there’s a song snatch in my fragmented brain… I’m on a train

 

*

the space is co-created, shared. what flows into it is often pain

a unique snowflake drop, individually etched with wounds.

 

with the pain, sadness.

hello, how low?

 

wrenching

creeping

weeping.

 

the pain of the other infiltrates the listener. often that’s ok.

sometimes it’s not easy to hold

when the harmonic vibrates some deep string inside myself.

 

what soothes? where catharsis, cleansing, comfort

calamine lotion for the seared soul

a humanity reservoir to irrigate growth.

 

outside everywhere is dead as skin flakes and dry as fear.

 

I feel stupid and contagious.

 

*

 

old woman buffeted confused.

someone pressed purge on her language centres

the words are gone.

 

she walks, though.

she likes to walk

around the facility around the grounds

out along the pavements into the next suburb

she’s a good walker

walking in the wimera fields where she grew up

maybe

 

tender age in bloom.

 

nice young policeman brings her back. he chuckled, she said.

not so much the next time.

or the next.

 

no I don’t have a gun

 

imagine: a care facility without a fence

yet management is upset.

 

they locked her down with the drooling the shitting the territorial pissing the moaning the shuffling dead.

she shakes she weeps she is scared in bedlam.

is that demented?

 

memoria

memoria

memoria

 

so she is here

a facility with strong fences and locked gates.

arrives, shrunken.

shuffling through fatigue and dislocation.

 

shit shit shit she mutters.

are you scared I ask?

yes she whimpers.

it’s strange and new and a bit scary – guessing, offering words.

she nods.

pat her hand. you’ll feel better tomorrow

hope.

 

I don’t mind

I don’t mind

mind

don’t have a mind

 

she does feel better tomorrow.

 

frustration when the words don’t come

infuriatingly garrulous then

but not now.

the silence is easier than the chatter.

 

I miss you

I’m not gonna crack

 

promise I’ll visit tomorrow

I’m on a train

melancholy voice – agitated anger

 

*

 

I don’t care

I don’t care

care if I’m old

 

I fucking care.

 

polly wants a cracker

biscuit bite tooth shatter

molar invokes dentist

a day’s work’s worth of amalgam.

 

polly says her back hurts

box lift spine strain.

back calls physio

a half-day’s worth of manipulation.

 

something’s chasing me

it’ll get me in the end

get you too

 

just because you’re paranoid

don’t mean they’re not after you.

 

pill for this pill for that

sharing the creaking progress towards death

ms connection the a-side to my b-side

 

you’re my vitamins

 

yet

need for own time

at night with disc and platter

ears reaching out

noise cadence reaching in…

maybe writing

what cliché shall I spin

music – lifeblood lover obsession

re-juicer

re-animator

            re-connector

 

I’ve got this friend, you see

who makes me feel

 

*

cannot connect out

without connecting in

music conduit

 

record for sensation

beat for heartbeat

perfect interval of tears

 

love myself

better than you

I know it’s wrong

so what should I do?

 

it’s not wrong. but man you could’ve loved yourself

more.

 

happiness transient?

sure.

so is pain,

just with a longer wavelength.

 

hang on to this:

periodic sinewave dips

are not permanent low.

 

not on a train,

a plain.

open space, not constrained by

empathy

entropy

family

I’m on a plain

I can’t complain.

 

 

each compiles a playlist

make it a triple live album