Songkran Sorrow.

I should have known

that it would burn would burn would burn

but all I thought was how it had

burnt the walls and roads and rice

till it was all ash

and gone away in the wind.

How I hated this house of stone

that stood so stubbornly

No windows or I too

could have drifted away in the breeze

No windows or I too

could have seen all was left

was me

But I couldn't see and I didn't think

that there was anything left

for the bright red fingers to choke to ash

the sticky grey ash comes under the door

and makes you sneeze and snarl

What a frightful thing you are

if I had anything left of fear.

So I took the silver strand

when you were deeply drunkly dead

and I stained the silver red

and I sliced off your roaring head

burn burn burn

how it burns

and when all the nights are gone

I will stay awake remembering

how you burnt and screamed

The door came undone

and I chose to run

all bare feet and air

against the layers and layers of ash

through the piles and pile of debris

and you burnt you burned you rolled

burning after me

rolling with your open face all heat and flame

and I suddenly remembered there was no one who

could have remembered your name

No one could calm you could bind you

you were a thing undone

and it was I with my silver strand

I with my red stained hand

who had opened the door

The way was becoming green

and then grey again with you behind me

and I ran I ran I ran

and the people came from their doors

their locked doors their strong doors

and they wept they wept they wept

and I ran

Thinking Good Thoughts :a warning

All the anxious thoughts crawl

across her face with some thousand stinging legs

leaving ribbon edge creases of colour

and it looks like blush

If she had taken the whole tin

and then sneezed.

The red edged mushroom cloud

has covered her face and drops

with tentative tentacles down

to stretch across her neck

like a rose trellis

that is all thorns and no bloom

till her tall tower of a neck

was nothing more than a tangled trunk

supporting some monstrous bulb

that bounced balloonishly in the night air

The trunk sends down roots

ever thickening fingers that grasped and curled

around every available edge

leaving her mottled and mauve

under the pressure.

This will not end well they think.

For once they are right.

the long strings knot around her ankles

and tie around her toes at last

and there is no color left but grey.

Gifts and Wishes

If math settled in my brain

the way words seem to

if they stuck in neat piles

Legos of Logos that on occasion

rearrange into something startling

and sensible

instead of these letters of nonsense

(What kind of word is sentimentality?

It sounds like thinking but it's not

It's more like crazy all mental

and sensed out- not thinking.)

Perhaps if my synapses and these symbols

pi and infinity

had a bit more chemistry

I could be something

someone I suppose but in numbers

it wouldn't matter

I would be x or y

the independent or dependent

I wish someone would tell me

someone for whom the numbers march

towards their inevitable equal end

which I am

Independent or dependent.

All I can do is take apart the words

and wonder which is better

to be a pendant or a pedant

I could swing along the edge of a cord

a sparkling something for someone's decoration

but I fear that by thinking of it I have sold my chance

a pedant it shall be.

Chances - I feel i would win the game

If I only knew the rules

could crunch the numbers as they run

I could come out lucky in this lottery of love.

But as I cannot I will write of it.

Fear

There is something about

not writing

that makes me nervous

I wonder about it in still moments

between the talking or folding

and I wonder if my thinking

would be different if I were still writing

I think about it as a microscope

or a telescope perhaps

telling me tiny truths in larger crowds

or making simple statements about the stars

Neither of these are really true

I'm out of practice I'm sorry

but rather it's more that writing is the lens

it bends all the scattered moments of my day

into a beam all tight and focused

bright enough to burn

and now I am merely driftwood

with the sand piling up around me and

it's nice you know.

like burying your toes in the sand

and you flex against the weight of it

and pretend for a second that you cannot stand again

This is what I am pretending

or at least telling myself that I am pretending.

In the middle of the afternoon

when things are bright and busy and

I have no spare hand to guide my thoughts

the sentence hits me like a tripwire

and my breath is lost.

What if I cannot write anymore.

I am not writing because I cannot.

Free

The funny thing about freedom is

there is no one to tell you how not to

(fall in love

wreck a car

forget who you are)

I want to slip out the window

run my feet along the slick tiles

and not let anyone know

at least not for a little while

eventually I guess

I would have to confess

to tell them all the sparkling news

but for now the shine is so sharp

I keep it tucked tight against my heart

and feel it cut just a bit with each breath

liking the sting of how my skin stretches

(O skin mine you cannot stretch forever)

and I breathe deeper and deeper

driving the iced light against my skin

and laughing do it over again

because when you are free there is no one

to tell you how not to be

(reckless

and crazy

a taste of instability)

and I have finally done it I'm free

so I shall climb into the night

and into the shadows I shall whisper

because it is too early to scream

the news out over the city streets

but on the tile before I make my final leap

I shall disturb the swallow's sleep

because when you are free there is

no reason not to be

(whoever you choose

nothing to lose

you've broken loose)

So I'll take the final jump and see

how far these wings take me

So? How about it.

(stole this skin from a shadow

slipped it off his shoulder

while he was running from the light

and I wonder if he made it clean

or was rolled under its waves

and crushed)

It's mine now with that stretchable smile

you seem to find so interesting

and the eyes that they call so deep

yeah its funny how much fits

inside infinity

so here's the truth and here's the rub

don't rub your cat smile up against me

because I've seen it before

your long teeth flashing in the dark

right before you disappear

or did I?

Either way it's clear

when it comes to you and me

that it's all about fear

so baby turn off the light

and we'll practice our fights

one against the other

(would you be my lover)

until the sparks from the doorknob

jump to the windowsill

and dancing there become the sun

and all at once we are awake

awake and alone

I am gone

or was it you?

Whichever it's true

that the world is not for us

it wants all this trust

and I'm not sure its worth the fuss

life is such a mess

i must confess

I'm just waiting to break out

while we're waiting

(do you want to see

how we would make out)

if this was the real world

if this is what there was

be-be-because

I stole this from a shadow

and you've the soul of a cat

and I know we both know

where the lie is at

Sun is here again

let the fun begin again

its all a sin again

so how about it...

lets be friends?

Insurgents

red checkered rags tied tight round

white freckled faces.

green and blue eyes glare between locks

of bright gingered hair.

we are all prisoners of this dust road.

thin pale hands gripping

such tight grasps clasping

and it is not hunger that leads us

not fear pushing behinds us

but the road has cuaght us tight

in its red clay hands.

our enemies bear our flag

and we hate to see it so.

and so with these grasps we fight

holding tight

to our slender stick canes

carrying the bags upon our rods

like a mark of penance.

we contend with those

who were meant to defend.

we tear our claws of bullet and torch

into tanks we ourselves helped forge.

and still the sunset burns

we cannot put it out

for all our weary sweat and eager shouts

with spittle flying dusty and grey

across the scattered ranks.

we stand and march

because we cannot sit and weep.

we ignore the faces just like our own

and aim for the betraying signets.

we say they betray.

they say we revolt.

and the words are nothing to either.

because we have forgotten what they mean

and what power they had has been lost.

we may have broken the contract first

but they broken it far worse.

there is only the road

the great red stretch of dust

reaching up to curl around our feet

and pull us down.

or is it onwards?

the lines ragged run

across the grey horizon

and suddenly I wonder if we are all puppets.

we cannot sustain this.

we cannot maintain this.

a country divided must always fall,

and we're all standing with our backs against that wall.

w/ Amy Johnson- wordmaster extraordinaire.