The Poetry Marathon

It came from the top

I thought we were about to

be plunged into darkness

for the whole evening

But it came from above

I saw the prism fan out

light the screen from the

projector box above and beyond.

He had one arm around my shoulder

and I wanted him to let go and

move away completely or kiss me,

Either end of the spectrum

would have been satisfactory

But he did neither

And in that under-lit back row

In the bitty haze of the projector’s stare

My regime took shape and order.

Crime would only be committed in

the darkest of basements and

everywhere there was light,

there was hope.

Special dispensation was to be given

to writers and artists and musicians

to use black light to create monstrously

terrifying works of splendour and magnitude.

When the lights went up

the whirr of the projector caught my attention

Only one more thing for reinvention.

They begin in single file possibly as breeders with a clone already attached they leave their cars in schoolyards and then again in carparks until they arrive in supermarkets pushing carts with kids in them round the aisles and what looked like one or two have joined up in ribbon formation winding around the legs and in front of the stomachs of all that is non-zooid and it’s different on different days but you can find them all entitled carbon copied assigned their own roles by the PTA battering rams on steroids Apolemia you can almost hear them breathe their name in unison.

Tick Tock clock dead

No-one checks what the kids watch

on TV when on their  own

Ring Ring Phone Broken

Doesn’t take any time to stare out into space

so you can do it as much as you like

you will never be late

It’s the usual story parents fighting

Gas lighting each other

It’s so common it would feel strange if

There wasn’t a row first thing in the morning

And of course, the beginning of the disappearing

uMhlanga* Rocks or was it Sands?

It no longer matters,

it was catastrophic regardless

You’ll love Christmas on the beach

They promised

and we as kids agreed with

whatever was presented upon the table

Traditions and promises weren’t kept in our family

Survival was to be flexible enough to spin on a quarter

and keep smiling far longer than you oughta.

Tick Tock clock dead

No one checks on who talks to

the kids on the beach

Ring ring phone broken

Doesn’t take a shrink to analyse

they’re telling lies to us to them again

Presents opened on a hotel floor

lack the panache and grandeur

of discoveries at home. In amongst the ordinary,

parcels brightly wrapped,

even as large as a finger nail

would be pronounced magic.

There’s  no room to play so toys are packed away

and it’s down to the beach for a holiday

of watching long walks and disappearances

While we played in the surf watching

the adults play tag

Tick Tock clock dead

No one checks on who gives out

the memories to the kids to keep

Ring ring phone broken

They had to be so much more

inventive before we attached to technology.

(*Pronounced UM-SHLANG-A, in South Africa)

Don’t let her speak to you that way

In what I thought was profound and

sound advice to one so much younger than myself

But I confused her all the more

I don’t know what it means

She said to me, hesitating,  hoping not to offend

It means what it says, I said

It just doesn’t compute, there are no pictures

in my mind to explain this phrase, she offered

I stood there not getting that the image

I could see, existed only in memory, for me

Press off, a red X

Ahh!

Said bye to the Mrs and the girlfriend too

It’s a long haul flight – got to get this right

I’m fighting to sit in Business

But it’s cattle class I’m at.

Got my sketchpad and pen

Ever since I was a little’un

I’ve recorded what I could see

and when I couldn’t see what I wanted

I invented it

Lights on – seatbelt on extension

squeezed around. As soon as we’re in the air

I’m loosening mine, I’m ignoring the sign

It’s coming off, no-one is going to stop me

Sorry? Yes, of course, thank you, click click

I stopped taking them two weeks ago.

Which ones? All of them. Had enough

It’s over, nowhere left to run

It’s been such a long time since anything was fun

As it takes off I can feel the pressure in my jaw

I wonder which of my teeth are falling out.

I check to see if I am lucidly dreaming

I’m not

Ear pops. Chewing gum furiously

But it doesn’t alleviate the pain

Nothing one can do on a plane –

No pharmacy on top deck to visit

Just grin, just bear, just sit

It was when the plane was in sharp

incline that I put 2 and 2 together.

When I reached 7 I sketch as fast as I can

But by now the lights are down

I always wanted to go to Bangkok

Didn’t know that bucket lists

were an option for the dead

I excuse myself from the sleeping row

I’m on the aisle, it’s easy to go

Suicide by plane –

Hit the heads.

Sketch not finished

Just didn’t reckon on this schedule

Where, thanks to the Sun

my skin is paper-thin,

I submerge myself in nature blessing.

Portia’s hand steadies mine as

calendula is applied sparingly.

International, ancient, remedy

devised long before my ancestors

stopped painting themselves blue.

I drop down deeply into a part of me

Only another ancient can be part of this process.

Each time I drop down through

I remove from myself another layer

Drop down through another place

I can forget

Stripping though the dermis

until I am left with my skin, paper-thin

and a kind hand to smooth into life’s

dust jacket, skin food

A potentially interminable state of being.

The one where any brush cannot prise apart

When the fingertips have to strip back to

claw their way though the tresses

Arms rowing through tempests over

reed beds , fighting with mermen for

coral combs with which to decorate.

It’s important to feel one’s head,

the shape of one’s skull, at least once per day.

A reminder of mortality and the precarious nature of life.

There is no special format to our existence

but to know that it’s our own skull sitting on our shoulders,

that it’s our own mind which steers us

avoids confusion and mayhem. Usually.

I try to engage twice daily.

In the evening I search for tell tale

reminders of the day’s adventures

Overarm swimming through the knots and

tangled jungle vines I tear them out,

scrapbook those I have not lost

and release a great mane over my feet.

Time to sleep

The autumnal colours spattered through the copse

Leaves releasing musky essence of each vein’s blood

Overhead stayed upon the branches no wind to pare them

Were locked in Elven arrangements

As might reindeer be to snowy travel

Beautiful season it worked its way deep into my eyes

As I started to sketch and paint where

Burning had blackened the staves

Fire remaindered elegance.

I want to stay away from the USA

I know not all of it is fundamental religiosity

But I have no burning curiosity to see

A land happy in origin of its rejection of me

Its symbols are crashing and being torn

Down beneath banners

The souls of the undead govern and rally cries

of white supremacists are heard

It scares me. A country

Whose main difference is that

It operates blatantly

Where mine remains bound

By the pleasantries of political play.

It’s like a game to some I’m sure

But they’re dying by their thousands

It fills me with fear

The rhetoric of the USA

I’ve passed through its gates

A conduit for home or adventure

But it’s not pulled me in to Vegas or Washington

And I’ve got plenty of good friends

And people I know who remain

Trapped state by state  but this game

Of legal organisation is wearing thin

Even for them and I wish I had a chain

I could throw out to them to escape

Cowards wear running shoes and

Patriots wear caps. Red ones

Police have cuffs, tasers and guns

And the inalienable right to take down

Or disable a suspect, warrant or none

And right in your living room, for no money to pay

You can see police killing, people dying

Fragments of a society that’s

been on the collapse for several lifetimes

I want to stay away from the USA

I once had upon the mantelpiece

A sand picture housed between 2 glass panels

Prized as a child for its innovative charm

I owned a tape cassette and listened

to a song of moonbeams hidden

Adventure revealed in the depth of tone

But the picture was sharply rejected

by your newly acquired sophistication

And when you sang the words

The song rang hollow

Years later,

On hearing the song again

Halcyon ways urged me

To lay down new tracks

To overlay the fading memory

of life’s inequities but sand spilled

Leftover on that mantelpiece

Scratching the new tunes down

I will keep on coming back

to the place we were before.

Where the moon hid from light.

I will keep on trying

to establish new words

new layers to preserve

the innocence

of an original moment

When music was magical

and sand built castles.