Anonymous Stars
By Gavin Broom
(i)
Her skin, ten years to thicken,
sensitivity, ten years to shrink.
This, the price of
sixty hour weeks
with hunched back,
clenched jaw
and suspicious gaze
while silent screens catch
alleys and streets and
tricks and screams and
knives and guns and
brick wall line-ups,
turning them
all into
black and white
time-stamped
closed circuit
nightmares.
Every day,
every act
plays out.
Some days,
some acts
repeat.
Tonight,
something alien
stirs inside her. Anxiety burns.
A feeling once
written-off is reprised;
a forgotten sensation subconsciously
labelled Surprise.
Lost and motionless among
late-night shoppers and
early-night drinkers,
a log stuck in a stream;
a man, a father,
what used to be hers,
then stolen to be imprisoned
inside dreams.
Her finger reaches
and stops,
half a breath
from the screen,
half a lifetime
from the man.
Static bursts, connection holds.
For atomic time,
memories flood her mind
of losing battles with dead soldiers,
of jaundiced skin and drained face,
of thinning, swept back hair,
of cask-aged poison.
-- You die, you turn to dust,
she's sure, her finger stung
like her heart by savage fluke.
This second coming is a lie.
(ii)
She's light on her feet
along dark hallways and
while a security guard dreams
of locked doors and No Entry signs
she glides by and away and out,
into the nip of night where
infinite arcs are the
deepest blue,
cloudless, moonless,
peppered with stars.
A million on show tonight,
a reminder of insignificance,
one for every heartbeat caged
in this city.
Couples and constellations,
families and friends.
All names redundant.
All matter separated by
a billion miles.
existing
alone in the end.
A red light flashes
as it traces
across the mass, heading
-- West, she thinks,
another man-made
shooting star to covet.
A red light blinks,
raised and fixed,
its solitary eye never winking,
never shirking
from the scene.
Colour-blind, it
feeds her copy along a wire,
projects it on a screen,
to be monitored by
her own relief, leaving her to
wonder which version is real.
(iii)
Gone eleven,
long-gone people go home or
seek out places to take
them further beyond
their limit and the line.
But people-watching
through the back seat window
is overtime
so she lets her
strained, heavy eyes fall shut,
pretends she has a choice.
Her focus free,
she soon conjures and sees
the imposter from her past
with questions in tow.
What if
it was her dad?
What if
what happens when we die
is we're dropped back on earth
and left to wander alone,
disconnected, with
memories disintegrated, identity
degenerated, assigned to be
the weird, anonymous
distraction, bumbling through
a beehive city,
desperate to find what's lost,
unaware it's
no longer there:
familiarity;
a sign;
a hand on your back;
a friendly voice;
directions home;
a promise that
no matter what,
everything's
going
to be
okay?
Her eyes shoot open.
Her stop shoots by.
And so begins
a longer road home.
From nowhere or the heavens,
comes the creation of
another place to go,
memories of an invitation,
neither accepted nor denied,
outstanding through uncounted days
and months
since her father died.
The driver senses uncertainty,
flicks his attention
to his rear view
and eyes meet in a
letterboxed reflection.
Connection broken,
her stare retreats to
a hand, a finger and
a button marked
STOP with the power to
change everything.
(iv)
A finger presses a doorbell.
A gut sinks and knots.
A suspicion of a mistake.
A longing for home,
safety, comfort,
sleep, delay.
The silence against
stone is broken
by echoes of
years and bells.
The door, impassive portal,
provides protection;
living from dead,
awake from asleep.
present from past.
She shouldn't have come.
She shouldn't be here.
She should leave.
A shiver threatens
action, flight, while
fear toys with terror
and concrete feet and fight.
A creak is felt, not heard.
Her hand shocked to her side,
the bell released,
the couplet completes
to a cracked open door.
Stubble-chinned,
bleary-eyed,
fifty-something
face, tensed in a
frown is tightened with shock,
then slowly loosened by
surprise and a smile
as all barriers
are removed.
He doesn't look like his brother
-- her father --
or the statue
from tonight,
but she sees
knowledge in his sleepy eyes,
despite or because of
yolky whites.
For once, she thinks,
maybe the only time
that matters is
in time.
(v)
So many reminders;
waypoints through a life,
dots waiting to be joined.
She remembers this place
from long ago:
New Years and birthdays,
singalongs and emergencies,
parties and partings of the ways.
Looking around
the sparse room and at a face
wilted but encouraged,
she knows she's not the only one
who's lost and been lost.
There are two heartbeats in this room.
It could cope with so many
more. In the past.
He follows her gaze as it
settles near the floor. Panicked,
his foot conspires to cover-up
a familiar tragedy:
a dead soldier,
another mortally wounded,
lie next to his chair,
their spirits whirl as
they fill the air
while a tumbler sits
with thirsty mouth and spills the beans.
-- We both have his eyes, he says,
changing an unaired subject.
-- And with his eyes, I see him
every day.
And between the two, the future
holds many questions that
suspect their own answers.
He won't ask why she waited so long.
She won't ask where everyone went
or why history is determined to repeat.
Not tonight. But soon.
And while a kettle whistles
and songbirds dream of
concertos and freedom,
she imagines suspended
bricks that will carry footfalls
and hope on their backs;
connections within constellations
and stars that now have names.
***
By Gavin Broom
(i)
Her skin, ten years to thicken,
sensitivity, ten years to shrink.
This, the price of
sixty hour weeks
with hunched back,
clenched jaw
and suspicious gaze
while silent screens catch
alleys and streets and
tricks and screams and
knives and guns and
brick wall line-ups,
turning them
all into
black and white
time-stamped
closed circuit
nightmares.
Every day,
every act
plays out.
Some days,
some acts
repeat.
Tonight,
something alien
stirs inside her. Anxiety burns.
A feeling once
written-off is reprised;
a forgotten sensation subconsciously
labelled Surprise.
Lost and motionless among
late-night shoppers and
early-night drinkers,
a log stuck in a stream;
a man, a father,
what used to be hers,
then stolen to be imprisoned
inside dreams.
Her finger reaches
and stops,
half a breath
from the screen,
half a lifetime
from the man.
Static bursts, connection holds.
For atomic time,
memories flood her mind
of losing battles with dead soldiers,
of jaundiced skin and drained face,
of thinning, swept back hair,
of cask-aged poison.
-- You die, you turn to dust,
she's sure, her finger stung
like her heart by savage fluke.
This second coming is a lie.
(ii)
She's light on her feet
along dark hallways and
while a security guard dreams
of locked doors and No Entry signs
she glides by and away and out,
into the nip of night where
infinite arcs are the
deepest blue,
cloudless, moonless,
peppered with stars.
A million on show tonight,
a reminder of insignificance,
one for every heartbeat caged
in this city.
Couples and constellations,
families and friends.
All names redundant.
All matter separated by
a billion miles.
existing
alone in the end.
A red light flashes
as it traces
across the mass, heading
-- West, she thinks,
another man-made
shooting star to covet.
A red light blinks,
raised and fixed,
its solitary eye never winking,
never shirking
from the scene.
Colour-blind, it
feeds her copy along a wire,
projects it on a screen,
to be monitored by
her own relief, leaving her to
wonder which version is real.
(iii)
Gone eleven,
long-gone people go home or
seek out places to take
them further beyond
their limit and the line.
But people-watching
through the back seat window
is overtime
so she lets her
strained, heavy eyes fall shut,
pretends she has a choice.
Her focus free,
she soon conjures and sees
the imposter from her past
with questions in tow.
What if
it was her dad?
What if
what happens when we die
is we're dropped back on earth
and left to wander alone,
disconnected, with
memories disintegrated, identity
degenerated, assigned to be
the weird, anonymous
distraction, bumbling through
a beehive city,
desperate to find what's lost,
unaware it's
no longer there:
familiarity;
a sign;
a hand on your back;
a friendly voice;
directions home;
a promise that
no matter what,
everything's
going
to be
okay?
Her eyes shoot open.
Her stop shoots by.
And so begins
a longer road home.
From nowhere or the heavens,
comes the creation of
another place to go,
memories of an invitation,
neither accepted nor denied,
outstanding through uncounted days
and months
since her father died.
The driver senses uncertainty,
flicks his attention
to his rear view
and eyes meet in a
letterboxed reflection.
Connection broken,
her stare retreats to
a hand, a finger and
a button marked
STOP with the power to
change everything.
(iv)
A finger presses a doorbell.
A gut sinks and knots.
A suspicion of a mistake.
A longing for home,
safety, comfort,
sleep, delay.
The silence against
stone is broken
by echoes of
years and bells.
The door, impassive portal,
provides protection;
living from dead,
awake from asleep.
present from past.
She shouldn't have come.
She shouldn't be here.
She should leave.
A shiver threatens
action, flight, while
fear toys with terror
and concrete feet and fight.
A creak is felt, not heard.
Her hand shocked to her side,
the bell released,
the couplet completes
to a cracked open door.
Stubble-chinned,
bleary-eyed,
fifty-something
face, tensed in a
frown is tightened with shock,
then slowly loosened by
surprise and a smile
as all barriers
are removed.
He doesn't look like his brother
-- her father --
or the statue
from tonight,
but she sees
knowledge in his sleepy eyes,
despite or because of
yolky whites.
For once, she thinks,
maybe the only time
that matters is
in time.
(v)
So many reminders;
waypoints through a life,
dots waiting to be joined.
She remembers this place
from long ago:
New Years and birthdays,
singalongs and emergencies,
parties and partings of the ways.
Looking around
the sparse room and at a face
wilted but encouraged,
she knows she's not the only one
who's lost and been lost.
There are two heartbeats in this room.
It could cope with so many
more. In the past.
He follows her gaze as it
settles near the floor. Panicked,
his foot conspires to cover-up
a familiar tragedy:
a dead soldier,
another mortally wounded,
lie next to his chair,
their spirits whirl as
they fill the air
while a tumbler sits
with thirsty mouth and spills the beans.
-- We both have his eyes, he says,
changing an unaired subject.
-- And with his eyes, I see him
every day.
And between the two, the future
holds many questions that
suspect their own answers.
He won't ask why she waited so long.
She won't ask where everyone went
or why history is determined to repeat.
Not tonight. But soon.
And while a kettle whistles
and songbirds dream of
concertos and freedom,
she imagines suspended
bricks that will carry footfalls
and hope on their backs;
connections within constellations
and stars that now have names.
***