Crazy Socks
Crazy socks day at work
He was 36
At the same age his father has four kids, his own home and investments
He sat in his cubicle and looked at the socks he wore
Yellow Submarines on them.
Mary wore rainbow socks
Sarah wore sock crocodiles
Howard rested his head on his desk, half drunk, wearing the grey socks he always wore.
It seemed wrong to be wearing crazy socks
Johnson hanged himself last week
He had caught his wife cheating
Hanged himself
He had said hung himself but was corrected in the meal room
Crazy socks to raise money for or awareness of
He couldn’t remember what
He thought it would be right if it were to raise money for families who had lost loved ones
The crazy socks were thin and he could feel the hard soul of his leather shoes

The colour of light

Lightning breaks in the night sky

the white light alien to the yellow light of the sun

That lightning exists in other parts of the universe

makes me think of the unbelievable existence of life on this world.

She was perfect for him

and they showed it on instagram

and then she left him.

The speed with which she changed her facebook status from in a relationship

to single

hurt him more than he thought it could.

He went to work, he told himself it would be a new start

but it was empty for a while

then he sat out and watched the lightning and the night sky light up

and it reminded him that lightning occurs all across this world.

It was a train ticket out of his home town and the start of something new.

Coming Home

Broken at 9 pm, glass shards on the road crunch underfoot. 

I worked late, walking home.

Seeing the streets with new eyes;

Single mother sitting on the front door step with baby

A man delivers brochures to houses

Another brings out the bin. 

A man walks a white dog, a cat leaps a fence and turns on a sensor light.

Someone backs a truck onto their front lawn

And a yellow moon rises above the houses.

A terrible valley filled with houses

A helicopter lands at the airport

The hospital’s yellow lights and strange smell.

My feet feel tired 

I wish I lived in a beach village.

Work again tomorrow, looking forward to retirement and death. 

No ghosts

She used to play the piano in the lounge room

Until her hands hurt too much, and she could no longer move her fingers across the keys.

Then, she spent her time by the large bay windows, letting the breeze cool her of an evening. 

She only had a few months of that, then she died.

One morning I came to her room and knocked. 

She was dead in her bed. 

We buried her; I played some piano music from an expensive speaker.

What could I do with the piano?
There was nothing to do so I left it in the lounge room. 

I sat in front of the bay window and let the breeze drift across me.

The house is empty and silent without her

I imagine her ghost in the room

But what frightens me most of all

Is that there are no ghosts.

Kokoro

The piano teacher set out the rules of attraction

Mine were of trouble.

“Kokoro,” I called out.

The slim, attractive woman appeared. She was a child of God. That is what she called herself.

“Tell me of your dream,” I asked.

The cat’s cradle, she said, I dreamed it was under fire.

There was a death

Even while we followed the rules for life.

Resurrection.

At swim, all my friends felt pleasure and sorrow.

The correction, Charlie travels here today.

A war crime.

I held up my hand

“You watch too much of the news before bed,” I said.

Smiling, she patted at her dress and turned to leave.

“Stay,” I asked. “It is early. We can watch the sunrise from the balcony.”
The city was yellow with lights, the last of the night sat uneasily

With the sun on the horizon.  

aged

The steps to the house are loose

Broken

The door does not lock

The windows allow rain in

There is mold and the smell of rot.

The old man

Fleeing the old people’s home

Makes his way here and stumbles in the front door.

When he was a young man

The road here was manageable

Now it is clogged with cars

They are knocking his house down soon

But one more night in his own room

Before they find him in the morning.

Night air

I don’t know if I’ve got it in me tonight

The same streets and shops

The same faces

The sunny day, the rainy day

The health and sickness.

I stand by the supermarket and watch the rain fall off the roof and puddle in the car park

I wonder where to from here.

The night comes

The street lights

It’s still raining.

The saddest I’ve been is standing outside a mattress and bed shop

At 2 am

Looking at the beds on display.

The Woman

He liked the woman

He liked the way she looked,

The way she combed her hair and the perfume she wore.

He liked the way she would be waiting for him at night

With a glass of gin, in the dark

And she would always offer him one.

He liked the way she looked dressed and naked

He liked the way she saw things and the way she spoke.

He hated his job, his bosses, and the people around him

He hated the bus rides, the dirty streets

The jokers and the cursed

He hated how easily dreams could fall away and show nothing but weakness

The weakness that was exposed in him and in others

He hated the endless coffee

The endless eating even when he wasn’t hungry

He hated his face when it was shown in pictures.

But she was different. Like a fire in a cold place

He liked her.

1840

Six am was the first bell

Roll up the bedding and put it on the third shelf

Fifteen minutes later, the second bell

And we would all step out of our rooms.

It was cold in winter, so cold you thought you would die.

Summer was better, but we worked longer days.

We would exercise, eat breakfast, be spoken to

And then by nine am we would be expected to start work.

I, taking up my tools, would chisel at the sandstone and the limestone

Making building blocks out in the reclaimed land of the yard.

There was a team with me, many apprentices but mostly skilled men. 

He would say, “Does that make sense? Do you understand?” Until I hated him.

That bully of a man. He bullied some worse than others. 

A working party came by with axes and shovels on their way to clear the churchyard.

One boy, thin, yellow looking, 

Took an axe and caved the bully’s head in. The boy said, “That should end it,” and they took him away.

It solved my problem. But the boy was later hanged. 

I noticed the blood pool on the ground underneath the dead man.

They took the body away;  we continued our work.

At twelve, we had dinner and a break, then went back to work for the afternoon. 

Before supper, I stopped and watched the afternoon sun in the giant trees.  

At night, the last bell ringing at 9 pm

I was alone with my thoughts. 

The guard walks about with slippers. 

I hear the padding of his feet

He wants to catch us doing wrong. 

In a year, I’ll be gone. I’ll head to Hobart and work stone.

It won’t take long.