Everything arranged, just fades away.
Washed by a black sea.
The shiver into nothingness.
While eyes above watch.
Grief picks its place.
Planting rotten flowers that scratch the eyes.
I Move away from everything I knew.
Death coming in with the tide.
Staining my ankles and heart.
Taking what is most precious out with its salty inhale.
Sorrow settles in.
Showing up, now hope has lost its way.
Through heavy storms this heart doth beat.
Battle born and weary.
Feathers frayed liked angelic irony.
Patched and nearly severed.
Where do you go to be reborn?
While wolves lick between your teeth.
And though pregnant hopes swell and ebb.
Through cobweb sticky emotions
Through distance in your eyes.
The cries of sincere doubt corrode quickly in your salty waves.
Smashed into pieces upon your unwelcoming rocky shore.
Yet something crawls out of the ocean.
Something that slayed the terrors of the deep.
To reach up and scale that towering mountain.
That you placed there to warn those out to sea.
Of how close to god you now sit and suffer.
How away from us you wish to be.
Truth hidden in a liar.
Like drowning petals.
Pearls covered in dirt.
Beauty sunken to unfathomable depths.
Those eyes are like black ponds.
Revealing nothing, reflecting all.
Does this light shine back?
Does it tweeze anything from your hidden soul.
You have our love now trapped.
Stored away and silent.
Vanished for all the world not to see.
I know that goodness lies inside your shell.
A bravery that can rise above the fog of this war.
Yet it is impotent and quiet.
Buried in the sand of time passed.
Like those ever-elusive weapons of mass destruction.
It cannot be found.
But I know it’s there, next to your beating heart.
The sea lion awaiting the time to roar.
And break through the waves of this pain.
Falling freeways that collapse like thunder.
Splattering dust into my open heart.
The sun shines on.
Blanketing our eyes with dizzying despair.
That road was to the sea.
The ocean that promised such departure.
The great wide expanse that echoed home.
So we look above.
Counting trails and streaks across the sky.
Fighter jets and passengers making their escape.
Crawling, flying and fretting to other cities.
Other sights of wonder.
My mind melts into now and I collect my possessions.
All packed into one golden shell that I carry in my pocket.
It whispers your name.
It breathes your air.
Cinnamon cords that play forever on my lungs.
I crack this pumpkin sky and break on through.
The open road, a littered landscape of longing.
Making my way to you once more.
Stabling the state of mind I’m in.
Begin the begin.
That endless world they talk of.
A Drowned world.
It opened in my heart when the starry waves washed inside.
When you looked at me.
With that light of god in your eyes.
And in that moment, like that pebble in your hand.
You grasped at the infinite.
You consumed my soul.
And we would remain forever bound.
Like that pebble in the ferocious stream.
Washed endlessly by the cosmic current.
Until clean.
Jasmine lips and honey eyes.
Dance on my flesh like miniature dragonflies.
Growing roses in my heart.
The ivy of my mind to twist into.
Licking your skin and tasting the ocean.
Chasing your wave and finding sand in my shoe.
You.
Blue and free like the sky that pulls over my eyelids.
Whispering into my skull, the tantric movement of tomorrow.
Taking me off to another land.
Where your skeleton slips into my skin each day.
And crystal tears carve a path right through me.
Amber shivers and slumbered eyes, welcoming these dreams.
Tip-toeing through the water lilies of your world.
Hovering like the hummingbird of your heart.
Beat and hum.
When the clothes of life don’t fit us right.
All the world hums in a headache grey.
I wish for it all to fade away.
To drown in the peace of a miracle.
Or to sleep in the air of reframe.
But life is wanton, and but an ocean of torment.
And pain is the reservoir that keeps refilling.
Washing over me, again and again
We brake once more on the waves of our love.
Trying not to drown.
But your current rises below and above.
Fixing watery crowns.
But a latent strength takes me beyond the seam.
Crashing me to the shore.
Littered by the ghosts of long dead dreams.
To haunt me, evermore.
The sun illuminates such maddening visions.
Of logical paths I dare not tread.
A way to your soul that is covered in thorns.
The heat burns and chars like the wattle trees.
My bones like their branches.
Crumbling and dead.
Yet words you whisper on the Nullarbor winds.
Reach me over oceans.
Washing into my veins like scented magic poison.
An oxygen for my heart which longs to be with you.
So I twist towards the sun, though it burns in your direction.
Blaring up from below the equator.
Through a lens of love and reproach.
Like a plant feeling a new growth, bursting from my skin.
A love is grown again within.
Hoping to be potted, once again in your dusty soil.
How high to stem the breaching tide.
That washes daily into our lives.
A rise and fall, with horrific force.
Split and cut right through our course.
And though at times it seems sublime.
It slowly soaks with turpentine.
A drowning water in our lungs.
Of life’s debris, while Satan hums.
And watches while we slowly sink.
God’s dye is cast, a deep red ink.
Which covers us and pulls us under.
Ripped from mercy, cast asunder.
And so we land in bits and pieces.
Choked on truth, strewn on beaches.
And watch while new shores rise and peak.
A brave new world, in which to wreak….havoc
I cannot go outside.
They will not see.
I lock the doors and turn the world down.
Set the moon to wake me, so I can dance in the dark.
They cannot know, they should not look.
I came to disappear discretely.
The void is my own.
Yet a consequence is not from a lack.
The love and respect weighs me down more than you will ever know.
But I have to go, I have to depart.
Sailing out on silent ships that leave you all in fog.
Not a death, not a dim.
A recapturing, of self.
Until I’m stronger to hold back the waves of the world.
Stronger, to survive the sun.
Summer days with rain.
A tearing at this side.
Spilling petals and ruin.
A Day with the night.
The moon, coming into view pocked and dusty.
Out in the ocean, cast into life.
Waiting for the smile to flow from a sentence.
Communication, then nothing.
Nothing, then communication.
A constant pulse of anxious disregard.
Release now, free of feelings.
Feathers dipped in oil.
Diseases and love that swallow like a lake.
To eat off of chipped china, filling stomachs swollen with greed.
And such need.
To scrub away the blood that stains.
The candy stuck in the tooth.
We are all but sticks floating down the river of life.
Passing through the weeping willows of the world.
Making our way to swamps, not seas.
We lost some strength we can’t replace.
The soul was bared, in places unprepared.
Fate slipped across our wrists.
Eternity flashed across our eyes.
But no demise.
Those feelings won’t ever fade.
Memories now scorched into us.
Illuminating our real selves.
I saw what I wanted to change.
And where to now?
What siren call, or ocean tide beckons.
Nothing here wants to remain.
Yet we cannot leave just yet.
Until the broken is repaired.
And the sacred is shared.
We must climb in place.
Plastering the walls with pretty views.
Painting our souls spiritual hues.
Ones that glow a beauty from within.
Showing us fragile and divine.
Folded out of angelic paper wings.
A product once more of god’s design.
Your tissue and bone, like hammer and stone.
Lay me down with this poison.
Counting heart beats, the frenzied heat of your touch.
Leads to my defensive corrosion.
Strychnine, and baths of turpentine.
Which strip away all doubts,
In a sweet sublime watery grave.
Your kiss. The dangerous list of a vessel.
Aching to be near you. Pumping to please you.
And sinking with your tide.
Through wanderings of a hallowed heart.
Untie the science while the rain comes.
Let the silence smother you.
Or little taps of life, crash on your skin.
Blanketing this world in a quiet monsoon.
Layering and prevailing over all before.
Let it seep into those muddy bones.
Washing everything.
Purify and personifying a state of being.
Fresh like holy water.
Stinging the sins like acid.
Drown and choke underneath those silent waters.
A vast tide that you wash over me.
Those days that were always numbered.
The borrowed time and delicious decay.
How sour those words met my mouth.
When I asked you to leave.
Tying my tongue into confused states.
Separate systems and traumatic time zones.
A flight into a new world.
Where the clouds coughed around me.
And the skylarks sung our demise.
God raining down sad tears.
That had been building for some time.
Underneath that crystal water.
Of crushed stars and dreams.
Dwelling like a memory that won’t die.
Lies a soul.
Frayed and tattered.
Filled with thoughts of eucalyptus leaves and saffron.
Tide up in heartstrings and self-made knots.
Tackling the torrents soundlessly.
To drown silently in a rising tide.
This was their gift to you.
Keeping the truth and the pain out of your eyes.
Packing soot and coal into the sockets.
Trembling inside and yet still.
Like a sewn up teddy bear.
All glass eyed reflective.
Placid.
Who let that rain in, to wash the hope away?
Deluged in dopamine and on the brink of decay.
Each drop inched closer.
Under the door and down their spine.
Exploding the sky with a grey that blocked out heaven.
God made the rain, the floods and the tide.
To wash away the sinners, the soulless and already sunken.
Yet she was always destined to float.
Catching stars in pockets and wiping the salvation across our mouths.
But the rain came in.
Straw ladened and camel shaking.
Soaked in misery and shame.
And now she is lost under the surface.
Ripped away in the undertow.
Growing gills and thicker skin.
Crashing on someone else’s shore.
He spun the coin, watching it take off in its own little orbit. Whizzing and chasing itself as it spun around. It usually took a few seconds, it never happened right away. At least not yet. The blurred smudge of the coin slowly began to take shape as it slowed down. It was a pound coin, the closest thing to gold he could find. The year embossed on the metal was 1989, that was very important, though few would ever see the date.
The blurring lines of the coin began to slow, but as they did, they stretched outwards, spreading across the surface like a wave. He’d seen it a few times before of course, but each time he did it seemed to entrance him. The waves grew wider and wider as the coin began to slow. The blurred waves taking on an oily shine, catching rainbow marks as they swam outwards like the tide.
And then the coin stopped spinning, it hung there on its side static and humming slightly as the waves that had spread stopped everything. Time was his now, and he moved in towards the coin, the waves forcing him in slow motion. He felt the tightness in his lungs, but he pressed on, like trudging through water. He reached out, his fingers finding the way towards the coin. When they touched, a radiating light exploded outward in the room, blinding him in an instant.
This was the part he always had trouble with.
June 23. 2014. June 23 2014. June 23 2014.
He repeated it in his mind over and over like a mantra. He’d been told to visualise the numbers, but his mind always struggled with that part. It would make things easier if he did, but he was used to difficult.
With a rush of air and collapsing of light, he was thrown into something that he could never quite describe. He was always thankful to land the other side though, his eyes and his hands always burning for some reason. But his lungs thankful for the air on the other side. The air back in 2014. A simpler time.
It was for him at least. Which is why he usually came back to then. Back to here.
He looked around now, the familiar softly warming his heart. There were different approaches to his time jumping, it had been explained to him. He could land in a different place, anywhere in the world if he chose. He wasn’t restricted to when or where, or if he’d ever set foot on that part of the earth. But these steps always required more, and he was only really interested in this place, this time. It brought him a comfort that the present and the future no longer held.
He was in the apartment he’d just left, but it all looked very different. He felt the lighter atmosphere in an instant. Gone were the heavy furnishings or blinds to trap the light. That precious light was welcomed in, the blinds open and the door to the balcony cast wide as if calling out to the sea. He could hear the see, even though it was quite far below. The crashing sounds of the waves seeming to catch in the updraft and lift the sounds up to the 28th floor. He knew the view well, and much preferred it here in 2014, then in the present. Here he could take their hand and trace the line of the coast off in the distance. In the present it only called him to the rocks below, the sirens that dwelt there luring him to the ends of overwhelm.
He looked at the clock on the wall, and knew they’d be back any minute. He always liked to watch them coming in through the door. That paradox of frustration and relief at coming back from the end of a long day.
And there they were, coming in through the door. He went across to the entrance and breathed in their sweet smell as they walked right through him. He knew his own self would appear any minute, coming out of the shower and greeting them. It pained him not to be able to touch, but he was glad that sight and smell both worked normally. He saw himself then exit the bathroom, tying the towel around himself and coming over to kiss them. He ghostly traced his own steps, merging with himself and following through with the kiss. He closed his eyes despite himself, but quickly opened them and took them in his spirit like arms.
He missed the kisses. He missed their touch. He missed so much of what was now all around him which was why he returned here so often. He watched them both moving around. The kettle now being boiled as the coffee and tea was prepared. Bag dumped on the sofa. He breathed it all in, the preciousness in the ordinary.
He could stay forever if he liked, and indeed he had stayed for long periods of time before. But time being the linear monster that it is, he found he had to wait out the times when they would sleep. He could not sleep here, back in time. His body wouldn’t allow it. It was as if it was constantly battling some force which pushed it on. So, he spent hours watching them sleep, watching them dream. This was always a good time to come, because he loved this day. The 23rd. He knew the evening well and he never got bored of seeing their reaction.
He noticed it then, glittering on the table. And surprisingly, so did they. The coin was shimmering, the sunlight catching the dulled yellow from the pound coin. Then they both went across to the table, he watched them move as if in some strange dream. This couldn’t happen, he could not disrupt the past. But it was happening, nonetheless. Before he knew it, the coin was in their hands, tossing upwards. It landed on the palm, their hand covering it.
Heads or tails?
Try again.
Flick, up in the air.
He reached for it himself but missed and watched as they again hid it under their hand.
His old self grabbed them, both of them laughing. Then they made a dash for the balcony. The joy carrying itself out into the outside to share with the world. Grabbed again, but this time fought back, tugging at the towel to share even more with the world.
He watched this all in a stunned state, as if unable to move. He shook himself back to, but by then it was too late. Another toss into the air and this time the coin spun upwards with such a force it was as if it were being called back by God.
Over the sides it flew, watched by them both and by he himself before he launched himself over the side.
It made no sense. He’d never been told this could happen. They were never able to see the coin before. Or had they just never noticed it? He thought suddenly to himself. They couldn’t interact with him, that is what he’d been told. But something was different this time.
He sped towards the coin, himself hurtling down towards the ground, the rocks below coming up fast like pointy teeth. No matter, he would just touch the coin and reset. He could not be hurt back here. He didn’t quite know what would happen if he did land, but it didn’t matter as his hand clenched around the coin.
But it did matter, for his ghostly hand went right on through the solidness of the coin. And those rocks found his body quicker than he could blink.
The pain was real, and instant. In his tumble he had twisted slightly, the jaggered rocks that his body had smashed against had greeted the blood like the ocean spray, disrupting it outward. He lay there for but a moment still alive, looking upwards as he could see the figures on the balcony looking on before disappearing back inside. Back into the lives they would live together for only a couple of more years.
As he passed, he heard the clock ticking and he could see in his mind the coin spinning.
Though he had paid attention to the date of the coin, which was indeed most important, what hadn’t been explained were the little rings of dots that circle the pound coin. A normal coin he’d assumed at first. But each time he had jumped, a little dot had disappeared. The coin, which now lay just below the surface, washed by those south pacific waves, had its last little dot slowly disappear.
Nothing, it seems, lasts forever.
This picture of you, drawn out of such a moment in time.
Chiselled out of the clouds and into my eye.
I reached inside of myself, only to find you there.
Setting up a place for us.
A home, deep within the fathoms of my uncertainty.
Placing sticks and rugs over deep old wounds.
Silently you swell.
Sweetly you settle.
Patching holes and broken pieces of the past.
I radiate out a pulse, searching for something to slip away into.
But I’m strung up in your willowed reaches.
Your horizoned heart.
Your memory beaches.
Ultimately I relinquish and peel off my skin.
The fuselage of fear splinters away and we brace for impact.
Washing ashore of this Elysium dream.
Elements converging as the seasons split.
The yoke of God dripping down your lips.
Feed once more on this honesty.
As your fingers plunge into my heart.
We see clearly, through sea glass.
Kaleidoscopic colours dancing in my skin.
Soundless movement towards eternity.
Stretched out over the seabed.
This world is nothing without you.
Like the ocean without the waves.
Crest and churn in my soul as this love deepens.
As sugar-spun trust follows.
But never leave.
Never lie.
Tie your heart to this bow and let me slip inside again.
And let me taste you once again in this summer rain.
Cracks in the colossus.
Licking time across new wounds.
Limping and lumbering back into the ocean of your eyes.
Taking lifelines.
That little notepad you kept in your desk.
Right behind your mind.
Scribbling a sonnet for thine truth to break.
And a storm to release.
Sweeping up all the worries and the fish from the bottom of the sea.
I bottled up these sea storms.
The swell in your day.
But you pick and poke at the cork and the corrections.
To then complain that you are soaking wet.
What fable lives now in that oily deep?
What treasures do you covert, claw at and keep?
For in my mind too swim a thousand sharks.
Tasting blood in the water.
Now, no longer able to swim.
A tangle of troubles, the octopus crawling underneath the waves.
Occupying my deep.
The earth subsides.
Transient thoughts of escape.
Dissipate.
Pick the petals from my mouth.
As the mourners avert their eyes.
Death, was no surprise.
Yet this extension, a spark inside.
Flutters like a butterfly trapped.
The decades wash over me now in waves.
Heady and fragrant.
Crashing coral like beauty through my soul.
Leaving stains like memories in my eyes.
How long was I there, what was left?
Do these bones show rings if sliced in two.
I feel born anew.
Trembling and naked like the first day.
Yet now, covered in the embryonic fluid of knowing.
That tomorrow is just the beginning.
To be the shell in your pocket, or the pebble in your shoe.
Allows the skin that covers you, to take me in.
Closer to your flesh that breathes.
Fragrant like a flower of hope.
Seeing everything.
Closer to god.
These boys and girls, with hidden smiles and transparent trauma.
Promise nothing of tomorrow.
Selling chalky kisses in crises centres, splattered across the map.
Which you now trace your fingers across.
Finding washed out welcomes in every state.
At least those that you remember.
Your phone calls go unanswered, avoided like Monday mornings.
They move away and sigh long lamentful breaths.
Dropping almond eyes to the ground.
Feet shuffling to a sound of a country mourning.
A country held prisoner to the promises of a thief.
Now tomorrow feels scary, fluorescent feelings that fold like paper moons.
The tide turns too soon.
And you return once more to the ocean, picking the salt from your eyes.
Counting the tears that drip like a million wishes into a well.
Like the one you cast into as a child.
Shining bright like Christmas lights.
When everything seemed touched by magic.
QUIESCENT
She tried to save him on that day.
That day, when the coffee stained sky folded.
She reached out in her own way.
Only for her hands to turn to stone.
And her mind to dust.
A cruel trick of fate positioned her.
To watch his demise from such a vantage point of safety.
Silenced in an eternal knowing.
While a tempest raged in her eyes and mind.
So she threw it all back in time.
Crouched under her bed until the voices left her.
With bangs on the door and within her heart.
Which now thundered to a singular beat.
Then the vines crept up around her veins,
and she erased her broken kingdom.
At least she tried to.
Then disappeared into the rains that then came.
Leaving no trail in her wake, only questions.
And the angels covered her in mercy.
As she chased the dragons by the flooded lagoon.
Wandering in a time of danger.
Leaves me shaking.
My cheeks all rosy red.
Winter, creeping into my eyes like tears.
But inside, it’s all warm.
All still wet.
Gushing a crimson love that is full of elation.
Utopic movements cloaked in everyday actions.
A sideways look to you.
Words pulled from my mouth like pearls.
A cough to breathe, bringing up sand and seaweed.
Having dredged our love from the bottom of the ocean.
Down in the depths where the wreckage once lay.
There is sand in your eyes, sparkling like gold.
You lick moments over me now.
Silky and familiar.
Once a comforting lie, now this time a truth.
This is now, the place we have crashed and shattered into.
Burning still from the fire.
Fading away in the rain of a thousand lifetimes.
Let me suck that eucalyptus air from your lungs.
For I only want to breathe now, if you are breathing.
Havoc and Consequence 