Neuralink

 

Anyone holiday still

besides our cameras?

 

Do our spirits come along

or just the hands

that hold the lens?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Us and Christ

 

It’s Trump to blame.

No:

the antivaxxers.

No: Putin,

whites,

Christians,

men

and boyfriend.

They’re to blame.

Or maybe the Jews,

blacks,

Marxists and maskers,

women

and girlfriend.

Maybe they’re to blame.

 

Always the other.

Always the other.

Always the other

but you

and I.

 

Us

in the quiet despair

by cracks of relief:

it’s us to blame.

 

Not us

in the sense of us and them

 

but us

in the sense of us and Christ.

 

Do we carry the weight of our cross?

Do we bear the load?

Who’s fault but ours?

 

God knows

that deep within

we understand.

 

Those final moments just before we sleep,

those first few moments of waking up:

it’s there.

 

Deep within,

we understand

don’t we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it stands

 

The choice is laughter.

It's either laughter

or madness

- it's looking crazy

or being it. 

So much life

 

The chicken fence allowed the chickens

a castle

away from the dog

that lived for the hunt

and our love

for its wild heart.

 

The frame of a door was chewed upon

one night

by a busy rat

—a tiny goer at 1am,

high-vis spirit

pounding away,

tearing down the house and

blowing up the night

with its tiny teeth.

 

We set the dog on the job

and the little chippy

didn’t last the night.

The chickens none the wiser,

sleeping through the hunt.

 

Life. So much life:

two homes side by side

and seven housemates

and rats,

chickens,

dogs.

And the huntsman upon my arrival

—a watchman inspecting

a tenant moving in,

a lightning flash on the ceiling

spiraling down the wall,

falling in panic.

 

I try not to kill the smaller things these days.

Two years on,

I drove a mouse I trapped to the other side of town

and set free its little soul.

You just get older, I suppose,

and feel less sorry for yourself

but more for who you used to be

and more for mice

and spiders

and even the dog

with the rat in its mouth

—it’s complicated, I guess.

 

So much life.

Many houses

and many miles between.

 

That chicken fence: is it there

to this day?

I heard the place got pretty messy once we left.

What remains?

There’s always something

and when you return you say:

“Look, that shovel hasn’t moved.”

Or,

“Shit, no-one’s touched the tarp.”

 

Maybe the trees you planted

shot up

and the ghosts of the huntsman and rat,

plus arrays of the living,

gather there

under protection of things that remained

by the place where the chickens

had little lives

and a little fence

for their little castle. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The screaming parts out loud

It’s not until we learn

we’re kinda meant to say

the quiet parts out loud

that all the parts

seem slightly clearer.

That is to say

everything’s been screaming

all along. 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Time, Oh Meditation

 

Today I live, 

tomorrow I die

and the day

after that

is yesterday. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Crow

The emperor has no clothes out here,

just wings,

and barely bothers making way

as you power down the bitumen

and it powers through the flesh of the battered roo.

But whatevs. It’s the crow I love the most.

 

Besides the eagle, other nobles too:

the hawk, the kookaburra…

—all a little regal, a little proud.

But I love the clown the most

—its ludicrous sunrise moan-squawk,

its black coat keeping the night alive.

 

The crow is the troll of the animal world.

Perched on its jester seat,

it twists the peace

into knots

of screeches,

getting the nobles back

though they can’t quite tell.

 

As the hawks and eagles and others

prepare themselves to be brilliant,

the little nutcase groans with laughter:

 

“That’s it,” it cackles,

“Get up you stupid bastards.

Salute to the orders of the day.

Live your life as if it’s yours.

Just how much have you won

that you must now rush around?”

 

The crow:

the clown that trolls the morning in

with anti-beauty,

the subtle genius

reminding

—as light reveals the stage for the day—

that we’re all

in fact

clowns. 

 

 

 

 

 

One

 

It takes some vice to leave your room

and walk the street’s impending doom.

The path that leads us to the sage,

the path that sends us to the cage

—they’re both the same. There’s only one.

One God, one life, one gem, one crumb,

one rage, one calm, one self, one lie;

no truth but truth’s slick alibi.

Forget the vice, forget the room,

forget the street and don’t presume

that there’s a path all clear and mowed.

There’s just the One all Prince and toad.