I don't think I've ever been the stuff of woman’s fantasies

I doubt a stranger passing on a street has given me

a second glance you see,

I can't play guitar I can't sing a song I can't even dance

I am what some magazines would call “out of shape”

I have a beard but contrary to stereotypes

it doesn’t smell nor does it contain

remnants of food like Mr Twit .

But maybe if I died in some immaculate way

I'd be revered and future people would pray to effigies of me,

have images of me dangling from their neck.

Alters made up of an old shoe I once wore,

or perhaps a piece of paper I had scribbled on?

My pathetic writing suddenly prophetic.

Until then I guess I continue to exist

and grow my beard in readiness.

...will have a bearded left wing protagonist raging on behalf of the proletariat.He'll share a flat with a metaphor for the 21st century malaise

and when they talk

they will talk in the forgotten syntax of washing powder ads from the 50's and construct sentences from toilet graffiti remembered from youth.

Their flat will be infested with insects and disgruntled middle management, grumbling about the lack of vertical opportunities and the implementation of a new computer system.

Filing cabinets will contain stolen secrets of unknown cultures, manilla folders will hold evidence of unsolved ****** cases stretching back a hundred years where the suspects all look uncannily the same.

The theory of a time travelling murderer is considered but never openly discussed.

The fridge contains nothing but under developed ideas and stale rhetoric.

This is a flat with no doors.

The artist only used black,
he wouldn't say why his mum named him after a King

in palaces where feral children investigate
the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle from their sofa where

they translated “idiot savant” as
stupid servant was written on permanent files

somewhere hidden alongside
DVDs that were posted on line showing monkeys in boxes
throwing themselves to death against perspex walls

splattering Rorschach patterns of childish nightmares,
the boogeyman.

A butterfly.

Some people think aliens from another planet have been here, right here on earth,

possibly webbed of foot
sticky talons,
sharp lizard skin,
six gills
revolutionary eyes?

landed in a field of sleeping cows,
perhaps
somewhere -

then again some people
say they have have never been on a bus

while others insist they have never eaten an orange - juice shooting - sticky fingers

And I just don't know who to believe.

I am in a room made of glass, sorry,
let me clarify,
the walls and doors are glass,
the carpet is woven by a machine where the workers are limited to toilet breaks,

the plants are plastic in pots of gravel

but the walls are glass and everyone can see in and I can see out.

The table is shaped like a kidney, don't ask me why, it just is, manufactured by a factory making furniture shaped like human organs.

That's the shape of the table, I can't change that,

and the chairs are moulded from one piece of plastic, in bright colours and people look in through glass walls.

I look out and I am really not there.

An appetite for wildlife they said.
hundreds of heads on the wall,
the smallest to the left,
the head of an ant
and on the right
the largest,
his finest ****,
stalked day and night for weeks,

finally brought to ground with a bazooka, a steady hand and some luck:
the head of a great blue whale.

And in between them,
a cat -
a giraffe and
a couple of celebrity chefs
mounted,
with eyes as black as the
finest caviar,
staring.

The moving van pulled up blocking out the sun, stopping right outside my window.

The house next door had been empty for a few weeks now. I was intrigued to see who would be moving in.

I opened the front door and made some up some excuse so I could walk to the end of my drive and have a look.

To see what was happening.

From the angle I was at, all I could see was the ramp at the back of the truck.

Descending down the ramp came a family of apes, carrying a variety of ornate furniture.

The dad looked over his shoulder,

looked me straight in the eyes,"Hello there, I'm Mr Johnson".

He then put down the lampshade, reached out, and with his long simian fingers proceeded to try and remove (imaginary) tics from my hair.
I stepped back and he offered his hand for me to shake.

Shake it I did.

And the lampshade he was carrying was delightful. It would have matched my curtains and I turned away, jealous.