Loose Threads

Mother dropped her spinning needle
It fell right on its head, the other children
Heard it fall and rushed off straight to bed,
I stood in doorways darkness and watched
Her from behind, as she stitched the word
Across her heart, the pain it left her blind

Father told us she was sleeping, for years
And years to come, we never asked about
It or what was yet to come, and in the night
We heard her walk and creak across the floor
But father told us not to worry, she wasn’t here
No more

He finally put her in her box, a kitten
I heard him say, safe and warm and free from
Danger, but mind you, far away, the man
who came to get her, was tall and grey and
Old, he left without the box, at least
That’s what we’re told

Now I have the spinning needle, I took it
From where it lay, and once I dropped it
On the floor, father went away, I keep it
In a locket, one around my throat, and
When it falls I see that man in his long black cloak

The Children

Why are our memories so sparse?
In the first few years, fighting for the meaning
Of the years yet to come, we didn’t ask to crawl,
To walk, to run, to learn the footsteps of this world
When we couldn’t even express ourselves, except
In gurgling tones of misunderstanding, mother, why am I here?

And you laugh, mother and father and grandparents
At the display of cognitive thought, you are excited
At what you have brought to life, never mind the strife
Some of us feel on the inside, we were cooked in the seas
Of creation, a one way station it would appear, there is no
Way to crawl back to non-existence, we were there, now we’re here

We didn’t ask to be, it was a remedy of disaster, a sign
You say of your love, a bundle of joy sent from above that
Would change the course of history, yet all that time we suffer
Through the mystery, unknown to your compartmentalized minds
We were aware of it all of the time, mother, why am I here?

Raise your champagne flutes, drink your beers, reminisce about
The beauty of life, cheer, live, laugh, we wonder if you have
Escaped the plan that was drafted for you, or did you simply
Become delusional to the truth, the greater scheme, the scheme
Of you, and we walk and we talk, we learn and we die, we once
Awoke with a cry of mother why am I here?

Time passes, it passes slowly, like the ebb of a river turning
And this question, this puzzle it burns through me,
And you are feeble now, not strong enough to handle the
Creased brow, the pursed lips, the plea for sanity, we are the eclipse
To your once happy ever after, we smother the tears and mask
The anger, and in your dying breath you say with a smile,

You are here because you are my child

The Magician

A cape like wings of a dove
Slight of hand, he hands out love
In a four pack of cards not too far
From where reality mixes with the unnatural
And never mind being practical because when
You’re a magician no one’s every mad at you
But when everything is a joke how long before
The words you spoke are nothing more than an
Epitaph, where’s your sleight of hand now?

Deception is the aim of the game and
You’ve had decades to perfect the pain staking
Process of creating wonder and laughter in others
Eyes but they’ll never understand the real prize is a
Reprisal, the ultimate way to one’s survival, when you’re
Dealing with the unknown you get to choose the variables
For as long as you want, the rest of us don’t have that kind of
Luck, everyone’s always mesmerized by the flicker of magic
The control you have is something quite tragic

Tell them the punch line is at the end of the bridge
And they’ll find themselves looking for something magnificent
When all they’ll find is what they left behind, the shells of a past
Life before the lies were brought to life, standing like unworn suits
Nothing that compares to the attire you chose, and everyone
Wants to be like you because you are a magician, a secret
Creature in this human existence but it’s hard enough
To find ourselves when we’re not being led to the fell swoop
Trap of another trick, don’t look away, don’t blink, don’t think

About the repercussions of such a dangerous game
Your claim to fame, the making of your name
Not that you would ever use your real one because
That would require a different kind of sum where the answer
Isn’t grasped from thin air and make-believe dreams of people
Sometimes life isn’t fair, but you are a magician and fair isn’t
In the rulebook anymore, you’re the mad man, the tormentor
Dangling answers just out of reach, long enough to tease and
I’ve decided, to hide and wait it out, the magicians are never
In town that long…

Two Footprints in the Walk of Life

We had walked through black
And come out bruised
The result of being battered and used
By people we trusted
I think we found solace in that

Sometimes we talked about the
Hazing of our names from their lives
The way they hacked with knives
Severing any connection to them

It was something we both suffered
And something we wouldn’t wish on the other
But that pain was the only real thing we had in
Common and I’m glad for it in the end

Trekking this world alone is hard enough
Never mind the baggage of it all but we helped
Each other with the haul and somehow made it
To a place where we both felt safe and secure

Yet not at all secure in the absence of one another
Having each others backs just became a ritual
And a co-dependent existence arose from the
Promises to turn the light on as we came and go

And we are beings of different minds and different
Origin stories but there is a fundamental respect
For the battles we have left behind in the past
We both know not to ask how the other is
Because some scars simply exist

But at least they don’t bleed
We found enough gauze in the
Early weeks to drive long enough
To the finishing line and we survived
As morbid as it seems I’m glad the
Suffering wasn’t just mine

3 am

Its 3 am, and I’m thinking about the end,
Not mine but yours, the peaceful non-existence
You say you adore so much, you unplug your phone,
House and hand just so I can’t get in touch with the
Reasonable side of your mind, it’s torture and torment
One of a kind I never thought I would witness in this life,
And what I am supposed to do? Tell the world what you said,
That you were looking forwards to going to bed and never
Getting up again? How can I shout the secrets into the unknown
If I’m not really sure if this is a cry for help or a practical joke

Well it turns out the joke was on me and every time
I heard my heart beat I was sure I was wrong and that
Tomorrow would ring with the sound of funeral bells and that
I would be responsible for what would come next and the flocks
Of school children coming to my nest offering their condolences
To the person they never really met, cared to meet, see we were
On the outside, on the side streets, the stalls in the carnivals, an
Attraction in themselves just never enough to pull in the big crowds
We were not attention seekers like the rest of them in this town, at least
That’s what I thought until 8 am rolled around

And you rolled around with a smile on your face and an innocent
“hey” and I could tell this was just the next play, I was a pawn in your
Game and I allowed myself to be moved too far to the edge of the board
And you were swarmed, just as you wanted, by the popular and the latest
Fads, and I balanced precariously, both terrified and mad, I felt trapped
Inside this twisted claim, while you easily started your way to fame and
All I could think of was how I wanted to paint these walls with your lies and
Proclaim to the human race how you were a spy, a demon inside of a human suit
Just looking for a way to win instead of lose

And I think about 3 am, the paralyzing tick of the clock on the wall
My body locked and how I crawled through the excruciating hours of
It all, the space I stayed illuminated by a light because the dark could do
Nothing but worsen this plight, and it felt like my heart was thrown in
A blender, mashed and beaten and served up tender, on a silver platter
For you to laugh at, in disgust of all that was left of it, and you took your
Sword and gouged out my trust and when I demanded an answer your
Face turned to rust and in a steel robot voice you said good riddance,
Good bye, now get out of my life,

Now 3 am is my favourite time.

A Sliver of Silence

She is served a sliver of silence
On a plate she used in her childhood
Memories are whispering: come find us
But she is scared of the night and dark places
She remembers those eyes, those cold faces
Of people she loved, people she trusts
Until the day that it falls and everything rusts

Over and she remembers her bike with wheels
Which stilled, frozen in place her adventure stilled
And she rushes to the side of her only friend, killed
By the sudden onset, of a storm, raging inside of her
Since the days she was born she built castles on the moon
And was forever warned this would end, and she was torn

As to whether or not she would open the gates and
Step forwards to meet her fate, she knew it was only a
Matter of time but she was not prepared for the landmine
As she walked along so hesitantly the bridge of her
Sanity exploded and she fell from the sky, not like an
Angel but a bird that couldn’t quite fly

Who hadn’t been taught that these things were wings
Designed for saving hopes and dreams and they were
Waiting patiently to bring her across to their new world
She watched her people hurl little notes from the clouds
They called her back, their voices loud, at first dimmed away
Her covered ears could hear them say
“Come back to us, come back and play.”

The Red Sky

Light touches pale blue sea,
A shimmer stretches for miles around me,
Mothers pushing prams, children collecting clams,
Lovers walking in the calm, I would take a photograph,
If the heavy fog was not rolling in, grey bellows
In loud clangs, a mournful din, the bursting dam of chaos
Takes me by surprise as people flee from the sunrise,
But I, I am mesmerized, by the light of the red sky

I stand by sea shelled shore, alone as the ocean
Wages a war, against the impending night, the city
Sleeps unaware of its might, glowing under the cover
Of an orange sun, warming the skin, enticing the run,
From the sweeps of cold unforgiving blue, suddenly
I am the moon, my face is round my eyes are dark,
Splintered and damaged, eerily stark

The waves roll softly and curl at my feet,
The dance has changed to a new beat,
Purple splotches and drips like blood,
And I am alone in this flood, regret and poisons,
Follow the stream, tearing apart the essence of dreams
I have not seen anything as serene
As it slowly takes parts of me

All at once it disappears, taking days, months
and years, a final glint, a falling tear, it
looks so far but feels so near,
If I could only reach so high,
as to catch the unfolding red sky