Back to Issue 4

What I Meant to Say... by Scott Frady

To take a word
  And slip it into your mind
  Into the gap between
  Inhibition and censorship;
  Surreptitiously and subversively
  It's a bomb in your brain
  That when it blows
  Changes you,
  Makes you see
  And know when all is said
  The word was what it was.

  It stands alone
  Beyond what it stands for
  Standing with you
  When you can't
  Squeeze the thought through

  But for
  Decomposing it
  Deconstructing
  Constricting
  Conflicting, then
  Scratching your head
  Say what the fuck

  Is it that you're trying to say?
  Defenses down
  This word
  makes confusion
  Denial and anger
  But

  In the moment
  A word hits you
  Like a sledge hammer
  It is already too late
  To turn back and so
  To take a word
  And make it hurt
  Is the moment
  The word becomes
  Revolution.

Beauty and Death by Scott Frady

The spider web's intricacies
In sunlight, beautiful. But
If your eyes fell on this sight
At night
  Say 10:00pm, say midnight,
  Its strands would hold ominous possibilities.
  If you were to walk blindly in the dark
  And your face touch the sticky goo
  It would fill you with dread
  And you would claw at your face
  To remove the thread
  Feeling and searching for any
  Sudden movements
  Any crawly indicators
  That the resident of the home
  You just destroyed is hitchhiking
  On your back, up your neck, in your hair
  Waiting to seek her revenge.
  What does it feel like
When a giant rips your sanctuary
  Tramples your babies
  And simply walks away
  Shaking their heads and squirming
  To be free of your contagion?
  As unknowing as a bomb hitting the ground
Dismembering a family whose only mistake
  Was to be 10 metres to the left of the target.
  In the light of day, from 20,000 feet
The sun may shimmer on the rubble
  We may look at it from our distance
  And say how beautiful.
  The light catches the different pieces of stone
The desert all around is red and glowing.
  Even a disaster can appear beautiful
If it doesn't happen to you, but
  Suppose father was out all night with the livestock
  And returns to find his life shattered in pieces.
  What would you do when your significance
Is dismissed as collateral damage?
  The mandibles are dripping with the poison we made
And we wonder all the while
  What did we ever do to them?