The muffled chorus of a village at war – rapid drums rolling to a wailing choir. This threnody lasting with the passing hours. The refrain approaches like a funeral dirge. Papa squeezes us tight. The door begins to lurch and collapses, and into our home they surge. The trigger depresses prompting an awful cacophony. The roaring of a hundred dragons in a hollow synergy. Papa acts just like a rag doll and his gaze falls hard on me. Four five six. His stare digresses and his concluding scene is mother jiving as her dress is torn apart by bullets. My younger sister rests cradled in my arms. My eyes are squeezed shut. Seven eight nine. Three rumbling shots break my mortal shield and burrow into my gut.

I've been tossing around these yin yang thoughts
these black and white coloured juggling balls
One moment they're shot puts, as heavy as lead,
Then they turn light as bubbles and hang over my head
til I let my gaze down and they float up to the clouds
And I'm sad til they fall again

So everything hangs on a perpetual question mark
Assuming the dark is what takes us
Nihilist and philanthropist
could be synonymous
In the cold abyss
Is this what drives those geniuses to commit that stupid sin
In spite of all that's been

And I have crazy trips where I'm held to trial
By an animal court and when the prosecutors called
He states all my wrongdoings but finishes saying
It's all in my head, they've nothing incriminating
There's no weight to the case, I should be on my way
So I escape but I always feel guilty

While in the amazon the trees are creaking
And the fleeting calls of the forest
Are a sure sign that the worlds in sync
As atoms vibrate til their energy's spent
We hold the gaze of the stars but the earth will spin til they're gone and replaced by the day
And this happens again and again

I've walked with robed men marching single file
And they raved about the beaches on which they'll retire
Said this journey is only a passage you take
The destinations all that matters, so its wise to save face
Even if you must repent each waking day
That's a sacrifice you'd better make

I know this kid, all he owns is a single glass marble
And he tells everyone he sees it's the most precious thing in the world
There could be millions of them out there but this one is everything we need
He says within it there's a cosmos suspended in a timeless swirl

And that it's bigger than any planet
it dwarfs v y canis majoris
And it contains the souls of all of us
So will inevitably turn to dust should we ever choose to doubt it

So we're advancing towards a new age
I'm confused as to if this ones on its last legs or in its infant stage
I'm constantly shifting my gaze from that three point framed stare
To rest upon the soft green light that sits at night upon the bay

Meanwhile I'll jump back on the conveyer belt
Have machines shape me and stamp me and spit me out
and send me on my way
to where I just can't say

And ill swim frantically to keep from harm
As most of us do from the moment we're born
Like a fish in a bucket
just dodging bullets

And taking time to perfect our goose steps
Or stumbling clumsily like a toddler with arms outstretched
I'm forever thankful to have so many motherly hands
That will reach out on instinct at any sign of my unsteadiness

Because men are not as mighty
as they would like to think
They can be brought to their knees by single microscopic parasites
Choking on grains of rice
Or a calculated smile
from across the bar
The masters of the universe
Blinded by specks of dust
Or bed ridden, coughing up dignity
And eventually beaten into submission
pupils like black holes gaping in recognition
Clinging fearful to someones holy vision
Or with palms shown in resignation
That we all go the same way
And in the night the storms will erase all the prints in the sand and the clay

I've been places that will go on as before
From when their knuckles pale to when their empires fall
Where there are people who know the value of each and every soul
And aren't concerned to acknowledge the debts they might be owed
I swear they have no bounds to their being
like they've swallowed a universe that's still expanding
And they will toil in the soil to provide your daily bread
When we have drained the well they'll drop their buckets for the dregs
I don't know if its giving up
Or just fool's luck

There are demons that come to occupy us, foul ideas attached to cathode rays
Or jumping out from inbetween the lines on the pages
Of the new daily gospel
Straining iris muscles
Working hard to extract everything to the backs of our brains
Our ear drums sync to the cadence
Of whatever song the dj might play
And we only need to hear it once
To hum the tune for the rest of the day
And they hung crosses on the west wall and on the opposite
Affixed altars to the trimurti and burnt some incense sticks
It's the way its been forever
and we don't know any better
Than the stories told to us snug in our beds when we were kids
But nursery rhymes have such dark undertones
It's the aspartame in their fizzy drinks
It's the milk building their bones
The saplings grow with vines wrapped round their branches
It's down to luck if they grow up straight
Or manage to resist it
But more often than not
The tree that sprouts up
Casts wiry appendages into the sky
Like the defiant hands swiping blind in the night
So speaking as a self proclaimed escapee
An uprooted and plotless Houdini
I can't do anything more than plead
For you to turn the pages
Read anything
Set about challenging everything

my friend and I are pulled up on the side of the road
and we're both out of ideas on which direction to go
We've been doing circles for hours and the tank's running low
I'm in the passenger seat staring out the window
and I'm content for now, the panorama's got me gripped
But my friend, he's sitting, shifting, biting his lips
Thinking over and over the turnings he might've missed
But there're no road signs here and no map exists
I've contemplated stepping out the car and walking
out into the forest, just that first steps too daunting
It's something I've often dreamt of: going out on a limb
wandering far from the pot holed roads and everything

But in the cocoon the catterpillar's well fed and warm
He needs not worry about the happenings outside of its walls
He just waits, knowing one day his whole world will unravel
And he'll be reborn with wings

Often I contemplate if there's a difference between
Leaves underfoot and leaves floating downstream
They'll be matter one day, then irrefutably fade
And return back to the soil they were born from

But there's no success in drawing on analogies
To calm the nerves of one found as wanting as me
When that butterfly first flaps its wings, its with subconscious belief
And the blind freedom of the stranger standing alone on the beach
But the real world's so vivid that it strains my eyes
The spectrum's so vast, noone sees in black and white
So leave that outsider in his cell 'cause empathy feels so right
The most treasured of our gifts and yet our greatest plight

And I'm happy in the shackles of an existential mind
in the forest i know ill meet others walking that line
I'll open the door, step out the car and walk
if I could only find the switch to unlock it

She'll be turning heads til the day she wilts. And she'll lay in strangers beds, wrapped in their quilts, ignorant to the possessive nature of men and their longing for her to lay with them again. And her looks will serve her - a springboard up the ladder. Designer conditioner to soften her hair so ravaged from cruising in her open top car.

Not done

Picture the scene
A multitude of dreams
confined in one city
A wealth of beliefs
And they're all correct to me
they might as well be
Cause they planted several seeds
And each one became a tree
So despite my misdeeds
I'm sure every god is pleased
with my wishing to take heed
of everything I see

But this morning there was word
that down in the earth
there's unsavoury creatures
so odd they border on absurd
But they didn't just occur
or awake from some slumber
they were fashioned by the fingers
of men that lust for power
Now they're biting at our heels
They've got the academics reeling
Maybe those spacecrafts will appear
And relieve us of logical reasoning

Unfinished