Tenses

I have left,

Hopefully heading up - the artist said,

Bones lie patient in a final marker.

But before I was at breakfast,

And you made a face,

When I mentioned the prime minister,

And I laughed,

For about five seconds,

And I kicked you lightly because I understand.

Thoughts on Hearing Oblivion (performed with modern instruments)

Greying,

Black then open again,

Less,

Earl Grey cooling on the table,

Less heat,

Fingers shift amongst themselves uncertainly,

Or like some childish drum beat,

Then black,

Filling with bits of home,

People faces fires places ridges the sea-

Foam white and blue.

But black,

Not thick,

All of this pulls back,

Was never here with me here,

Me?

Here?

In a thin film of abandon.

Me?

If I still had my ears I would listen for your heartbeat.

We Are Not Fathers

It is winter,

And he falls,

The son who survived,

Crystals hold fast on his brow,

The scavengers,

Terrorists,

Make themselves known on the rim,

In silence they watch,

The son who survived,

Crystals holding fast on his brow,

His father,

Comes sharply out of the wood,

Pickax slung over his shoulder,

His eyes look and think of the mines,

But his expression is what holds,

The cold in the lungs,

Only once before,

Only two years old,

Oh he had forgotten,

His father had gladly thrust them up,

Himself who survived and the daughter who did not,

Her hair spinning black,

(Oh that awful color haunts from the back of their eyes always!)

Strong hands gripped them both,

Strong hearts loved them all.

The clouds reminded,

Him who had survived,

Of the beauty in the barren,

And the ability to change,

The snow gradually wrapping,

Forgiveness on the one who survived,

And animals watching,

Feasting on the future in the white.

It is winter, 

And in the dark the women,

Nineteen and filling,

Bend and bounce and

Shake and sound and

Collapse in your arms and

Their muscles are not their own,

Not since their fathers disappeared,

In the cold riches of the earth,

As children the watched,

Pigtailed and playful,

One after another descend,

Pickax propped over their shoulders,

Broad and full of densely packed,

Tendons and solemnity.

So now they dance,

Pigtailed and playful,

Around the fires their fathers didn't start,

(They won't see will they?

Shhhh)

In the winter,

We are not the fathers,

We have been given too much,

"The fear of the Lord"

To be taken so lightly,

The warmth of a breast,

To be used so secularly,

The cold a dim reminder,

We flee each other's arms so quickly!

We were each babies ourselves!

Just yesterday Darling!

In the winter,

The cold breathes in and out with you,

Walks around with you,

Assesses your condition.

Warm your children lest they feel alone.

Group Breathing Activity

When I'm quiet,

It's because I want to say,

You

Are

Amazing

And I shake keeping it in,

The fissures breaking out in key places,

See my hands? My eyes?

And when I won't look you in the eyes,

It means,

You

Are

Wonderful

So much I can't bear the thought,

Of you ever being as far away,

As the very next room,

And when I leave unexpectedly,

It means,

You

Are Absolutely

Impossible to Talk to Right Now

And that could be because you say something stupid,

Or it could be I'm being quiet,

When I'm quiet,

See Above.

Supposes

I swear I'm not joking,

And I can understand where that would come from,

I do that a lot.

But in this light,

And surrounded in this weather,

I could stay here and stroke your head until we folded in,

To the tree and its roots and its branches,

Bare from the onset of winter.

Everything All At Once, Again

All the way,

From the burning,

Tip of my right ear,

My ear,

Right here.

I'm looking out of me,

Is that still selfish?

I'm feeling the heat,

And the speechtalkspeech,

Of God behind me,

And the streetlight,

And mountains beside me,

And the streetlight,

I'm right here.

So it all begins to elongate,

Stretching forward and my throat,

It catches cataclysmic intent,

And the most honest laugh I've ever had,

Sounds not at all like you'd expect,

But it sounds,

Baffled,

And leg after leg of it takes me,

Where I need to go.

May you grow old and with ancient paper hands grip the one you love as you spin on the dance floor.

Background

It sort of ended like this:

Everything went back,

Everyone reversed,

People that died came back,

And people who were born weren't.

It wasn't like a film in reverse,

Or maybe it was like that for God I don't know,

But for everyone here it just was,

It felt exactly like going forward,

But with a new righteous purpose,

A righting of wrongs we couldn't live with,

But we forgot what it had been,

The first Time we lived.

Still everything changed,

People who went to the carnival didn't,

(They felt like they already had)

Didn't meet their former friends,

Didn't get sick on caramel apples,

Got sick on bad shrimp instead.

Our brains tried to hold on though,

Righteousness is an opiate to them,

Poor things,

So many flashes and firings,

Desperate synapse connections,

Trying so hard to fix something we did.

Or made,

Forever ago.

I was lucky - when I went back,

I ended up right where it started,

And I could feel the forgetting,

Like an ink, dark and secret-kept,

Secreting from my senses,

But before it draped over me,

I was lucky - I just said "Hey."

She just said "Hey." with disinterest seeping,

Turning back around.

As we kept walking,

I was caught up in the sunrise assailing the ivied building,

And I felt everything getting better,

My heart began to shake,

So much I didn't know how much longer I would live,

But I'd already done it once,

So that was less of a threat,

And when I ended up living again,

I forgot everything I did,

But held on to that one morning,

When I fixed it,

When my brain rested while my body walked,

It sort of began like this:

"Hey."

"Hey."

Do you see?