Warpaint

Downstairs, voices.
Sunday morning they're so bright and alive
Like family visiting and the kettle boiling
All those places they have to go.

Upstairs, clutch at silence.
Please please let me disappear
Countertop strewn with takeout garbage
All dressed up in clothes from Friday
Slept with every light on

Oh come now celebrate your terrible ordinariness
Strap yourself down, you'll still careen towards Monday
Stay off the bus, the cold can't take away the plain
Dress yourself in blood --
You'll look pretty just the same.

Wide open

The lonely rabbit considered his empty home
Oh so quiet
No one knocking on the door, maybe somebody selling something
Now and then.

The lonely rabbit had a drink before dinner, to hear the ice in the glass
The sound of something
Of I am not alone

Give your thanks to television
I can hear the neighbours and their friends
A dog barking, someone's walking,
Someone's become so much more than me.

The lonely rabbit looked up the stairs toward bed
Remembered all those useless goodbyes
That time he had to unplug the phone it rang so many times
Those nights he slept with the lights on.

The Reel

Then he put down the lesson plan
Shook the shock from his hair
Wiped the dust from the chalkboard.

Slats of wood ran against his back
Flesh poking through the spaces in between
A memory of metal,
That old bright linoleum
Rounded heads of nails and sneaking fingers underneath

He thought, Maybe today I'll be a fisherman, I'll catch something sharp and alive.
Keep it steady while it writhes
Like dissecting each objection from young mouths,
Young hands in the air.

But there is no water here
Just paper and dry land
Ink stained lips and gawping mouths
The ridges of fingers and sneaking dust underneath

He sighed an earthquake then,
And the letters of the alphabet fell into place.
Split open the ground
And rows of desks violently aligned.
The apple in his desk lay rotting, rotting
That old bright appreciation

Before the bell rang he opened the window
Drew the blind an inch or so
Young feet come marching, he put one trembling hand on the windowsill
Hoping for a flood.