by James Austin Farrell

A bone dry performance in the chrysalis

…

During the final stages of sleep

We are the most creative

…

You dreamed you were a boxer with glass fists

Your friends threw water in an unlit ring

You danced for a while, but eventually slipped

Your hands exploded

Into tiny fragments

Bits

and pieces

In every piece of the broken glass

A memory flickered from the past

Life scattered all over the floor

Twinkling like forbidden stars

Each part containing

Love, hope, fear

 and loss

The beginnings and endings

Of motherless oceans

The most vital organ

that somehow: isn’t yours

This is the twilight of the final dream

…

Outside people are screaming

Throwing water from the backs of machines

Happiness in the simplest things

Hysterical roadside attractions

Memories coming into being – and then fading

Proposing the notion

That everything that will ever exist

is

in

constant

motion

…

In the chrysalis you know what it means

To be everything, and nothing

That the mind is a place of rogue trading

And that truth is a currency

An idea

One often worth believing

Only if we accept

Its value rests

 On the strength of feelings

Editor’s Note on New Year

New Year is not James Austin Farrell’s first piece in Eastlit. The following pieces of work have appeared in earlier Eastlit issues:

• The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project was published in Eastlit March 2013.
• Five Poems featured in Eastlit May 2013.