Black dust and Black air.

She stands there breathing her beauty
he inhales, softly, cancerous.

six foot
her face is covered in blue
gold
red
green
orange pink
silver
white purple

black

glitter.

In the black stone arched emporium,
black dust and black air,
the glitter mirrors on his face.
Her gown flutters and billows, waving like the water.

He kisses her lip, gently.
The glitter begins to blur, smudge,
It blurs and smudges, the horror ensues.

He kisses her cheek, her eyelid, the side of her neck,
but it all blurs.
Her face is now a blur, apart from her shocked eyes, staring, still.

A single tear rolls down his face as he backs away,
the black is coming now,
the black is suffocating
the black is, impalpable.

He tears the glitter off his skin in reams
whilst he stands naked in the canal covered by more stone.
Goosebumps line his thighs.
There are two old women, one shrouded in blackness, knitting, holding a ball of black wool with her feet in the water,
it soaks through and feels like a wet head of dead hair.
The other woman also dressed in black gently peels his sunburnt glitter skin.

The darkness yet again sets in,
the black out.

"He doesn't say much any more." She says, lighting another cigarette.
"He's dropped. His laughter is a wimper and his smile is no longer part of the moon but rigged with dental floss." He says, clearing the way for his just dessert.

Thank you for the present.
I come outside,
called by you.

You're so proud of the present.
A huge, rusted engine of a boat.
"Quickly, quickly," you say,
"Before you miss it all"

The 'sea foam' begins to disappear,
the starfish drop off and curl like burning dry leaves,
screeching, screaming in excruciation
before the ash flies upwards.

The puddles rings shake inwards.
In the puddle are potted plants in plastic bags,
waiting to go home with me.

"How am I going to take this home?" I say with a slight, hesitant laugh.
Secretly I don't want to take it home.
I have to.

I sit on the train with this engine,
taking up half a carriage like a white elephant.
People don't notice it.

"What a nice engine," says an old woman with wise eyes and a red, leather suitcase.
"Thank you," I reply.

I wish she would take it.

They Leap, Through Each Blurb

There are too many books in this room. They can't all be read.
Stacked, Piled, Skewed.
The characters are inside waiting to be read, met and breathed on by the nose of the reader.

The smoke goes in when the door is shut.
It enters the leaves and runs through the words.
Robinson Crusoe enjoys the smell, for he has not smoked for twenty eight years. 'This is not, quite, fine tobacco,' He says. Seemingly twenty eight years on a desert island has not hindered his habit.
Alice sits in the house, her arm hanging through the drapes and touching the vegetable patch. Alice does not like the smoke; she continuously wafts the netted curtains, sighing gently, her eyes watering, raw and red.
I can hear Annie Wilkes, 'You dirty bird,' she says, 'You dirty smoking bird.' Reaching for her mallet, she remembers the law of the novel. Only act as you are read.

Sometimes I imagine that they would leap, through each blurb in to the next novel, transcend and drip through the pages and slowly, steadily, Lady Audley would creep in to Dorian's room, she would sit there, waiting for his return from the Opera and greet him, hungry for his beauty and fame only to join him later in the picture. She would grow old, her skin like a turkey and her nails, dropping off one by one to leave hard dried ends on her witches pointed fingers.

I Wonder if They Will Mummify Me

Lines.
There are lines in my hands.
There are lines in my hands and they worry me.

I think of these lines,
and these thoughts tunnel,
just like the tunnels and grooves and caves on the inside of my palm.

These lines have at least trebled in quantity
since
i started back in April.
I, am a manual worker.

Perhaps these lines represent all the thoughts,
parallel,
non stop,
multiplying,
forever, forever,
endless, endless,
continuum, continuum,
never leaving but forever multiplying.

They will stay, indented
indented and grow stronger, deeper, further,
they will crack with age
they will be dirty, plagued by mud and dirt
they will be disgusting.
They will be cracked, and dirty, plagued by mud and dirt and be disgusting.

Oh.


My palms look old. Ancient.
Just like an Egyptian cat.
I wonder if they will mummify me.

At least they are not hairy.
Hairy palms are a sure sign of madness.

The Back Doors

You smoked those cigarettes.
The ones you used to smoke.

I smoked them too, you'd give me one.
Your last ones.
In the middle of the night, in the morning,
at the back doors.

The food, burnt.
The slovenly cooker: old she was,
she forgot how to cook, how to time,
how to mime.

The mime, the show. The fucking pantomime.

I miss you boy.
I don't miss you. I miss the times.

In fact,
I don't miss the times at all.

There were no times,
the times were endless
because there was no start.

It ended before it began.

You don't deserve my words

The Gulls Scream Louder Than the Pigeons

The gulls scream louder than the pigeons,
especially in the deep dark.
At night,
they creep in the sky,
flittering to the moon to visit the witch.

Invisible and loud,
their wings like forks covered in dust and dried porridge oats,
they fall in to the sink and
clatter.

They sound like screaming, tortured puppies.
Hot pokers, knives and things.
They dance through the clouds, and scream,
they scream until I wake and have to blindly urinate.

Eyes closed I hold my hand out
in the hallway hidden with ghosts trying to find the door,
I crawl back in to my warm bed,
push the duvet under my feet and sleep,
i spoon the cushion.
I'm going to have a good day today.
I'm going to have a good day today.