We are reconstructed from the ashes of the war
Shoes in a row
Like unspent bullets
Nowhere to go
Everything gone
We have fresh mint
We rub in each others scratches
Nothing is real
It is like a film she says
Pink the carrier agent
Yellow the stone
The rain didn’t wash the spiders away
The noise of me plays against the white wall
Unbearable
A single grain of time
Falling apart
We hold the key in our hand
No trace of silver
No trace of gold
Keys are like that she says
Nothing special
Until you find where they fit
I think of us
Attached
Lock and key
We take tea in the dark
Her eyes glint off the china
We dream of plum cake and sugar
Thick sleepy milk
To guzzle and lay down
Dreams are the best present
She says
Her lips moist and ready
The dust falls off my head
That phase
Body crumbles on table and chair
Mind climbs up a level
Listen
I say
The clip of feet approaches
We are reconstructed from the ashes of the war.
The foxgloves have fallen on the stones
Purple paper petals
Lost to the wind and careless feet
Jeopardy ground like perfume bones
In our fingers
In our soul
The smell of what we were
Drifts in through the window
Carried on church bells
And sirens
Someone else to save
we
we
sit quietly
The poppy seeds get everywhere
In your chair
In your hair
In our dreams
The ones where never ending strawberry powder is long and sweet
Tuck the yellow in the seats
I do not want the walls to crumble
They are clean pink sheets
Delicious as screaming
Spread on toast savoured
Catharsis cemented consumed
Every day is thursday
Not quite started
Not quite ended
Turn the pages
Mark the time
No one story
Started
Mended
We will stack our risk like days
Chaos in mortar
Order in bricks
Build a house that’s never home
They are commissioners of oaths
I am going to make me one
They stand ready
Pen scraping paper
Paper scraping time of day
I prefer the floor
I say
And
We
We sit quietly
And wait
And wait.
Time moves like water
Under the sheets
I wait for the ripples to stop dancing
To feel the shape of you
A curve and axis
To mark the map
One step forward
Two steps back
The guns of love descended upon us like a plague
Your kiss a purple flower bursting in my mouth
Now it rusts blood
Penny dreadful in my pocket
Love should smell like warm biscuits and honey
A bright afternoon on the floor
But not quite
Bodies lifted
Levitating the desire for food and air and bones
crunch spit cry
I am the creature in the dark
Not you
Alice sets the table
Wake up silly
This isn’t quite rightly proper
She has ironed her pinafore
It shines bright as teeth in a hopeless night
She shuffles dishes like tarot cards
Pours water on the tea
Slices cake so old it crumbles like pastry bones
As if any of it were real
She tuts and clangs
Scrapes lids and sugar pots
She has run out of words to pray
Wake up silly
She straightens the sheets
Wipes the water away
Sends a yellow line to seduce me back
Gentle kisses
Lick the powder off my lips
Your tiny bones hold me up
One step forward
Two steps back.
It is a very strange way to take tea
She says
We are standing on the chair
It is better up here
When you are high
There is no taste of rotten or real
Nothing conniving to spoil the apples and jam
I really would rather have my feet on the ground
You can go down
I whisper
I am stuck in the table and drawer
I cannot even burn you out
Circle around my head until Sunday
Metal scraping bones inside
All the intrigue hollowed out
Dull dying roar
Nothing stays up
Nothing comes down
I don’t think I like it here
It’s no fun any more
Her feet kick the floor
The water runs down the door
Like blood
But quicker
Her hair is hot
Stuck to her chin
I come down
Lie next to her
We have to wait
Let the wind fix his leg
Time mend our thoughts
Sometimes waiting is the best thing to do
It is the only thing we do
I like when she complains
The spiders weave thick blankets around the windows
Four hours
Four days
Four years
It is impossible to tell
Our only markers are the lines left on the jam pot
Sweet sticky sugar
Glues the heart
Fuels the lungs
We really should stop reaching for it
I should write it down I say
Though maybe it’s just a dream
Then the story will stop
No, silly
Paper fills
Ink runs out
But until you stop thinking
The story never ends
She is happy
Sing song vehemently
Another riddle dusted off
I shut my eyes
Make it dark inside
This is the longest day ever she sighs
A crystallised butterfly day
Pity we can’t skip through the lion’s gate
And make it go away.
A thousand years of darkness
Tumble down the chimney pot
Rips the wishes from our head
In a single dream
Sits in the cupboard and waits
We drink the fortune it hands us
Like fools
Golden coins crumbled into pink
High in our confetti palace
We swallow the potion and wait
Sun whistles cliff
Split spit sift
We cannot decide what is light
And not
A thousand years of darkness is a very long time she whispers
We go to the cold building
Heads down
Hands together
Not as long as forever I say
And she buttons her lip and waits
In the cold building
We guzzle water from the porcelain dish
Rest our heads on the stone pillow
Lean into each other and wait
In our waiting we draw flowers
Purple pink and blue
They kiss away the habit
Powder ash dust
Which drilled us in our pit
I hold her hand
Slowly trace from flesh to tiny nails
All is calm
All is quiet
It is amazing
I think
That we are all still here
In that fractal moment
A thousand darkened years
Burn away so quickly
Like six tiny kisses placed on your baby hips.
Her hair smells like camphor
Sweet diamonds
Threaded through veins
Flowers in the water main
Slowly dropping
Sweet pea whispers into dreams
The chair with straps
Gripes and stalls
Somewhere at the back
Strange as green apples
Turning to mould
How could we imagine this
She asks
We couldn’t I say
We tap our eyelid thirteen times
Below the arch
With the horse and ram
Crumbling stone
Falling in our hair
Make it go away
How sweet thick as syrup the crisis is wrapped in dreams past sleep sunlight the gas keeping us under voices in the curtains wake up wake up hands in the sheets but we do not want to we want to eat cake and live like queens down here at the bottom in the cotton and the blood
Thirteen Alice
That is when we stop
Her hair smells like camphor
Sweet diamonds
Threaded through veins.
Time waits quietly in the back of your eyes
We place a single mark
In the pale softness of your skin
To remember
To speak
To say
Hello
Love is here
In this place
Sweet dreams wrapped in Sunday afternoon
Fingers curled around that thing we found
Which tries to make it right
So let her lie in fury in her hospital bed
Muffle our existence
Try to snuff us out
Sizzle stomp scream
In the forest where she left us
We scavenged numbered words
The breadcrumbs of our language
The walls of our sugar stone home
And let her know this
She can not kill us twice
So hear you foolish woman
We grew
We grew
We grew.
Reality hits the mirror
Rides the back of ceiling spiders
Calling time
Under the floor
Letting the bleach sink in
god protect our house and keep it safe from thieves and fools
Nine o’clock comes
No rabbit to chase
No Alice to hold
It’s all too much on this side
The pain side
I cross the bridge and graze a car
Score another rabbit
He wears sunglasses
Rattles bottles in a big blue bag
The rain sticks the coat to me
Stuck stuck sticky
How very dull
Reality grumbles
They throw junk
Movement in the wind across the way
Pegging out the washing
Getting up
It’s easy as pie
Their arms held high
I am bonded
Stuck stuck sticky
Mirror ceiling floor
I see the devil inside
Charming as sugar pebbles
Sweet as pepper pie
She is in my hands and bones
And yet I do not know her
I would like to stand on top of the bridge and shout
Get her out of me
She would cross the picket line
Steal my voice
Buckle my bones
Drag me home
Stamping whining such a silly little girl
god protect our house and keep it safe from thieves and fools
My brain is going to dwell and burst
The spiders dance
The rain falls down
Let me have tomorrow
I silently protest
And you can keep today.
