Engines of Our Spaceship

‘Hold your hand still.’ Peter held the candle out. ‘I don’t want to,’ Kevin replied. He shivered despite the summer evening. He glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. It was getting late and his mum would be wondering where he was. The afternoon spent playing in the field had slipped by. Peter had led the way through the twisted path to the ruined church at the edge of town. ‘Don’t be a baby,’ Peter said. He placed the candle on the bench and stared at Kevin. ‘Do you want the Stick Man to get us?’ He pulled up the hood on his parka jacket. ‘What’s the Stick Man?’ ‘There was a priest that lived here, on his own, years ago.’ Peter touched the doll-like collection of branches that lay on the bench. ‘He used to catch kids playing in the graveyard and lock them in here.’ Peter picked the twig-doll up and held it close to the flame. ‘He used to punish them, by pouring hot wax onto their hands.’ ‘That’s a stupid story.’ Peter put the doll back. ‘One day ...

Ishtar is on the subway.  Her face is repeated  Through layers of torn posters. Her talking heads are chanting  Sex and war through sacred boom-boxes. She reigns in New York City, From uptown lofts, to the  Downtown candy store. Ishtar’s smiling faces sometimes  Float through the turquoise  Haze. Her teeth are chattering ticket stubs. They spell out a new code.  You see it in layers of dead flyers,  Pez wrappers and graffiti covered trains. A manual from the underground To slay the Philistines. Ishtar gifts you the city in  A paintbox. You draw black lines That define the barriers between  Uptown commerce and downtown  Creativity. And then, so effortlessly, You reveal the anatomy of the city, With a brush-stroke and a cloud Of weed smoke. Ishtar shows you colours  Through New York city rain.  Taxis queue in yellow exodus, Carrying you from gallery to gallery...

I walked from the car.   I was fly-tipping the  Contents of my head  Onto the towpath. And then I decided  To listen to the whispering  Traffic from the flyover. Dissonant notes and Drifting motes. Fermata In the heat-haze. I joined the dots for a while.  As I walked beside  The stillness, I traced  A liquorice line,  Trickling through the veins  Of the city.  A prickling cloud Of midges Trembled in the Tension of cracked  Wing mirrors. The manspread of pylons  Played snakes and ladders  With the long grass, Their power-stance loomed  over scrapyards.  I followed a fading  Hopscotch path That led me through  Stagnant pools  In sad factories, The skeletons of warehouses  And rows of drunken locks. A clearing in the bushes Revealed an aviary  Of cans and bottles. A meth nest,  Best left alone. ...