A fire raged in the darkness that resembled a postcard sent from hell
It was destroying the once beautiful vision that was the old town Carousel
Large striking white horses that in the past stood like angels in the night
Were all now fiercely burning as they cast an eerie sight
The smell of the charred wood and the plume of ash in the air
Left a tearjerking memory to the workers on the fair
A disturbing insight into mindlessness certain people possess
The flames rose in the air caused by those who couldn’t care less
Blistering heat was getting stronger with every hour that past
The sounds of loud sirens finally filled the air at last
Gone was the wonderful paintwork resembling times gone by
Now there were black patches that made the ancients cry
What now for the old Carousel?
With so many stories yet to tell

A certain quiet glinting in the corner of my eye
a prickle-necked foreboding in a sullen winter sky
An ultrasonic wavelength tuned to sorrow and to fear
comes manifest, projected through my wish to bring it near
A pressure change, a slamming door, a thought of things undone
comes seeping through the paintwork for a bit of spectral fun

And I can sit complacently and watch the show unfold
My perfect explanations make me curious and bold
I wonder how my brain will paint this misty-coloured scene
What face will fly from memory where no face should have been
I have no need for magic or for spirits of the dead
But seek the secret passages that twine within my head

And here it comes, as if on cue, parading through the wall
(A weaker man than me would think his wisdom rather small)
The wraith is clothed in folklore, stepping past without a glance
And I would laugh it off but for one ghastly circumstance:
For all my knowledge, nothing helps the second that I see
That solid as I feel, this ghost
                                                     does not
                                                                ­       believe
                                                                ­                      in me.

i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

I can scarcely bring myself to tell the tale
of how yet another internet date
went tragically wrong thanks to
shameless deceit crueller than I can say.

I suffer so many sadnesses as I seek true love
via internet site
after internet site
but I really thought yes
this time yes this time yes
finally after so many ****-ups
of one sort or another
so I foolishly imagined I was onto a good thing
but would you believe it
another date went wrong
and my poor heart breaks.

I recall 'twas a a cool autumn evening
with a hint of hail in the sky
but we had agreed to meet
perhaps optimistically
at a secluded spot in the municipal gardens
down by the victorian fountain
where the queers congregate by night
leaving skidmarks on the paintwork
after deep **** love therapy.

I can still hear the tweety-birds singing
their oh-so-nice chirping song
in the trees where they perched
trying to **** on passers-by
especially the handicapped
(who could less easily dodge
their good luck messages
without toppling over).

I ran headlong down the path
and my little ***** wobbled
with eager anticipation of love
innocently carelessly naively perhaps
for I felt deep in my trusting heart
that at last with a bit of luck
I might score for a good hard poke
on our first date or at least a right deep feel-up
and a copious exchange of mouth fluids
at the very very least.

I read through the print-out
from the new internet site
where serendipity had brought us
together like lost souls in a storm
(www.******-poking.com since you ask)
and I felt your comment
'I love *******, ******* and more'
was probably good sign
all in all
bearing in mind its implications.

I thought you might be quite a looker
from the photo you had posted
especially since I could
just about partially see
the wicked grin on your face
whilst you were ******* on
two obese men's knobs
(in the photo I mean)
and then you appeared
with your huge mongoloid skull
peeping excitedly out
of the filthy rags you wore
oh dear jesus I cried out in joy
I could smell your ****-drenched ******
from seventy-five yards away
and one of the swans on the lake
drowned itself to escape the pong.

I stared at the diarrhoea oozing from your pants
in romantic dollops
we strolled through the park
(well I strolled but you hobbled)
chattering away the way lovers do
when they are up for it
against all the ******* odds
and as I have observed on other occasions
love isn’t just a matter of aesthetics
after all animal attraction has a lot going for it
but you have to draw the line
somewhere
and you were way out of order
so very reluctantly
(but firmly and resolutely)
I gave you a gentle push
toppling you into the swollen stream
as it exited the decorative lake
and believe me when I say
that I will always remember the sound
of your aquatic scream
as the fast-moving current
took you away from my sad eyes
down to the millrace
and merciful release
from a life of disappointment.

I look into my life.
It’s distorted,
Curved at the peripheries
‘Till I’m required to squint,
Just to make out the features
Beneath the glass.

In the snow lies dead thought.
Water stagnant,
Green-blue and faded paintwork.
How I ache for that great hand
To lift, shake and cascade me
With memories.

Rain on me my life’s memoirs.
Drown me in snow.
I sit and I wait for when
These monotone streets will
Fan and flame, burst to colour,
Burst to flavour.

My romanticised past,
I marvel at.
Recall each day as a dream,
And each night an excursion
Of wanderlust, innocence
And fair fortune.

For now, I’ll remain here.
These arching walls,
My old translucent prison.
Life in stasis, I’m stubborn
As I avoid career-paths
In my dome,

And wonder when this world
Will begin to feel like home.

After the English fry-up at the Turkish café,
I ask to use the toilet.
It’s through the back of the kitchen where his wife
Is washing pans, out the door and down the stairs
Rusted with years of rain and peeling paintwork.
In the passage down below, between moss-grown brick,
A patch of earth. So many pots line the walls.
A few onions sprout. A maple tree. Some emerald shoots
Beneath a seed packet sign saying “Gladioli”.
It is quiet here. A place where servitude ends,
Where pause is taken
From the sound of coffee machines and clatter,
Chip-fryer sizzling and the perpetual radio’s chatter.
A spot within the city, apart from the chaos upstairs,
Where the proprietor can breathe
More than fumes and demands,
Smoke a single cigarette and contemplate
A pebble carefully placed among the hidden green
And trace the ground of being, a memory of home.

trim and finishing
   the paintwork will reveal no matter how spackled
if the planning and footings aren't square.

custom  millwork and artsy craft
   do not hide the lack of deft blueprints
and engineering

Correctly spacing the 2 by Fours and !/4 Rounds
   without plumbing  and building on solid ground
leave many a stair to be climbed

Upper floors are where it's at when we are designing our houses.
  If a temple or an apartment, a plan,
is our solid foundation.

I remember the shadows of empty mystery
That cloaked the door as rot cloaks a stagnant pool
I remember the dingy corner it crouched in
Just out of reach of the old and wavering lightbulb
I remember how I never seemed to see it
How it would seemingly meld with the dark as I passed
I remember the call of curiosity’s mouse-hole
Drawing me in like a noose around my drumming heart
I remember the tired paintwork as I stroked it
It crumbled into my hands and coated my palms like ****** ******
I remember the corpse-like wood that lay beneath
Gnarled by time like the hands of a long dead Messiah
I remember the moan of a seldom turned handle
Mirroring the sudden cry of a crow outside in the grey cold
I remember the hurricane of dust that migrated out
That clogged my nostrils and choked my throat

I remember the Flesh Eating Monsters housed within

I remember the yelp, and then scream of a child
It was me
I remember the clunk of a barrier restored
I prayed that a door would be enough to protect me
I remember the rush of musty air down my throat
As I trembled up stairs to the open arms of safety
I remember the tears that rattled my eyes
How they ruined the shoulder of the jumper you were wearing
I remember the love that I felt for you then
I was a bundle of innocence sobbing a funeral march
I remember awaking to the chill of my sweat
And solemnly promising to try to forget

I’m crouched in the same dark cold corner.
The empty damp corner of my cell.
The corner I’ve sat in for so long.
The corner I know so well.

Every chip in the paintwork.
Every damp patch on the floor.
I know this corner.
It’s the same as it was when I came before.

But it now seems I’m here forever.
There’s no getting out this time.
I’m going to sit in this same lonely corner,
till my spirit goes and I die.

The cold, the damp, the hunger pains.
The feeling of being alone.
The loneliness of waking up,
and seeing the walls you’ve seen for so long.
No one around, nothing to call your own.

The feeling and warmth of the sun shining through.
I jump up and down to try get a view.
But the hole is too high, I can’t even smell,
and nobody hears me if I yell.  

But what’s the point of sitting here each day?
Time goes by - Boredom...Decay.
No one now thinks of me, nobody cares.
I might as well be dead or not even born.

The day I die, leave this hole,
will be my liberation away from it all.

Copyright: Gordon Warren (1986)

The car whose paintwork
claims that the end is near, trundles
past my window as I look across
the ebbing amber of civilisation
before me, which I have become
perversely accustomed to.

The Arabian accordion has
ceased to play, in the streets
where the masses move as one,
buttoned up to their necks in
a futile attempt to escape the
inevitable wrath of circumstance.

The dusty silhouettes across
the bar have all finished their
drinks, clasping onto glass hollow
like the minds of which the
harsh winter rendered strongly,
to be alone is to feel nothing.

The air hangs thick amongst
the stone walls of the houses
of the slowly suffocating people,
the ones with the stained ribbons
in the hair from almost six years
ago, clutching on to particular thoughts.

And the oriental lady plays
with tins outside my door,
while I peel back my nails in
search of ink, all the time thinking
the sleeve made wet by nostalgia
is nearly rolled up, all the way back home

I was all alone, just me, just one
You see alone, alone has the word one and there is only one of me and only one of you
But what word means us and has the word two because I don’t want one alone, I want us the two
I have tried so hard to find the word because I want you, and I want us, and I want true, and I want two
How about the word Artwork? That has the word two
Does it work, because you are a work of art and I work hard to find our word with two
Trustworthy! That’s it, right? It has the word two, and I trust you, but do you trust me…? I don’t know
Paintwork… It has the word two, but it also has the word pain and then there is the word outwork
And I feel outworked, trying to find the word that has two, to prove to you, my love is true, and that’s all I want to do
But why isn’t there a word for two?

I’ve always thought that buildings are like graveyards for memories;
The dead preserved between walls like flowers pressed in pages,
The lost parts of our selves hung up like portraits or calendars; Reminding us of our lives.

I’ve taken to wondering about why we got our kitchen re-done
While we let the rest of our house fall apart
And I think I’ve found the answer.

We don’t want to remember our dead.

Over the summer we striped back the tiles
And painted the walls with sunshine;
The washing machine and the microwave migrated
And the floor space receded
To make way for all our cupboards to be empty.
We dragged the evidence out into the yard
And scribbled over it like it was a spelling mistake.

The kitchen was the room where we’d all died several times over
And so the cemetery had to be uprooted and annihilated
Before we began to smell the decay of the past versions of ourselves.
We had to prise mould from the corners
And resolutely redecorate the place where Anorexia had been most prominent.

It was ironic really

That this purge was to rid ourselves of Anorexia When purging had, so frequently, been a means of feeding it.

It was pointless really

Because the kitchen might have been the part of the house that got bombed the most heavily by my brother’s eating disorder
But it was not the only room with bullet holes punching through the paintwork.
Each wall is avalanched away by postcards and snapshots and letters home
That my fourteen-year-old -self framed with fear and anger and hate.

What my home means to me is the bed I saw my mother howling on
And the scales my brother teetered on
And the doorway my father swore from.
When I see the painting on my brother’s wall
I think not of art but of a children’s hospital
And when I see my blue bean bag
I think not of film-watching but of the practise of crying tearlessly.

We know a family who lived in the same little Mental-Illness-Bubble that we did.
“We’ve still got the lamp shade that she threw her plate of tomato pasta at,”
They say whenever we see them.
“We have a good laugh about that,”
And they explain the way they deal with their history
Like the person who taught them optimism did a better job with them than ours did with us.
We’re four cynics crouching under one roof
Like we’d rust in the rain that we miser over.
Unable to move on.
We attempt but it is too hard, too rigid, too stiff.
My joints have more titanium than my grandmother’s –
No, not titanium; lead.
Every time I try to step away from anorexia
I find that there is too much grit behind my patella,
Too much debris lodged between my brittled bones.
Debris that’s left over from all the toxins and dirt and tears that I couldn’t manage to cry.

I hug myself on the staircase and wonder
How many years it will be before I can watch the front door without watching for dying Crane Flies.
How many times must I sit opposite my brother before I can forget sitting opposite a skeleton?
How long will it take to stop seeing ***** stains in the toilet and the writhing veins in my brother’s arms?

I’m waiting for the day when we can throw away blood-stained lampshades
And remember instead how, as children, we threw paper aeroplanes down these stairs.

It was always my brother’s plane that flew the furthest.

A man’s bike is very much like a loyal dog,
Obedient, fast and often times clumsy
For us men, our bike’s can mean the world to us,
For they take us from A to B, and from Y to Z
Our bike’s can’t survive on their own you know, the past has proven this so
Maintenance is a must, not a maybe,
Just like you wouldn’t leave home without feeding the hound, would you?
We’ve travelled across cities ten-fold, my bike and I,
Beyond mountainous regions and across lakes and rivers
You see, my bike has this energy,
Not like anything I have witnessed before
It surpasses all expectations, and has held together strong through the ages of time
I never gave my bike a name,
And nor will I ever plan to do so
For the bike, you see is part of our physical being,
And has one solid purpose in life
See, It’s just a piece of mechanical assembly
Built for our pleasure in mind
It takes us places where the foot dare not enter,
And where the car wheel would struggle to go
Two wheels, rotating simultaneously at dizzying speeds!
Ah! What a sight to behold
As I take my dear boy by the handle bars, its glistening paintwork shines bright
I make sure it’s sturdy for the ride ahead, my mechanical warhorse
I say to myself under uncertain breath..
“Let’s follow the sunset, or where the rainbow ends its journey”
For our uncertainty leads to great adventure and discovery
And in the end, isn’t life meant to be one big beautiful adventure, anyway?

Lightning strikes in the distance. The winds
Howl, moons echo in faraway orbits, the wolves
Throw up their heads and scream into the night.

A gust of moonlight rushes through your focus,
Cursing your vision with faint outlines, phantoms
Of your window-sill. You think you hear the sea
But you have no blue. None but your curtains,
Flapping in the gale, raising like a crescendo

Up to the coldest stars, spread out across the sky,
Brush-stroke on canvas. Violins, the taste of coffee.
The wolves howl. Moons echo with your paintwork.

He was stood at the door as if he didn't know what door it was and it was him
as clear as the nose on my face it was him looking thinner now, eyes a bit dimmer now,
stood at the same door,
the paintwork scuffed by years and mistrust of exorbitant prices charged by local traders the paint your own raiders, but fading all the same.

I didn't know him now,
change is a funny cow when
life gives you the milk and
then it turns sour.

He stood there for an hour
the shadows moved up his raincoat and
dropped into his pockets,
hands aimlessly wandering at the ends of his wrists.

I missed something about him
not sure what it was and it was him
I'm sure of it.

Listen, if I love you, I love you. ‬
Blonde streaks of sun constantly beaming will one day erase the paintwork we did on the iron fence,
but not this.

If I love you, I love you.
The toad greets the morning dew with a croak from his throat, and we fill our cups to the brim listening to our nerves, is that your heart or mine? I felt flannel slip on my fingers and I saw the daybreak.

If I love you, I love you.
Someday I will not have the guts to look at you. Someday you will not speak to me. I loved you inevitably and you will go as the universe wish. Cinema stubs will replace your scent. Your laughter is a eulogy. I will not pass by the same road twice, and you will never retrace your steps.

If I love you, I love you.
The world called and told you how to find me. My fingers answered by shutting the door. I am sorry for loving you with a heavy hand. I love you and I love you. But it is not enough.

I'm a cheap hotel room
                   With a story to tell
                    I look pretty shabby
                   And I'm not very well
                    I'm used and abused
                    My paintwork is old
                   The owner keeps the heating low
                        And I'm constantly cold!...

                        My tap in my ensuite
                      Monotonously drips
                     I'm fed up with the couples
                   Who use me for naughty day trips!
                     They scuff up my skirting boards
                          And trample on my bed
                        They lounge in my armchair
                         But it's the children I dread!


                     I'd love to be modern
                  All streamlined shiny- new
                  Please tell my owners
                    As they haven't got a clue?



           My windows are grimy
            And my carpet too
         Oh!.. don't go into my toilet
          As there's a crack in my loo!
            

           I want to be boutique
          Urban and cool
         With french windows, verandah
          Leading down to a pool



        But , alas, l am a sad little room
        Like a rose that has blossomed
         But now.. lost its bloom....

The shephard never came to me
He left me in the lurch
Half eaten by cannibalism
Scrabbling in the dirt.

The paintwork has slipped
The door frame fallen
And teachings, a betrayal
For love is forsaken.

Love Mary **

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

Buildings full of people,
Empty people,
These classrooms wear memories upon the tables,
So meticulously cleaned and polished
You could almost overlook the fact that every single chair
Wears scuff marks
And that the corridors have invisible stretchmark’s tattooed into the untarnished paintwork
Caused by thousands of weary souls which once wandered the halls
The carpets are new, and the concrete floors polished
But can we really overlook the hours of hair pulling and escaped tears that these very walls caused?
What a stupid question
How else will we become a success?

The Colorado Autumn breeze is playing with the windchimes on the porch
It never stops, it wants to drive me crazy
The Friday morning sun bakes down on peeling paintwork too far gone to scorch
It needs some work, I know she thinks I'm lazy
That old black dog comes to visit way too often
We've made it through another year
But I don’t know
Where I go from here

Errands that she says she needs to run, she takes the pickup into town
The old routine, she won't be back for hours
Bless her heart, she tries to give me space to clear my head and slob around
Time to smell the coffee and the flowers
She thinks she knows what I've been going through
But I would never let her get that near
She can't tell me
Where I go from here

I check the list of contact numbers in the left breast pocket of my shirt
I drain my beer, light one last cigarette
I file the bills, I write the note, I leave my things piled neatly on the dirt
Record some words I hope I won't regret

My dad's old army automatic, stripped and cleaned and oiled just like new
Hollowpoints my best and final choice
I rack the slide, take one last look around, the mountains framed in china blue
The pistol speaks but I don't hear its voice
I know she'll cry, just as I'm crying now
I've never let her see me shed a tear
Now I know
Where I go
From here

© Pete Smith 2019