Bite off your tongue,
                spit out the blood
& say something more than
                any word ever could.

Seal the wound with white-hot metal
& stuff with wire wool, stifle
a scream & feel a weak
edge where laughter descends
into desperation or cruelty;

                ignore
the words that form & try to force
open your mouth.

Let no sound out.

& in silence
find the patience to discover
an unspoken secret;
the obscene foundation
of everything keeping us safe
                from what awaits within.

Waits like a swallowed stone
to kill or be expelled
from these bodies haunted
                by language:

a ritual sacrifice;
                necessary
price to be paid, ridiculous
offering made
to satiate the infinite
                & the horror it brings…

Open your mouth,
                let it all out:
without a tongue
                all sounds are one.