Will you be there for me?

If I find myself flailing
These useless things I never said
Would you throw me a lifesaver
Before I am in over my head?
And if two wrongs don't make a right
After all is said and done,
Would you be the rock of sanity
Can you make me bite my tongue?

Sometimes silence is golden
If for the beating of my heart
Nature's song and the soft sigh of the ocean
Will you be there for me?

And in a day's tired reflection
Tossed upon the wild seas
If you find me wretched and ruined
Could you give me what I need?

Some days, it is easier, I know, to turn the other way, and run
Instead of racing to the glory of the morning,
It's easier to chase to setting sun

Like the drowning man clutching at the teasing straws
As if that is all life has to give
It takes a real man to surrender to his conscience
When it is only himself he has to forgive

And sometimes silence is golden
If not for the beating of my heart
Nature's song and the soft sigh of the ocean
Will you be there for me?

Tightrope Walking

Honestly,
I can't be fucked
With your catalogue of woes
When you don't stop to listen
When I want to talk to you
And plunge on, with your battering ram of despair
For items beyond your grasp
And frankly, beyond my care.

What is the point of tightrope walking
When you're afraid of falling off?
Or lighting the fuse when you're afraid
The explosion might wake the neighbourhood?

What use is it to bemoan and fidget, that which is beyond your means...
In this, the present, this speck of time
Why not seize the moment, throw a dart at a date
Close your eyes, take a leap of faith?

Alchemy

I play guitar, well the four chords I know
Enough to make a few songs, with repetitive choruses
And dead stringed lead breaks, cacophonous noises
I sing along when I know the words, or just hum
It's music, all right, but not what you'd like to hear
My songs, if that is what they're called,
Are tinged with melancholy, casual observations
Of foot in the mouth love stories
Without happy endings
Because such things belong only in fairy tales
That end with a kiss in golden sunsets
In lands where romance is not the exception
And "happily ever after" is a fitting ending

This cheap thrill, this automation, grinding out rhymes
To the frantic beat of inspiration
Quick! Where is a pen? As idea after idea bleeds dry
My battered fingers, cut on the thin strings
I manically strum, defying the impossible
Making art, a poor mirror of reality, sure
But alive with its own promise, its own premise
A voyeuristic glimpse of my own dark shadows
As yet another muse turns to dust
Imperfect jewel, destroyed in recreation
A poor trophy left to remind us all of an
Existence too brief, as the beautiful exploding supernova
Kills the star

Here it is, the prize
In its glory, a shadow of beauty
A caught breath on a windowpane
Going, going, gone...

Each story is an epitaph to a great idea
Each song, its eulogy
And yet, into that well of ideas I am drawn
Dip my ladle, play that chord, create
I like the isolation it brings, the world with a world
Away from the noise of drudgery
And the slave driver of life
I can live the hermits life as the candle gutters
Moulding these words you now read
Passing to you, dear reader, this precious piece of my soul
Take care; it is yours now, if it pleases you
Until next time, I can rest and not lose sleep
Ah, next time, awaiting you with dread and fascination
To play again with the wonderful alchemy
That is my art.

The Harvest - 2

2

When his shadow fell over her, Jennifer knew who it was immediately. Her heart paused its beating momentarily as the memories of fifteen years rose and fell, like an ocean wave. She straightened the last of the cheap roses she’d bought for the grave, dusted imaginary dirt from her hands and sat herself back onto her heels to look at the man who at one point she considered to be her alpha and omega.

            Fifteen years had barely changed him, at least outwardly. On the outside he was still the same young man who quit Stillwater filled with ambition and promise, all dark hair and dark eyes and cheeky boyish charm. His was the smile of a rogue, a subtle twist of his full pouty lips. In those features there was always something eternal about him, something that time would find hard to alter, and how true that seemed now after fifteen years. Sure, there were more lines around his mouth and eyes, and a deeper shade of blackness haunting his eyes... but outwardly... outwardly, this was the youth she’d given her soul to in those long ago days of innocence.

            She was speechless, staring up at his face, haloed in dark hair which caught the final feeble rays of late summer sun. He stared back, his eyes appraising her, and she wondered, albeit briefly, what maelstrom of thoughts coursed through his mind. Was her appearance how he remembered it? Was he, like her, recalling the late teenage promises they had made, those last infantile regrets, those final acts of reconciliation?

            He knelt down beside her and her nose filled with the familiar scent of him. Only there were other scents, too. Scents of fifteen years of life outside of Stillwater. Fifteen years of a different life, of different pressures, different experiences. These scents wafted to her, too, a confusion of smells. She felt in equal measures reassured and comforted, but also giddy and unstable. Old feelings floated once again to the surface; and old memories, flotsam on the ocean of time.

            Time seemed to pass slowly, but it couldn’t have been more than half a minute since he hunkered down next to her. With his inspection of her complete, she watched his dark eyes blink, saw them shift focus to the precious tombstone before them. In the briefest passage of time, so swiftly she wondered if it happened at all, Drake blinked again, his face seeming to blanch as his eyes traced over the gold lettering on the tombstone.

            “I never thought this would bring me back,” he said.

            His voice was a hoarse whisper, sounding as if it were the first time in years since he had spoken. She noticed the dark shadow of stubble on his cheeks and chin and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down now in uncontrolled spasms. He was suddenly new, yet, the same Curtis Drake she had always known.

            She watched his long-fingered hand reach out to straighten the last rose that she thought she had straightened, only it had twitched over in the latest puff of breeze to caress the world. She found her eyes drawn to the plain gold band on his finger, saw the way it winked in the fading light. His hand played with the rose. He straightened it, only to have it fall over again.

            “The stem is too short,” she said, offering the excuse without it being needed because it was abundantly obvious just what the problem was.

            Drake gave one last futile attempt to straighten up the rose before allowing it to fall on its side atop the gravestone. A sound that could have been a heavy sigh escaped from his closed lips. Before she could register anything though, he was looking away, taking in row after row of neatly ordered tombstones. He could have been just generally taking in the sight, or his eyes could have been seeking an answer... but she had no way of knowing.

            “I tried to call you,” Drake said. The hoarseness in his voice was still there. But there was something else too. Accusation? No. He wasn’t accusing her of anything. “The number you gave me...”

            “Andrew and I are separated,” Jennifer told him. The words sounded hollow, deader than the denizens of the cemetery, coming from her lips in a flat staccato. Yet more memories rose in the ocean swell of her mind.

            Drake appeared to digest the new information for a few seconds. “I’m sorry,” he said.

            “It’s ok. It was such a long time ago.”

            Like everything else... she thought.

            She watched Drake rub a hand across his chin, heard the dry rustle of his fingers over his stubble. “I never thought this would bring me back,” he repeated. “Anything but this.”

            Jennifer could only sigh, because those articulated thoughts were the ones that were paramount in her own mind. After fifteen years, to have a tragedy reunite you was something that Jennifer did not want at all. Of all the situations under which a reunion could be made, this was the very last one Jennifer would have ever dreamt. Destiny, as we all learn through the process of living, tends to have a mind of its own.

            More time passed. Seconds bled slowly into a few minutes, with neither of them speaking. Jennifer was looking now at the defeated rose, seemingly held by its soft pink lustre. A single tear etched its way over the dam of her eyelid and began its silent slide down her cheek. It was certainly not the first tear to make that particular journey in this past week; nor, Jennifer suspected, would it be the last. What made it different from those that had come before it though, was that part of her psyche that was suddenly hoping like hell that there were to be no more. At least not yet.

            Beside her, Drake shuffled and regained his feet. In his trousers and business shirt, he was somewhat incongruous to the whole Stillwater scene. Jennifer wondered absently if there was a tie to match the outfit, or at least the expensive leather shoes that she was still at a level with. Of course that line of musing only threw itself down a dead end tunnel. She didn’t actually know what it was that Drake did in the city and whether that endeavour needed a tie or not. In all honesty, she knew very little about Drake after he had left Stillwater, and was certain that Drake knew just as little about what had become of her in that time. They were strangers, sharing a moment’s silence in the elongating shadows of a summer rapidly becoming autumn.

            Drake lit a cigarette, blew a jet of smoke into the air. “Hard to believe I gave up smoking not long after I left here,” he confessed. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

            He smiled then, that semi-roguish smile of yesteryear. His free hand shot out to her, palm upward and when she took that hand in both of hers, he gently brought her to her feet. Standing no more than a few inches apart, she felt his eyes moving over her face, perhaps reacquainting himself with features he had long forgotten.

            “I just wish I was able to get here earlier, you know. For the service, and all.”

            He spoke in a deadpan, the last word punctuated by another jet of cigarette smoke. His gaze had left her face, hovered again at the small gravestone decorated with three perfect roses and one with a short stem.

            “You don’t have to apologise, Curt,” she said. “I understand. Times change. We’re different people now.”

            “That’s no excuse, though, is it?” he said, his voice still a deadpan. “You phoned me... what—? Four days ago? And I am only here now. Today.”

            “At least you’re here... you could easily have not come at all.”

            “I really don’t think that was an option.”

            Drake’s words hung in the air for a moment. Though spoken softly, they contained within them an edge that could have been forceful. A casual bystander would have picked those words as being the throwaway retort of someone shouldering a burden of guilt. Jennifer though, could sense in that phrase a double meaning.

            He was staring at her now, his eyes locking onto hers, holding her there. His eyes were glistening now, probably on the verge of running with tears. The last time she had seen him in that state was the very last time that they saw one another. It would seem then, that their separation would be bookended with tears. Tears, and the same lingering doubts.

            “You think... it’s happening again?” she asked him.

            He didn’t answer, at least not with any words. But when the gap between them was closed by the press of their bodies, and the cold of the wind shielded from her by the warmth of Drake’s arms around her body, she knew without needing to be told that yes, it was happening again.

Nightmare

Feel their eyes looking, searching, deep
Inside your soul
Your skin crawls, a thousand millions
Fingers hold you in thrall
You try to run but your legs are iron
You try to scream but your mouth is sealed
All you can do is endure, endure
And pray
That you wake up this time

This is the world beyond the closing of eyes
A land leagues beyond mere comprehension
Shifting faster than the eye can blink
Feeding forever on your apprehension
A world of darkness and shifting shapes
Where the brightest joy becomes darkest despair
This is the world where the deepest truths
Reveal themselves to be the worst nightmare

Are you awake, or part of another's dream?
Are there rips at the edges of reality's seams?
Is the sun a ball of blood sinking into an ocean of black?
If you set down this path of bones... will you make it back...

...alive?

This barren, empty wasteland, under an amber sky
Dotted with pointing finger crags, yearning the reason why
Sterile breeze picks up the sounds of footfalls scraping towards the flat horizon
Which eludes and taunts and slinks away, after every hard fought mile
Suddenly the air is thick and grips your naked body crushes your lungs
There will be no screams as you recognise these shadows from your past
Parade before you clad not in flesh, but bone, a mocking, knocking cast

This is the world behind closed eyes,
Hidden from our waking view
By the drawn veil of deepest slumber
When consciousness is bid adieu
A sneak peek, perhaps, of the realm beyond?
Who are we to tell
But as one's heart beat slow, slows, then stops
It is replaced by Death's tolling bell

Five Minutes - 4

The last two hours of that day’s schooling dragged pitifully out, so much so that when the bell signalled school’s end, the air was electric with excitement. Nathan Johnson was to be taught a lesson he would never forget.

            With school finished, David began the walk home. Usually, there were only one or two people who followed the same trek around the block as he did. With today being a Thursday, it meant that there was football training at four-thirty, and thus, a few additions to the normal could be seen fluttering about. But David wasn’t fool enough to think that all of these extra people had any personal stake in football.

            A fairly large group of kids were heading in the direction of Tyson Maloney’s grandmother’s place to ready themselves for training. It was a regular stop for Tyson, whose grandmother tolerated the friends he dragged around with him. David trailed behind this first group by a few metres, for Tyson did not hold him in high regard. He walked in the middle of the group, towering like a colossus over most of his underlings because of the enormity in age difference.

            These boys were tagging behind a very doomed Nathan Johnson. His walk was not the same confident march that had seen him into the schoolyard that morning, but rather the dawdle of a man about to be strung up in the gallows. Though David couldn’t see Nathan’s features clearly from the distance he was behind him, it was certain that by the way he aimlessly wandered that he expected something to happen. Nobody would be foolish enough to pick the bully out of the playground and expect to get away with it, would they?

            During those last two agonising hours at school, no fear touched Nathan’s face. He was jovial, calm… and, for probably the only time in his life… friendly. David had to admit that he felt a twitch of guilt in his heart watching him in those last two hours, knowing that come school’s end, Nathan was going to get hurt. As much as he wanted to alert him of what was coming, David knew to do so would imperil himself, but something Nathan portrayed in his persona told David that he knew what was coming and he thought it was no problem at all.

            So there he was, trailing with an overwhelming sense of guilt some metres behind Tyson and his thugs, who were trailing behind Nathan at a similar distance until they came to the vacant lot that had once been a park. It was here that Tyson made his first move; he ordered his hyenas, Vinnie and Damien to “grab the little motherfucker and hold him down so that I can administer some punishment.”

            Always happy to serve Tyson as if he was a King rather than an over-aged primary school bully, they quickly tossed aside their school bags and made for Nathan. Vincent was first to attack. He grabbed Nathan’s left arm, and was about to wrench it around his back when the most amazing thing happened. Nathan spun around quickly, and while he was spinning, he pushed out with his right hand, which he had formed into a tight fist. There was a loud squishy explosion as Nathan’s fist connected with Vinnie’s nose. Vinnie, with a squawk of surprise, staggered back with his nose spouting blood.

            All of this happened before Damien knew about it, and he unknowingly grasped Nathan in an attempt to put him in a headlock. Nathan dispatched Damien as swiftly and brutally as he did Vinnie, but instead of a fist to Damien’s nose, Nathan delivered one to his nuts. With an immense howl of pain, Damien was lying on the ground gasping for air.

            By this time, David had caught up with Tyson’s group, and could see Vinnie vainly trying to stem the flow of blood with his hands while Damien lay on the ground holding his nuts, sobbing. A secret smile spread across David’s lips at their misfortune, for never before had they been given a whopping as severely as what Nathan had given them. He now stood his ground, hands by his side, his cold blue eyes firmly fixed on Tyson.

            “This fight is between you and me,” he said, his voice clear, carrying well in the vacant lot. There was no sign of exertion—he had dispatched Vinnie and Damien with a minimal amount of effort, for you didn’t have to possess too much grey matter to know that neither of them were prize fighters. He continued: “If you haven’t the guts to fight me, Tyson, then go away. I haven’t got the time to waste on shitty fisticuffs with half of this fucking town.”

            Though Nathan’s face was too far away for David to see, he could clearly see Tyson’s; a mixture of surprise and anguish. Never before had he seen a two on one situation reversed, with the one coming out on top. Tyson was neither intimidated by Nathan’s speed, nor by the aura of calm that surrounded that kid. He let his back pack slide off his right shoulder effortlessly, cracked his knuckles and proceeded to walk towards Nathan with a large retinue of curious kids, David included, in tow.

            Nathan’s mistake was that he waited for Tyson to attack. Tyson, a veteran of the one-on-one scene, circled around and around his opponent, his eyes darting back and forth, scouring his opponent with the scrutiny of a scientist inspecting a microbe. Only when his scrutiny was complete did he move; and fast! For a boy of his size, Tyson moved swiftly, and because of his size, Nathan, despite all of his courage, was forced to back away, and he did just that. He took a step back, then another, and before he could stop himself, he stepped back again…

            …into a hole in the ground. Without having to physically knock him down, Tyson had Nathan on the ground, and when he had someone on the ground, Tyson had him. With his considerable weight, he grabbed Nathan in the headlock Damien had failed to put him in, and rained blow after blow into his unprotected face until blood poured from his smashed lips and his nose.

            “No motherfucker calls me dad a jailbird,” he said after one final blow. “Especially a motherfucker like you.”

            When he got to his feet, the front of his shirt was stained crimson with Nathan’s blood. Disgusted, he tore the shirt off, exposing a full accompaniment of chest hair that played the vital difference between him and his cronies. Having won the battle, Tyson walked off, but not before Vinnie and Damien each kicked Nathan a good one in the guts, trailing after their King feeling a little embarrassed for their misadventure.

            The tribe of kids followed in Tyson’s wake down the street; except for David, who for reasons unknown found himself helping Nathan into a sitting position. Nathan stared blandly up at him, the coldness still in his eyes, though they were barely able to remain open.

            “Take my hanky,” David said, offering a neatly folded piece of checkered rag. “Boy, did he make a mess out of you.”

            Nathan swatted at the blood that was coming out of his nose. “I’m gonna get that bastard,” he whispered more to himself than to anyone else. “Mark my words,” he said, before getting groggily to his feet, and without as much as a sideways glance in David’s direction, ambled down the street towards his home.

Five Minutes - 3

“Ball!” Tyson yelled. “I’ve got Ball!”

            He lumbered to the front of the line, shoving aside a couple of kids that got in his way. David watched the intent with which the bully moved, instantly feeling his stomach turn to water. If Tyson wanted Ball, he always got Ball. And he always got the person with the ball, regardless of the rules. That was the law of the schoolyard.

            David knew that it wasn’t coincidence that Tyson made his call when he realised that Nathan held the football. Another law of the schoolyard was for the bully to make certain that newcomers were treated to a bit of a roughing on their first outing. The fact that Tyson had waited this long meant that the roughing was going to be extra special.

            Nathan didn’t seem too concerned. But he had no reason to. Thus far, all Tyson had done was just push a few kids around, before ambling off with a couple of mates for a quick smoke when the teacher disappeared around the front of the school on her perambulations. But never in that first five minutes did Tyson call for the “Ball.” Never had he moved in anything faster than a loping walk. Only now, like a wolf sniffing the scent of a lamb, did he jog to the front of the line, sneer in place, arms flexed, tense, ready to grab.

            As if by magic, the opposition line suddenly kicked forward. As one they all moved, a thick wall of farm boys in work boots. Each kid announced their “tags” once more, their voices now cleared of any fatigue. The game was reaching matchpoint. And everyone knew what that meant. Everyone that is, except for Nathan Johnson.

            With this knowledge, the rest of David’s team slowed down. Of the half who’d kept up with Nathan, only two remained in the line… and Paddy O’Sullivan was only there because he was in the middle of Nathan and David—he couldn’t see that none of his team-mates were tagging along. Why David kept jogging was a mystery to him. It probably would have been less painful had he simply stopped running like the rest of the boys.

            Seeing the lambs making their way blindly to the slaughterhouse brought about a change to the personnel in the opposition line. There were two more “tags,” followed by some shuffling of the line. Next to Tyson appeared Vinnie, and next to Vinnie, was Damien, and before either Paddy or David could react, there was a loud whoop from somewhere on the farm boy line.

            It happened in the blink of an eye. Three bodies crashed into three; there was a series of grunts, and then, a high pitched wail of pain. The ball bounced away, only to be kicked further away by a steel-capped boot. David felt knees dig into his back, and a pair of rough hands shoving his face deep into the soft, oozing mud. His hearing was blotted out momentarily, replaced with the roar of blood in his ears. In vain, he tried to roll, to lift his head out of the mud, but the pressure was too much…

            “Ah, my arm! It’s broken!”

            The howl split the air; everything momentarily stopped. At least long enough for David to wrench his face out of the mud. Damien, the oath that had tackled him was still kneeling over him, but his attention was not on the task he’d been performing. His face was a slack jawed expression of equal parts shock and stupidity.

            “You broke his arm, fuckhead!” It was Nathan Johnson, who somehow had gotten back to his feet, and was shoving Vinnie hard enough to knock him back a few paces.

            “Whatcha gonna do about it!” Vinnie sneered, shoving Nathan back. But before anything could escalate, a big meaty forearm suddenly crushed Nathan’s neck.

            “I ain’t finished with you!” Tyson growled. He leaned back so that Nathan was hoisted off his feet, his legs kicking only air.

            Stunned silence greeted the outburst. Paddy O’Sullivan seemed to have even forgotten the fact that his arm was numb from the shoulder down. The only noise breaking the silence was Nathan’s heavy wheezing as he tried to draw breath into his lungs.

            “Hunnh, hunnh, hunnh!” he went, while his legs pathetically pedalled the air.

            Tyson carried him a few awkward steps away, leaning himself back as if Nathan were a bag of barley that needed lifting into the tray of a truck. Nathan floundered in Tyson’s grip; his left foot snapped forward with enough force to dislodge his shoe. It spiralled into the air, before tumbling end over end into a large pool of water. And before he even realised it, Nathan followed his shoe… arse first into the largest puddle on the whole of the playground. And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, Tyson scooped up two handfuls of filthy black mud, and cupped them over Nathan’s face, rubbing it into his mouth, his nose and eyes, while he spluttered and coughed.

            “Not even your rich dad can fucking save you now, city boy,” Tyson growled, rubbing the mud now into Nathan’s hair. “Why don’t you go back to the city, rich boy!”

            “Yeah, city boy!” someone else said.

            “Where’s yer fuckin dad, anyway?” Tyson added. He was now squatting over Nathan, who was clawing mud out of his face, which had gone from scarlet to the same pale white that graces the underbelly of a fish. “He too good to follow you and your bitch of a mother out here? Too good to live in the bush? Is that it? Or have your folks divorced? Is that it, rich boy? Your mummy and daddy not fuckin no more? Well? What is it?”

            “What is it!” the echo screeched. And suddenly, the chorus was taken up by all of the farm boys; all of them leant over Nathan, who still sat in the cold depths of the puddle shaking black mud from his hair, shouting into his face.

            Tyson, seeing his work as being done, backed off a few steps. He was still the boss. All the while the crowd began to increase in numbers as kids from other reaches of the playground came running over to add their two cents worth, for whatever reasons.

            But Nathan ignored the farm boys yelling in his face. He even ignored the fact that some of the town boys had joined in the fracas; anything, perhaps to be seen in a similar (but not the same) light as the farm boys… look, we’re not really that bad… we have a common enemy now! When finally he picked himself up, and bellowed out, it was clear to whom he was addressing.

            “The reason my dad isn’t home is because he is dead! He has an excuse not to be home, unlike your jailbird father!”

            The colour drained from Tyson’s face the instant the last words faded into the now silent playground. Everyone who had been jeering and taunting Nathan stopped, their jaws slack, their eyes gawky. No one says that Tyson’s dad is a jailbird, all of their minds were saying, David’s included, for although he wasn’t among the group jeering Nathan, he had watched the verbal exchange all the same.

            Nathan was not oblivious to the hush around him. He knew he had cut Tyson deeply with the words he had just said and knew what the price of saying those words constituted. But he also had a soft spot where his father was concerned, and as another unwritten law of the school yard goes: defend your father’s honour. And that’s just what he had done, despite the fact that as far as the silent group around him and Tyson were concerned, Nathan Johnson was a dead man.

            Threat or no, Nathan smiled at Tyson, that cold smile that was patently his, the smile that matched his eyes, giving Nathan a frightening look. It was hard to believe that the eyes now locked onto Tyson’s firing green orbs were the same eyes that had held the year six audience captive while Nathan delivered a speech beyond reproach. The look in those cold eyes practically dared Tyson to do something and get it over with. Though an imbecile in class, Tyson knew better than to start something in the playground and risk bearing the wrath of the teacher on duty. Indeed, what he’d done already was going to cost him dearly. He knew deep down inside that every teacher in school wanted him out of there, and that even if he failed year six again, his promotion to high school was inevitable. Compared to Nathan Johnson, Tyson Maloney was Mount Everest. Broad, deep voiced with the onset of puberty; Tyson was more of a bull than a boy. There were rumours (which no one ever had a cause to substantiate) that Tyson had pubic hair. This naturally meant that because he was more mature than the other boys, he demanded their respect.

            He fixed Nathan Johnson with his trademark grimace of disapproval that many kids had seen before having their lights knocked out. “You’re dead meat, arsehole,” Tyson growled. As the pièce de résistance, he hawked and spat a large wad of green phlegm onto the ground at Nathan’s feet before he turned and lumbered away.

            His cronies, the weak slavering hyenas that they were, laughed in Nathan Johnson’s face; Vinnie Dollabella and Damien Treloar, went as far as to point the index and pinkie fingers of their left hand at him, invoking the sign of the Evil Eye, proclaiming him cursed. Whether Nathan was scared or not, David couldn’t tell, for he hid it behind those cold eyes so well. When the crowd had dispersed, David went with it, knowing that there was little hope for Nathan to escape from the hole that he had just dug himself.