Cold gray morning. The windows
papered over. The pale
women at rest. A man calls
about a dog, but the dog is
dead or dying or already
decayed. The man leaves with his
hands in his pockets and his
hat askew. Did he ever
have a name? Did he ever
have a face? Afterwards
only his hat remains in the
memory.

And now it rains
a hard fast and terrible
rain. The women stir and take
off their sleepy faces. Is it
time already? they ask. We had
barely begun. No, it is
not time, it is never time.
Time does not run in places
like these. Time is
not relevant while the tea
still stands and the biscuits
remain uneaten.

Caught the vampire's failing smile,
cracked by teeth & venom,
wind-walking among the trees,
talking to the vipers
& the rats & the bats & the
men of the old bonetown.

Mr Mann had the right idea,
burn your books & get the hell outta Dodge.
Do not pass go & do not stop,
do NOT make out in the back of a beat-up old auto
parked next to the hypermarket on Dawn & Vine.

Mr Mann up front,
peering through the cracks in the windscreen,
the cracks in reality.
He can see the vampire's slow smile,
the shadows passing across the face of the TV screen,
& hear the old ghost voices,
the old radio voices, the 1949 voices.

Blood on leather,
black roots rising,
saliva on after-effects & after-echoes,
the apocalypse riders chasing the moon up the old dark valley,
the moon chasing the apocalypse riders right back
down the old dark valley to whatever hell they came from.

The vampires! The vampires!
Children beat hasty retreats,
hide under the boxes back of the laundromat,
not daring to peek
as black boots crunch gravel.

Mr Mann has the right surmise,
get outta the books & into guns,
get into heavy metal & iron drag,
get into lead & something magickal,
long forgotten lore & hoodoo voodoo
from years & years ago.

The vampire's smile turns awful yellow,
fades as the stars wheel & that tired old sun begins its ascent,
fades as the dawn breaks over the desert winds & cacti
& the lovers wake in their motel room in the back of beyond
& fumble for their stakes & knives & garlic *****.

Easy now for Mr Mann in the sun-kissed big blue.
Hunt it down in the tumbledowns & old desert towns.
Kick off the jams, break open the locks.
Hose it down with oil & strike a match.
Burn the reality right off that face
& that face right off reality

Splat on the sand. Grue on the sand. Black on the sand.
Mr Mann walking back to the autombile, back to happiness,
radio playing a little something from 92,
or was it 93, he really can't remember now.

Cold blue morning. Mist and mizzle
and winter trees. A darkened bus
sits at the roadside, the police
in attendance. A small boy, maybe
six or seven, looks on, a cigarette
dangling from his lips.

"If I had a flower for every penguin
that danced," he says.

Death sneaks up on a man
coming in through the open window
like the proverbial thief in the night

Rain on the windows. Music on
the air. Ghost of a girl in
the armchair opposite the TV.
She breathes smoke and flicks
ash from the cigarette in her
right hand.

"Next time," she says, "I'll do it right."

2 AM

The wind drives the rain against the window.
The curtains stir as if brought to life. Trace the
flowers across the walls and the door, the vines
across the chairs and the floor. Turn over and
over again, pretending to sleep or half sleep.

4 AM

A small child weeps and wails. Voices from
the apartment next door. Footfalls and rat's
memories. A bone man enters and exits the room,
his shadow trailing behind like an unwinding
shroud. This is not my home, he says. This is
not my portable TV.

6 AM

Blue grey morning. More wind, more rain.
Faint smell of cigarette smoke on the air. Some-
where a radio plays. Somewhere a spider climbs
into thin air. Somewhere an old woman folds herself
painfully into an armchair.

8 AM

An already weary sun slips the clouds
and brushes the rooftops. Birds fly, cats
flail, dogs trail their masters. A pale
forgotten ghost of a boy drifts half dressed
through the empty rooms of an empty house.

10 AM

All mysteries are now ended, all abominations
shut away. The books are closed and back on
their shelves. The witch in her pointed hat
and patched old cloak switches her machines
off and sits back for the silence.

12 AM

The pencil has snapped, the pen run dry,
the paper curled up. It's raining again,
a hard heavy rain that seems like it may
never let up. The poet's in the bathroom,
standing at the mirror, looking for his soul,
but finding nothing, he belches and yawns.

Crouched between the table & the wall
with his eyes in his hands
& his mouth in the shape of a small
barren island in the Atlantic Ocean
he waits for the blow to fall

Opposite him in the angle formed
by a filing cabinet & a drinks dispenser
a tiny furry creature does the rat-fink-a-boo-boo
its eyes blinking furiously
its ears revolving like an out-of-control radar station

Somewhere a radio plays
& a voice gabbles something about moonshine
& binge drinking & little green men out of Upminister
who are SERIOUSLY NO SERIOUSLY GONNA F--- YOU UP MAN

Later there will be music & lights & long legged
lovelies will strut their funky stuff across the walls
while a siren sounds in the street below
& the woodentops come calling
cudgels primed for some ******* ultraviolence