GREGORY DALLY has had poetry, fiction and other material published in various journals, including Catalyst, Popshot Quarterly and Takahē.
Recovery Hangover, Ahuriri River
The ruptured sky irradiates tussock, inviting ghosts to live out on plateaus. You thirst to ascend the mesa and consume the easterly. Fever keeps on heating you, a drifter misdirected here by ornery vapours.
A radius of quiet is thrumming in the drizzle. The mountain face carries a grimace; it’s scolding yours. Hours of trudging have erased logic, dissolving the stoic in you to a chaos of tears.
Once dusk has matured, issues from the moon pass a riddle, cumuli, into this glade. Trekking on ice, you disinter fizzes which all but shush you. Tokens of rain are in uproar, ousting the mist.
Thunder might hoax a tired mind. You’re in damned traffic – hearts shanghaied from Eden, under darkness fit to ink out human features. Lightning jabs are the last of your god’s treasures remaining aglow.
Laughter turns to quivering. It’s a tic one lax valve can manage. This jitter is the only freedom, hung over from a life you’ve not quite shed. Thinking of morning, you imagine a scream has already made it to then.
Infused by an anthem from Secret Colours, here on tundra you act out like the Chosen. Feral, yet morphing in time-lapse, one mutant seeks triumph. A dreamer is never a stranger, revived and in love with her new form left of exhaustion.
© Gregory Dally