Beaks shoved forward, scaly necks stretched,
with mouths gaping, snouts snapping with an echoing snip from
the effort of land crawling just to lay their eggs with
eye-scrunching strain in hopeful clutches.

We stood and marveled with our cameras,
all red eye flashes and whooping fingers,
whilst the tide dragged at the night-time shore
trying to peel away stragglers from the pack of
unwary voyeuristic foreigners.

The musical swish of the wind-rattled palm trees,
made the bobbing fishing boats dance, painted in the yellow
ochre of candle lanterns that perched
like watchmen on the bows where it brushed just
enough of their pilots to make them appear like ghosts
dipping into the blackness as they
flicked out their nets
or dragged wicker pots from the stern.

A world away from this evening; the toes that
joyed at the sucking of sand dampened by the
warm foam of a receding sea curl now into the
unfriendly nylon pile of evening news and TV dramas,
readying for sleep before the chill of
tomorrow’s commute and office politics of
the punch in punch out, don’t-be-late
warning-mornings and the school runs
amongst the young mums parking heedlessly.

Funny how we’re all just turtles on turtle beach.

To the sound of screaming,
turns the eyes and the ears of the ordinary
agape in horror at the desperation of a jumper
as he splashes through the glass
fixing a final flickering gaze on tear-welling faces who,
with tightened lips let pass a whimper “oh no, oh no oh no”.
The rain of rock crashes chase away trivial reality,
the lattes, the must-do meetings,
the synchronization of calendars
in a kerosene flash; thanks to religious brutality.
There, urgent amongst the
surging clouds are those in
black turned gray. Gold-hatted
knights who shout for your own good.
Scared like the brokers,
fathers like the chairmen,
rushing like the insurers
but they choose to run the other way.

Liquid solid flows with the puff, ochre stripes washed
grey with the powdering of divinity. The lines of his thoughts
across his brow, deep and drifting, running over to wash the beckoning
fingers of smoke’s fate, launching to drift on torrid
currents of time and fickle happenings, thrown back and
forth further and far from the loud “haaaaa” of the exhale.

Their prose and statuary, towering in their microscopic
magnificance amongst the whisps of their fleeting existence
unseen by those who did not look for them, breathed in to
be a part of those who did not make them; even those who
did not pause to question or care if they were likely to exist.

If, at that moment He should clap his hands or
spin to attend to some other diversion they might
scatter in the draught. It’s a fact; you can’t unscatter
smoke.

Good men, cutting and slitting
opening the endorphin path;
direct and natural action, fitting, echoes of the past.

Sundance ceremony, the three day fly away from it all;
Helios and Aten, Stonehenge circles
olden day trances, shamanic peoples.

Now beat the drum.
Echo the unleashed modern mind.

All join together,
link hands, commune.
Inglorious enrapture,
gutteral cries in the
heat of the lodge, with
the steam dripping from the walls and skin.

And I’m feeling faint,
nearer to the quest,
dizzy with the spirit.

Yells from within, ancient, deep:
out loud, screeching, rising
undulating, throbbing in my thoughts.

Body drums back, beats at my chest.
Lips cracked but moving, the muttering secrets
ever more rushing to the surface;
wild, urgent, flashing, scary…comforting.

I’m a root in the earth, a bird, a wolf;
totally human animal.

Oh, is this the secret?
under it all, under my modern me?
Tell me.

Friend
Click this text to hear Alex read this poem
This is the spirit of Kerouac. Hotel Chelsea spirit,
English-style.

I mean it though. To you: I used to call you friend.

I cried and you listened to my sobbing.
I laughed and the laughter bounced back.

And we lied about understanding.
It was the easy thing to do.
It wrestled with my rational side.

You were my morning friend. My good-time
friend. My comfort.

I used to call you friend.

Do you remember the songs?

Happy, clappy songs.
It wrestled with my rational side.

We were wreathed in sweet-smelling smoke
and chimes. A childhood duty,
kissing feet, wiping cloth, reading
what we couldn’t do and never what we could.

Authorised words. Approved and translated.

Then songs about being happy to die because
there would be something there. A song relying
on trust. A tussle with my rational side.

You were never my rock standing in a sand-filled
desert, filled with emptiness. You were never
the hand that guided the art.

White man. White woman. Nails in the wrong places.

Olive in the skin. Oil on the hair. Painted
by the gentiles.

Words that banned things. Stipulations,
prostrations by action and abstention,
by observance in reverence. Until the difference
between the free and those who still listened
grew greater in my mind.

And the difference between the free and me
became so paper-thin you could rub your
fingers through it and they would touch.

Such a fine gap. It wrestled with my
rational side.

Move on move on. More wraiths of smoke.
Breath in for peace, hold and release.
Breath in for solace, for solace, for solace.

Mind walks, takes a run up and jumps into the
dream sky of possibilities.

Made our friendship look very different.
Less rules, more creativity. More of
everything: colours, creeds, good and bad.

I used to call you my friend.

Breathed in, moved to the jungle beat.
Made our friendship look very very very different.
Gave you a new face, a new size.

I danced in the warehouse. I danced in the street.
Everybody was there but I was on my own.

Then I hugged the trees. I squeezed their bark
and ran my hands up and down them; my connectors
to the Earth, a divination of you. Stroking them
with my palms and hugging the hard woody trunk like
a lover come back from a long journey and you don’t
want to let them go.

Your face looked so very very different and you
lived everywhere and you were truly beautiful.

It wrestled with my rational side.

Placed on the side, left to cool,
insects crawled over it, had insect fights,
lived strong, happy lives,
no wars,
some battles, more like struggles,
but they served a purpose although the insects
did not know it,
and even the Chef would not have been sure.

Chef came along,
added some icing, pink and white,
sugary, nice,
made it perfect, glossed it over,
shone it like ice.

Chef added candles, a border, of green,
little stick people with little stick dogs and cats
with little stick houses slightly better than shacks.

The insects stole icing, crumbs and bits
and built themselves up stronger, became smarter,
learnt tricks.
Insects had parties, brought bottles,
got lost.
Loved one another, sung songs,
wrote books.

Chef lit the candles, 12 sparkly lights,
upsettings the insects,
who had ‘intelligent’ fights and debated
the meaning of candle lighting, into the night.

Insects planned rebellions, hoarded cake,
built fences.
To ensure cake protection; learnt to raise
strong defences.
Insect life got more complicated,
and took on more ‘dimensions’.

Then someone ate the cake.

The insects learnt to live on the crumbs left
behind on the table.
Lived weaker, deeper lives
and told tall stories of imagined crumbs
the size of an insect house.

Until there were no crumbs left.

And the insects died.

And not even the Chef cried.

And the table carried on being a table
even though the insects were dead,
and the cake was gone,
(all the candles were out and in the bin).

The Chef made another mixture,
mixed it up and made it shaped like a cake.
He warmed up the oven,
and put it in to bake.