Time bubble

Inside, the surfaces are greyscale,

effigies so plain they cannot distract.

The only glow comes from the tools on my desk,

the ink, the paper, my own hands.

Time is still while I work,

boring deeper into the creative swirl,

light intensifying

until finally the filament goes

and the clock’s ticking rushes in

with all the colour,

vanishing my focused, serene world

while replacing it with the buzz of everyday life

and the knowledge that hours have passed

in my absence.

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Self-Examination

You never know what you’ll find when you look inside.

Pull out your innards,

find the glow left behind by faulty wires

and burnt out circuit boards

replaced so many times you can no longer remember

what the original was like.

There may be a spark. A glint.

A cog

needing only slight encouragement

to fit back into the mechanism

and start time again.

 

Little demon

There’s a snide gremlin in my head.

Picking up my faults, saying the stars will never greet me,

the oceans never rise to meet me,

nor the clouds ever offer to carry me up

to kiss the moon.

When it drones on and on, pulling and twisting

every nerve in my body to get a reaction,

I swear at it and plough on with my day.

It won’t bring me down.

Brunch.

In my eggcup is a blackened stone vaguely heart-shaped. If I touch it, beads of red rise to the surface to greet my skin. They retreat at the same time I do. The lady across the street hires out coffins. Thirty pounds a day, one hundred pounds fine if said coffins are accidentally buried. Uplift charge, you see. I tap the stone in my eggcup with a teaspoon. Charred pieces splinter off, revealing a soft, pink inner. I dig in.

Cubed

Inside the neat black cube

lies a silver heart.

It has never felt the breath of air

that comes from an open box.

 

For all its years,

the metal is worn

only slightly;

if it were of flora,

then it would be as green

as the newest seedling

and have experienced

even less.

 

A sudden jolt

jars the black cube.

It falls from its perch

down

to the floor.

The heart doesn’t know

what to do.

Its world is changing.

The cube is broken;

air and light finally leak in.