1.

We had only just reached the heights: 

those explicit beginnings,

that tangerine sunrise 

weaving its spell 

across the plummeting waves 

of the hills

fading into a far off lilac distance.

2.
I asked the wind 

I asked the seagulls

I asked the future

I asked the past

none would give up their

shiny, chrome-steeled secrets. 

3.

I tried to hatch a plot, 

a dainty royalty-laden plot:

a plot to reverse the world, 

in its pitiless, exponged, redacted  

real-estate escape, 

across a no-man’s land of turmoil. 

4.

but nobody came to help 

when I asked,

while the sullen sun, kept on rising, 

despite our freeze-dried excuses 

and accusations 

and brakes, 

a sun, squealing across an angry blue sky

like fingernails across a blackboard.

(Did it ever want to reverse

its repetative, humdrum existence?)

5.

High up on this mountain,

wind whipping my hair,

I  write this throw away note: 

it is full of performance issues 

and hand-written expletives

 (no syncronised, flowing tears here; 

only lassitude, and styrofoam)

6.

I started out,
my mind full of catapults. 

I ended up, somehow, 

on a cruise ship holiday 

to Madagascar.

7.

If you can count 

every grain of sand 

on a truncated beach:

well:
well done!

8.

I finally finished the escape plot, 

with its myriad permutations 

and  hieroglyphs.

“Well?” you ask, “Why?”  

… but the silent sky 

stays blue and offers no clue 

and the silent, lonely 

seagull’s feather 

doesn’t flutter 

in the light sea breeze.

This results in a stagnant standoff, 

shoulder to shoulder 

with the Drifter: 

long barrelled 

and brimming  with confusion.

9.

No Soothsayers here, 

only Master Minds.

10.

PAUSE.