pale ovals are rotating storms shaped by powerful jet her hand waves although she sees nothing a fine tube of glass floats outside her cubicle like some kind of shuttle a fine ocean greenish blue maxine’s cubicle floats above a free and easy petal fish touch the silver surface with their tails icarus falling maxine sleeping as he plunges through the air he floats outside her window like a man whose parachute never opened twirls somersaults and drops to his death skeletal torn wings leaving a residue of gold upon water maxine awakes the people are silent
Floating 2
She has been sailing the blackness of space now for a decade: a silent sentinel, watching near light speed collide with fluorescent blue wave light, the afterglow from the silent song. The floating is nothing on the wayside where nothing flies. Particles rotate the slip-sliding of re-floating igniting those that reunite. A nothing is a something inside glass thoughts rotating on a thought, thought to be nothing on the wayside. The thought that says it is nothing reunites the something to create floating.
Floating 3
No time scheduled to the time. I have no time visually. Don’t ask me in my head because I’m somewhere else where it is. Nor female scheduled to the time. I have no time in which I live. It doesn’t matter. Don’t ask me in my head. Don’t ask me where it is. Because, Besides. I’m somewhere else. It doesn’t matter
Floating 4
eyes open eyes shut
in space (someone i once knew)
darkness empty void
head rotates
mechanism of distant tears
key floats away towards
shimmering wet pavement
casting remains of blindness departed the empty room gliding an area base towards the emptiness to store things precious to cast and bury the surface a clear stone of greyness covered all six through doors the greying sleeps through spades greying further in-between myself falling frames avoiding edges gliding an area base un-watered mutilated flow seeks kindness since walking to store things burns the cast mixture with sadness since that is the red of it so it furthers itself placed inside the tide within the inner pulling the edges beyond the darkness
Maybe I can float now
There inside blue waves of wonder
Though knowing it was all about to
Happen. Within the silent paintings of
Spring another time or schedule floats
Through the window yelling stethoscopes!
Maxine on a bridge reaches for the newest
Dress suspended from shopping trolleys on
Wire hooks. Jealousy of friendship hopes the
Meteorite hits the right person clasping a red rose
Belonging to the checkout girl.
It’s yours if you really want it
Fluid mental spaces. Nothing to yell about
except the blindfolding beneath
Bludgeoned Bigots. Flatter the nightclub
Girls and wear fire arms for deep relaxation.
Pull out the light sockets and mask the Venus
Of hatred in her underwear.
Very suitable today you are.
Bosses mug us. For a bit more yelling time
Except the cubicle floats away.
On a dying tapestry made for astronauts dropping
Feathers in space. Geared to make trust-funds. Forget
Mumsy whimsical; much too bedridden.
Float the bypass on the motorway escape
Route heading for Texas. Beep the mind
Worriers forgetful on sunny afternoons
Sleeping with maids of honour who trust the
Untrusting. Make room for the squires who
Want to own the artists pretending they are
No longer real.
Meet the Mona prima sleuth.
She’s in a raincoat designed by rain on top
Of inky papers. Never before suggested towards
The capital fashions of love brands. She knows the
Masterpiece hidden in the closet.
Slash it before the queen on Sunday after the
Meeting. There is nothing left except oranges in a fruit
Bowl. Take a deep breath and prepare for the upset
Towards the red lipstick on
The side of the packet.
It’s easy when you don’t think about.
Keep going.
You are floating…
Alice Lenkiewicz is editor of Neon Highway poetry magazine, and she organises readings under the same name in Liverpool, where she lives. She is a former student of the MA Writing Studies at Edge Hill College of Higher Education. Maxine is her first novella (containing prose and poetry) and is due for publication by Bluechrome.
Alice writes of the book:
The novella explores a brief lapse in the life of Maxine, a bored housewife living in the 1950s. Realising that her life is uninteresting and lacking in meaning she strives to astral travel back in time where she encounters the muses from famous ancient masterpieces.
While her life tends to parallel that of the past she realises she is faced with perplexing and challenging adjustments in her life. Unable to come to terms with these changes, she seeks help from Poets A-F who encourage and inspire her to travel beyond her own conformist boundaries.
Maxine’s journey aims to look beyond the traditional western value system. She is a person who refuses to align herself with reason and truth. Instead she is seeking something interchangeable. In this way she seems to exist neither in the past nor in the present. The book is concerned with challenging notions of reality as well as traditional notions of what a person must do to achieve happiness.
