the frolic

		i take your hand
		we walk towards where the roses once grew

		i lie back in the grass and dream of how it once was
		the rubbishstrewn streets
		riperising smell of gutters and rain
		the children abandoned
		mother recalls child in pool
		what is that that lies? deadchilddead
		i have such nightmares and you're all in all of them
		it's worse than you or i can ever know

		on the edge of the clouds we crouch
		we smile and spit
		the pool of saliva carrascates below our feet
		it shifts
		children with knives begin to rise from it
		they laugh and blow kisses at the moon
		
		we think it's the rain
		i see a bird move onto the table in my garden
		its beak scoops up the seeds
		the green of the grass and the blue of the sky
		are immense and terrifying
		everything seems so close
		so very very close
		should a storm come
		should a storm break and halo all around us
		as some savage and blind god
		jerking his hands out to us
		the birds drop all around us
		
		i walk into the altar room
		all the buddhas are smashed there
		Avalokitesvara's hundred faces lie shattered
		i have done this
		i walk to the makeshift redbrick altar a hundred years ago
		there is a small brass image there
		i have built this
		the red and black ants mill around
		unknown journeys
		i take my lighter and torch them
		i take my lighter and torch them
		i weep i weep
		the ants scatter or writhe
		i take my lighter and torch them torch them
		i have done this
		i am surrounded by butterflies
		the chid's legs lay smashed
		please pray for him she says to me
		too late
		alas oh so too late
		
		i see the twinkling stars
		i drop a photograph
		i bend to pick it up
		my heart leaps as i see your face
		stare up at me from the paper
		as if still alive on this earth
		when i return my eyes to the stars
		they gathered
		they pucker
		and are blind
		and are blind
		
		so lost are we
		oh what have i become
		i have become that i hate
		i have become that i shall say no
		
		the bird is dead now alas
		
		a voice whispers to me
		and says nothing nothing
		there is nothing
		
		i look to my right and see her face again
		and again the world disappears
		
		and all fall down
		all fall down
		all fall down i all fall down
		all fall down i all fall down
		we all fall down	
		we all fall down