Out Of Touch

It seems unfair
to be kept from air - held
in limbo between the white
of the skywashed ceilings
and the whites of the eyes
rolling back on blackness. Not
that they care – they’re used to
this confliction, days of contradiction. To us,
to them, there’s no difference - life
is a picture show in black
and white, and when the lights
fade, you’ll see
that this film’s drawn tight
across our eyes – else you might
notice the pressed ricepaper
wings that shoot crinoline
from our shoulderblades. Despite
everything.


Though,
being fragile as we are,
we are not expected to look
beyond the horizons of the dead-
pan stares to where those wings
could take us –

The doors, that swing
on such geometrical hinges
as to open both ways
are to remain forever
out of touch.

* * *

'I know death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits; and 'tis found they go on such strange geometrical hinges, you may open them both ways.' - The Duchess of Malfi - Act IV

Sometimes it's hard to find an escape route, but remember - every trap has a trapdoor.

This is the first of several pieces that are basically clean-ups of old drafts from creative writing club. You can expect a few more of these coming up, I'm afraid - it's the easiest thing for me to do whilst the war against revision is being raged.

I pretty much completely changed the direction of this one, but without changing too much of the original content. Still not too sure about it though... some of the imagery seems a little too contrived - overused by me, if not everyone else. And you know that your work's not at its best when you begin to be influenced by your revision...

* * *

And finally, some news! Remember that school poetry competition I entered ages ago, with Wasteland? Well, I won! :)