Cloud on the mountains. Rain
in the valleys. Mist between
the trees.

An old man leads a horse
between dry stone walls.
He is followed by a small
white dog & a capering
spirit. He raises his cap
as we pass & the rain falls
even harder.

Looks like weather, says
the spirit. Aye, says the
dog. And there'll be no
sun till Monday earliest.
Tuesday if we're unlucky,
says the horse. And Sunday
if we're not, says the
old fella, replacing the
cap on his head.

The boy makes a clumsy play
The young lady beats him with her wooden leg
Birds fly from his broken heart

I ***** his beats
& beat his bones
Blueward he turned
before he went
Blueward backwards
bendy into the morning
where grass & ****
run brown to sun

He dreams the rain
on the windows.  There
are girls in the walls,
bones of a small animal
beneath the bed.  In
these dreams he's always
dead or half dead,  propped
against the door like an old
saw.  He believes he may
be waiting for something or
someone , a ghost or a bone
man, or a woman with a cat's
smile carrying a crystal
decanter or crystal meths.
His hands are very soft,
the bones may have gone.
His feet though are hard
& tough,  like rock or metal
or the back of the door he
leans against.  Sometimes it
seems to him he may no longer
be quite human,  no longer quite
of this world,  or the world
next door for that matter.
Sometimes he's not even sure
he's here at all

Stuffed bird turns
& turns again
while the snapple man
snaps & cracks a cackle
& the slow doll dances
a waltz with the
taxidermist's daughter.

The girl has her moons
her bones her copper coins
her deadly silver nightshade

She has her planets her stars
her fox fur & golden daggers
her small god in a corner of the room

She has her bestiaries
her angels & devils & demons
her gaudy little perfumed monsters

She has her rituals pat
her hand signs & subtle gestures
her dance for the ancient ceremonies

She is ready now
she can begin

Poems must sometimes be broken
to make new rules
and rules must sometimes be broken
to make new poems

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

He's forgotten
she's forgotten
they've forgotten

Everything once remembered
is now forgotten
Everything once forgotten
remains forgotten

To forget
to continue to forget
to forget even you've forgotten
is to forget you've forgotten to forget

in the cold dark
the dark cold
with baby drone
the drone baby
listening in
watching over
waiting waiting
waiting for the wait to end

Time drones
on & on & on

Days become weeks
become months become years

There's rain on the windows
steam on the windows
dust on the windows

Paper peels off the walls
plaster flakes off the walls

Time drones
on & on & on

We go on because we have to go on,
because we have to have some place to go.

Show me your poems, he said,
leaning into the dark.
Show me your poems
and I'll show you a world.

No need for that, she said,
leaning into the light.
No need for that at all.
Here, I'll show you a world.

spider-like
forwards backwards
backwards forwards
sidewards sidewards
sidewards again

Sits in the straight-backed chair
opposite the door in the wall,
shotgun across his knees,
glasses on the end of his nose,
and rubs at an itch above his eye.

They will come by night
when the building settles
around the central stairwell
and all the old ghosts
have returned to their bones.

They will come by stealth
and tiptoe, with torchlight playing
across the graffiti, and shadows
dancing over the cigarette butts
and beer bottles  They will come with
the Lord in their right eye and the
Devil in their left.  They will be
gentlemen about it of course, but
force of arms will be with them and a
terrible righteousness

He does not think he can keep them out
and he is not sure he can take them with him.
In fact he is not even sure he knows
what he is doing. His heart is weak and
his head is heavy and he can't see so good
anymore. If only he had a dog. If only he
had a radio and music, something old and smooth
and sad. If only he had a smoke.

Midnight passes with the moon,
and behind him the curtains stir
and a paper bird takes wing.
It is surely past time. He is thirsty
and his bowels ache and his legs are cramping.
How long does it take three dread men
to climb some stairs. His fingers twitch and he
hears a rat's sound. Death comes slowly.

crawling
keep crawling
creeping crawling
crawling creeping
keep creeping
creeping

cant go on
shant go on
must go on
will go on
on and on

the fear the pain
the pain the fear
the waiting
the long waiting
the night waiting

the shame the angst
the angst the shame
the hating
the self hating
the life hating

the guilt the tears
the tears the guilt
the pacing
the slow pacing
the days pacing

crabwise by nightwise
the light flies
the light lies
the light dies
crabwise by nightwise

sideways in the dark
& sideways again

the shadows wrap themselves
like cats
&
the cats wrap themselves
like shadows

& sideways again
sideways in the dark