The Air Under Desire's Wings

The Shadow on the Tree ~ John Ritchie

When he lay you down in a field of fallen feathers
While comets swam across the ballroom of your womb
You lay tongue-tangled in a myriad of possibilities

Colours collide with clouds beneath the arch of your closed eyes
Sending searching words reeling their meaning to find
Messages secreted between your world and his

When you cushioned him from the falling ground
And the circling wings unthinking threw no shadow
He gave no thought to future paths converging

In the ritual flight of meeting minds to nothingness
Each flower blooms to form an individual face
In the writhing of the cascading meadow

When you lift your eyes to touch the constellations
That swirl in the palette of his eye
He gives you the night, a filigree promise

But it is you
You who will need to lay claim to the morning

Fables from a Forgotten Place: Awakening

Nobody read the news today, the newspaper pages were blank.
On the underground train we saw the minutes go past like stations on life’s timeline.
Past the dirty window long forgot, no names of dead celebrities and long lost pets.
On arrival at the warehouses, we found that all superfluous positions had been erased; returned to the institutions where fantasy careers are composed, and where reality comes to destroy.
Disconcerted by the return of personal responsibility, we milled in quiet whispers uncertain whether to be angry or concerned.
Finding ourselves without protection from trips and falls, without guidance on exactly how to perform our duties, we resorted to looting stationery cupboards; ripping up carpet tiles to find that they only covered concrete floors; and wandering off, disorientated, we were hit by passing cars heading for the cliff edge.

You Taste of Moonlight

Battlemage ~ Donato Giancola

As I tiptoe across the lake’s meniscus
Leave ringing trails of ripple tides
Falling birds will feather reason’s edges
And bells peal waves that reach the other side

And with feet of clay I mould myself
A fable cast in porcelain

While burning bonfires on the beach of soapbox dreams
Windmill stator winding armature inducing
Voltage in a cortex fold
Sparks will fly into the night defined

And heaving heart to stem the rising satellite
I plough the stars to fit you in

As I rest my head on hope’s meniscus
Surrender daily to the rising tides
Kiting birds will define my reason’s edges
And silent bells transport me to the other side

And Unsurprised I find myself
Alone in a long story cut short

While windmills burn on beaches far removed from dreams
Electric current finds no path to earth
Buzzing in my teeth
Undefined, Unconnected to the reeling stars

And tasting night upon my tangled tongue
I swim to you in water waved in light

Reflections in the Eye of the Storm

Under The Weather ~ Gawker


I am.

At the core of this construct, this cultural effigy; there unwinds a clockwork heart whose spring was once wound then key tossed to smelter.

And the duration of unwinding is spent conforming to the carbon-based copy; shuffling blueprints deduced from the rules of the universe.

And corroded crumbs of wisdom taped to ticking cog-wheel whirr, count off the days in shades of rust and rot.

And rust itself is a poor conductor for all these construct sub-routines; rot a scarecrow foot at the corner of a crystallised cornea.

So this construct collides with its world, denies what is offered up as truth; strives to break free from the ties so carefully soldered in construction.

And had I not these construct eyes and ears for input to overload, I’d walk this path graveward with all the automaton-grace of patriot.

And on that walk I would pass beneath the waving flags whose bloodstained weave reflects the thin vain veneer that the operating system requires us to revere.

I am not.

Theory Holds Water

Jeremy Geddes

Here at my window where the new world holds sway
Meagre food threads ache on the cusp of my day
Here where the future has become a fag end
Burnt knuckle yellow dead letters un-penned

Groundwater looms in the crook of the night
Rising without wings without death’s appetite
Rushes its run through the streets of my dreams
Stitches to render from these foolhardy schemes

Here where I wrap your bones in sweet flowers
Gravity’s low hopes now rotting fruit hours
Here where I sentence these strings of words free
Shake the world silent they fall from dead trees

My heart rendered cruel in a coal black estate
Windmills that vane the cold night’s old debate
Whirling the skyline despite the vain cries
Of the nearly dead idiot-voiced lords of the flies

Here at desk of the real estate moon
Waxing gibbous candle waning too soon
Here where the last of my tears now break ranks
Trapped voices freed from green dolphin tanks