Beasts

My room is full of animals. They keep me awake at night with their pecking and nibbling. I would get rid of them but the thought of my own company frightens me. I don't feed them, they seem to live off each other, a mini ecosystem lit by a 60 watt bulb. I draw pictures of them and am working on a guide book. It keeps me busy and my hands nimble. Feathers and fur make breathing hard and exercise difficult. It gives me more time to focus on my illustrations.

Talk and talking

Superstition and romance lie in tatters at your feet. You have arrived with a plum and left with subtlety. I kissed your cheek and felt your lips at the corner of my mouth; I would watch you at your balcony if the landlord had repaired it. I am not built for such directness and clarity as trickled from your head. Other thoughts creep in. History drags itself about memory. A girl serves you coffee with shaking hands. An old flame puts itself out once and for all. The thin plume of smoke stretches outwards and upwards with deliberate purpose. You wish it well as your hand, laced through mine, loses strength and intent. We wait for our next meeting with weighted brows and sated breath. I sleep under a patterned blanket and a passport photograph. A thumbprint blushes your cheek. One day I will read in your living room.

Nothing Becomes The Point

Friends become stones in your pockets. A crow has pecked buttons off your calculator. Your house is a place of no comfort, water fills the floors. A tune rattles about your fingers, lingering for a while in your skull. With a pencil you write words on a lined paper pad. The television guide makes more sense. Deliberately you circle an incompetent haiku. Acquaintances send you details of technical innovations.

The Morning Is Out There

Can I enjoy my own company? It is hard to when you feel you are, at best, bearable. There is a saying in the family: 'How do you know that if you weren't there?' It's served us well. Good night for now, the morning is out there.

Gravity You Lucky Lucky Boy

Space is big. Somewhere everything and anything fits. Dogs float in metal cans. Chimps pilot rockets. Their eyes are burnt with sights of comets and erupting stars. Below them a man cuts up sounds, endlessly rearranging them into an approximation of interest. The air is still. It's still there, but it's hard to remember that. A monkey wears a necklace, another a spacesuit. Ants learn of gravity and weightlessness. A sand grain drifts in a slow spiral. Sleep is a novelty. There is darkness and there are tiny points of light. The man imagines he is alone. With his thoughts he thinks. He is older than the animals. He is hungry. He forgets they cannot hear him; they cannot hear anything. A radio plays a transmission of a fading heartbeat, a dying loop reaching the end. The man recalls old friendships and loves. This is where they have led him. A small amount of space in an infinite spread. The time for jokes has ended. Now there is navigation to be done.