Reign of Debris

My head is full of fragments,
bits of life,
fragments of film,
broken bricks, broken windows.
Which should be striking
ideas off of each other
as they tumble.
But the motion is so fast
that anything resulting,
is smashed at once,
and adds to the clatter.
The hurricane can have an eye,
composed of some act of
cowardice or stupidity.
Which captures the chaos,
so, for a while, the thoughts
whirl around that rotten core,
activating and
re-activating
that short shameful video.
But when the storm
moves off, that spot, that
spite, remains and
is not scoured clean.
It is ready
to anchor
another whirlwind.

The Worry

It is as though,
everything
that you see,
takes a piece away
as it gives back
an experience.
The exchange
would have to be
precise or you
would wear out
very quickly.
But that bay and
that island
tore big chunks off me
which is something
I am just
now realising
as oil threatens them.
The mind picture for
my first good poem
came from there so
I count myself
ahead in the deal.
Although to think of them
choked and dead is
cold lead
in the stomach.
So I have the poem
and the worry
and the love.

In Perception

The small orange sticker
on the wall of the office
I am visiting
says "Perceptual".
Which gets me thinking
about the time it snowed
and it seemed to make
a theatre of our street.
As if the world was limited
to just this strip of asphalt.
The  intricate
stories and sagas of
the neighbours would become
the play which would fill that space.
I also remembered that dream
where the baby had eyes
full of blood
and it was my fault,
and then it wasn't.
How I felt very differently
about the story when
hearing of the stupid thing
that the father had done.
Because I wasn't him anymore.
But I still took great pains
to tell the other
characters that
"I would never do that"
while silently asking myself
"Would I?"

With thanks to my Mum for advice on the, now missing, last stanza.