I speak to the jeweled creature carefully Not knowing if my height, volume, alien skin is frightening Its exterior, an emerald case of ocean and wind design A puzzling mix of purpose and randomnessAs if within the pronouncements of infinite indecipherable shapes and symbolslies a holy skeleton key Its glow, an act of sympathetic magic;Captured sunlight refractedMy eye’s net pierces dimensions,
the moon is a shivering pan of milk. A dog bowl is left out, knocked over by her barely still a boy. He snuffles his wayin through the backgarden gate, crossesthe kitchen, stares into the singing emptyof the fridge, finds nothing. He talks to her in shoes left by the hall, leaves sock-padded quiet up the stairs. He forgets to lock
Joe, I thinkI heard his name called at the stationleaning against the post of a rotten framea wet cigarette dangling from the crumbling flesh. Joe, a voice inside echoedas if a stick figure something like an arm moved holding a can of the cheapest brew he could afford he spat black tar to the wind. Content in the fumes of
When the signal interruptsYou glitch, pixelatedly, scattingFrom pose to frozen pose. I like those unguarded framesOf your face in in-between state,The upturned eyes,the incomplete gesture,Which makes you looklike a martyred Saint. The buzz and burr of yourMechanised voice seemsApt for these loading days Eleanor Bradley is an English teacher and lives in a tiny cottage in the Cotswolds with her
This land has long been shrouded in white sheetsstained with blood leaking from various cuts scribbled on her skin by jackals’ teeth and hyenas’ paws. Every effort to take herto the grave dissolves like salt slipped into water; for scavengers are here throwing their talons and beaksinto her skin, breaking her, bone by bone, haunting and hunting everyone trying to rescue her
The steamer smudges the horizonof early stars – so he imaginesadrift on a deserted ocean, headed nowhere in particular. Flat on his back he eyes the ceiling fans lethargically pushing at heated air. All daythe sun hangs overhead like a paper lantern he can’t tear out of the sky. The steamer pushes on through nightsdense as treacle. He’s visitedby eyeless statues
We were put in a uniform of black.Seen as something obscene,like a dirty fantasy,or a Playboy magazine. A replica of Eve,stealing Adam’s rib,chewing Adam’s apple,banishing him out of Eden. They wore white,posing as fake angels.Chaining heaven’s gate,creating myths and fables about a god that chose Cain over Abel.He rules with vigor,and always enablesa fight that dividesan eye for an eye..
love is a nectarine if anything, narratologically significant of course, 99 cents from the ralphs down the street or love is small change rescued from the cafeteria and a shared detergent cup to wash a dress clean of heartbreak or an echo of a song, a hand like an anchorin the unmooring night or a mourningborne together, a raised glass or
There is a small voice inside us all. A spirit— if you please —known to you only.You only. Who knows the spirit of a man beyond the body housing it? I have known mine to rebel—a dog straying deep into the wild fields, away from that damned whistle of control. What you call rebellion is my spirit saying: go in the way where
she’s sorrow sweet serpentine saviors see a scarred, scared, silly, little girl prey for stealthy sacrament, she won’t be missedwill be savoureddelectably simple mindedher sacrificial skin—becomes silk soft shame, she, they claim; stroking, slithering, stealing but she, a simple soul, holds a softer strength one that endures after sacrifice, slithering snakes fleestriking wagers with any devil to hide in shivering sheenssin sweats, stalls, spills,
