Thursday 21 January 2010

Hope

Petal.
Translucent stain of joy on...
My tiny breath of hope. You stamp frustration into oiled, crumb-lined floorboards.
Never wash their coats. Treasure the decay of discovery, echo to laughter unbound.
Too soon our hopes are beyond grasp, our tiny pricks of uncertainty magnified, our efforts at love ballooning, bouncing back.
Hope, then, hope remains.

Red

A red world, swirled in crimson warmth, like the inside of a pulsating stomach, rough, hewn imbalance, the upper crust of a tongue, equal in sand-textured imperfection. Squeezed, propulsed, cushioned, heart-encapsulated, sucked into tough softness.
A gate, to your heart.
Pumping, pumping, ever open.
May your veins stay ever open, propped by hard foreign bodies.
It all comes down to this.

Haiku (sort of) - Voice

Text on tongue tip, lip,
Resonators caverns bare;
Breathing in sound: tone.

Acceptance

Zaratha had five feet, but only two of them could touch the ground. Eventually he lopped off the other three and sold them to a man with a barrowful of shoes. The shoeman thought it would be good for trade - he could show off his shoes to greater advantage. Zaratha, flush with a pocketful of coins, stood tall and proud on his remaining feet. Now he could start his life over. He could fit in. He could take his place in the world. And his first action as a new citizen would be to announce his arrival.

"I am here."

His voice was an eagle's roar, unheard before. Nearby citizens fled at the sound. Zaratha soon came to realise that his voice inspired fear. It would have to change. He traded it at the market in Midram, where anything could be bought and sold for the right price. The crowds were dense here. If he scared them like last time, they would trample each other to death. Still, he had to know. He walked to the centre of the marketplace.

"I am here."

His voice was a breath of air. No one stopped or fled. No one noticed him at all.

Satisfied, Zaratha lay down on a rotting bench and slept.

When he awoke the crowds had gone. Greasy papers skittered under the bench, pushed by a breeze that carried the bitter smell of urine.

"Get off, that's my bench." A crinkled man, his coat torn and filthy, stood a few feet away, eyes wild.

Zaratha smiled. At last. He had been accepted.