dream
....salt
strips down my face,
damp creases of rain fret
the brittle sand
....over my chest.
black fish swim
like archangels through light.
truth
morose wrappers
scour the streets
... tumours grow quickly,
he says
windows
almost running,
I disregard shop fronts
like magazine covers
....synchronised arrangements
....of stainless-steel lamps,
....sandalwood and polished boards,
ignoring restaurants
....taut with faces
....and silent cappucino,
and the clear callous outline
of a tumour exposed on glass.
tomorrow
I cannot connect
tyranny with morning
while I wake.
Was it only interference in my brain,
white noise
....blowing out
making its own shapes?
Glue
....clots in my bones and hair
........sticky
on closed eyes.
I hunch over the stove,
where truth writes itself in toast crumbs
under blue flames-
littering the grill-waiting too.
Shower, soap, steam-
the only miracles are
state of the art plaque killers
....the scent of dust
....touched by rainfall
....pervades the hall
So this....is tomorrow.
theatre
the light disappears
....without protest,
coveting the tundra
....of forced sleep
*
....A dozen corpses
are fazed by the onset of resurrection.
The surgeon unpacks words
....I hardly know,
fumbled guarantees
........release.
*
Unreal arms escort me
& x-ray slides flinch
when I validate my ticket,
....daylight recoils
beyond automatic doors.
vigil
outside
he watches smokers
staring down light-headed traffic,
....the sun's adrift
from the vacuum-sealed night
my mother still hasn't come-
he phones her machine again,
but, by now,
she's repeating herself
watermarks
....psychotic grunge -
the tv melds
....with my white-whale songs,
a hump-backed sea recoils
....and falls clear,
fleets of gulls backbite in sour arctic dialect.
....inside blind pieces of light,
the drifting arms of a seawasp....set
....rigid as lifelines.
(c) Copyright Ann L. Healey
Watch this space:
"sway, don't talk" ... coming soon.