Tuesday 8 October 2013


COMPLEX-PARTIAL SEIZURE NINE

Maria sits, listening to my repeated effing.
I have no sense of touch, but inquisitiveness,
and cognisance of space so small it surely
could not be limited by measurement.

Everything is made of odourless smoke.
I turn to watch my right shoulder detach,
vapourise, then morph back into its place.
Perspective explains: an elbow bend reforming
into what it was before experiential foolery.

Abdomen tricks the eyes until they try to track
a movement highlighted by cigarette blue
and shaded by hooker’s green. Entrance to cave,
curling inside out; no beginning or end; only middle.

These are the circumstances as I pace this prison,
constantly checking the time because I immediately
forget. Working hard until Maria leaves.
Then a door frame keeps me from falling as I hunch
to weep because I am desperate with confusion.


Sunday 6 October 2013


THINK OF A TITLE.

The dandelion is rooted between two kerbstones,
close to the swerve of tyres, the scrape of shoes.

Rising achenes traverse cols of purple shadow, before
accidentally colonising the first chimney to snag them.

Forty feet below, the progenitor has suddenly
been reduced to a smear of latex and chlorophyll.

At exactly the same moment flashes of sunshine reflected
off passing motor vehicles trigger a young man's seizure.

Unconscious he wanders into the path of a Jeep Compass,
where he dies. Fewer than 5% of epileptics are photosensitive.




Saturday 5 October 2013


THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TOWARDS
NORMALITY

I remedied the problems of being an eccentric
child by practising until perfect the knack
of acquiring a high-status layer of filth.

The best place to do this was at the brook
near the Methodist cricket pitch. From the boundary
there sloped the Rocky Mountains, the Alps,
and the Himalayas down to our sometime dam,
which we busted every time it was rebuilt.

This slope had no grass on it. There, after rain
an expert could slide upon backside until clay became
his second skin. The water below easily impregnated
any shoe and when dammed would wash over the top
of wellies, leaving small worms and a smell
which not only mothers could detect. Perfect.