an experiment in ornithology; the early stages

when confronted with a box that holds only a pair of scissors (of a cross-bladed nature; Roman in origin) what she seems to do is becoming ever more puzzling.
she is, of course, being watched at all times during the experiment.
But we can fathom neither what she is doing, nor why.
she starts off by reciting the alphabet backwards.
next she moves around the top of the box. side to side as if training as the understudy to some crab; disjointed and out of rhythm.
the stage that follows this is the one that puzzles us the most. she falls under the age old spell of slumber, right there atop the box; before our very eyes.

in her sleep she first tries to fight the dreams that filter through the gaps (fear not; we have been prepared for this point of the narrative from day dot.)
and then it happens, time and time again. the girl begins to talk of the albatross. over and over she tells us that she is delivering this message from the inside of a head.
From inside of the head of the albatross.

the most picturesque of solitudes

sometimes she stands on the top of a steep, high hill and calls out her own name. just to see if anyone calls back. just in case she has made some form of error and she is not really who/ what/ how she thinks she is. sometimes she rushes home as fast as her legs can carry her to write down the names of those that she has sailed her kite
with in the early evening breeze (after they have responded to her shouts from the hilltop.)sometimes she writes their names on pieces of light blue card with a little hole punched into the top of it with yarn in her dress pocket to attach said card to her kite (in order that there is no chance of her loosing their names in the windy corners of her young mind) before she reaches home. tonight the kite caught on a bramble and the sky-coloured cards tore off and flew to the hastily reddening night sky that surrounded her.sometimes, (in the hours, days, weeks, months and years to come) she will cry sore and heart-broken tears at the names that she lost; the friends that she will never find again.




(but that bit doesn't matter an awful lot anyway as none of these other characters really existed in the first place.)

the kite man

there is a kite man in my dreams. he stands in a cobbled lane. he mourns. he wishes that he had made different choices; that he had lived purely. taught people smaller than him to climb trees, held their hands when they were sick; loved in that magical and unconditional way. the kite man stands in the cobbled lane and remembers a tree he once knew; he once named.

the kite man stands in the cobbled lane. he inhales. he sighs. the kite man grieves. he closes his eyes and he remembers two little people playing hopscotch. the kite man begins to weep.

repetitions in white

i am dreaming of horses that talk to me through yellow words. in chalk; on a blackboard.
the blackboard hangs from a roof that is made of glass; the sand particles have been gathered by ghost children so small you could step on their souls like an ant. trees sway in a violent wind that makes no noise. its silence is the best part of its deception. i am on a cold beach. i wear a long white dress. i am becoming smaller each time i am blown to the sandy ground; over and over.

the sky is blue

the time has come. this news reached itself out to me; like a star that has fallen in love with a girl from his patch of universe many miles away. the secret stands on his tiptoes in a box of blue atmosphere; the moon in all his antiquity had never known such a tale. the secret reaches his silver arms earth-bound and tries to bridge the spaces in communication with flourescent rain; a monsoon language the night sky wrote in dictionaries many moons ago.
i become the girl who is loved from within a lonesome constellation; that secret is its own chinese whisper.
we will never know the extent to which we have misunderstood.

the red fox

the red fox circles the tree at an unimaginable pace. he is a proud dog; he knows his place in the natural order. there was once a time we made red foxes out of leaves and you cried whilst listening to that song. we left trails for the trolls but they would not follow us home. they feared our bond; innocence spilled out of hidden pockets in crimson crinkled lines. they couldn't read the maps in the skies in the half light.

facts about bluebirds

there is a bluebird inside a cage in your heart.
i would like to be the one that he sings to.
i will gladly build him a nest and rear his young.

inside of your heart your bluebird is singing.
a man is drawing him onto your chest.
your bluebird sings of the sea and of five thousand miles;

inside of a cage in your heart.

in the dark

before we met i’d been trying to find you for a very long time. the absence of you made me queasy as if on a rickety fairground wheel. even now that we have met, sometimes i fear we haven't; i find myself rummaging around under our bed. i bang my head on your knees as you come to lead me back to sleep with your soft hands; your calm in the dark.

knock, knock, open wide

there is no way out of here. i would like to know where all the little nooks and crannys from the olden days ever went to because there are none here, in this place; in this day.