whenitrains

In-between Diamonds

by

When I look down at the sea [ocean?]

I’m not just seeing the countless monetarily-gleaming diamonds on the water

No

I’m seeing below them, around them, the space in-between

that’s where the mysteries start and end

not with the diamonds themselves

no

It’s under the waves, the ebbs and flows, the dark and light

it’s the depths, some shallow, some murky and hard to fathom their fathoms

it’s in the past, steps of all our ancestors

relic ghost ships collapsing in the night, wooden bow breaking, snapping

it’s the sea retreating, revealing it’s sandy expanse, sand dollars, seaweed,

imagined treasure of a child on a summer morning

The world could be always and timely and timeless

And out there in the sea, in that ever-changing water

oh… I couldn’t explain, says the sailor, fisherman, person of the water and night

the sights and sounds, the mysteries hovering above the sails

ebbs that don’t make sense

black-silver-blue waves from nowhere, rattle-your-bones abyss

So yeah there are diamonds

but I see in-between them.

In those gaps, those voids, empty treasure memories in shells deep under

I see those ghosts of before, another life, lives before mine, lives that will be but I don’t know yet

and yeah I see treasures but I also see wrecks, bones, broken dreams,

explorations that ended nowhere but heartbreak and misery

I see treasures found, brought back, held high over heads, champions

triumphant from beating the gloom still-at-night.

The Noise

by

A wall

a big, rolling, moving, gonna-get-you wall

of noise

of noise of every person

and their thoughts

and their emotions

and their judgement

bundling towards me like a juggernaut

enveloping me with every single frequency

sometimes words jump out of the chaos, sometimes just becomes one

glass fragment of conversation, a word here and there and then just

chaos, cacophony

Symphony of my nightmares

I wonder what it’s like

imagine not feeling the wall of noise

not being taken over in mind, body and spirit by it

I try to remember that somewhere in the chaos

somewhere embedded into the noise

somewhere there’s sense.

Journeys In Blue

by

With one more tick and tock

[the last one moving glacier-slow from one number to the next – analogue indicating some years ago]

It’s time to board the bus

sunny day

[think hazy, falling asleep from gentle motion]

drive to this place my mind has created

I don’t know who’s there or what I’ll be doing

and everyone gets off at other stops

[all their own]

Some kind of after-life

[in amber]

So here’s the tock following the tick

my time to disembark

warm air, breeze, some plants

gates

Grey Wave

by

There’s this bleak beauty and serenity to the sea sometimes

It’s total eternity and when the waves

break

break

Cutting into the noise and rhythm and all the bullshit

like a knife through the played-out nonsense

And you know when I

look to the

horizon

I can see inifinity

you, me

you and me

And this timeless profile in crystalline

Imagining

the seven seas

though I can’t name them

Suddenly I’m bouyant

filled and energized with the the bouncing shards of reflected sun on the crests of the waves

Suddenly I have this feeling that

everything might

just

be

ok?

But then the sky changes

ghastly grey

scary slate

bleak blue

and I look down from the cliff

and those waves?

now they are the monster

ripping and sliding and beckoning

they want me

come down

come to me

they want to take me

to that grey eternal endless melancholy

even though I know it’s inferior

even though I don’t trust

the monster

Sometimes there’s this thought

that I’m in agreement

That I might just be better off in the sudden solace of it all

that if I got swallowed up, and swelled

to the point of horizon where the sea meets the sky meets the night

I might just float

not sink.

Creak

by

Imagining the insanity of a billow-cloud eternity

Over some uncertain undefined finality and ending

Years of a life summed up in a pop-up book pages

Peekaboo

Open/close, one page to one year

Or like a bleak puppet show in a tired amusement from many years ago

Playing the part of a character, dusty with age and wear

going through the inevitable rituals and motions then put back

The sense of an air and time I recall but never experienced

Spines of books upon books upon books

every word, page, chapter worn and pressed from age

There was joy there once, words that came to life from the page

I was spellbound by the colour, the vividness and opportunities they bought

impressed by the almost infinite time in them

yeah I could be absorbed, transport myself into them through some unspoken vortex

become someone else somewhere else some other time some other universe

some kinda parallel – I’m gone but only next door

I’m not here but don’t worry, I can just step through this vortex portal again

and be with you in a flash, in a shout, a blink-you’ll-miss-it moment

and be with you

But these games don’t work, they’re slowly fading, degrading, rusting

and these books, well

they just seem like redundant blocks of paper standing still like Easter Island stones

looking wistfully and mockingly at me, sighing through years of history, some mine, some not

And it’s

like

if

I

knew

which

page

to

start

with

Maybe I’d be eyes open, kaleidoscope colours, spinning round the room laughing

camera looks at me, summer orange light shards through dust

smile now smile now smile

spin spin spin as I stare into the lens

played back years later click-click-clack of tape

wondering how seconds minutes hours became foggy dusty days weeks

months

years

decades

Trying to break down the code of every decision as it branched out into my life

building up these useless diagrams

mental blueprints of a life

mental

blue

Intricate

by

The hard-wired habitual loneliness of one night

Safely contained in one room [door bolted]

There’s a perverseness in the safety I feel

I mean it’s not safe

Lonely isn’t safe

It’s grey-wooly-can’t get out

It’s not a gilded lullaby sung to me as a wide-eyed child

Not the comfort of a warm embrace in winter

Lonely offering safety is lying to me

Lonely knows I know that

Lonely knows I know they know that

It offers joyous solicitude, quiet, peace, hear-the-clouds-moving-in-the-breeze

But delivers stillness, sadness, stifling to get air in a hot room

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m craving

The buoyancy and agility of a speedboat on the glitter of some sea abroad pock-marked with sun specks

Or the emptiness of a breeze through a valley where no-one treads

It’s the not knowing

The changing, flip-flopping, push up then shove down

The fragility of brittle glass being hammered by a storm

The lack of stability, of golden contentment

Watching the shadow of some ancient sun-dial move fast, faster, faster still

Day into night into day, circadian

I’m stood static in the middle of the scene

Colour of city scene around me fast-forwarded

All this there and I can’t grasp it

Because I reach [out] to touch it feel it experience it

And all I feel is air [or maybe sand] slipping between fingers

Slips away into cracks and crevices, imagined hills and valleys

Slips off from me as it has nothing tangible to hold on to

Winds away into the river, into the ocean

Where the drop of something turns into a blue-black mass of disarray

Like it never touched or knew me

—

I’m not sure I’ve ever known real sunshine or vibrancy

Was it just sugar-sweet-sickly-coated dreams that one sunrise brought

Was it just the vulgar gloom-aggression of the storm that day

Am I just frittering, flitting, fanciful

imagining some neon-bright, ultra-vivid dreamscape where I

walk, jump, dance, fly into the night

absorbed completely with nothing to frighten me

—

Did I tell you I once felt the wind go through me, like every molecule felt it

Did I tell you I once felt the leaves in the tree make movements so small in the air yet I felt them tickle ever atom in me

Did I tell you I once felt birth, life and death all in one beautiful, fractured azure day

That just for one second, minute when time stood still

just me air, the universe, the glittery promise of my next breath

how it felt like everything in that moment

everything

Did I tell you I understood, I understood how everything worked and came together

That there’s gold, glitter, shine, an unspoken whisper of unity and solace

Did I tell you for that tiny fraction, that tiny soft silver fragment of time

that it all made sense

—

but then quickly [like a sun setting on fast forward x 100] it went

it left me

and it left me so confused, so empty

Like I’d been touched so gently so powerfully

that I felt it there after for so long

but not long enough

Did I tell you how I craved that crystalline clarity of knowing

knowing for sure, with summer-day sureness and conviction

of what life meant

of what I mean and will have meant

—

If only, oh if only I could explain

how the light feels

how the darkness feels

how they entrap me and entwine me, every fibre of my being

kidding me I’m in control or sated

with the inevitability of the impact of a no-grace fall

with the absolute certainty there is no clarity, no magic-pill

—

But I felt it still

head to toe to head

Felt it fizzle up like static

wind its way through my soul

and then it left.

All the things I can’t remember

by

I take a mental tour of the house I grew up in

Some of it detailed, oozing with colour

others blurred or pixelated out

memories worn down by years and decades

replacing items with ones from my schema

I watch my feet walk but they make no sound

An absolute stillness, everything frozen

a whole world of memories but noone to share them with

going back in time just to find nothing there

just static, empty air

everyone’s walked out of the room and they’re not coming back

so I’ll just sit here in this timeless empty memory that it feels I’m the only one chasing

like if I could just fill in the gaps I’d be fixed [at least, no longer broken]

like I’m chasing something that might not be there

but regardless it pulls me in its mouth, devours me

so I keep on chasing

visiting

remembering.

The Cold Step

by

There’s a itch that, no matter how much I scratch it

Or try distracting myself

It’s there like omnipresent-won’t go away-just-you-try

And no matter how many steps (quick footstep watch the ground)

It won’t

won’t

A splinter I can’t find so I start digging away at my skin/flesh

It’s there I swear it is

I can feel it, experience it, it absorbs me

But I can’t

see

it

So it’s back to

step, foot, foot, step [footstep]

over and over, just to distract

just so something else in my head is there

otherwise I’d just feel

the tick-tick of inveitability

of this stupid pain

sensation

overwhelem

And you know it’s so frustrating

because if I could just find it, see it, touch it, locate it

I’d rip it out and discard it

throw it a million billion infinite miles away into the sky

into space

where it would shatter, disperse into the void

never to

be

seen

again.

Orange

by

Stepping off for what feels like the 100th time into a sudden vacuum of noise and odour and

hard to explain but almost angry

There are seemingly thousands of routes and subroutes and fork-split-decisions-make-memories

And I overthink each and every one of them

So it

slows

down

so much that I

lose time

lose

lose

lose

And I’m well aware that I’m gaslighting myself

as no, I can’t control time or space at will

No matter how hard I try to pry back the inevitable like a weakened bar in a cell

worn down by effort, frustration and anger from years and year

I can’t

it won’t budge

That ever-present permanence, in-yer-face you can’t change it

So I just

stop

Spiralling

by

After 112,892 rabbit holes

Body zapping me awake over and over and over

Color all gone to monochrome

Heart rate raised but entirely useless

Dopamine all wrung out and dried in the sun

Thinking of 100 different ways to piece together one million fragments

Using no glue or tools or skills or reference or assistance

And just staring at them laid there on the floor

Some shiny in the sun, some dulled with dust, some just beyond repair

Thinking to myself, how do I piece these together so this time they just stick?

How do I take all these fragments, make them whole but make them strong?

And maybe I can’t

Maybe I’m chasing a strength I can’t have or figure out

Maybe there are so many hairline cracks that one day I’ll just

shatter

and just be looking up to the sky, evaluating and over-analysing the way the clouds are moving above me

Maybe it’s so fragile I’ll just

smash into countless pieces

and then at least have some integrity of not pretending I’m not a mess

gradually decaying and becoming one with the ground, the soil, the earth

just a speck of dust that caught your eye when it reflected in the sun

just for that split of a split-second moment

then the angle of the sunlight changes

and I retreat into shadow