wb :

is just a way of saying that
the number of fingers on your hands is something that I sincerely miss
four is a great way to have a family
four is just the number of countable ways I could've said 'I love you'

3

is the number of holes in the front of your face
I guess I'd say that I miss each one
Three is the number of sunsets I actually enjoyed
After three it started to get
a little overdone.

2

Is how we count your eyes
they are almost too large, and slightly fruit-shaped
Two is when we take stock of the number of people
it takes to hold hands
Two is the number of minutes I could rest my head on your shoulder
without cramp

1

Is what we say for romance
as if a person could possibly have two hearts
One is the number of times I will let myself look back
Once more and I'll break your legs.


adam

on a night such as this -
how are you? good day,
what is the time?
may I? you may

let's go for a walk
i'll take up a ride
on a bicycle!
we could walk or we'll fly

to the moon don't be silly
i want you right here
it's enough that you're over
it's too much that you're near

let's give up (let's not)
i think of too much
i think of too little
maybe we've lost touch

with what we wanted to say
took too long in the thinking
the moment is now
the poem is inking

slowly but surely
(let's just take our time)
there's only one moment
and that is now, we've done it, it's over, we've made our
rhyme

it's too late it is gone
the moment has flown
what did it look like?
could we have known?

or just grasped like a straw
it didn't exist
it was in illusion;
moments are mist.


adam

he built a castle of roses
and watched it sway in the breeze;
the moonlight would wash
over petals and leaves

on the midnighter's table
next to an empty glass
then he sighed with the wind,
slumped over a letter

like all the works of man
toppled in the end
by nary more than a breath
and a wave of the hand

first a little
in the mornings when you wake up
and discover that the spawnlings of worries
have taken up residence and bred in your sheets
and your sleepy mouth sour with the filmy milk of what ifs and should haves

afternoons are terrible. the sway of a leaf
becomes in one terrible instant the sway of jeans on a hot school day
or the shadow - the silhouette of a smile
a breeze is the memory of a past kiss.

evenings - quiet roads now ring with longing
no more solitude but emptiness
long shadows - a quiet play only for your audience
the puppets secretly laugh at the living

it hurts but then the next foot falls
and your shadow lags behind a step
and, tarrying,
hurries to catch up


adam

I ran into a minstrel
on the red road outside town
he was singing for his supper
and he looked a little down -

"these are the last days
'fore time comes to an end
and we have spent our centuries
to break and then to mend

our pity, our art, our built-up things
our craftsmen lifetimes-wise
but the world will end tomorrow;
so now we improvise!"



adam

every saturday he sits in his corner
and smiles.

then he takes out his little keychain,
and twiddles his fingers about the bones
rayed out like so many cold cold ribs.

he walks to the door, the glowing black door
and he puts the key into the lock
twists it
twists it, hears the click

and now he is happy
locked in.

Labels: poetry

there you sit at the computer,
staring, staring,
staring,
staring.

the screen is bright enough,
does it reflect you, man?
a timer ticks away, bottom-right, right, beside
beside that number that shows how many megabytes
how much more memory that silicontraption has,
more memory?- you could always buy more
more for the precious pile of metal
the shiny heatsinks
the shiny chips
as you looked into those memory chips
did they reflect you, man?

or were they too bright, were they too bright?
were they too bright? too much light?
you could always lower the gamma
lower, yes, lower, a touch of a key
a flick of a switch, yes, lower the light,

the sound too loud perhaps? then turn it,
turn it down, turn it lower,
make it deathly silent. it is easy, is it not?

do you hear yourself in the silence, man?
do you hear?
do you hear breathing, do you hear?
do you hear beating, do you hear?
do you hear hearts and stomachs,
beats and growls over whirrs and whines?
can you hear yourself in that silence?

can you hear yourself over whirrs and whines,
that whirring noise of the many fans
those fans that fan the heart,
fan the heart of your computer?
will they ever burst in to fire, does it, does it
does it feel the heat that it makes itself?
does it feel, man? does it feel?
tell me, does it feel the cold of the room,
that cold that preserves its bones,
that cold you made to preserve its nerves,
even that cold that freezes your flesh?
can you feel it, man? can you feel it?
too cold, and a switch; too cold;
the air-conditioning goes down, down, lower,
and it is warmer, it is warmer for a while.

but you are afraid.
the heat, yes, the heat, will build,
build, build, build, until those chips fry,
fry, fry themselves in their own lard.
are you afraid of that, man?
are you afraid of that?

are you afraid of that, man?
are you afraid?

are you afraid of that?
go out of the room,
go out of the room,
go out of the room

out of the room
the room,
out of the room
and into the sunlight which you cannot,
cannot cannot adjust,
that sunlight, yellow light to strange eyes,
accustomed as you are to flickering white.
go into the sunlight, the sunlight,
and into uncomfortable, uncomfortable warmth
embrace the warmth,
the warmth that warms as much as it wants,
the warmth that you cannot adjust.
you were not born here,
you were not born to die here.
go out into the noise of the world, man,
go out into the noise of plate and pan
jackhammer car jogger ice-cream van
go out, go out, go out and then
go out again i know you will return here, man

go out go out, return here no more,
go out, you will return but
go out.

go out where you cannot control your destiny, man.
you are no god
you are no god
you were not meant to be god
you were not meant to be god
you were not meant to be god

you are not a god, you are not
you are not
you are not a god of order

you are a slave of chaos
a slave of chaos
slave of chaos
of chaos
chaos

go out, go out, where you are a slave
to sounds that you must hear,
light you must see,
warmth you must feel, oh man,
go out and feel the warmth that misses you.

you are no god on olympus, you cannot live in storms
you are no god, you are no god,
go out into the world that you missed,
go out into the world,
that you missed,
that misses you still, man.
go out into the world and live,
live like a man.

go out, go out. feel, see, hear.
feel, see, hear.
you have not felt anything but freeze.
you have not seen anything but glare.
you have not heard anything but whirr.
go out, man.

are you afraid, man? are you afraid?
are you afraid of chaos, chaos,
chaos that you cannot control, man?
go out, man.
go out,
go out where you cannot stare into it any longer.

does it reflect you?
does it reflect you, man?
does it reflect you?
can you look into it as a mirror,
can you look into it as a puddle,
can you look into it?
can it show you your face, man?
can it show you you?
this screen does not show you,
it does not show your life,
it does not show your life,
it does not show you.

you are no god, it lies to you.
you are no god, it lies. it lies.
it lies, it lies. it is perfect,
it is perfect,
it is perfect,

it is perfect.

it was built to be perfect,
know that, man. know that.
it was built, and built it was
for a purpose, built by men.
it was built for one purpose.
it was built to be perfect.
it is perfect.
it is perfect.

it is perfect.
it never forgets,
never forgetting,
it never forgets.
and so it lies.

go out, man.
you were made to forget.

-~-

a.n.: this is what many hours of system shock 2, a good hot shower, and an overdriving mind make.

Labels: poetry

different when we get back, the product of
breathing the air on opposite sides of a continent
mountains between us,

miles of wire between us
so that we can share the electricity of our existence
but the touch is lost
its insulating quality that keeps us from being reduced to electrons in a pipe

oxidation is loss. we'll be
spirits lost on a wire
we'll drift between packets and protocols
we'll dissociate our feelings
immune to grief, we smile our
electronic smiles.

II.

we'll be
afraid at the last juncture
before the point of divergence; taking our trajectories
to different coloured skies

the last brush of
fingernails palm sweat
evaporating on my forearm

tomorrow it will dry
memories are anhydrous
but tears are not.

III.

we'll be
waiting for the crossroads
not divergent yet; our footsteps still
in rhythm with the drummer
that is our sycopated
heart-beats but yet -
touches cold we fear the coda

IV.

we are
silent, sitting on a bench
no pain yet - but our eyes glow
like the stars we are,
we are, we are, we are.

Labels: poetry

on the porcelain tiles
tending to the bougainvillas
i'm inside making flowers into necklaces
later she tells me they're pretty; she wears one around her neck
and gives me a little laugh

she's outside pulling weeds
i'm inside with the herbicide of youth
angry at the walls;
my tears are to her
garden shears

like rain to butterflies
(where do they hide until the showers have passed?)

she's outside watching television
in her old wheel-chair
I am inside
dreaming of airplanes and skies

I am outside dressed in drabs and grey
walking around the wooden box
I bend as if to confide
but now she's fast asleep, inside.

Labels: poetry

you and I have no chemistry. Henceforth
we are dissociated, I my own
entity. I cannot comprehend
your spontaneous flares;
insoluble mysteries; variable states,
golden dust motes floating
precipitously -- the facts stand as this:

when I count the ways I know thee,
the technicalities fail me.

Labels: poetry

He stood and waited as he tried to imagine what it would sound like if the train passed by him without stopping. it was a faint humming in his head that grew as sudden as a bolt of lightning, then faded just as quickly into a low moan, leaving behind empty air and a trinity of rails.

Perhaps he had been waiting for too long; when he waited, he thought, and when he thought, he thought of such things. in the distance, he heard a thud-thudding, accompanied by a light shuffle of shoe on tile. he had found a seat long ago, all of them empty anyway. everyone had boarded the previous train in their hurry. though the trains ran in a loop, and the last one was not due for a few more hours at least, the station was empty nonetheless.

Then more people started to fill the platform. first it was one, then they came in two by two, all manner of men and women. so many people flooded the floor- almost threatening to break past the line meekly painted into the tiled floor, and overflow onto the rails. ever they came with no end, all manner of brilliantly boring people. some in riches, some in rags; most oblivious, a manner of metal mated to their ears. there were those in clean suits and tie, immaculate hair on white shirts; there were those whose white had grown yellow with age, but who still fumbled to tuck their shirts in and keep a crease in their pantlegs; there were those who carried great bags, bent over, with no care for the stained patches adorning their clothes. all of them jostled and scrummed, sounded and laughed. so many. he had not thought there had been so many to live. the sensory confluence reminded him once of a movie he watched of a slow-motion magnified frog's leg twitching upon the application of galvanic force. like so many cells they twitched, hemmed in on all sides by fellows; then there was a great flash, and they lunged!- they flailed in one direction, moving scarcely a nailsbreadth each but drawing the entire leg with their concerted power.

Then two of them caught his eye. they were surely together, his arm about her waist. whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears. perhaps he recognized them, and there is nothing like recognizance to bring recognizance. perhaps they were the same couple yesterday, but then she was in a shorter skirt and his hair gasped at the ceiling, frozen in picassoesque spires. or perhaps he knew them from two days ago; then she carried a red red rose newly sprung, and he had a smile more sincere than the sound their feet now made when they stumbled, giggling, across the floor. now he was in a great suit, coat hanging on the other arm, and she smiled coyly in a pretty blouse and lipstick.

Or perhaps they were all different couples. clinging on together in their happiness perhaps, and both men and women flickered glances thence, perchance gently jealous.

Then he heard the announcer on the sound system. a breeze blew past his ears, whirling with the static-garbled words.

"For your own safety, please stand behind the yellow line. thank you for your co-operation."

The thud-shuffling continued even as the rumble of a steel behemoth waxed in the distance. as though a lion sensing prey, the thudding hastened for a few moments, then it resumed its old pace. perhaps that was the tail of the lion; the rest of its muscles coiled in anticipation, the muffled roar stifling itself, and countless cells readied to spring. then the train- he dreamt then, so vivid, that it had stopped to graze or perhaps drink from a water-hole- the lion sprung! then its lifeblood poured out onto the tiled floor, and hundreds of people walked through the doors, as many as in, and the doors closed, and the train was off.

That was not his train.

The shuffling in the distance finally reached his ears. a sickly old man, bent over crutches, hobbled over and took the seat next to him. no word passed between the two. the old man had a beard, perhaps, and might have once enjoyed the dubious honour of having hair. teeth were perhaps only a faint memory now, but certainly the love of walking had stayed with the old man, past the loss of one leg beneath the knee; crutch held erect beside him like some fantastical scythe, watching the people as surely as himself.

And then it was silent again. there would be a short lull. he knew more people would come and the station would be crowded again. as sure as from nostradamus' lips, they arrived, filling the painted floor and leaning on all the pillars. some watched the rails playfully, most stood to themselves. then a few strains caught his ear. someone- a boy, young, was singing some russian song, music filling his countenance even though his ears were not stopped up with rubber. the words reminded steinbeck of the time he was back in moscow, working as a doctor then. in the stifling heat, in the press of a thousand souls upon a lonely one, he yet managed to feel the solitude in the cold russian winter, and the warmth of a drop of the miracle liquid, the lifeblood of the proud rus. strange, how a young boy's uncertain notes could evoke his memory of a hundred men delivering their anthem; and strange, how he could think of vodka in the middle of summer.

And he was happy. music in his blood, joy was in his face. no need had he for gels upon his hair, nor neither suit nor pants nor pinstriped hat. like some rogue atom vibrating at absolute zero, or the last rose of summer, refusing to go, he stood out; pricking those who came near him, yet drawing just as many to be hurt. all about him smothered the blacks and whites of business garb, the grumbling noise of music faked too loud. perhaps again the spring would bloom in red, but not ere winter struck the lone rose dead.

And then they heard it, like so many flies catching the scent of carrion in the air. the same voice- the same sound, exactly as it had been for so many years, so many trains-

"For your own safety, please stand behind the yellow line. thank you for your co-operation."

And then there was the rumbling again, like the great hunger of a greedy emperor. this time, the train came at the other side, disgorged its vile, squirming load- like a bloated roman patriarch, taken till his stomach's protest at the table, gone to throw up a viscous bile, then shovelling just as much into his gaping maw again. as much went out as went in, an infinity of peoples chewed on and spat out in some grotesque orgy. in the middle- lost in the noise- the faint words hung on the air, trepid, then were lost to the toothless metal maws, tens of them along the steel snake like some homeric monster, snarling at the masses that yet pushed themselves into its jaws.

He shuddered. the jaws snapped shut, forcing rubber lips together. the song was lost, its notes still playing in his head, and there was a glimpse of the boy's smile- did he look into his eyes?- and it was gone.

Again it was solitude alone with solitude. the old man beside him turned to face him, and ventured a question.

"You've missed both trains. aren't you taking any one of them?"

There was only the uncertain reply:

"No. these- none of these is my train."

Labels: prose

The idea that the landscape of Mars is red is a commonly-held myth. Photos from the first martian probes in the 1990s showed a panorama of red but those were really colour-enhanced - for scientific purposes, for sensation, who can say? Having discovered another uninhabitable grey rock in space would not guarantee NASA's budget - after all, we already had the moon and as far as the average voter was concerned, that was enough. In reality, the martian landscape is almost uniformly grey, punctuated by canyons, but these are grey canyons studded with grey rocks on ancient grey riverbeds. From space, the planet looks red because of iron oxide in the atmosphere. From the ground, the sky is grey, but the ever-present iron oxide dust looms nevertheless.

It was dark on mars. That was how it always had been, the shroud of night almost perpetually drawn over the red planet not by the presence of clouds (she had none) but by sheer virtue of distance.

Above the spaceport the sky was a deep grey. It was night-time. The daytime came and went with whimsy but each cycle brought no more than a tinge of brightness to the otherwise twilight surroundings. Six billion miles was a long way for the warmth which sustained green earth to travel.

It was also one hell of a long way for a spacecraft to travel.

That day, the spaceport was crowded.


Mother held my hand as we thronged with the crowd; pulled and pushed, seeping our way like rivulets of water between the cracks of parched earth towards the wire fence. I felt myself being pulled upwards by her muscular arms. Mother hoisted me to a perch on her shoulder so I could get a good view of the spacecraft: at seven, i was tall but most of the rugged colonists were taller: it was water day, there was to be a spacecraft (we didn't know what it was to look like), and it would come like rain from interstellar space to our dry little hole in the middle of our desolate solar system.

The first we heard was not the rush of the sonic boom or the parting of the sea of reddish clouds like a crack in some divine firmament to let in the first rays of a new sun, shedding brilliant light on the small pack of cold colonists and filling their eyes with a spiritual fire. Standing there I could fathom a small wet throng wading through the river Jordan; a crack in the sky; a deep voice of command.

The first we heard was not the torrential pour of combustion engines flaring in gigantuan struggle against the pull of the planet, lowering the silver spacecraft first by metres, then by feet, then by inches. When the ramp was extended, a man in a half-spacesuit stood at the doorway framed by a halo of brilliant, cutting but that is an image for later. Before there was light there was sound...

...and the sound was the word. A baby crying. It was little cousin Zechariah, nobody could hear anything of the spacecraft let alone see through the dusty haze, it was night-time, it was Mars, it was the spaceport; and he had had a brief premonition, the sort only available to the very very young, of the grief that is our birthright.

Labels: prose

i wandered in alaska,
feeling pretty bored
when all a sudden to my left
there darted quick a fnord.
perhaps i was mistaken-
but sure that i was not,
i called my huskies to awaken,
and the fnord i sought.
fnord
all over the seas i ranged,
in search of th'elusive fnord
but scarcely a trace i gauged
of that invisible god.
it left me a broken man,
now weary of life itself
but still the desire ran
to see the fnord myself.
fnord
so over sea and mountain like i roamed,
though neither brought me sign of what i sought.
in time, the winter rains to me were brought,
the seas they froze and fresh in spring they foamed;
the leaves turned brown, were trodden into rust,
and gave the barren trunks their greens anew,
while eggs cracked open, hatchlings aged and flew,
and even stones were worn down into dust.
fnord
but ask me if i ever saw the fnord-
i never did, tho' everything i saw,
and all the songs of nature i did hear.
no man will ever know that work of god;
it is his oldest grave unspoken law:
that man before the fnord shall only fear.
fnord
not plucked from out the flow'rs or trees,
not panned from out the lakes and seas;
the fnord is nothing man can seize.
fnord
it is like a ghost in the evening air,
it is like the whisper of sweet despair,
fainter than gossamer, finer than hair.
fnord
but it is in every work that man has wrought.
in every statue, worked in every ingot,
in every word, each punctuation dot.
fnord
it is in every breath of city breeze,
in every stark cold white fluorescent glare
upon the baby cradled in his cot.
fnord
make no mistake, the fnord is there.
beware.
fnord
although you might not know of what i speak,
it is still early; wisdom's child is meek.
although i know it is in vain to seek,
you, dear, might find what i have longed to see,
in everything surrounding you and me;
but, pray, if you should ever see the fnord,
know that that knowledge is most dearly bought.

Labels: poetry

floor flower

papers
files flung or simply left
through neglect or a deliberate act of violence
bag open - blue whale sifting the air for the detritus of dust
eating through the shiftless cobwebs of disused time
or a mouth open in frozen, dead wonder
the ruins of Pompeii.

adam

Labels: poetry

for you (who caused my heart's erosion)

I. harlequinade
farcical clownery or
love? as our painted lips
(cherryred, dustymauve)
and the shaded world
sparkling under
my left eyelid
with stripes of
peach&rose&goldenrod
were threatening
to brush (or possibly collide)
at this instant
a (fairlysmall)
dollop of coldcream time
hearts twisted, tangled
hung
for sale on a yellow ribbon
caught up in
a lovers' flashy
display of
buffoonery

II. chaparral
a dense thicket of shrubs
where we tumbled&played
as children
and lopsided grins
cracked our faces evenly in half
as the sunlight dappled
your earlobes and chin
and we were
hippomenes&atalanta
orpheus&euridice
perseus&andromeda
as our lips were stained
with the purpling
fruit of berrybushes
and small trees

III. alcazar
a spanish palace or fortress
where you draped
silk&moonlight
across my curving limbs
and took my hand
(chilly for want
of your dust-caked touch)
and led me,
a princess (made of icy stars)
to a prison
dangling crazily
between earth and sky,
suspended (tucked-away)
in a twisted, blackstone tower
originally built by the moors

IV. sachet
a small packet of
ashy snow is my heart,
but
maybe you can
find the last glimmering
gemstone hidden
(buried&sifting)
in that wasteland?
i don't know how
it was fooled
so
(tenderly&mercilessly)
by your dancing pupils,
your laugh
sweetly aromatic as
perfumed powder

V. panorama
an unbroken view
into your graying eyes
where i cannot believe
what i saw:
a world shadowed with
silver mist
that shrouded and distorted
entire lumpish continents
and roiled over
the palsied sea
punctuated by blueblack bubbles
where tenthousand(maybemore)
emptyfaced people
had been placed
(in meticulous crisscrossing lines)
crowding the yellow tinged glass
of an entire surrounding area

VI. creosol
a colorless
look was all you threw my way
(but it missed)
and shattered crookedly
on the bristling fence
behind my two shoulderblades
and only slightly glancing them,
enough to sear a questionshape
into the whitewhite skin
a trail of hurt which
dripped and disappeared into
the air
remained&hovered
(but thanks for asking)
when you pressed scarred palms
to hollow cheeks
you left pinkbruised marks
glistening like
oily liquid

VII. iridescent
producing a display
of something like
hope (champagnecolored)
dancing at your temples
little glassy shards
of canned light
and i think it was a goodbye
half-sunk into your parted lips
and as we touched
(fingertips, like curling palm fronds)
into
a haphazard explosion
of lustrous, rainbowlike colors



side note: words in italics: meaning of the words in bold

Labels: poetry

Fairy tales

Once upon a time
Seems so long ago
No more weary knights
No more fire breathing foes

Chivalry and folklore's gone
The prince's kiss turned to dust
The jeweled sword no longer shines
The treasure chest is locked with rust

The mermaid's tail swims no more
The fairy's wings are ripped apart
And yet these things come back alive
In a read book and a child's heart.



Onions

straight line on the screen
perpendicular to my fingers crossed
i hold my breath. in it goes.
steady.
my heart races. hook me up to one of those
and the line will jump up and down
like fresh onions on a skillet.
he can't taste onions anymore. i cry.

Labels: poetry

double bill.

Hug

hovering on each other's edges
there is a precipice of indecision
in the split second of eye contact
a buzz (is it electrical, or some force of the soul?)

there is a rush; and the moment
vibrates
between the could be
or maybe should not then there is no hope

when it's over we wonder if it really happened;
was it some sort of insanity
(but we feel the lingering warmth down our sides)




Leaves

no telling when the wind will blow
its coming or its leaving
except the sound of moving leaves
a silence's gentle sieving

between the bars of quiet
with luck a footstep may trawl
a passing car makes angry air
on an evening's sultry drawl.

my breath intrudes;
Silence is the friend of feet
voices give way to headlights
and the sound of a darkened street.

adam

Labels: poetry

a long time since
or: delayed onset of hyperallergy

sometime around twelve in the afternoon, at the height of the heat, a man collapsed deep in the dark heart of a giganteous dome; the dome that protected his kin from ravaged and revengeful nature. his passing made no noise; caused no stir; and soon an ambulance picked his body up, its automated medical system still whirring. the coroners- his fellow students- found no poison, no drug, no killer save the man himself. exposed to open nature once, so many years ago as a child, he had become addicted to her wild and sullied beauty; today he died of it.

Labels: drabble, prose

Life sucks life from the living
in the living of the life -
a collection of comforts that can't last
(like kites and grades and friends)
and a miscellany of miseries that don't
end, but are surprising in themselves.

Life sucks life
from the eyes that don't shine
and the lungs that fail -
inhale exhale cough choke sputter
repeat -
and the ears that resonate with jarring silence.

Death is kind -
it does its job,
scythes the soul,
gets its due;
and once it's done it doesn't end
and what is eternal doesn't hurt,
doesn't surprise,

doesn't change like life, the salamander,
slipping out of your hands,
writhing free leaving a little pile of warm-

and you can't wash your hands of life
the salamander.

Labels: poetry

18

I
the year could pass like the stirring of soup
or the crying of a cardboard baby
whirring past your earlobes
hissing like animals!
or flirting loosely with the idea of silence







II
it could be the silent ticking of twilight skies
we could stand in a circle and join hands
(here put your hand in mine, fingers
encircling
like mating honeybees or the long-end of the preying mantis moving in for the
kill.
)
here i am Lord take me take this life take this flesh give me something else
here i am encircled on a sliver of bespectacled earth
Lord, I am tired of people. I am besmirched.
it could be the noise of monstrous whirling fleeing eternity fleeting like the buzzing of dragon-flies

III
Tacet.

-adam

Labels: poetry