As seen through a round tank of water

Fill up the glass tanks, wear them on ours heads like giant fish bowls. If we spill any, we lose our worth and have to crawl on the floor with those dressed in rags, furiously mopping up after others and trying to fill our bowls once more.

The rags disintegrate, we are naked and no no-one cares. We are filthy and no one cares. We are hungry and no one cares. We have brains and no one cares. We have no glass tanks and everyone stares.

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A serving of shells and gems

On the table in the quiet inn

are spent bullets, spelling out the words

‘You are empty’.

You stare at them;

everyone you’ve spoken to before

seems to reinforce

the message as true.

 

Then in the palm of your hand

a warmth spreads out to your fingertips.

You look up to see the barmaid

grinning at you mysteriously, motioning to wave your hand

over the bullets.

 

You do so,

and before your eyes

they turn into gems

polished so brightly

that their brilliance overshadows

all the scars the bullets left on your skin.

 

‘You gave me this power?’ you ask the maid.

‘No,’ she replies,

‘it was yours to begin with.’

You

You asked me to hold your hand

for eternity and I laughed

at eternity, at you and at myself.

Of course I can’t hold your hand.

There’s nothing there to hold.

There’s nothing there to behold.

There is no you.

 

Beauty Contest

How do you measure

the prettiness of a flower?

Do you look at it from every angle,

taking a ruler to each petal

and then recording the measurements

in order to conclude

perfect symmetry?

Do you lay them

next to others

of the same hue,

matching them with those

that have already won the vote

for overall vibrancy?

Do you gather them into a bunch

for an authority to assess

how well they can be displayed?

Or is it the case

that you do not judge them

at all?

Perhaps you have realised

that in order to fully observe

the beauty in each,

you must first appreciate

their differences.