Does the heart rate rise

before

during

or after the

diary’s pinch?

Amended 16 November 2020

There’s no

fear in the gods

as they prey for

mortality

and mourn, the

early sky

Sun broke through the window, a morning thug to awake the kids. Their faces stayed asleep until after cornflakes and TV, and then, outside.

To write. About? Maybe the sound of the track from that one album, the one they played, him and his brother, over and over except for that one track, the one that made him worry that she would be as dead as …

Words never to be said. Hide that sensitivity and pretend its all a different sort of discord, a fear of more acceptable irrationality, rather than a seven year old’s trespass into existential decline.

Twenty five or thirty five years later, what’s changed? Trapped behind “what if”, “when” and the possibility of what might be. From the corner of the eye he sees hope, but she’s too crafty and slips away, once again.

I write things down

after all

otherwise I’d remember

Orange plastic lies scattered across the pavement, litter the colour of fruit but without the decay, at least for the next thousand years.

This remains from the earlier, and the present, time gifted in play to the children as they unwrap hope, a goodwill gesture for the start of the new year.

No-one stops me when I walk, wind in my face, leaves blown from invisible trees in the concrete street.

Seasons stack, waiting to pass, but for the moment autumn creeps in.

Cross out the days
with sips of good cheer
and the
happiness that’s
all around
until closing time

Stood.

There’s a mirror in front, door
and shelves
full to the point of charity
with gifts of old clothes

and the shit
of clutter.

Eyes forward

don’t look back
at least, not
without the props

a motto

that he said, silently
in his guilt
to stay
always
one step ahead

The blanket of silence extinguishes all about them. All closed down, and shut from residual stimuli

They look at one another, faces glazed with the sheen of a game show title sequence

The dog barks its loudest sigh, then curls up to sleep

Inside the machine, signals are received about the next great entertainment

And they press the remote.

Nothing

means

Anything

when

No-one

hears