in my father's father's house i spied a man made mad by love, his eyes kaleidoscoped and grown, swollen by the weight of waking. we walked along the quayside tossing dreams into the waters and there, washed up on the shoreline, were a few forgotten portraits. his scars on her body bleeding, his tears falling from her shadow. and his true and trusted distance stood there grinning from the hollow. his true and trusted emptiness filled up until tomorrow.

we sat beside the tree-tops, looking down upon the winners. and we wondered if we'd ever once more wander in their furrows. we won a few more pennies from us betting on our memories and we spent them on a bus to darkness, there to find a moment's silence. there to share a moment's hunger, there to lose a little feeling, to forget he had so nearly walked among the stars. to forget he had so nearly made it to the stars.

snow-blind my fingers burned to crimson
crushed and crunched beneath the clouds
my breath by reason pitied
stashed and flayed and whipped and wasted
washed and weathered
washed and torn

and, covering his eyes, he saw her dancing in the others' echo, the spotlight tight upon her footsteps, tossed and torn the others scuttled. tossed and torn the others giggled as they watched him run for cover. hidden from the sunlight now he whistled in his papers, scribbling rhymes and numbers, angles hung upon the doorway. rhymes and numbers, songs and sonnets strung across the pathway. and he gained this wisdom :

get some sleep.

get some sleep and dream not this :

burnt-red and sparkly green, a pillow for my dust-strewn head, my legend thus - jealousy, unwanted dreams in the heavy light, our guesses a nightmare.

get some sleep!

and dream not this :

perfection be my pillow, pitched and perfect, pitched and shallow. pitched and perched upon the hollow. perched and picked from summer's shadow.

blue and sparked. blue and sparked.