2021-04-29

NaPoWriMo - 2021 - XVIII - And as she...

 And as she...



...starts to sprint she pulls her self,
one foot sticking
slightly, out of time -- the external world slowing
between one footfall and the next --
as Einstein takes his cut.  She annotates

her future path with tense thought and big, square
[brackets] to show where she will go,
years of relativistic combat practice mapping
how she'll pass, barely noticing, through plate glass
and continue
via the eighteen-inch gap between two trucks
which would be crashing
if time dilation left them time to move.

The world ahead is going blue
as she -a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-e-s- and she can see
the gun, rising.  She's going to be too late but again she
--a--c--c--e--l--e--r--a--t--e--s--
faster now than ever before, and she cannot see
in ultraviolet
but she already knows where everything is and how she is
-- in front of the motorbike and behind the limousine --
leaving a tunnel in the air which collapses behind her
with the voice of a titan.
Through the other window --

and now she is in the bank, among the gang,
balaclavas, weapons, bad minds;
normally she'd be flooring goons
at this point
or flicking biros from the desks towards heads
which would snap back
when hit by cheap office supplies
doing multiples of speed of sound
but she has only one target now

so close
a gun, horribly wrongly, pointing
at the only thing in the world which matters;
she might make it
-- might tear that hand off at the wrist,
or maybe swat the bullet in its flight--
or she might not
and if she is too late,
she simply will not brake, but run

into the side of the armoured vault
like a comet with a grudge --
scour everything back down to the bedrock
give the ants their chance -- and choose
not to live on in such a haunted world

of which there is nothing left now
except a man, a gun, a girl
and the need
to *a*c*c*e*l*e*r*a*t*e*.




2021-04-28

NaPoWriMo - 2021 - XVI - Unmake

 Unmake



Undo; undo; undo;
unspin the planet; undawn the day; unturn
the season; unproduce the play; unsing all songs,
we're out of time and key; unknow those few
close friends, whether platonic or carnally;
undo; undo; undo;
regress your life and lives; things
you must unsay; undo; undo;
this is all wrong; unbind the electrons; deorbit the moon;
unburn the stars; decolonise the new world; disinhabit Mars;
unsummon the demon;  undo; undo; undo;
I can't be having with this.



2021-04-22

NaPoWriMo - 2021 - XIV - Maybe I should stop taking the pills

Maybe I should stop taking the pills


as I was discussing a moment ago
with the lady beneath
the grating in the floor
they cannot see her by the door
where the nurses station lies
and I do not let the nurses
or the penguins
know I'm talking to her
because she's covered in dust bunnies
and a very private woman.  Maybe
I should stop playing this game
it's eating so much of my time
but strangely compelling
and I've made progress,
manoeuvring my avatar from the spawn point:
straightjacketed in the padded room,
through consultations, medications,
group and art therapies,
to here, where it's clear beyond the institution
there lies an outside
even if some grills, code-locks,
and surprisingly muscular psychiatric nurses
away; and maybe now is a day to reconsider assumptions
because it's surprisingly hard to tell what's real;
what's not; and what, although illusionary, conceals
some aspect of a truth.  Like the penguins.
Who would have thought
there were do-gooder nuns
behind the feathers and fish obsession.  And that they
would be the solution, to the sedatives problem.
Maybe I should stop
reading the magazines?
  But look, see
here's an article by someone like me,
only fitter and more sexy, saying that he
solved this very problem with one simple trick.
That's slick.  I most try it with Dr Andrews.
I'll let you know how it goes... except...
maybe I will stop writing this blog:
You should stop taking the medication - says one comment, and
Ignore that, he's a liar!  Says the next...
and having contradictions laid out in text
is strangely unhelpful.  Has the first guy spoken to any penguins?
Does the second know the woman beneath the grate?
Or Dr Andrews?  Is either closer to a date
when an orderly will key a code
and open that final grate
to the brightness of the lobby,
the heady freedom of the carpark, beyond.
Has either of them stopped taking the pills?




--

Disclaimer - I've never been in a psychiatric institution, but I have watched Season 6 of House MD.

And seriously this isn't about mental health, but more about our general impressions of reality and truth, and where we find them, the choices we make, what sources of "truth" we subscribe to...