Pigeon

This blood thing

Is just between us

You hold the blade

I hold the sink

Pigeon washes in the river

I wash in spit and cold water

Never quiet

Never quiet

I don’t think Birdman speaks either

The smell comes through my coat

Never clean

Never clean

But the black blood

Collected

Under cloth

The smell of erosion

Is like flowers

On my lips

Like his breath

Caught in my hand

We don’t take our coats off

We don’t have to

We no longer belong to the world

Always moving

Always outside

No place

To rest

To stop

It is like there are secret words

I must find

And when I find them

I must say them

And when I say them

They will let me stop

Let me rest

So many words

Burst my head

Make me want to fall on the river

Bed

And wash

Myself

Clean

Like pigeon

Just between us

I do not want this blood thing

I want the secret words.

Always

We need to make some skeletal re-arrangements

Realign

Reassign

I lose my footing in the coffee aisle

Clickety click

Snap my shoulder

All bones click

Like dead letters

Pulling under the skin

Let me out

Let me out

Cries Alice

We all fall down

Except we don’t

I don’t

Faint

Fall down

Clear up aisle nine

Wouldn’t that be good

I clench the tissue in my pocket

Press the metal

wake up wake up

Except we don’t

I don’t

Ever

I run my tongue over my lips

There is rust in my mouth

The taste of bad days

Or where they good

We can’t decide

I can’t decide

It still tastes better than reality

In some ways

In the mirror

Six o’clock

I do not want this

I do not want this

Alice prods me

Gently

Pulls the bones

Bashes my spine

wake up wake up

she says

i say

it will always be this

we will always be this

i will always be this

Alice i ask

Please clear up aisle nine.

Story

I sit in a room

Where my future

Is not

Where my future

Is in a book

White spine black letters

Can I stop now

Please

I would like to read that book

Until the end of time

But a story cannot be told

Only lived

I am just a name

Not a story

Maybe not even that

Not a sound

Not a letter

Nothing

Something

Quite terrible

Perhaps the last page was burnt

Many times ago

The ash and wax

Stick to sound

To letters

Insensible

Indecipherable

Misplaced

If I choose the lock

I will write a paper key

If I choose the flame

It will never stop

There is no choice

Not really

My feet stand in a flood of words

Shuffled up like bilge

Picking

So hard picking out  

Something new

That book cannot be left in the room

On the shelf

It moves

Behind me

Unknown

Familiar

Already told.

Cold

There is a green light

In the grey building

Toothless Joe

Is on a different bench

Not bench B

He waves like he really wants to see me

It’s a motion I am not used to

I have no place to go but walk quickly

We are all good

We are all good

We are servants of the sanctuary

I go in the grey building

It is cold

The breath falls on the prayer paper

Makes it curl

Paper groaning under the weight of

Hope

There is none

I know

I have no place here

I have no place anywhere

I sit and wait

Sit and wait

All I do

As if some vision will give me purpose

Thought

Warmth

Four hours I sit

In the empty bath

quiet quiet quiet

don’t make a sound

if you make a sound you’ll wake him and when he wakes he won’t stop never stop

no peace

no silence

nothing

just time replayed

different man

different place

same fear

I walk quickly

I have no place to go

Maybe I should go back

To toothless Joe

Take his wave and wrap it round my shoulders

He knows

We are servants of the sanctuary

empty

hollow

cold.

Without Word

This is the time of the white earth

I am not afraid

It will pass

Everything passes

And fades

Two years back I read the book

About the first age

It made no sense to me

Time still passed

Behind the doors

No matter if the words fell

Forwards

Or back

I have been out for thirteen days

The white van comes

I hear the bell

Freeze

It takes my clothes away

I am still inside

The black shirt

I ran

In

I am still inside

I put the nails

In the door

The second age is halfway past here

It chases us up the hill

Through the grass

We slip breathe cry in the hedge

Don’t see us

Please

We have to move

For the purple

That keeps our heart beating

Like the cloak on the shoulders of the dead queen

Purple drowning

White fur

The old lady makes up the flowers

Her hands knotted

Like vines around brown paper

She passes them to me

Without word

I give her the water

We run

When it is dark

Lay the flowers

Keep the paper

He was born

When I was born but left

At one day

He did not see the first age

Or the second age 

He did not see me

His name

His name is enough

This is the time of the white earth

I am not afraid

It will pass

As everything passes

And fades.

Dorothea

The post is called Dorothea

1531 E

She stands

Blue

Slightly rusted

I sit and look at her

Smile a little

Though that’s a stretch

He asks for foil

Jumps

Begs

This is not Kansas

Not really

People smile

Junk nod

On the yellow road

I bang my head

On the bread

Shelf

But it does not take me home

Or away from home

I erase all messages

There is nothing anyone can say

Not really

I am the cause

The effect

And the lack of solution

Nobody else is implicated

In this demise

I clutch onto Alice

Scour around for a Toto

Listen to the foil rustle

Upstairs

My tin man

No flesh

All ribs and leg bones

Running

Running

We wear down our shoes

Running to nowhere

Smiling at posts

Easier than waking up

Though we are wide awake

Inside

Behind the eyes

Inside the heads

So full they’re empty

Lacking the courage to feel our hearts

Thump

Slump

To the ground

We stand like posts

Rusting

Decaying

Blue.

Mud

They cemented the hill

That’s what you do

When the road runs out

We walk to the top

We like it here

It is removed

Like mud in our ears

The tree stump was a tight circle

When we first came back

From that place

You know

Now it is splitting

Disconnecting

Like skin

Like us

We put mud in our ears

We do not like it here

The clock with no hands turns

We go to the red door

It has a black carving

A woman’s head

We want to touch her

But we keep walking

Such beautiful doors are not meant for us

We go to one building

Then another

We are not sure if it is the right place

The place we should be

It doesn't really matter any more

We take a seat

Our voice fills the room

Removed

Like mud

We wonder if it is really us

We wonder

And then we leave

We are running out of road I whisper

I won’t say her name

You know who it is

I have to keep her safe

That is why

That is why

We walk fast

The brown boots

Splitting

Like skin

Like us

I Repair the breaks

Like mud on our skin

We are cold and tired

But we must keep walking

Even when the road ends

We must.

Tricked

Charges apply to all users

I struggle to get the food through the door

I am stuck

To the trick

Dirty

Trick

One man holds the ladder

The other paints

They stitched the gun to our hand

Like a leaf

Curled up in the front door

It fits perfectly

Bang

No one spoke

No one looked up

We should have known

Tricky

Tricky

Tricky

Our words like concrete chipped

Compromised

The decision levelled off like dust

Which sticks and blows away

It will always be so

It will always be so

We search for powder

Any powder

As fast as we can run

Such shame

Snuff it out,

Snuff it out! Cries Alice

We can’t breathe

Stuck sticky tricked

No forward

No back

The red van follows

Crown

Record

Management

And we know

We know

The Red Queen

Played us

Dropped us like an egg from the broken window

The blanket sparks

Blue electricity

In the night

Like a pulse

Bzz

We are stuck

Ticker tape screaming

Tears making the scissors impossible to hold

We are stitched to the gun

To the Red Queen

Stuck sticky tricked

I see her.

Alice.

We are not real and too real

I don’t know what to say to her

I don’t know how to stop her crying

We hang our heads

Hang ourselves

It’s just us I say to Alice

Just us.

Concrete

Take a seat

Go on

My life is as comfortable as a concrete sofa

Outside the hospital

Old man’s navy blue pyjamas

That place

That we left

But still holds us

In a way we do not want to be held

We would like

A hand

Soft and kind

But measured

Yes, measured that’s the perfect word

To mix up the concrete

To bury the stones

To whisk the powder

Into rainbows not pepper

We smile

The blue seats are safe

The blue seats are safe

A different blue

Not navy old man

Young

Like Alice’s dress

We skip there

Like we skip to tea

It is where we collect the brew that feeds us

Keeps us alive

Keeps us alice

Keeps us under

Yes, if we came up we would remember

Plaster cast arm

Stairwell

Toilet

Bin

Jump

Jump

Jump

The plaster cast

Like concrete

Taking us

Down

Down

Down

The hole

We were dragged up

Pulleys and chains

Made to wait until the bones fixed

Then held

Held again in this bad way

We do not like

Take a seat

Go on

It is comfortable as concrete

I can share

Don’t pull drag hold

This is my life

Mine

Dusted in powder

Solid as stone.