pinball (25/April/18)

light falls aching from the heart of the sun
bleeding, feeding
space is open for business, in-filled,
filling in the blanks and gaps, oozing it clogs the arteries, almost,
wrapping holes in tangible veils, trails
of streamers, streams of trailers, traffic jams,
no room for errors, no country for old men, random
nests scattered orderly in canopies
to the left of me
the right of me
stuck in the middle, tolerate thy neighbour a branch away
branching out it sways disconcertedly in solar winds,
solar sails, solar plexus puffed up in mock display
chlorophyll fingers of yellow and green, green to gold, brown
to dead for everything a season, reason, rhythm
and rhyme, rock ‘n’ roll long-lived aging bark as
night falls aching from the heart of the moon
and all too soon it’s all over now baby blue when
it had only just begun
and it’s not even June
wane, wane, done and dusted, ash to ash, hand to mouth
time stubs its cold remains out on a convenient arm, a scar
regarded as a spoil of war, a brag, a boast, a toast, boiled
in oil a sky pours down like mercury another century and
we’ll be born Methuselahs, sensory overload infiltration, bloated
deprivation, expectations dashed, a pinch of salt
over the shoulder
off the shoulder
off the cuff
over the cuckoo’s nest
ends are lurking in beginnings, loaded guns, unexploded bombs,
day falls louder than the ear can ever hear,
that deaf, dumb and blind kid sure played
a mean pinball.

© 2018 robert greig

float/fade/dissipate (19/April/18)

conversation’s overrated… people talk too much… some never seem to stop… their mouths moving in time attempting to translate some inner monologue into something intelligible to an outside world whether that outside world wants to hear it or not…… much verbalising blah-blah-blah but so little said… like the difference between hearing and listening, you may have heard something but did you actually listen…… so much nothing evaporates within seconds of leaving the lips escaping at the speed of breath as though spurning the orator with a “must get away, must get away”… streams of niceties, background noise, the etiquette of strangers, the acquiescence of acquaintance, the predictability of friends…… being still like children with a new toy, trying to learn what to do with it while it defies us as intangibly as the air upon which it floats, fades and dissipates… and so often makes such a din before it does finally surrenders to space, such potential for richness all too often reduced to poverty and frequently leaving a bad taste in the mouth…… non-verbal communication gets smothered that endless inane chatter, the sound of their own voices droning on and on and on and on andonanaonandonandonandonandonand… see… it might turn into a mantra falling into a single note forging a visceral connection with the earths harmonic, the very note it too is humming at that very moment bringing gravity to its knees and aligning every molecule of air opening a huge pit of boredom into which we are all sucked once and for all and forever, amen…… that’d stop someone talking that’s for sure……… we all know someone who does it and it’s usually the one with the most grating or monotonous voice, like combing your ears with a porcupine or drowning in instant custard, one packed with e-values and preservatives and sugar-substitutes, sugar and salt and other type-2 diabetes time-bombs…… often what’s being said doesn’t need to be and frequently repeated as though their brain has run out of things to verbalise but for reasons unfathomable they feel compelled to keep rabbiting on regardless worried that if they stop talking they’ll no longer exist…. although quiet often  the listener might wish they didn’t… one could call it dullardry, the art of continuously talking to the point that no one not even yourself is listening and yet the mouth keeps going on andonanaonandonandonandonandonand……

© 2018 robert greig

few words (15/April/18)

I’ve come to write a few words… there, I wrote a few words…… here’s a few more… I can’t believe it’s almost a third of the way through the year already, but it is… I can’t believe it’s half way through April already, but it is… I can’t believe it but I do, I have too, my calendars, all three of them, tell me so… I can remember when I used to walk down to the big horseshoe bend on the river, across the fields, down and down through the broadleaved woodland, come rain or shine, til I reached the river, the Horseshoe Bend, as it was locally-known as that it deserves initial capitals… few wandered further along the bankside path than a couple of hundred metres, or yards as they were known in those days, after that it got narrower, less trod, the vegetation more determined to close it off and hamper progress, my inquisitive progress, from going further… but that was years ago, though I still can’t believe it’s April already, and not only that but I still have to catch myself in believing I am here in a different century to the one I was born into… too strange…
… here’s a few more… I know it’s there, sleep, I can almost taste it but can’t quite put my finger on it… there it is, on the pillow, waiting and yet… not even the blackbird’s awake yet, I know because he’s not singing… how does he do it, on waking the first thing he does is sing, and sing well too… my first though on waking is tea, tea, then breakfast, then more tea, singing is way down my list of first thing I do upon opening my eyes of a morning and most definitely the last thing anyone would want to hear anyway…… mellifluous I am not… I’m glad I’m not a blackbird, a diet of worms (pun!) is most unappealing… mind you, I’m not sure being a human’s that great.

© 2018 robert greig