breadcrumbs

by Chris Lawrence

 

even the pigeons did not come

sandstone witness

to the empty bench,

he had fallen

been in hospital,

children fretted and nursed,

she had no one

almost homeless aged forgotten,

they spoke at the bench

smile with long memory

a life known and understood,

her smile of crooked dentures

and whiskery chin,

those eye still had reality and youth,

at eighty two it is hard

to find love was strange,

unusual to most people,

yet as hospital tubes gave sustenance

she had lain in her armchair

ragged flat

no gas fire

no tv

and lived in afterlife

found by police

through splintered door

it would be hard to explain

yet the bench remained

 

 

David Field – Caterpillar

Resonance and Fear

hospital blue cotton suit,

feeling ready for this,

table lain

resting arms head in clamp

mask screwed over

field of vision diminished,

at your request music playing

to drown out whatever,

automated table draws you in,

it starts with

magnetic thrum

waves of sound

that offer no comfort,

gets louder and louder,

expecting a rip in time

so the brain they are photographing

can see and be part of

the history that creates our soul,

abstract thoughts show as synaptic

fire,

ghost shadows of words

not spoken or written,

time almost at a standstill

louder it gets,

in this tube white walled

a medical torpedo

to be discharged,

behind a screen

they where looking and seeing

not a face and flesh

but it’s transparency

bone and internal softness

compacted to fit,

it is done

once done glad of silence,

you wait these days for a sign

and sat with doctor it comes

age travels to different parts

progressive but relentless

and now that brain

so visual in it’s ways

is showing early signs