Tokes

I lay back fully dressed in wet grass

Looking up at blood red clouds that drip like tears

And here the dream lasts longer than is comfortable

But I lack the strength to simply sit up in this miscoloured world

I don’t live here anymore

I store old dreams in formaldehyde jars

Stripped of their colour they look forlorn

And call to me with silent lips for more time to exist

And my stomach dips repeatedly

Roller coaster energy

Even though I haven’t moved for what seems like half a lifetime

And still the clichés chime shiny and new

As if I drew breath to say them for the first time

And they wring out the waste water from life

And all my clothes are heavier than before the red clouds cried

Stargazer! Leave your key on the table and collect your bags at the door

And all my senses clash in response to the affront

gauge the distance we’ve come

chase demons who

who serenaded last chances

marching in front

like cheerleaders of the damned as if to celebrate

the ungraceful dive

and I lay here nailed to the earth

Fallen but not hurt

Feeling, but not worse

Still meaning to face reasons

That have scattered in the fall

Stargazer! Is this the best defence you can play?

Burnt blood now dust in your veins

Light fingers that no longer play those quivering strings

And it’s amazing that all this rain has not extinguished a flame

That has no right to flicker this way.

And raging renege responses are frail in the end

If you build your world on a steep mountain

Then landslides fall more like

Extinction events.

But we drank deep of the healing waters that were brought to us on a flowered tray

and displayed the kind of late arriving dignity that the lady with the eyes that melt ice used to deserve

and its absurd that we were ever lost in a maze that we had a rumpled map of

and in the end the way through was also the way out

and we found many wondrous things on this emotional expedition

and we have beheaded them

like all the best hunters do.

“Despite the fact possibilities were scant the Stargazer had gathered enough effort to sit up although his eyes remained tight shut.  The rain from the red clouds, which had by now had throttled back to angry spits seemed not bother him. He raised a hand to his face spreading the salty water away enough, to blink in starlight from a deep blue ebony sky”