Skip to main content

On the way to work - David Hay

 



AUGUST 21, 2022

In a shelter of darkness,

I gave a homeless man a cigarette

And lit it for him.

 

The Sky would soon be on fire.

 

Teeth clenched, I feel myself falling

Like tears carried by a light breeze

Into the dreams of the boy, I left

In the gauze of morning light,

Watching the birth of clouds

Into eyes, half-shut in sleep.

 

I can’t bury my childhood

It isn’t a corpse, that disintegrates

Into the anonymity of nature.

 

It’s something stranger, harder to define.

 

People are paradoxes who will never understand themselves.

 

But maybe that’s my feeble  baby-shoot brain

Stunted by the limited light and clear skies.

 

My childhood is a ghost, haunting

The byways of my graved thought routes.

 

Then when joy is unshackled from the altars of respectability,

The urchin cast out when teenagers mocked me for still playing with toys,

Returns and the know the truth, slurred by drunks in the back alleys of night,

that adults are everything that’s wrong with the world

Is true.

 

A soulless gimp in a human suit taps you on the shoulder,

Drinking a cocktail like he invented it,

 

Try to be normal old chap

 

And I dream of punching him in his already smushy face

Before running into the woods, tearing off the suits that have

Imprisoned my dreams for so many years ...

 

But I smile and nod, sit down at my desk,

My hopes sinking like flames into the sea.

 

Written by David Hay

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

16mm Situated - Sloan James

  MARCH 11, 2023 Share Image credit: Still from "Tired snail eyes look around on a jog home" —  courtesy of  Lucas Haynes   16mm Situated 28-February-2023     Staving off the lower back pain of a man muddling middle age. But that would mean death at... never mind. The dull and dim concoction of nicotine, Endone, Turkey 101 and THC doesn't quell too much. I thought I was through it. Through with spine serpents snaking and looping and hooping round the bottom of my back, hissing at every movement and threatening bites of venom. Just sink the fangs in already slithering queen of mediocrity. Maybe those days jogging mattresses up staircases for minimum wage are ghosting my future plans. Plans to stand up and walk from one room to another.        We put off dinner because hanging paintings has taken all day. Where does the damn  Rigney  go now that he's away? Gone? in a different place. Another home. One I've never been to. But...
Post a Comment
Read more

Impending Impatience - Nia Di Gennaro

  OCTOBER 18, 2022 Share     Ardour For this crown, dark Avidity In the balm of this chamber, blush Devotion In brevity To this season, long In the slight of an a.m. downpour, gentility How the scene ached to express itself to me Presented by significance Dressed as Violent elegance Intoned as Brutal magnificence Rousing sentience Waking dormant tenderness Bidding attention     To where I lay To where I’d been laying For hours For days     In Your meat Your marrow Your pith In Your depravity I’ve merry walked In Your brine I’ve sticky rolled In your proclivity I’ve risky peeped And quietly We march the death meadow     So as not to stir the bitter wind Or provoke the nightshade starved Who desire a kill     Wings wide Flut-tut overhead And know its menace Hold breath And hold for the pop and glitter And purr with verve Oh, my Thy drugs are quick   Written by  Nia Di Gennaro
Post a Comment
Read more

All the Hip Kids are Writing about Deleuze - Sloan James

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022 Share After a long nap sometimes, you wake up feeling like you’ve been slapped by a different day. A week of stress. It’s a week of stress or it’s a week of nothingness. And that is stressful too. Activity doesn’t always breed value. Sometimes you feel just as hopeless for working hard. I was meant to see Karn this evening. I send him a few texts as a walk around the empty house with no ideas. The thing to do in these situations is always drink. I don’t know what to do tonight. And I’m alone. I have five books on the go at once. I can’t read them all. I didn’t read for all of August. Is my brain still able to put the words in the right place? Words… I need to finish that book. Karn was supposed to come to Father’s Day today. He’s Dadless, like so many. Thankfully, not myself. And I’m willing to share. But Karn didn’t sleep last night. I don’t know the full story. I get a message from Darren. “Have you heard from Karn today?” “Yeah, why?” I don...
Post a Comment
Read more