quitvision Poems, Writing

Calm Coded Messages

Stood up too fast again
An aeroplane jutting out of fuel
His figure bows like corrugated card
Against the grain, trying to fold in half

Blood pressure dropped the dial
Tuned half out from the brainwave station
To crackle and emulsify with phantoms in the static
Calm coded messages speak under panic

All he could think
As his volumes haemorrhaged ink
Was how it felt so good
To buckle over where he stood
He realised he’d been in so much pain
Anaesthesia pumped quietly by his now scrambling brain
Neutralising in him
Finally fine to feel weak as the room spins
Catharsis in submissive pose
There isn’t anymore strength that he owes

quitvision Poems, Writing

Back Fence Burned Down

Mexel eats a rice cracker.
Tony gestures for one with squiggly fingers across the decking.
Mexel throws one like a frisbee.
It is instantly picked up by the wind and carried over the neighbours fence.
Tony doesn’t look up from his four-piece hammer drill set.
The garden’s lawn is patching yellow vanilla in the weeks since rain.
Mexel has mixed the plain, caramel, and salt ‘n’ vinegar rice crackers in the same tube.
Tony stays out of them this way.
He doesn’t have the psyche for that kind of Russian roulette.
The backyard hangs open at the bottom, spilling out into the local park behind the house.
Mexel watches the baby swings alternate like pistons in the distance.
Tony basks in the clicky precision as he assembles his drill like a sniper rifle.
The back fence had mysteriously burned down in the night.
They blame each other.
Mexel blames the cheap flammable paint Tony bought at the carboot by the train tracks.
Tony blames the swarms of butts Mexel flicks as catherine wheels from his top window past 11.
They both know that only one of them cares enough to fix it.