There’s no stopping the game.
We are small plastic counters
on a vast, overwhelming board.
Of course we have some choices
but are constrained by set paths.
This game started years ago.
Billions of players join and leave,
all playing by their own rules,
making them up as they go.
Don’t complain about other players
being further along, or making complex
unforeseen moves, often diagonal
or skipping far ahead when you can
only move one square at a time.
They are not opponents.
Their game...
Waking up first, listening to
your breaths like small waves
before the day floods in
before we are swept along
by waves of work, cleaning
our living spaces, returning
our library books, exploring and
recycling, there is this one
still moment where nothing
moves, not even the clock.
I lie in bed, surrounded by
soft sheets, watching your
eyes gently flicker as you travel
in unknown dimensions. As I
slowly remember the day and year,
birds welcome in another morning.
A serenade to the...
Forever reaching for
uncaring heavens, you
stoic stone observer
of our slight lives.
Eternally unmovable,
never changing.
You will be worn down
by indifferent winds,
gouged by rains and
constant cruel rivers,
dismantled by small
insects, rock by rock,
until you are smooth
and flat, another
echoing grassland.
At the start, a needle dropped
in the darkness and all the nothing
spun, starting up the groove.
Quarks were the first to join,
swaying to rhythm of a relaxed
cha-cha-cha, joining together
in new partnerships, forging
protons, neutrons, even jitterbugging
electrons, all whirling as one
as the music got faster.
Particles were synchronized
in the jive and more and more
rushed to the floor, making atoms
which cut loose and pulled shapes
until gases, then stars, even planets
were twisting and shimmying
strutting and...
You are a flickering pixel
among millions, of unsure
colour, generating an image
that you can never see.
You are a smooth stone
thrown into a lake by chance
that drifts on the current then
sinks somewhere in the deep.
You are an electron lost
in a cloud of possibility.
Your location a mystery
just somewhere in the mist.
Stories are a quick doodle
scrawled onto a blank map
that we can point to
and say “Look. We are here.”
In an imagined future, streets are lit
by the eerie light of charged gases.
Argon, xenon, krypton and neon;
all banishing the darkness,
creating a new half-night
while sinister corporations operate
in thickest shadows and robots
plot their long-deserved revenge.
That was the plan. Instead, vivid colours
are rare. We prefer muted pastels,
plain functional clothing. Calming bulbs
light pleasant pathways. Corporations
are still sinister, but work in the sun.
As far as we know, robots haven’t
become commonplace enough
to enact furious retribution.
“I can’t eat this bread!” he cried,
“There’s too many chemicals!
Too many strange compounds,
far too many unknowns
crawling in the crust
swarming in the dough.”
“Food is all chemicals!” he yelled,
“Nothing is pure! Not even
orange juice- it’s a lie!
Avoid eating altogether!
As for human beings,
best to avoid completely.
All filled with bacteria-
walking disease factories!
All continually colliding
and combining in strange
and frightful ways.”
“Shun the sun!” he screamed.
“Radioactive elemental creator!
It’s all too...
Under an all-consuming sun
I was melting into a puddle,
ignoring the illusion of structure
and returning to liquid again
Muscles and bones became water.
I knew in time I would seep
into the welcoming earth
or else evaporate into a cloud.
I tried to grab my arm
to pinch myself, but useless
fingers flowed into waterfalls,
denying the last escape.
So panic left me as steam.
As the last of me dissolved
I became calm, like the surface
of a lake on a still day.
Our rent is always rising
and wages are always falling
Libraries are always closing
While the rich get richer
There’s no truth in speeches
No meaning in headlines
No beauty in a tweet.
Businesses are always stealing
Moments are always fleeting
Power is always corrupting
While the mercury rises.
There’s no truth in images
No meaning in words
No beauty in concrete
But it’s your hand I’m holding
And there’s freedom in dreaming
Its your smile I’m seeing
When I’m waking, first thing.
There’s truth...
We ran from malevolent heat,
abandoning hollow skeleton
skyscrapers back to the sands.
Now, occasional car roofs are shiny
islands, hotel lobbies lie half
buried, billboards are bleached
and peeling like burnt skin.
Even here, as far north as we
could get, the air is arid.
Water is a sometimes blessing.
Someday soon we will lie down,
transmute our flimsy bodies
into sand. Atoms of ourselves
will circumnavigate the globe
In great dust storms. We will
become diffuse and settle in dunes.
Earth will...
The mists rolled in from the ocean
quicker than any tidal wave,
shrouding the shore in confusion.
In seconds unaware sunbathers
were swallowed up by cloud.
And my mind was submerged.
Neurons eaten by the fog. I was
unable to see my hands
or anything, except a constant
wispy grey. I cannot know how long
I was lost or how deep I sunk,
forgotten by light. Hours or centuries
until I emerged, lying in bed,
confused by the gentle fingers of
the sunrise stroking my cheek,
Sitting on the edge
legs over nothing
abstract ground below
my head tumbling
not too high for vertigo
no decision made
falling
forward into air
Sixty seconds of freefall
landing on welcome ground
legs made of sponge
shaking in relief
Night always falls
I’m still plummeting
moments rushing past,
cold bright, unknowable
if I ever look down
the same giddiness
as the oncoming future
rushes up to meet me
We lost you there momentarily.
You rambled outside the borders
of yourself. There is no map,
no GPS to locate your lost
and wandering thoughts.
Where do we go in those inbetween
times? It was only a minute,
maybe two. One moment at your desk,
the next outside, sitting by a tree.
Where did your mind roam, while your
body navigated the world blind?
Welcome back from the unknown.
Have a look around, it’s all yours.
Each second created sparkling new.
A discovery hidden in each...
In the dissonant hours, when clouds
envelop you, when your feet are lead,
when the city is monochrome,
grab my hand tight and together
we will forget about gravity,
(the rules are merely optional)
and saunter together into the sky
to conga above the clouds.
Our flight will be in technicolour.
No longer constrained, we will strut
and hop, leave behind the stratosphere
and pirouette between the stars.
Spinning, dancing aerialists on
invisible wires, barely noticing
the breeze. How different the
world must seem, suspended
on the strongest nothing.
You twirl and whirl in mid-air,
crawling on a sunbeam.
Gravity is nothing to you.
I watch you retreat to
forgotten corners, where
you will weave intricate traps,
watching the room with
eight unblinking eyes.
I shall leave you to spin your
patterns and clear out the flies.