a cult novilist in Blackpool
watches Martina Navratilova
throw sugar lumps
at passers by
as captured teardrops
in a teaspoon
call, plead, for understanding
perhaps release
for they’re not the
obsessive prize
once hailed as trophy
but simply words in the air
that execute that which never comes
causing a retreat from an ordinance
of nothing
where time defiles itself
a red speckled jersey
whose arms, once occupied
are too small, limited
like abandoned prosthetics
leaving rotting flesh
to slowly scald the earth
with a vaporous experience
of emotional contrasts
like that of mesmerising serpents
whose visional embrace
stares deeply with such a charge
of ****** energy
that causes the air to weep
and poses the question
who shall give me leave