Flashing frames of vintage film reels
flickering mental images flit-flit hitting
retinas with memory segments accumulated
from years of flailing, self-flagellating behaviours.

Hitting one's self with word nails, steel sharp vowels 
reneging rapidly on promises, retracting and withdrawing ideals
stamping out any sense of belonging, sabotaging any potential
back into the wardrobe where no one can see you.

Switch on the projector. Rustling film crawls through sharp mechanisms
mechanically extracted memories flushed out of bones. 
Break open and siphon out the marrow. 
There is always tomorrow. 
Tomorrow. 
​

Thankyou time, withdrawing all sensibility
blinking once or twice each flicker a week
spending fleeting slivers engrossed in depleted
freak shows, speaking meekly of intentions to
overthrow inertia like some laden-down snagged camel
dragging the corpse of a deposed master by the ankles.
Anvils attached to each leg, arm and one around the neck
Don't be upset by that vision, it isn't real. 

Instead reflect upon the times when you crushed the 
steel burdensome weights like cotton-candy snakes,
coiled at first around sinew and stringy tendons,
thrown off like confetti, abandoned and sniffed at
like some sorry imagined magnet mangled bracelet 
abandoned on the boiling substrate.

Stuff this stupid feeling of going backwards.
Lean forwards, push your weight full force supine 
into the manacle, feel the pressing choke of the 
yolk yanking at your enfeebled vertebrae.
Yell tall obscenities until this blasted thing
begins to drag dumb angel shapes
in the scorched earth.

I'm sick of this figure-of-eight state of play,
praying for the day when the same shit retreats
from every act preordained by some ghostly male 
progenitor, a pale general with no horse to ride to war on.
Running sideways with one arm tucked behind his back
hiding crossed fingers that reveal that this whole thing is some 
massive cosmic error. 

So lay back and stop worrying.
There's no reason to regret neglecting the pursuit of wealth
only to find yourself in a place where material things are immaterial. 
Lie down like a cat and feel the vibration from a trillion 
tonnes of pointless earth pressing against your body, tearing your 
atoms into ever smaller particles. It doesn't matter.

Laying on the bottom of the well floor
dry dust like flour 
white dot signifying a higher power
high above black tube walls 
a disc above like an unidentified visitor
from another world.
So lying there face up 
waterless tube dropped down into
lungless earth rock 
low as to the centre of magma heart
this is a clear metaphor
for feeling an eternal distance from normal.

Close my eyes and feel
a third person
who is it?
an imposter or saviour?
It is me without the burdens, weights and saddles 
of memory or dreary trauma.
I lay here contemplating, feeling numb
Is this tube a grave or a rifled gun? 

Wrestle sage voice, wise kind words spat out,
sitting flat out on the ground surrounded by rats
acting on impulses projectile-vomit scraps scraped
from compliments uttered by strangers meaning well,
dwelling on the other side of the black coin, the dark Queen
a deep well of insults going back to time immemorial 
kind words are molecules in the slick inky depths,
memories sink but feelings bubble to the surface

still 

sage voice speaks on lowered notes, noting times
when things were better, softly spoken tones making it
through the rejection filter. A younger fitter body 
long dangly legs and blonde locks shocked by the stunned silence
sliding in between violent scenes, crying out pointlessly
Scenery that was green, grey-tinged with fall-out dust
the fall-out from arguments, pitchy shouting voices
failing to make a mark on the scars already laid open,
barking mad dogs starkly marking territories

reach for something liquid to shut out the voices.

Come in now !
​Gather all come and see!
One more time, one more time 
queue myriad slights of thought 
like caverns covered in bat droppings
upside-down ideas flapping in the blank,
banking on some emerging idea to 
spark a light instead of yet more 
rank-and-file man-handling 
insignificant plankton-like
top-down decrees 
empty-headed 
automatons,
aggravated by 
sights and sounds
of even the smallest hint 
of thought, cue mental break-downs
so keep your powder dry to unleash on
minion-clowns crowding cretinous caverns
all eyes fixed on the mottled underground,
all ears tuning into the slightest sounds
...don't give away your position
crawl back into the 
dark calm of
submission
​

Smile this end accepting social blending
stalked eyes crabbing sideways around crowds
creeping with guile trying not to be noticed
hiding in full view chest puffed out 
deciding whether to run or stay put
doubt smothered by pretending dances 
advance or reject advances
hide or run full tilt 
into walls or the arms of your clown self 
spy crowds, take flight into darkened 
recesses push deeper into enveloping 
arms except these are clawed spiky 
nasty death embraces where strangers
Hide true faces. 

Sick waves wash through abdominal halls
floods carry carrion scars
embarking on long walks in parks
treading orange leaves rotting in sighing dark

Pull coat collar high, hug face with faux fur 
warmth only in some parts, others cold 
emotions stir, mistakes glaring haunted gaze
stupid things said and done, betrayed
regretful stinging wind whispering sorry gusts
reset start again, 
​enough is enough.