The Seagulls used to be Angels
according to a Nordic legend that
I probably don’t understand.
They have become this way, it seems,
because we simply,
slowly
forgot about them.
& as I stand outside in the warm night
smoking,
I can hear them squawking
a seething, teeming mass of white feathers
& cold hard beaks poking at discarded
styrofoam chip boxes,
ketchup packets
& chicken bones:
all the detritus out here by the coast
in one of so many forgotten towns…
The thought that these
strangely mechanical seeming
beasts could once have been
our sublime idols seems oddly appropriate:
Now that we have
desire as disposable convenience
what need do we have
for the Magnificat?
So they scrabble among our waste
like avian beggars, safer
than their human counterparts
only because wings bring freedom,
& ignored or else quietly despised
by the normal
& respectably employed;
like the homeless people
who hide & die
behind the houses
& in the filthy streets
dignity is denied to the forgotten.
Despair
The marionette parade
Dragging behind you every decision
& memory:
a ragged procession
of skeletal marionettes;
decaying bones hanging limp from
myriad strings,
they dance the maudlin, shambolic
parade of your existence:
the weak blue
deep blue
hollow
fallow
moment
after
moment.
Solidarity
The grass is no greener on the other side,
no matter what they say
& stomachs like ours can’t digest it anyway.
Whether we’re more poster-children
for just another trend
we’re still just children.
I guess that’s why its so easy to hate
& why black and white look better than grey.
But easy doesn’t leave a trace,
can’t keep that fear at bay…
the fear we’ll all either feel at the end
or can’t keep away every day:
not one of us is exempt.
Whatever consequence
you want to call god or
karma or claim as the fault of others,
only we can face the danger of freedom;
only we can fight the terror of existence,
but I cannot do it alone.
So
will you join me?
Flowers & fate
Morning;
horizon cuts the throat of the Sun,
memory separates from fantasy,
you fail to comprehend what you’ve become.
Repeating:
the sky bleeds above the same scenes;
same faces, same shapes & places & you
always another day further away
from when it began,
from when so much sand
was left in the hour-glass.
So awful it was when you finally
realised the truth;
when the wildflowers
withered & the blue
slowly faded away.
Trapped
behind darkening glass,
seeing
no way out.
How
did it come to this,
when
did all the mess begin?
& yet
either the future already exists or still
it can be changed,
so wait
because
not every chain
is unbreakable.
