Ribboned

Blue ribbon of light,
in a white space.
Twisting and rippling.
Turning and shifting.
White light spots
spark along the length,
pin-pointing
reactions
losing and gaining,
taking and giving.
A soft rustling is heard
as the ribbons flutter,
and energy is created
or destroyed.
Each of them is different
but all  the blue ribbons
undulating
in the white light
are hiding their meaning
in plain sight.

Reading Frame

A reading frame is
a rectangle of space
outlined in plastic tubes,
which helps children learn
to read by making them
concentrate on the words
inside the frame.
Avoiding the
distractions
of the bigger story.
I think that this is how
I live my life,
seeing the small segments
inside the frame
and not seeing the whole story.
Which also means
that I do not get involved
in this life as much as others do,
and finding a unifying thread is hard.
It is small segments joined together
to me, and the
narrative is
secondary to just getting through
the current space. 

Rose Up

The Tyrant called me
late one night  and
asked me to come
and talk of roses.
Which I did because you
did not turn him down.

We sat down together
and I talked to this man,
who waded through history,
of flowers and soil and rain.
He had the peasant view
that roses are a rich
person's flower so
was eager to prove himself.

A year later he wanted to talk
about water, and how to move it
around his grounds.
There were more security men
at that time because
he was under threat.

Months later he wanted to
talk of grapes but
I think that really he
just wanted to talk to me.
Called me "Dear Doctor" at the greeting
and said that
I was the only one who
told the truth and was not scared.
He did not know that I had to
burn my clothes after every meeting.

Only afterwards did I think
That I could have told him about
roses at the end of grape rows.
That act in an early warning role.
But that would not have helped him
because by then
his head was on a pole.

Square Deal

I have my seat,
where I can see
but not be seen.
I am categorising people
as they arrive for a concert
in the square and I like
how they mix and flow.
Here are some men in their 50's
arms crossed over bellies
ducking and weaving as they
recite best loved stories.
They help a young mother with her pram
who has split off from a group
of teenage girls who look
casually fabulous, if a little uniform.
Three teenage boys walk past
and there is enough
sliding eye contact to
start a forest fire.
A mother and daughter
seem to be using sign language
but then see the father
and the son who come
over from the Hot Rods.
The son smiles cheesily and
talks to the daughter
who turns her back on him
but smilingly.
While the parents shake their heads
in unison.
It is important to
see all this, to realise
that people can still get along.
At this time the sun
and  music have
worked for them.
Because there is not much
that does that these days.
Not much to bind
when the major push in society
is for individuals
at the expense
of us all.

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.