I take your hand
We walk towards where the roses once grew
I lie back in the grass
And dream of how it once was
The rubbishstrewn streets
Riperising smell of gutters and rain
The child abandoned
Mother recalls child in pool
"What is that that lies?
Dead child dead."
I have such nightmares
And you're all in all of them
It's worse than you or I can know
On the edge of the clouds we crouch
We smile & spit
The pool of saliva coruscates at our feet
It shifts
Children with knives begin to rise from it
They laugh and blow kisses at the moon
We think it's the rain
I see a bird move onto the table in my garden
Its beak scoops up the seeds
The green of the grass and the blue of the sky
Are immense and terrifying
Everything seems so close so very very close
Should a storm come should a storm break
And halo all around us
As some savage & blind god jerking his hands out to us
The birds drop allaround us
I walk into the altar room
All the Buddhas are smashed there
Avalokitesvara's hundred faces lie shattered
I have done this
I walk to the makeshift redbrick alter a hundred years ago
There is a small brass image there
I have built this
The red and black ants mill around unknown journeys
I take my lighter and torch them
I take my lighter and torch them
I weep I weep
The ants scatter or writhe
I take my lighter and torch them torch them
I weep I have done this
I am surrounded by butterflies
The child's legs lay smashed
"Please pray for him"
She says to me too late alas ohsotoolate
I see the twinkling stars I drop a photograph
I bend to pick it up my heart leaps as I see
Your face stare up at me from the paper
As if still alive on this earth
When I return my eyes to the stars they're gathered
They pucker and are blind
Oh what have I become I have become that I hate
I have become that I shall say no
The bird is dead now alas
A voice whispers to me "Nothing nothing there is nothing"
I look to my right and see her face again
As once when I was oh so young
And again the world disappears
And all fall down
I all fall down
We all fall down
