1. We sat under a conqueror today, in a house made of men – the stuff and matter of
2. “manliness” jumping around us in the
3. form of jumping beans.
4. “A museum isn’t a place to read!”
5. They said
6. “Put it back in your bag.”
7. They despised us, those beans did. But we were protecting our –selves- souls and
8. our eyes which believe in what they have never seen,
9. our cucoon was made of stories
10. criss-crossing weaving all around we wove a web of tale-matter, stuff and
11. nonsense, all which never is true,
12. and never has any use.
13. All we had though, all to keep it out – were words, make-believe
14. There in a little world of breathing space, floating in an air bubble – pop – we
15. thought.
16. When they made us close the book, all the world of steel fell inside and we were
17. suddenly
18. vulnerable.
19. Listening to the songs of a dead girl in a brand new car roaming the streets around the
20. ancient walls of a Byzantine city – The city has belched people and they spilled
21. outside the walls: the inside wasn’t enough: The old city became a tiny portion of what
22. is now.
23. Walls which don’t hold out
24. Walls which don’t hold in
25. Useless. Ancient. Decrepit.
26. Walls which conquered themselves
27. and lost meaning.
28. Therefore walls which look beautiful. .. ..
29. now that we forget useless walls, we find ourselves lacking the memories of
30. (Less. Soundless. Thoughtless. Soulless. Lifeless. Echoless. Less echo – less people –
31. less tea – less shake shake spoon shake – less mirrors or toilets or toilet mirrors –less
32. paper, less writing, lessexpression.
33. A lot of chimney smoke today – we almost couldn’t run fast enough.)
34. I stretch my arm over the void my palm strikes air they have technologically destroyed
35. –created- air mines now my arm reaching over it touches - explodes like a step over sliced
36. land my children never grieve they learn instead to forget about me.
37. Him
38. Her
39. Hier (I remember all the crumbs in her hair)
40. Memory owned
41. Memory shared
42. Digging away
43. a grave
44. in the sky
45. Powerful
46. Primary colours
47. are
48. always better
49. than secondary
50. ones
51. unless you mix
52. them
53. I find myself
54. a homeless home
55. a wordless language
56. They’ve slaughtered the
57. words.
58. symbols of slavery
59. on a little pink shirt
60. They forced me to move out of
61. my land
62. so I forgot how to speak
63. I can’t smell any more
64. pens, calculations, laws
65. Governments and floods
66. Bureaucracy topples sound
67. When they started hurting
68. the innocent
69. I stopped believing in my
70. memories
71. So I re-thought them over
72. Dig –a mine-
73. a grave outside in the
74. form of decisions
75. made by some for others
76. and other Others
77. learn to read in other languages
78. I own some
79. I sit atop a rock in the midst of what used to be green – still is maybe slightly twisted
80. over round and round I could fly blue-green
81. Think it goes on forever don’t you even though the shore across is quite close the mist
82. shrouds it, hides it – what is invisible to the eye is invisible to what ever monster lies
83. behind the eye bed time stories
84. All goes red. A line of red rocks ascend from the dirt path you can pick your way over
85. – up where a couple of skeletons still stand in the midst – the remnants of a monstrous
86. forest fire
87. what was left behind.
88. Language rising across a wooden plank thrown over to a tiny piece of rescued land. A
89. couple of pieces of jewellery jump out of a bag shining proudly as this sun now does,
90. bearing down on the sea, about to disappear.
91. I see a ship – no, two people, two heads. The wind blowing in from the north west has
92. been strong, too strong, one flies. They cannot put up with the current it pulls them
93. away from safety, thrusts them out. Helplessness
94. I watch
95. Bystander(ing). Atop my hill, on the red rock, where the road turns away from what
96. survived to what was destroyed, where asphalt melts into dust and dirt. How it used to
97. be.
98. The rock of who? You can comMANd, rule the ocean, make magic from your
99. borderline tower.
100. I watch from my rock-seat. Helplessness.
101. They are helpless –what to do How can I help?
102. They’ll perish before I can find help far away from “civilization”. If I leave,
103. their fate remains unknown. I am not help – I am eyesight
104. I am helpless to help
105. Far away, but not far enough What do I do now?
106. If I stay and watch they’re sure to ... but if I leave for help can I return on time?
107. No no, sit remain on the rock where you rule the world of the sea helpless to
108. help two loners drowning in the mist of an eerie sunset.
109. I’ll stay and watch. When I go back down I’ll say
110. “I watched them drown” but never,
111. never will I say
112. “I don’t know what happened to
113. them”
114. I don’t know what happened to their words. No, I saw each and every sentence,
115. word, syllable drown in the sunset.
116. Left behind. What happened to
117. that rock of mine.
