I claw at the fringes of life
as the shadow of Ophelia.
The spoilt daughter of Polonius
may have gone insane
but she will never reach the depth
of what my charming existence
has become, the strangled hole
of fantasy, the bitterly guarded memories
she shed as she slips into the water,
Hamlet bound to the end,
in the murky river, knotweed, unheard,
fast flowing thoughts of increasing vanity…
She left me by the shoreline in despair
as she lay still and her heavy
What was he doing in the Adanac House,
the conjured ideas and the stories
he would recount and regale me
with as I sat on my young backside,
at his feet, staring up at this giant of a man, always
knowing in the back of my mind
that I could never match him
in spirit, endeavour or deed,
indeed as he swam Lake Ontario
as a young man, before the Birmingham Blitz
came calling and the chance to drive
a tram through dust laden
post war streets and roads, psychologically
They duel for supremacy,
thrusting through the pain
of psychological split personalities
and yet as they are
one mind,
one body,
they pray to altars that are inaccurate
of their true desires, that their belief
in each other as the sub-dominant
creature and that the latent one
underneath is the true face in which to wear.
The contest will always be uneven
as the illusion is far
too engrained, no middle ground
in this fight, where they can be no
blood spilt as both duellists
There are times I happily forget
that you exist at all,
outside of nightmares,
the broken shafts of disturbed light
and the mental scars of abuse;
I happily forget the put-downs,
the anger, the snide comments,
the destructive silences,
the tailor-made insults,
the one time you hit me,
the mean demands,
the malicious lies,
the spiteful kicks,
the way you left me in a hospital bed,
the wickedness of your games,
the cruelty,
the cruel devices and heartless devious nature
It is gnawing away tonight,
the alien, the parasite,
the body’s own black dog
with sharpened claws
and rabid spittle chocked teeth
is eating away at the spine
and I want to scream
this is not who I am…
but I left it far too late,
procrastinating
about Time,
always Time,
in which to reason with the parasite
that gnaws at my spine…
reason…
how to reason with the enemy within
and how to keep arguing
I am but the gracious Fool of a negligent king.
He only speaks when nobody can see me
or when nobody can feel the disdain
of his regal flapping tongue’s insanity
as it proves to be as afraid
of the dark as he.
I am but the foolish grace
in harlequin clothes
and hey nonny irrational repose
as I embrace your impudent soul,
as I cradle your elderly, dusty, ancient bones
and psychologically fractured mind.
I am but an honourable Fool
Welcome to the New Reich,
Welcome to the
British Reich,
you might not be able to see the dawn
of the new realm yet
through the glaze of square eyed
television or perhaps you
haven’t felt the terror
seeping in through the gutter,
Welcome to the New Reich.
Welcome to the New Reich,
suits you, suits them,
suits for all, boxes
for all, tick boxes, categories, the confidence trick,
just a small cut here, a nip there,
a tuck away for a rainy day,
There was a certain element of surprise
when I found out you had been reading
C.S. Lewis in the time
between spare time
and after your morning walk,
no longer with lead in hand
after so many years of boundless joy.
The surprise was split both ways,
mine at you finally reading
a book I first devoured
in dark army ticking blanket
days and under the cover so the Witch
could not see me, yours,
that I knew exactly what you meant
when you said The Horse and his Boy,
The argument ran thus;
“What has Maths ever done for me?,
I mean it’s not like I even pretended
to take notice of the sex life
of the binary equation
and the evening antics of bisect,
the washing lines of Bicester not safe
when bisect was around, I haven’t given a toss
about trigonometry or the centimetre
since I discovered word play,
a cuboid is a Star Trek legend,
to estimate is for friends
the formula is a sport I don’t follow
a nine sided polygon is just
I’m sure they won’t be satisfied
until the day is forty-eight hours long
and still with only a few hours sleep
available between work and death;
they would find a way,
by shifting digits, by claiming
the Earth actually needs to go round
the Sun twice
to constitute a year, or just by simply
brow beating into the kids
that a day is twice as long as they think
by sending them too school for longer
and forgoing the activities
that make them become who they are;