Waterfalls

The pick strikes the ice and shatters the fragments

out into the air. Down they go, hearty lumps,

past my feet as I cling to the side.

 

I stretch up, pick ready, and strike again.

My chest hurts – I’m too eager, I know.

Fragments fly.

 

A routine: pick strike, ice diamonds

pick strike, ice diamonds.

Just frozen water playing rain.

 

So why am I bleeding?

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Surroundings

The earth talks to me.

The vibrations spur my feet on,

coaxing me to see with my body,

not just my eyes.

How much I miss by looking,

how much I see when my eyelids are shut.

Eyes

Eyes on a stranger’s face. Even blind

they can frame a person’s thoughts – windows in and out

are still windows if they’re glazed or frosted.

Seeing isn’t the only thing they can do.

 

Looking directly might hurt, like the sun. It’s okay

if you feel that way, distance and focus points help.

 

They might wash over you; a gentle wave on the coast.

More often than not, they will judge you, even if it’s unintentional.

Society might as well have us drink poison for all the filth we’re fed.

We can dress them up, paint them pretty colours

or frame them like precious art.

 

We can ignore them if they linger too long.

 

We can learn their greeting, learn their reluctance,

learn that everything and nothing might be hidden behind them.

The Rubbish Sack

When you open the rubbish sack, what do you expect to see? The empty packets of last night’s tasteless dinner? A card from someone you once knew so well it was like having a twin? That unopened box of over-fragrant toiletries your cousin of a cousin of a cousin gifted you three Christmases ago?

Why are you looking in there anyway? In that black hole of discarded things? You’re searching for a key? Oh, what kind of key? …You don’t know? Then what good will it do even if you find one?

Don’t you try to drown me out with that bag of sprouting spuds.

Hey. Hey! HEY!

The time I saw a quarter

It looks exactly like victory – if you squint a little. A hungry mouth waiting to swallow the world up whole, too famished to savour the taste. Someone once told me that taking such a meal would never truly sustain a person: half of a half, carrying on in a waking dream fishing for starfish to throw at the sky.

The demise of a splash of green in an otherwise grey world

The hard droplets pound

away at the pavement;

the dainty daisies growing in the cracks

stand no chance

against this sudden onslaught.

They fall flat,

squashed not only by the weight of the rain,

but crunched by wheels and feet,

all rushing past as though

they

are the ones

whose petals

are being washed

into the dark drain.