It’s My Body
It’s my body to imagine,
to construct and shape,
in or out of fashion.
Or so I like to think.
But others
have different
imaginings,
different visions,
different versions
of me and my body.
I have to consider these,
to determine my own reality,
have to decide how to engage
these multiple images
and their projections
to reveal myself to myself,
if I can see them, that is.
For sometimes they are invisible,
as sometimes I am,
existing only in imaginations.
But, it is still my body,
to decide whose versions
it engages with,
who it entertains.
And who enters
into this conversation.
First published in BLYNKT, Issue 3 2017
Mirror Image
The mirror was old,
not antique
just old.
Perhaps that was the reason
it didn’t seem quite right,
didn’t seem to reflect
me as I expected.
I looked harder.
I could see my surroundings
reflected as I thought they were,
the curtains and the colours,
the lamp standing naked
all present and correct.
But I wasn’t there.
I am here.
I know I am
and I’m looking
into the old mirror
where I should see myself
reflected
but I can’t.
I think it has swallowed me,
body and soul.
First published in Praxis, November 2020
We’re All Doomed
“We’re all doomed”, he said.
Well, so we are!
From the moment of our birth,
no, before then
some don’t make it that far,
expelled by the body
to parts
unknown.
As I child
I thought
that living
with such knowledge
should be hellish,
impossible to live with
happily.
If I were god,
it would be
my little joke.
Forget Satan
and his fiery furnace,
the nonsense of an underworld,
the craziness of constant rebirth.
Life is hell.
I explained my theory
at Sunday School
when aged nine
and three-quarters.
It didn’t go down well.
But it still seems to me
that god is the creator
of the first conspiracy theories
and humans still don’t get it.
So he still has the last laugh
after all!
First published in Assignment, December 2022
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