we all carry the magicians suitcase assembling and dissembling fictional universes.

a humid swell of maybe this or maybe that, lean into whatever uprights you can find.

the wrapping is sugar coated, by nature and by nurture.

pain makes an island, the home guard waits in bunkers, the deck of cards is worn thin, the thrush still knocks the shell and sings

you dreamed in colour, yearned for sweetness; ripe is the shine at the end of the road.

left hanging. the ones who need it silenced, the ones who wrote it blinded. we crave to be held in balance.

building a world delineated for defence, cold-steel for bone-meal.

between words a space, between deeds a pause, take away this intake of breath, and we cannot safely fold away the past.

how do we not hear the bombs not see the dead not care for the cost

do not point your rage at others weaponize your view with a trigger finger; all hearts are suns with their own fire.

don't dream above your station. rank is written into your genes. or cut the ties that bind and walk off the path.

the boy still loses his future, the mother still shoulders the wheel, the giant is still waiting.

we reach, from birth rocking in our body, for movement forwards.

the flush of your passion, thin skin barbed, outrage scattered on the verges.

dear king of the underworld do you have any advice?

dont mess with the voice that rises from the deep

hand of the sun god, why lay waste? can you not return the symmetry to the horizon and halt man slaughtering all.

how long have you lain in your cradle, waiting for someone to whisper

name each point of light as you pass and the dark will take care of itself

if i dowse the land for love i am led again, to the crush of moments when you opened your door and smiled.