Cul de sac

You will you limbs to move
desperate concentration
an unheard mute message
to a lumpen stolid body.
slumped slack stringed puppet
awaiting the next awful scene
in the grotesque mannequin cabaret
A ghoulish ballet of exquisite torture
In which you must inflict
outrageous acts of depravity
in the name of who knows whose unseen hands.
You are paralysed
Head on your chest
Looking inward
Blaming yourself
for what you are made to do.
Maybe if you do exactly what you have to
they will leave you alone.
But still
You think
You await
a flicker
a twitch
anything to tell you that you are alive.

The hum of the fridge.

Behind the couch lie things
forgotten
abandoned
unsearched for
unmourned.
Choking in a layer of dust
remnants of another time.

The house is quiet
distant barking dogs
the hush of cars on a wet road
if there was a clock
(which there is not)
it would tickkk-pause- tockkk

slowly.

Like the waves that lap against palid grey slick sand
tide turning
you standing safe
then submerged
in cold water
numb and breathless.

Seared redraft.

High above the muddy field gripping tightly.
upon the shoulders of a man I barely know
but still trust
because of who I am told he is.
He is here now
when usually he is not.
The taught string pulls against my hands.
Ridged plastic against child's soft skin .
A scudding, grey, whipping wind
The line heaves, ebbs, then whiplashes, yanking me forward.
A little boat adrift on stormy waves, darting, dipping, plunging
and popping up like a cork.
My grip is all that ties it to the coast line.
My grip and my arms which are tiring.
Fingers cold.
This is a special day because he is here.
We must try on a special day.
We must try our best.
The tacking and turning is tugging at my shoulders, prising my fingers and trying my patience.
The vessel yearns for the open sea. The chained dog gnaws at its chain. The unfired gun holds in it an explosion of imagination. A question.

What
if
I
pulled
the...

I let go.

You run. You run so hard, like I've never seen you run before.
You run and though you smell of sweet tobacco smoke and motor oil, you run like an athlete.
You run across the slippery precarious municipal turf.
You run across what is barely grass, more a churned bog punctured by studded boots.
You run to the goal pasts, with the naked patches of bare metal and bubbling welts of welded angles.
You run, following the path of the plastic meteor
You run, you climb, a struggle, a fence you think about vaulting, but you hesitate and the momentum is gone and beyond the fence is a hill, made from earth from deep under our feet. A hill of shale and ugly black welts, a mound of landslips and gouges and you are slower now.
You are scrambling, slipping and the kite hits the slag with a thud I feel even though I can't hear it. The rigid mysterious frame is surely cracked, the bright orange sail is surely ripped and there, on the hill, way-a-way in the distance is the man who makes the world ok and he's tiny and I'm back here and I wish, with all my heart that I hadn't let go because he might fall and the ground might give way and this is a special day and on special days we are good.
and
we
try
our
best.

I'm still on the shoulders of the man. This man I'm told is your brother. Who speaks to you like he knows you more than anyone and I do not understand your secret code.

I wish I still held the tight line and could just hand it over and I wish this was true and that you were still here to reel it in and pack it away, making it all neat to be put away for next time. I wish with all the power of all the wishes I've read about.

But.

You near the summit of the industrial Everest and you stoop and go to take in your hands the polythene Icarus, to rescue the downed cosmonaut, the effort catches up with you.

And you double over and breathe, hard and heavy and look, for a just a moment, broken. Sucking air, legs burning, vision swimming.

And then, you redouble your effort and try again and...

...you have it!

You came back, slowly, Edging your way down, feet turned sideways as you stepped carefully on the bare patches. Little rivulets of gravel broke free and then you climbed the fence again and ambled back. Trudging.

There were spots of rain. Feather light flecks, no rhythm to it. We walked, slowly towards you and
as we met, I was placed down, and as my feet sink slightly into the ground. I felt more aware of my weight than I was before.

"It's fine" you said and started to untangle the bits of it which have got all tangled up.

The rain picked up. We walk back and it feels like dusk. Maybe I held your hand. I don't know. It feels like I did.