life out the door

its still not there
faded memories are no longer effective
she tried the medicine but the bottle
lay empty under the table

the children were left in the dark
her father was a bastard
he left after sleeping and
never returned

it is not possible to love
an angel before it flies
oh too high to be true

not feasible to take a bastard
feed his seed to little dark places
we led each other to
in the glaring light of judgement
you regard me so strange now
you see how I speak
you take me over that other place

this time they side with the other side

the children take what was theirs
and leave her with nothing but the shell she
drags around the sweat of her toil
all lost to the distance
the memory of life
now out of the door

swimming in the bubbling tide

Base Shook

Barely knowing not quite talking
A glance and nearly a whisper
but nobody is talking

It is still in the advertisement
but the shop had run out

You see people carrying them
on the barstools of the devout
they sit and majestically
cement our attitudes into capsules
we can swallow
believing in the inner sacred
we believe in things we did
the shoes still carry traces
of that mud under their treads
they left dents in the ground
still there on the paths that we took
now we wait for our dinner
talk of incidentals about
those that matter more than
the facts that we shared
or the trees that we shook
the leaves that landed around
the base of the wheel the
turning faces of time
the changes in our
lives

these were the unfinished vows
we carried into the playground
the opened cans of torments
the stumbling old men
who carry our coffins
out of the playground

the trees that fall in the park
nobody carried them out, they
cut them into pieces
and burnt them on fireplaces

the city is full of noises
but nobody hears them
they believe the noises
are signs of life

they are the sounds of
corruption

From View

Far above the world lies a fortress in steam
Angels on heat travel between dimensions unseen
Far from above there lies a lake of snow
The dead are stored there awaiting the global warming
to unfold

peer over the edge and stop threatening war
there is hell down there
enough for the each of us
perpetual death at the hands of demons
it does not end on the end of a spear
or with an arrow piercing your chest
it does not end yet you hear
all the stories of the past
all the tales of the best

it does not end yet
in those final seconds you hear
your own voice reciting the
alphabet
that last thought was
what would happen if you did not reach the end
thinking it you folded up the napkin and
left the table unfed

we have not been hearing from you since
we are still careful what letters we say
out loud for fear of washing water
in the shallow parts of that river

in the leafy remains of your mind
the parts you call art
remembered as treasure
in that you remain dear
and deserve our mark
of confidence before
our own end we value
your remarkable memory

Just before all this
the very old man at the door
shook his head, that's her
he thought and escaped into
the morning light

the dog sat on the pile of
furniture discarded under
the old street light
late the night before

goodnight he said
and switched off the lamp

the sky
the sky
the sky

it is black and the darkest night
falls

it falls and it finds down
the leaf spinning about an unexpected axis
that leaf lands gently
the observation prevents
the savage building of treatments
in this quadrant of the white ghetto

the fast parts of the weak
heavy dark the clouded vision
of fished waters the lost dance
between cities all Europe laments
the passing of artists and
America recovers economically

all this happened after you left

war is necessary

war is necessary
to kill the punks
war is also a way
to get rid of the runts
that become a drain
on the wealth of the wealthy

the land taxes increased
due to the cost of the diseased
all this accomplished with
extraordinary ease
the stroke of a pen
no deaths on the battle field

the painted terraces fell
how progress and reinvention
can fail to resolve vision
how things could be
removed from sustainable logic

weapons on the battle field
firing ordinance at other
young cadets
loading guns in their trenches
the town rather forgets
they fight with each other
decorate the walls of the local
tavern with the blood of unfortunates
that step into the grasp of their graben

their sunken soul their loose canons
these terrifying louts are set to collide
reductionalism inflates and runs over the sides

justice is the peaceful morning
when the victors walk in to
indoctrinate the children of those
being shot at the night before

to imprison and enslave
in this modern day
the men and women who
make the bread
provide care for the sick and
house the poor
those that turn the pages in the schools
carry food on the backs of mules
the average person pays
for the fireworks displays

war is not cheap
but necessary
when we give the reins
to the insane

Wrong Door

Opening the wrong door
leads to the great vacuum
ideas fall into the sky
words are taken from mouths
and hidden in cotton floss
forever silenced forever lost

The black wool pulled down
over your open eyes staring down
these curled fibres passing
in a symphonic sequence of events
idiots who pluck the barbed wire fence
to provide that atmosphere of
tension to quickly evacuate that
question the table shakes for
full minutes the earth quakes
there is sweat on your upper lip
you can taste it as the tea slips
out of the cup and misses the saucer
and onto your lap you flinch
the nails instinctively dig
and something takes you down
a solid steaming form
crashes from its wire chair
to the cobbled ground down there
your eyes stare now
from an unfamiliar angle

Opening the wrong door can lead
to the wrong fate. Close it quickly
before you are dragged by its gait
you can't meander or feel ashamed
you must march in like a horse that
can't be restrained

your head won't fit into the hats
your feet are too obscenely large
your eyes are covered with memory
and your hands grasp the distance

The presence of a wrong door
does not mean that there was a better one

But taking the wrong door
leads to a place you can't escape from

Edited version:

caring for our young
two meters by two
a desert of cables leading to the child's bedroom
those console games scattered in the bookshelves
the shopping never quite made it to the fridge
the always left on light switches
the stove controls that always broke
the elements that fried pans and non-stick surfaces
a specialty burn them thick and heavy, hard and sticky
turning up the heat at every turn

caring for the young
making sure they are fed
given a sophisticated and cultured web of friends
people they can meet with and plot their business plans
but close up relations cause rifts and muck slips over the solid
portraits you keep straighting on the walls of your admiration
the bitter mouth calls, manifest your pause absorbed

caring for the young
its more serious than you thought
keep it happening at the right
time of their lives to see the sun rise

keep it following the stars
keep it alive and making graces
keep it burning until it is large
and dominates the sky

the pain in your eye

life at the bend
ever so neat
and proper
loaded
questions
answers known
guesses along the track
nobody knows all that
its dream worthy glimpses of a man and a woman standing
on the platforms they set up for rock stars to sing for the crowd
they brought us together to see the mega-stars but instead appeared
an increasingly large balloon, increasing and now huge
filled up most of the room, so we moved into a large stadium
and now the balloon filled that room too
like an envelope containing the dawn
sealed with music composed from heartbeats
too sudden and quickening into a symphony
click go rhythms and percussions
how the voice glues it an altogether now
resonance

Coffee breaks

When there is more than one cup
in front of you then you have a problem
my friend, you have to choose which one
two arms yes, but one mouth is the destiny
my friend, and hope is not sworn of the
broken cup. Majesty is not assimilated unless
by an historic act of murder on the battlefield
and even then we accept it if there is a tapestry
the fables woven there are the truth
caring for our young
two meters by two
and a desert of cables leading to the childrens bedroom
console games scattered in the bookshelves
the shopping never quite made it to the fridge
the always left on light switch
the stove controls that always broke
the elements that fried pans and non-stick surfaces
a specialty make them heavy thick and sticky
by turning up the heat
making life hell
making it work in
the kitchen where
life is not fun

caring for the young
making sure they are fed
given a sophisticated and cultured web of friends
people they can meet with and plot their business plans
but close up relations cause rifts and muck slips over the solid
portraits you keep straighting on the walls of your admiration
the bitter mouth calls, you are manifestly absurd, dark and absorbed

life is not fun
caring for the young
its more serious than that
keep it happening at the right
time of their lives

- unedited stream

light blind

ambulance ride my empty
road slide into the district
take back the emergence of
suburban insanity creeping
in the darkness like
entries on an invisible ledger
your finger grips the edges
bare your finger tips bleed
but the morality of fibre
and eating raw cement
keep you stranded

after playing the banjo
the man had spoken the magic verses
now there is no climbing out of this
a tree fell on her and he wanders home pissed
passing a man with a wounded keg
there, out leaks the wine for tonight
how he managed to puncture it so many times
he said he fell over and it was not his fault
but he still was not popular

the man sat at the kitchen table
light blind from the night before
the baby was sleeping thank the blessed lord
and his wife was cooking pancakes in the kitchen of course

The perfect scene of domestic agony
but a fly found a way in under the door
to fill the air with evil diseases
so who is to blame when he sneezes?
Who was it that let that filth in?
He was about to teach them a lesson
when the lights went out

weather forecast

storms

1.

wash the air, tear down buildings,
blow it all down the road
and onto the power lines.


2.

the air had gone insane
and white bags inflated with gusts
wander like lost dead animals
along a path scattered hands
clasp to the ground
wet and tight
that infant grip

but the air calms
a child stops crying
the church bells
take over
quiet seems to respond
for the duration of the
ringing
the passing footprint
settles

until the intruding alarm
the fire siren and grinding
of trade dissolves the dark energy
from the air

the storm seems defeated
but its just having a breather

3.

taken alone
by itself
a storm
is not
evil

4.

but when combined
with suburban washing lines
the storm can become deadly
it can tear open gates
and expose all the lies

they can remove the roofs
and destroy trees
there are households without power
in the winds they may find it
difficult to keep warm
to stand and wait for the
passing of this storm

5.

damaging gusts
snow over the desert road
this includes Taumarunui
snow lowering to two hundred meters tonight
it becomes important
to check the sound bites

6.

somewhere else
way up north
a girl's life is taken
by the violence of the wind

Superstition

Cause and effect
effects are caused by action
effects are caused by circumstances
the positions of the stars
these two ideas suddenly went to war
to resolve the issue of superstition

the results have just come in
when action took action it was the
circumstances upon which those actions
were taken that determined the next
action and so it was that superstition
won the day, conquering direct action

merely by making the upright beast
think, could it be the wonderful wheel
of the sky that determines fate
when actions taken by my own hand
seem to result in unreliable results?
Are my own hands part of the fiction?

Or do the circumstances dictate all
do the placement of objects determine
their future moreso than the actions
that have been overlaid like a matrix
contacting every little point, therefore
is action in the universe not indeed
the hard way to get around, to make ends meet
so to speak?

Is not the very placement of things
the surrounds that they occupy
is that not the thing that determines
what happens next?

The Old Gods sighed, this creation of mine
the ideas it comes up with creating chinks in
my armour

it would not do to remove action consequence and response
in favour of circumstance, placement and accident.
Would it?

Circumstances

The future is already gone

Been buried behind the bin bag
dressed tomorrows slaughter
manufactured olive ugly skins
to hide from
like a face behind the veil
is it protection from sexual savagery
or impending illegal immigrant inspections

uncover photogenic material he hid
beyond convention yet
revealed intent with a stream
of statements leaving behind unanswered
questions, floating in the wind behind
the taste of morning unable to cleanse
reputation before the end and after
it becomes distasteful - it saddens me
that the sensation only damages the ones that matter

the ones that are so alive and kicking
against pricks so sharp they pierce
progress stops as blood runs down the drain
life is so short and then its over

climb the tree and if you fall
at least it is from a height
and not just a casual storm

they parked their cars over gravestones
lying to their friends
and tried to fit in their grief
before becoming intoxicated
deserving all their top shelf mystery

attached to the ground with cast iron chains
speaking in public for the first time
feeling out a place

to exist under trees waving gracefully
that wind that carps away at
until no reason is left
to drag our sorry arses out
of this glorified spider hole

Preferences

terribly silent
the earth moves and shifts about
like a dart so sharp it break stones
that slide in under windows

"the elderly do not agree with your assessment"
gentlemen sit down and discard your dinner

the throat is complete and sings for you
you are not all that complex

but your ear is taken along
ways
nobody can stir a broken frame,
a lost legacy

the blurring of the direction of the tragectory
unplanned ruptures in the mountains of Mongolia
it rains blood and streams of it collect
outside peoples houses
they sit and suffer the weeping and moaning
of the broken old rock collapsing and rasping
buried broken up pieces of silver emerge

grant thee an audience
give thee any disease from the
palate of newsworthy and juicy pieces
everyone looks at her now she is quiet and still
but still everyone looks

nobody is immune
the heat is terrifying
and the ground has stopped shaking
but the sky is hollow and the wind
feels strange between the folds
of her shirt

chaos matters

The wall fell down
the words fell down
the Walls fell down


the Word fell


Child picked up the pieces
stuck them together along
broken edges draws
narrow conclusions


his father's last words
fight to the death, son
honour your father
with the destruction
of our enemies
the ground is too full of our dead
our ground shall hold the blood
of the hordes of hell


Son, you may choose to live
in universities, become a doctor or a thief
but one thing is sound, and thats your belief
that anything against the Word
is evil


believe the world is but an illusion
to mask our delusion
like a game


you get a lot
if you die, carrying a sword
in the name of God






14:30pm
March 21, 2003








Copyright © 2003 by Nicholas Alexander
first published on Chaos & Matter, 2003

Cold morning

Solo swim down cool light
the leaf floats on the water
shallow dappled rings spread silent
the air is crying it is so very cold
a waver thin wave of frost woven by
the morning old fog rains upward
dances with the light
moving quickly as the sun clears
the horizon