The snipers rifle hung from the parapet
still warm, cordite drifted from
the business end.

It resembled a cigarette,
dangling in the groove of an
ashtray which was given to you
as a souvenir from a place
you had no desire to go.

And you had no desire to go there
as you had read stories of donkey
cruelty and the militias’ refusal to
accept Greenwich as the
centre of time.

Their struggle against the meridian
has been well documented in film and
prose.

Stories and rumours filtered in
from the hinterland, carried home in
economy flights from different time zones
arriving at the terminal, milling around the
carousel.

****** victim 4 lay in a forensic
scene, white tapped surrounded by
duty free bags, and the secret dossiers
exposing the militias plans drifted, blood
stained in the breeze.

Wild caribou roam the plains

of the smooth golf greens.

A pest to all those who don the plus fours.

Emerging from the rough they charge

at will, impacting with the power of a comet.

They must be killed on sight.

An 8 iron behind the head usually does the trick,

and 19th hole is adorned with the coat stand silhouettes

of dispatched caribou heads.

When Seth asks me a question,
I just make up the answer or
check Wiki for the facts.

But he’s not sticking around,
for an answer or
a misguided guess

He’s in the garden,
selecting stones
to keep as pets

Thunder over Karl Marx’s grave
here comes night
running at me with scissors
dangling sellotape
half finished art projects
still weigh heavy on your mind

like all those missed opportunities,
a C should have been an A.

Pastels not paint. The smudged trail of a finger
across ****** feelings which
surface back to tentative fumblings
with a sister’s friend’s Barbie

the smooth plastic bendable limbs

the positions configured with a one armed Action Man
eagle-eyed and
watching

and if I ever feel down
if I ever feel low
I think back to a story I once read about a woman
who had her face ripped off by a chimpanzee
and as she screamed
the chimpanzee leapt up and down
primitive rage grinning.

Not a pleasant sight I can imagine
but when I feel down,
that’s what I think about,
a woman
and a chimpanzee
ith a face hanging from his primate fangs.

when they are forgotten?

He felt their death worthwhile, even enjoyable
whereas his light and oxygen were dead and forgotten.
gone

he wanted to speak to buildings but they looked redundant
instead,
he offered to converse with some benign God who was staring at him through the rumble of yesterday

couldn’t remember his childhood
only scaffolding could hold him up on
normal days when
phones melted

he dripped sweat and feared the conquistadors of death

he would disintegrate into a dust
a human sacrifice in a hot country his heart ripped from his chest and shown on a screen.

his throat was constricted,
sitting at a cheap mass produced desk

he had been invaded by a majestic warm light but alas
he was just a bricked upman in a suit

his body felt like a memory. this scared him.
he sat in a corner and offered the invisible God of indifference
trinkets and baubles.

Time will tick by on a watch,
attached to a skinny wrist,
the hands rotate casting small shadows over roman numerals,
silhouetted behind bonsai tress with eyes that squint tight in this end of summer light.

Phones serve no purpose until they ring,
and in hospitals life support machines beep beep electronically
as people are feed through tubes that gurgle
and words get stuck in their throats as life constricts and
in these ***** municipal corridors death stalks dressed in a stained uniform.

Men in ties crunch numbers and say, ”There is no way to say this Mrs Smith, it would just be cheaper if your husband died.”
We can turn off the switch and you can take him home in the back of your car.
You don’t have a car?
That’s ok, a bus stops just outside.”

Leaves are falling early this season turning the floor brown.