'FEEDING THE MASSES"
The vacuum of me
impalpable
taps small letters into space
pauses
sips on cheap champagne
still
a bubble is a bubble
icons only become moths
flash briefly
drawn to light
click
the recession
a flood of deficit
I am swimming
in emptiness
where did my lost words go?
they invert silence
become cataracts
louder in blindness
I bite my dry lips
hoping
there are words
in my blood.
And we all have to eat.
©l-j stockman 2009
.
"LAMENT"
Repress reaction calm,
let me pass by slowly though,
I gut myself upon your cross,
your veiled cliché your mantra,
how you wrenched darkness from light,
ripped song from my throat,
my throat he said a nightingale,
a moon tremulous and we impaled truth,
for crimson salt,
just so we could fingertip viscosity,
see how it beads and stretches,
into sensory string lattice
and on our tongues
a thousand words unspoken
unwritten because language bleeds into static,
embolism so easy to weave empathy from nettles,
to carve a meeting place
,
from pain but see joy -blinds us with the sunrise
sears our weeping wounds
rubs ashes into mouths that taste of midnight,
see the blue blue sky meet sea azure
into hope and your irises on firebursting into tomorrow
you cannot ride along this shore,
and gift me your tragedy,
I know all your words by rote.
by rote.
And from my lungs my eyes
from my yesterday
and my very womb
see here I birth you light,
I have no choice
I birth you hope into madness,
every day there is a new word for sorrow,
eventually they all sound the same.
©l-j stockman 2009
"DIXON"
The convicted killer was found dead in his cell
cold in the grey light of dawn
tied to the clothesline
as a child he could only bark like a dog
when they took him into care
a seed grew inside him
the darkness whispered in his ear,
everything became 'them and us'
the institutions passed him along
from petty crime to hard time
he learned the ropes,
or else released again,
he drifted-
some would call him scum
his paranoia bled into rage,
when the Speed burst his brain
he didn't stop until the machete broke,
he left their severed hands on the floor,
10 bullets in the back of a passerby
national coverage of the police chase,
but he let his last hostage go free
within the psychosis find the killer
within the killer
find the man within the man,
find the child within the child,
find yourself.
Now make it better.
©l-j stockman 2009
"THE MANY"
My demographic dwells unseen
the multitude a thick disguise
who will pluck these sour berries?
we cannot find our way
woven as we are into this tangled mesh
the silver-eyes swarm like bees
beaks as sharp as pencil leads
steal us in small mouthfuls
our faces press against the glass
our mouths open and close
but our voices remain unheard
we flicker like a school of fish
the opacity of history as viscous as glue,
and stiffening we are hardened into shapes
but they are not our own
we are the many, descended from the few
our lines are stretched across this globe
as tight as an empty belly
as lost as our ancestral memory
as hopeful as a one way ticket
we are the many, the haves who have not
yet my roots reach in two directions
they remember the pale shore
they taste the earth of my birthplace
they reach for the red water
are implanted in the black sand
the tears of greenstone sing to me
in words that speak my own name
I too have sprung from this land
I have wept like resin from the kauri
I have crawled from primordial swamp
I have been spewed forth from volcanic fire
I have formed in layers of limestone
I am buried like afterbirth within these folds
the bones of my ancestors lie like rocks
they make a spine and a belly for my arrival
they build a hearth for my fire.
I do not know their names but I know my own.
©l-j stockman 2009