Trick
I’ve learned the
trick
of you.
I’ve mastered it,
there’s nothing
to it. I know
all there is to know.
You thought me
so unfit, but
I’ve got you
beat, my friend,
Because I’ve found
the steps
ahead of steps
The way to make it
work
The lines between
lines
The empty whiteness
of blank
chasms, opened
For the filling
with
words
You imagine I might have
said. That
is the trick,
I know, to fool you
into faith. Oh,
what have I done,
You’ll say, but unshakeable
now,
I’m in those spaces. That’s
the trick, and
unshakeable
now
You’re full of me.
Smoke
You are
cigarette
smoke and ungodly
hours
Clouds
in the void
of memory
Residual,
incomplete
You are
waking
to find
my virtue
gone
Sweat
on the sheets,
a hair
left on a pillow
You are
spaces
between
spaces,
patches
of picture
You are
a shred
of film,
a spectre
A
shadow
in a photograph
A thumb
over the
lens
You are
the vaporous
shroud
of dawn in
a foreign bed
You are
half-formed
vicious words
and tangled
threads of
threats
on which you
never made
good
Not
blameless but
unblamed
You are
burn
marks
in tattered carpet
The
blade of your
mouth
made dull
Blunted
by the mire
of time
But
still
the scars of you
refuse
to fade
Shred
You
make light work of my skin,
Strip
it from my body,
Like
there's a zipper in my skull,
All my
sinful blood and flesh and
Guts
and everything on show.
Excoriate
me. Rip me up.
Make me
tiny wretched shreds.
Claw my
awful sinews from my bones.
I'm
base meat to be butchered,
Till
there's no human left.
No
weapons, you use your teeth
To tear
me limb from limb.
Grind
and grind and grind and grind,
You
pulverise me, punish me,
And
leave me nothing at all.
Defiled
Spring, five years ago
A child still and reckoning
With the future
I committed the gravest sins
With you.
It is as real as real as real
A big, black mark
On my blotter.
Unresolved and unabsolved
Still a criminal now
As much as then
There is blight
On my leaves
And rot
At my roots.
I am defiled forever more.
The
Taxidermist's Shop
Through a pane of elderly glass,
besmirched by years of inattention,
they gaze out -
a menagerie of vacant faces,
surveying the empty street,
ill-lit by adulterated London beams.
A bear.
A badger.
A bat.
Animals, exotic and otherwise,
hold silent court, breathless and
becalmed in perpetual stillness.
They have been
made eternal by the purveyor
of a dying art, and keep company
forever with the bettors and diners
who stare occasionally,
open-mouthed for a moment,
affording them a split second's
amazement before they walk away,
and leave them, flightless and
sightless
still.
Brussels
Sickly sun on sickly trees,
whose spindly branches crave
a better life, lets me know
I am here. I have arrived.
No welcome will greet me
and no change will be registered.
It doesn’t matter. The sad,
pale yellow light will not
shift for me, and the weak
willed wind will continue
in the same unbroken breath.
I will not impinge upon
the consciousness of this
ailing town, and not on
yours, either. I will come
and go, unseen and unheard,
unmissed and unkissed, and you
will never know.
That
would be that
“But why shouldn’t I?”
she would scream
in a voice much,
much too loud
for indoors.
They wanted to quiet
her, and still her
swinging fists.
They wanted to
hold her down.
She knew this. It
engendered such rage
in her that she
thought her very
skin would burst,
like heavy fruit, hurled
against a wall, smashed
with the awful
hammer of the
unfairness of it all.
Her juice, or blood,
sticky and oversugared,
would spray their
white quiet and
that would be that.
But they would win
then; they would be
right if she let herself
explode before she
proved herself worthy.
They could clean up
the nasty, red mess
and forget the
whole sorry business
if she did that.
No, then.
She must breathe
deep and spread her
arms wide, from where her
wicked, wonderful wings
would unfold, and that
would be that.
Unfazed
The earth is black, where
the fire has got to it,
scorched and bruised
where match and lighter fluid
met.
A mess. Dead and barren,
smoking still, awful in the
English late summer sun. Sadness
hangs in the thick, pungent
air, for a livelihood laid waste.
A field once bright and rich with
life, rent asunder by careless youth,
lies lifeless now, outside the window,
behind his house. He sets a stony
face against his ruin, but he is
caught unawares by something
unexpected
A heron. There’s no reason for this
bird in an inland island of dashed
hope,
standing one leggedly, out of place and
lost. He laughs, before he can stop
himself, and stares for a full silent
five minutes, at the misplaced animal
until its wings swing wide, and white
and surprising in their big, open span,
unfazed by the death beneath its
feet.
Karaoke
night
Wednesday night
Is karaoke night
And I am here
With you
Among the half drunk
Pint nursers
And the sad, tired
Minimum wagers
And I have determined
That I will sing
You are surrounded
As always
By people
Who have no idea
But your face
Shines out in the
Hazy crowd
I am drunk too
Too drunk perhaps
Full of false courage
Standing there
Before the aged mic
I open my mouth
And shut my eyes
To shut out the faces
And I can see
Only you, half smiling
Speaking without speaking
And the voice
That comes out
Is not my voice
It is a secret siren call
For you alone
That you may be
Wrecked upon my shore
And I may believe
You are in my thrall
Here
Among the empty
Glasses, and half broken
Chairs. Wednesday night
Is karaoke night
And I have sung
A song to seal my ruin
This
is how I imagined it might have gone, if there had been an ending
You suck on the end
of your cigarette
its red eye
winking at me
in the failing light
Look, darlin'
you say
Look
With studied insouciance
A pause
Another deep drag
You take in a breastful
of white, whispering smoke
and blow it out
in precise curls
(A little cough
threatens to ruin
the effect,
though)
It's not you
or more specifically
it is you
You're not the you for me
and that's the problem
There's nothing wrong with you
per se
It's just there's nothing right
not right for me
at any rate
You're too good
and that means
you're not good enough
You were a transgression
I'll give you that
But you
just weren't
transgressive enough
Don't get me wrong, love
Having you wasn't bad
Don't look like that
It's just
you just didn't
cut the mustard
That's all
Cigarette burning down
you look at me
really look at me for the first time
and for a tiny fraction of a fraction
of a second
I think you're sorry
and then it's gone
like the winking red eye
winking out
I want to hate you
I wish I were angry
or even surprised
but
here we are
ending it
over a cigarette butt
(you've sucked one dry
already
in silence, slouching
and shifting from foot
to foot, scratching
your three-day stubble)
outside the tube station
and I just
don't
No hard feelings, darlin'
you mutter
with a squeeze of my shoulder
and you suck on your cigarette
one last time
in the failing light
before you go
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