Startled ears
burst sleep wide open
absorb
merest leaf drops
thumping heart
coursing blood

Intense
hyper brain
listens
juggles, categorises
filters, screens
extraneous
backdrop

Eyes strain
search light
seek the unfamiliar
scan
beyond the camp
through the trees
dense bush
ssshhhh

Hear nothing but clouds
slipping quietly by
half a moon
half light
half gloom

Poised on adrenaline
high alert
half paused
half screaming
fear bites
identifying grizzly sounds

intense
in tents

Fall softly?
Maybe. Maybe not.

Surely?

Absolutely.

Being born into is like leaping out of…
Committed to an unknown journey, but with tools.

Is there terror in being born?
Fear or knowing?
Unconscious?
Had I known what I know now, would I have done it?
If I had seen what was coming, would I have been keen?

I saw parachutes this morning
I saw the short sharp flight that is our lives
The leap
The growing awareness
Eyes wide.

I like to have my hand writing close to my awakening dreams so that I am able to gather my mind for revealing. It is here that my deeper thoughts abide like trout, briefly kissing the surface of the water and flicking back to the depth. I want the line to hook and play the struggle and finally drag my innermost eloquence alongside me on the riverbank, then I am satisfied. Passersby may look down and murmur congratulations, or not. They may pass by, oblivious to the fact that something deep had occurred, and just see an old codger and a fish alaze in the warm sun.

Tomorrow I’m off to see the wizard. And maybe it’ll be the start of something interesting. The thing about being a fence sitter is that the edge is sharp and uncomfortable, the energy to balance is a tiresome distraction. In the end it is such a relief to step off…whichever side of the wall.  But because I’m not sure how to handle that, I think I will just sit here a while longer. Unless something gives.

No matter what altruists say
Seldom do they get their way.
The truth of life
is not so funny …
the whole damn world
revolves on money

Sex, bucks, lust, power
and greed
seed the world’s affairs…
and fears.

Distrust, destruction, bad deeds
are the status quo
called normal relations
Fixed behind the smiling
Diplomats of nations.

yeah
sad sad news
but at the same time as registering the shock of this inhuman action in a place I love, the brain computes and races along the continuum of humanity and touches our aggression in all parts of the world. There is only so much crying a heart can do.

London tube train

Safely on the platform, I view the ‘people en masse’ and wonder how anyone could set a bomb. I look at one of the mass, one human being – you the black girl. You with the beautiful round face and big, lash sweeping eyes, sharp white in contrast to your ebony skin, you with the long, tight knotted plaits woven with Caribbean coloured threads. I look down to her stylish black, silver-buckled boots. I flick to her outrageously huge silver bull ring earrings and drop my gaze over her smart, heavy black, ankle length coat with great collar pulled high, the gay, coloured scarf tucked to keep out the -6°c winter up top. She is beautiful, a treasure of the Tube.

When I close my eyes I see an unaccompanied bag, waiting. Someone knows about it, but who? I open the bag with a film clip from Terminator, a clip which shows the slow motion progress of the explosion. A movement, something bulging, something angular pushing the outer skin of this stoutly built case. It expands to bursting point, there is a tremor and many sharp angles bust through the puffed up fabric with a star exploding fire flash… Then, with the aid of any of the gruesome, gratuitously violent ‘action’ movies littering our movie screens, I view the black girl’s clothing suddenly whip violently. Her eyes register alarm, the whites bulging in the momentary extremity of her fear. I see her beautiful features twist, contort and snap in the violence of the pressure wave – as her body lifts, liquefies and explodes onto the tiled walls of the Underground. Still in the slow motion grip of a nightmare Hollywood invention I see the masonry falling through the searing fire ball, now crumpling and imploding the arriving train, the brightly lit tube full of commuters packing home this Christmas eve. The parcels, the tiny tinsel trees and Christmas lights…

Koala – Australia zoo
Originally uploaded by Driver2.

Koala still doing what it does best

Human beings are just one of the myriad species of life on this planet ever vulnerable to habitat damage. Have no doubt the writing is on the wall for us. Extinction is probable.