KIRK LAFFERTY

Alice’s side room was half hallway, half lounge, with no windows to the world. Everything came from Auction houses. Vintage Sewing machines and Nic Nacs A regular Haberdashery. Ancient Black and white photographs in dusty frames, between Grandfather and cuckoo clocks, not half as cuckoo as Alice herself. “That’s your great Uncle Shultz next to the Plough, our neighbours from Durry Hill playing croquet. Dirty hand Jake, your fathers, sisters 2nd cousin removed next-door neighbour What a rascal he was.” “That’s a garden party with the Jones family. We ate cucumber sandwiches, guava jelly on scones, sipped pure Ceylon from fine china. Here’s a distant Relation, what’s his face, memory deludes me? He played Cello with the Wanganui Symphonic.” In the town hall, Before it burnt down. Even the tar on streets was burning. Only it wasn’t. None of it was true. The room full of forgotten photographs came from

I went to sleep the optimist , a dreamer My head in the clouds I woke up to the age of uncertainty The clouds it seemed Have moved inside my head Only time will tell what dreams are made of. 

The space between people The space between words when people don't speak don't acknowledge Even the dogs have stopped barking A lyric speaks to me When no-one else does "you showed me that silence That haunts this troubled world You showed me that silence can speak louder than words"