back, and back again,
through uncertain time
i am pulled, and pulled
apart. the things that drew me
then, i could not know
how they would stay
how they would stain me
with a ruined scum,
the collapsing froth of a fragile life
that's always sinking, sinking.
such sweet time taken dumbly down
the living, our idiocy-
it's what lays waste to me now 
what finds me, reminds me always 
wants more for you that what I knew
the way the blood on one friend's neck ran
down her throat and how
it was that one drop undid me
although it came after too long lending
ourselves into the hands of others
and i can't forget, of course,
the way you are taught you can forget,
or think you have, in fact,
when all it is is running,
the blood running, and you running,
both or even all three or four of us, all of us, running
far into a stupid future
where we thought no hand would clamp your thigh
where no shorn skin would sting
where a revolutionary hand might at last tremble
where someone asks
and wants to ask

right there, where you didn't ask,
where you didn't try to find this out
this thing you didn't know, this thing
you didn't know, until you found it,
this thing you bore that will not be killed.

making our dreams come true

the borg link seventh circle of blogging hell begins.

sucker

From the first open-mouthed kiss
between nipple, cracked and gaping
& nibbling infant lips
an exchange was taking place.
I can’t be sure now, who fed on what
which satisfied which
who wanted what, what soured first.
I was already leaving, pressing back

to black-paned windows, while others laid their claims

demoting loving down to hoping,
& that becoming only looking, then everything
diminishing into simply thinking
& wishing on you, like you were a star.
Watering down a love, like that,
it is harder than any stone I know.
I could not see, so young
the mark left by my life, too young divided
discolouring your blood. A shared stain
colouring us ever, & I did not know
it would endure, through cowardly scrubbings;
I could not know, and so I went on scrubbing,
I scrubbed for quite a while, in that vein.

massive attack

for natty matty and rico, who like it however I bring it

i saw one of your hands carrying fire
i saw one of your hands bringing water
i saw one of your hands bearing soil
by my own hand i brought forth air

one of your four hands fanned the racing flame
ahead of this flame the second hand moved the earth
the blaze failed under the third hand, the hand bringing water
by my own hand i brought forward winds and gathered you

the four elements of the globe converged. light crossed the earth.
we were more than the sum of our parts
and by our four hands now we are united:
bound by the hand of clay, refreshed by water,
made light by air, the flame laying bare a new and brilliant city,
ready at last for our new and brilliant living

with a little help from my friends

by norah kay with lu


it is these things
it is only senseless positions
it is what i've got that you don't;
it is pretending. it is what i've got that you want
it is prostitution. it is all yours.
it's an innocent carcass. it's a carpet. it's a car.
it's someone who can't hold it together.
it's someone who couldn't care less.
it is younger than you. it is removal.
it is without any question marks
it is touching your back. it is shut up.
it only answering
it is very unpleasant. it is never no.
it is never please don't do that.
it is keeping it going. it is nil by mouth. it is complicated circling.
it is void of my body. it is not what you've heard.
it is unbuttoningit is done by this hand.
it is done in my name.

anyone for seconds

The night creaks on. Jody keeps decreasing
while lights turn off across the land, like many eyes
at long last closing. Jody loves shrinking.
Hopes there is an El Dorado somewhere,
thinks she might yet escape the kingdom of her skin:
Wait for one murky hour like the one around us
then leave, in search of some less flimsy kingdom.
And stupidly, I say I wanna go where you're going,
because something in me mutters dumbly she is right.
There is dorado, somewhere. We could race there.
Bony feet flapping, spindly shins cracking, plaits lashing our backs.
This urge to run. We understand. It cannot be ignored.
Or halted with love, or someone's dinner. She has tried
and tried, she thinks, but life has eaten her alive. So she charges,
fast toward another dawn in which she won't be swallowed whole.
And a sound in the hall now. The walls blur it. I lift my fingers.
Flex. Then listen. I think someone sobs. Another girl here maybe,
another Jody. Another girl who is Going. They all around you,
just hard to see because of them being Nearly Not Here.
Anyway, it could be a dog barking. Or both. Or neither. Anyway.
I turn again to Jody, but she is off and racing
tripping through weed-thick fields, forgetting the taste of sugar
not even knowing it. She will rush on headlong,
because that is how the game ends.
Without any proper Goodbyes. Just Jody, running,
colliding with birds that are all at once emerging
this slip of a thing and tonnes of other tiny birds
earthbound at first, then together rising.
Their scores of tiny shapes a only a blush
a dark blush climbing freely up the clean cheek of the sky

you'll eat it and you'll like it

Another ordinary evening. Someone is showering loudly
while Jody and I lie here. We've watched today dwindle
Tuesday unpinning her dim hair, dark curls drooping
evening lowering over us and our complicated collections of bones.
Our empty insides are grinding, so we gorge ourselves on talking
and I'm carefully eating everything Jody says.
Remember this, I think, It will matter to you later.
See, Jody is Nearly Not Here. And even though people do come back,
occasionally hobble home from I Feel Sick, or Hey!
I Went a Little Overboard,
there is no coming back after Nearly Not Here.
All the same, we play the game. Not much else to do.
We've covered You're Alright, and
Today I Am Considering Eating That.
But not Watch Out! You Are Nearly Not Here.
That one never works. Anyway, it's all just junk.
Jody knows she is Nearly Not Here. She's a slip of a thing,
as they say, and getting slippier every day.
She does not look All Right. She does not look Okay.
She makes you think words like Subhuman, think
Internal Haemorrhaging. And Organ Collapse.
She is sprawled under the piano, appearing unconscious
(as is her way), kicking the stool as I play Rachmaninov.
Her own fingers do not bend. Too brittle.
She has been told not to make fists, but she forgets.
I sometimes think you just forgot to grow up, Jodes,
I say to her, and she kicks my calf. Hard. Well.
She's not dead yet. The piano jangles. Angry. I look at her.
Whaddaya gonna do? she says and shrugs, then grins,
though I see it hurts her, because she is lying, and badly, too.
Yep, I know how this one goes.
It is Please Let's Just Pretend I Haven't Given Up.
I calculate the bones on show
and oh how I hope and hope I haven't got it right.
But I've played this game before, and I know by now
the ending never changes. It always ends in tears.