George Ayres

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Default Mode Network #1

Everything is complicated, or at least 
my excuses are complicated: here is a patio-heater 
falling out of a lorry; here I am tasering my leg
for reasons that are difficult to explain.

Or everything is simple: the explosion of a life 
when the rows of dynamite had appeared so neat; 
the stranded whale put down after a dose of ketamine; 
the dog circling the injured vulture. 

It’s a long road to the grassy-mound where I can rest. 
It’s a long road across a marsh that leads back 
to the beginning. The walls are slipping. 
A blue castle deflates in a sigh.

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GEORGE AYRES recently completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. His poems have featured in Agenda, Ambit, Poetry London, ALMANAC, Marble Poetry and elsewhere.