Zen Daffodil

*


Instead of planting in the soil outside with the others, keep one bulb back.

Plant very carefully in a pot on a sunny windowsill, and lavish with care and attention.

As soon as the first green shoot appears remove bulb from pot and abandon in a cold dark dry place until growth is yellow and limp -
then back into the pot for more lavish care.

Repeat at random intervals until lifeless.



*

Interlocking Pathology

*


Full of surprises to the end
she refused to struggle
as I carefully throttled her life away

(just as you asked)

choosing instead to hold me in the steady gaze
of those seemingly unblinking eyes

(how does a person do that?)

until at last they were rendered open permanently.

If only she hadn't once been a he...

Can we -
fuck now?


*

Accounting for Sighs

*


She dreams of unprotected sex with strangers in a public place
and the flicker of a smile transforms her face -

her phantom-unborn-children smooth the fabric of her shawl -
and the ventilator rises

pauses


falls


*

Anthracite

*


The guy I was working for at the time had me down as a well meaning idiot.

My job description said I was his personal assistant - this mostly entailed raking leaves from the driveway, driving his kids to and from school, and doing odd jobs around the place. I would walk the dogs for him and mow the grass too.

One day he caught me mowing the main lawn with the wrong tractor mower and was furious.

I explained that the yellow one left all the clippings laying on the ground from where I had to spend ages carefully raking them into piles and barrowing them away, whereas the red one swept them all up mechanically as it went, saving him lots of time and money – but it was no use. He had bought the yellow one to mow the main lawns with, and the red one to mow the rough meadow lands at the bottom of the property – and that was that - so I spent the rest of the time I worked for him doing it his way.

Another day he had me build a new coal shed next to, and to replace the old one, which was falling to pieces. He always made me move the existing stock of coal to the front of the shed when the coalman was due, so as to put the newly delivered coal at the back and rotate the stock. This struck me as a bit odd.

When the coalman arrived on this particular occasion it was just as I was finishing putting the new roofing felt onto the new shed. The coalman complimented me on a nice job and asked where I wanted the new bags, so I told him to stack them nearby and I would empty them later when I was done, and have the sacks ready for his next visit. When he gave me the bill I went to fetch the boss.

The bill smelled sweetly of the coal it represented, and positively crackled with trapped energy just dying to be released.

When he came back with me, the boss, too, complimented my work on the new shed and then reminded me to be sure and put the old stock to the front so that it would be used before the new.

I couldn't help myself, I simply blurted out that as the coal must be seventy million or so years old already I didn't think a few more days or weeks could make much difference, and that we would all save on time, energy and effort by dumping it all in together, regardless of when it had arrived at his house.

There was a significant silence as the two men looked at me without speaking.

They turned and exchanged a knowing glance, and then looked at me once more – together.

One of them said: Tut. And the other said: Kyuh - and I knew I would be looking for a new job before much longer.

The boss went down the driveway to see the coalman off, and I went back to rotating coal that was, to all intents and purposes, older than time itself.

With my eyes stinging I sat down to roll a cigarette, and I found myself wondering – again – what everybody else knew that I didn't.



*

Cobra Spit

Cobra Spit

About the second or third night after you told me you didn't want to see me any more
and stopped returning my calls
I walked into a bar I'd never been in before
and ran into a girl (who wasn't you)
who looked at me twice.

No one had looked at me twice in the longest time
least of all you
so after some small talk
and a few drinks
I invited her home to my new and unfamiliar bedsit
and she said no
let's go to mine
I just bought a new bed.

She was nothing like you
being smaller and less pretty
but something about the way her dark eyes peered at me
from beneath the bleached strands of her fringe
reminded me of the way you used to look at me when you thought I didn't know
and it really got to me -
As though I was unexplored territory and she had a flag all unfurled and ready to plant
and I realised that life hadn't got at her yet
hadn't begun to grind her down or crush her.

When we got to her place she searched in her bag for her key
until I kissed her
and then she kissed me back
very gently.
We stayed that way for a while till we were both a little short of breath
and I took the key from her and opened the door.

Inside we were less reserved
and within thirty seconds we were more or less completely undressed
and laughing in each others arms.


When I slid her jeans from her legs I found a tattoo of a cobra winding round her thigh
so high no one could have seen it ordinarily
head rearing over her belly
poised and ready to strike at her sex.
I kissed the cobra
kissed her mouth
and then her legs closed tightly around my hips
and with her heels
she pulled me to her.

And then I froze.
I could feel the cobra moving between my skin and that of the girl-who-wasn't-you
and as it raised it's head and inspected me I wanted to shut my eyes
but I couldn't.
And I could see now that it wasn't a King Cobra as I had first imagined
but a Spitting Cobra
which had me firmly in it's sights.
Only instead of spitting into my eyes
it was drawing something out of them
something milky and translucent and poisonous and sticky
which had been there a long time without my knowing it
stopping me from seeing clearly.

Which was exactly when I realised that this time you really meant it
that this was not one of your 'Needing Space' separations.
Not one of the times when you had better things to do than me
or been distracted by a more interesting guy than me
or become embarrassed by the difference in our ages.
This was no meltdown
you'd simply had enough
and you were gone for good.

Back in the here and now
I found I was lying very still in the arms of a girl I'd only just met
and who'd been generous enough to invite me home with her.
She too was lying still.
On her new bed.
Beneath me.
Wrapped around me.
And terribly
terribly
still.

I focused my eyes and looked
into those of the girl whose bed I lay in
no more than a hands width away from my own
and she asked
very softly
if I was alright.
I swallowed hard and said I thought I was.
And then I asked her the same question
and she nodded without speaking
but her lips were pursed
and I said I was sorry
and she nodded again.

After the shimmering silence which followed
she said she thought it might be best if I went home
and now it was my turn to nod without speaking
and I began the long search in darkness and unfamiliar surroundings
for my clothes.

Outside my door when I got home was a black bin bag
containing the last of my things from your flat.
Balanced on top was my battered old copy of Solaris
and the poems and stories I'd written for you.
And I realised that everything I thought I knew was gone
and that I could never go back to my comfy limited version of the world
or my place in it.

I went into my new kitchen
and I sat at my new table
and I wondered what you were going to do
and I wondered what the-girl-who-wasn't-you was going to do
but most of all I wondered what I was going to do.

Through my window
a flash of blue neon from a passing emergency vehicle
on it's way to save someone who wasn't me
punctuated the night sky.
And I sat and waited for it to be morning so I could go to work.

And sat. And waited.

And sit. And wait.



*

*

Nameless.

That particular Saturday night we'd been drinking for hours. I finally decided I'd had enough and said I was heading for home.

The girl I was sitting drinking with wanted to know, What about her?

I laughed, and said she could do what she wanted – she was a friend of a friend of an acquaintance, probably half my age and no real concern of mine. I said I'd put her in a cab, but she said she had no money left and didn't want to put me to any trouble, then added she'd rather sleep on my couch, IF it wasn't any bother to me.

We walked back to mine and on the way she slipped her arm through mine and we shuffled on like that till we got to my house.

I offered her coffee, but she said she'd rather have some wine, which I didn't have; so we ended up perched on chairs at my table, sipping orange juice and talking about nothing.

After a while I said I was going to bed, and fetched her some bedding which I put on the couch.

With her tongue showing slightly out of the corner of her mouth, she gave me a couple of sideways looks but didn't speak, as I made her up a bed, showed her the bathroom, and then told her goodnight.

I was too tired too shower, so I threw my clothes on the floor where I stood to undress, then flopped onto my bed and laid there staring at the ceiling like always.

I must have fallen into a light sleep and turned onto my side, because I felt, rather than heard the bedroom door opening behind me, and then felt the bedsprings compress as she climbed on the bed next to me, lifted the covers and snuggled into my back.

Her small breasts felt pointed as they brushed the skin of my arm, and I could feel her pubic hair tickle my leg, as one of her hands crept down my stomach.

All I could think of was how one of my uncles used to do the exact same thing to me every night when I was small, and of how he taught me to keep my mouth shut and say nothing to anyone, no matter what; and of what I did to him when I grew bigger and stronger than him.

After that there was no hope of doing anything, no matter what she tried with her hands and mouth, and pretty soon she gave up.

I felt her tense up against my back, then relax as her tears came, and then she was trembling and sobbing helplessly onto my shoulder, and it became impossible to stop my own tears from boiling up inside me and spilling into her hair.

I didn't know the source of her pain, but it seemed to me that all the pain and hurt I had ever experienced welled up and burst that night.

All the years of lying.

All the years of hiding myself away.

All the trouble I had caused for my family and friends, without them ever understanding why.

All the destructive relationships with boys and girls, both, that littered the wrecked pathways of my broken life, and the constant fear of being discovered for what I did to my uncle came flooding out in a terrible, gushing, outpouring of emotions I didn't even know I possessed, and, for the first time in forty years, I began to cry.

I turned to the girl, took her in my arms, and naked together, we cried like the children we both were. Clinging together like the last two people in a burning building from which there was no escape; until our hair and the bedsheets were soaked through; until exhausted we finally slept, still entwined in each other's arms.

For the first time in my life I didn't dream.

I slept like a fallen tree – and when I woke the next morning she was gone, and I never found her again, though I have searched ever since.

And I don't even know her name.

*

*



I dreamed a dream of solace
in a borrowed bed;
And woke to find the strands of love unwinding from
my bloody head
like barbed wire from a broken fence
that tears the skin.

The fire was ash, and
silence reigned;
the sheets were rags upon my new-grown limbs that
once were maimed -
and echoes bore into the present tense
from deep within.

Your finger bones lay draped
across my heaving chest;
and mossy pools were formed where once blue eyes your
face had blessed -
where love once shone, a skull's blank gaze
met mine.

My feet made stricken imprints on
the splintered floor;
a careless breeze caressed me, as I tore away the
crumbling door
and stumbled down the ruined stairs, half crazed
into the night.

And in the streets all
life had fled;
all life had passed and gone, while I lay sleeping in your
rotting bed -
immortal, while your last embrace grew cold
upon my dreaming flesh.

I dreamed a dream eternal
of a stolen throne;
then woke to claim the empty world I own and
rule alone -
I dared to touch the face of love, grew old -
and found myself instead.




*