Turquoise Monster

The smell of wood vanish and plimsol rubber
in the slanted sunlight
The school hall a glow
Cross legged and ego we waited
as an old old lady
wrinkled and furry soft
A grandmother like nanny and granny
Weary flat stretched grey shoes
and floral print dress
Hair curled in a white candy floss suasauges
She is helped to the seat
We look at stockings shear and rumpled
As she tells her tale
The ends of her life meet in us
Old as a great gran
Telling of the babe she was
Younger than my brother
being potty trained at home
Its a story we all sort of know
Ice and pride
A ship set upon the tragic path
There’s a song we sing about it
“and the boat goes to the bottom”
Over and over the peril
of a decission chain
She etched into our minds
We know of the families trapped below
Of life boats half full
And an SOS too young to be known
We sit in the old lady’s thrall
She’s not the money – not the toffs
She’s from Dagenham where my uncle fixes vans
She survived passed hand over hand
Crying into the boat
She tells of the fear all children know
Her Daddy was left behind
There was no room for him
The Titanic so long a go
Made vivid in our minds
We feel in our hearts the tears
That she must have cried
Our granny titanic
One of the few to survive.

7 billion minds encoding the rhthym of life
7 billion awarenesses all wired roughly along the same lines
7 billion idea sharers, pattern seeking minds that search
7 billion lives beautifully unique
7 billion hearts to feel, love… hate
7 billion hungers – some needs, some wants
7 billion people
1 is me – another is you
7 billion potential soar
A sea of blinding thought
Carrying the wave of intent
Now to space, now to the deeps
Or to carry us out of the existence
Singularity is coming
Racing on the crest of population expansion

The gentleman sits
in the lovely lit corner
of the too expensive cafe
Older is he
silver sleek
with hand tailored suit
sharp at the creases
Reading the news paper
exuding an old Englishness
He raises his manicured nail
and pushes it firmly up his nose
Rooting around
He extracts
with surgical precision
a crisp jewel
The boogie catches the light
from a tiffany lamp
It is transparent
like a bubble
of weak green amber
Twisting his pale lips in surprise
he flicks his eyes from side to side
Shrugs at the lack of witnesses
and neatly places it snug in his pocket.

Each story has been told
So many times
A thousand fold

Some have twists
Some go without
Some have love
The maid and lout

The story arcs
A pattern shown
Over and over
There’s only so many that is known

And threads that
stitch it altogether
Words and stories
For all tastes and weathers

When dreams fail
The stars fall like crushed diamons
Once they had spun as cogs
Nestled together in intracate dance
Now they lay as puddles of loathing
And we consume their flesh
Gorging on insignifigances
Lapping up the pain
Blinking at the luster light
We grow sharp and hard
Adimantian Kings Imperial and cold

Dark twisted loam
Lay in ribbons
Upon the landscape
River clogging
It choked
the plane
Drenched in the bones
Of those who had made it
Toxic leachate
Spumes forth
Nothing but their corroded skin
Killing the life
Already obliterated from within

The imprint of the pillow
Ribbons pressed into skin
Silken mind the smooth warmth of awareness
A pressure calling you to the cold
Gnawing grumble
The hunger for the day

Mary a little girl who likes to be called
The Berry
Thinks she’s a canary and sings both night and day
She churps to the sun
and then to the moon
Hoping the others will wake real soon
She has a story she’d like to tell
About adventures and magic spells
Of the castle that is the House of play pen
And how she learnt how to count to ten
Maybe with a missing number it’s true
But she knows it starts with one and then theres…
ooo
Mary The Berry can sing real loud
Conjuring up rainbow clouds
Her sister stirs in her sleep
But bearly opens an eye to peep
She wont get up and play
Not until it’s day light anyway
So until the time is such
Mary will sing and chatter and tell so much
To the cuddle friends that live in her cot
There are lots and lots and lots
And they will listen happily for hours
About how she rescued them all using glittery super powers

Today I failed
Failed to help where I saw need
The old man
The homeless man
Who needed my good deed
It was not that I lacked compassion
Or that I did not see
I wanted to help
But a social barrier
Formed a bar
If I offered him the food
Food I could not eat
For guilt of him
For we all have enough sin
And was not plight
the insult
And assumption
Maybe shouting
Fear of being called unkind
It has happened before
And I am not brace
Not today
Shy to a pain
But today I failed to be me
Today I let societal norms
consume my nature
And for fear of offending someone not in need
I passed on by someone who could have been in need
It has finally happened
I failed to survive
Middle class values
Have me zombiefied

The dark pallative curve of pain
Draws you in
Featal geo matricks
Hoping to hear that heart beat
Once, twice a pause
Praying
And sigh as it shivers
Unsteadily on