Passing movements on a crowded street
people pushing passed
me? I am sleep-walking in a haze
of Twilight, forgotten, with broken
moments that come and go
as my thoughts do, come and go,
waiting my turn in the queue
for a package of fame
as I work the type-writer
Into a frenzy of noise.
Swimming with fishes
by Adam Parry.
We all went for breakfast to Dobbie’s at the top of Lang
Stracht. I must admit I expected the breakfast to be better than it was, but basically,
I left most of it on the plate and I left the others and wandered about the
cavernous shop and in time happened upon the room full of aquariums. I could’ve
stayed for hours, or maybe it was days my emotions ranged from how beautiful to
a lonely despair because I wanted to set them free, but knew however they’d
probably die in the river, or the sea or whatever water in released them into.
There was such a variety of colour and shapes and a part of me wanted to be a
beautiful fishy in my tank, and I tried to imagine what it would be like then
wondered if there was a fish looking out wanting to be me. I doubted it and
went to find my family my ears popping with the bends and I bought a book I did
not read; some cat food the cat didn’t want and an indoor tree I didn’t water
got back into the back seat of the car thinking if wishes were fishes, then I’d
be three.
The sun was shining when they dropped me off and I knew
wishes weren’t fishes for if they were I’d be standing where I’d been, and be
standing there now instead of looking out this window drowning in this air.
She was filled with intense relief, she went to the mirrored
cabinet in the bathroom and left, one by one her medication as if they were
emotions forbidden her, her prescription filled by a dark-haired Saturday girl.
First the pain-killers, two bottles of them, her epilepsy
pills. Then the tooth paste she liked: mint Colgate. She had fallen outside the
Spar and a nice schoolgirl helped her up while her boy ignorantly watched still
sitting on the wall as he was worried someone would take his perch.
The girl sat beside her on the newly painted, pristine,
bench and pulled a can of unicorn tears flavoured Irn Bru for the woman.
She thought she recognized someone driving by in a Toyota,
but it wasn’t him and a black mist fell over her, piercing her heart as if she
had been tattooed by dirty needles made ugly with shadows stencilled throughout
her heart.
The night before she had stayed up watching the bright,
almost too bright for her eyes, full moon passing the night from horizon to
horizon and wept as there was no magic, perhaps they never had been.
Slowly she placed her prescription:
Olanzapine, lithium, lamotrigine, Seroxat, zopiclone,
on the middle shelf in alphabetical order, closed the
mirrored door and saw herself for the first time that day. She seemed new in
the well cleaned mirror making her shine and didn’t need to take her pills
today.
Diamonds
a poem
By Adam L Parry
That I would be rarer than a diamond
tho’ we are all rarer
than diamonds, rarer than yesterday,
rarer than an ice-burg of diamonds, or a resplendent
sky-scraper
upon the sea - a uninhabited island rarer than me.
