The view from up here is magnificent, the possibilities endless
but it has to be beyond memorable to catch everyone’s eye
and make them sigh inwardly with a rush
of pleasure that they may have seen a piece of you
as they go on their way past the noise of seagulls
as they flap in God-like unison looking for the worms on the very bottom
where you actually reside and breath.
As they climb back down the stairs and every so often pause
to see how the view looks from a different perspective,
I cannot feel my pulse under the skin
and my breathing
at times too erratic, too shallow,
unkempt
and barely noticeable, only captured in the smoked over
glass as the whisper of exhalation or in the stagnated
overthrow of winter’s icy breath
that makes me want to remember images
of my childhood with a chocolate cigarette, two fingers
up to the corner of my mouth as if I
was recreating a scene
from a film noir
and I was the gumshoe solving
my own imminent demise.
A spider may be considered to be more disturbing by some
but your eyes betray the coldness of a killer
as they scan the room and your head barely pivots
upon the neck, no twitching of muscle visible
as the glare of insanity relaxes briefly
sensing no immediate threat to the game.
I see across the room and I watch with morbid
fascination and discern no sweat line even in the mouldering heat
and realise that inside of you, it must be awash, the agitation
of the Charles Manson like persona, the matted hair
I didn’t care where the shooting stars fell
as I watched them travel the night sky,
jet packed, pre-historic revolutionary travellers
falling to ground in chunks, bombarding the Earth,
causing small dimples to pock-mark the scared green land,
for all I cared about was the dimples in your cheeks
as they rose higher and turned sacred red
as you watched in girlish anticipation
for another to wish your life upon.
We lay atop the roof of your Volkswagan, your baby,
yellow crusted, old cans and bottles rattling
“It’s different”, she said to me, her eyes blazing
with the ferocity of one caught in the act of shielding
her pupils against the sudden rush of sunlight
that had crept over the green lush hill
full of potential and the intoxicating aroma
of diverse flowers flowing on the wings of Apollo,
not a rose in sight to pour scorn over.
“It’s as if the dance we had is the same,
the tune vaguely familiar and interesting, but the steps,
the ones we learned together, have now been altered.”
I let the flames devour the past today
whilst keeping each memory intact for future use.
I let an explosion of tight yellows and blues spread
and search for more fuel, more wasted ways to say
that the muse of words have been completely abused
and now they lay fried and buried, the words are dead.
I once hung upon them and revered them to show growth,
the patient delivery of a lead-lined pencil, the Time between Time
and the slow mark of a pact, the most solemn of oaths;
I haven’t forgotten your plastic incredulity
as you maintain that a person can live on seven pounds a day,
I just don’t want you to think that just because
the mere mortals, the poor, the generous hearted,
those that work to keep you in the lifestyle
of your choosing
the lifestyle of the miserable and the man who misses the whip
that he could have used in days gone past in the plantation
as he rides over the emotion of the down at heel or
perhaps more likely he wishes with some girlish glee
I throw one hand up in complete
surrender,
the other is reaching for a gun
in which to take my life
first
before
the disease takes hold even more
and I have to have the one thing
that I never wanted to have
which was to lose
control
and have to have
someone look after me
like I was a child, incapable
of making my own decisions
and life
is
rendered
meaningless
and sought for destruction.
Oh Saint Esther,
what will you do now as they
dismiss you from their service,
your public face as you shop for the family linen,
worn out through expectation but with your secret
safe, as you hold your master’s balls
in a vice-like grip, as they know your closet wish,
your overwhelming desire to cause mayhem
with a flutter of the eyelashes and a pillow
over the family’s mouths at night
when they aren’t looking, just practising for when the big day
comes around and it is finally legal for you
There is a chill, a feeling of the super-natural
when I hear your anthem being sang by the citizens
of the flag, resplendent in red and white, the colours
of victories past and battle hardened men,
of women, proud, noble and strong, perhaps by design
the strongest of them all, but the ones with rose-like cheekbones
standing to attention when something humorous happens,
the ones for whom the tears fall silently as justice is done.
The first stirrings of your anthem were audible on a Wednesday night