The Stair

by Sammy Jay

I climb the stair,
Work backwards from the edge,
Despair’s edge, this overhanging ledge,
Biting the teeth of words.

Dead ledge of dead rose petals,
And a sunken sun -

Work backwards,
The stair,
Drug politics,
Colours,
All a whirl.

Aggressive with the edge of words
Vicious in biting thoughts,

Back to leaning back against the bulge
Of bulging wood.

Back back,
Among the deeply felt and fleeting garden,
Fleeting, veering in parrot cries,
Quicksilver eyes, and a world
Of laughter.

Voices and laughter in the glade,
A fungus genesis.

Back back back but before
Before - the swirling journey and the walk
Through sirens, sea girls, iron and summer wine,
Drug politics within the whine
Of sirens and the wind.

A world of no discernible rhythm in the line of trams
And formless shapes.

Back back back back to childhood,
Infant eyes - colours,
An array of newness,
That wide amaze of sky.

In that beginning, in that garden,
Ringed within a raven world
There is a life

At odds with nothingness and dissipation,

At odds with the approaching black,
Fighting with white light,
A vibrant, living arsenal of colour.

All in that first glance,
Before the deep divide and dance
Along the line, before the trance
Of wires, blood and steel,
There is a loving, fighting feel,

All in the eye
Of the child
At the beginning.


Sammy Jay is a 1st year English student and is (wrongly) convinced that he is Shelley.