SILENT CARTOON OF LATER IS

and shopping is;

£2 2 litre cider is

20cl Chekhov £2.95 is

my saddle burr my shopping is

and when 2 squat glasses are stuffed silly with ice

and when I drench them down my one hole mouth

then

in the towel blasted bathroom world

the invisible mirror

gives me a frontage, a final face

staring off behind me

still wary of pm wolves and bears.

and later is;

later is tight-caught like twig thorns in wool sleeves

later is

when I am covered all comfy in sugar soft clothes

when all the black

dust and fluff

cling to them, to me

when watching Touch Of Evil drinking

the b&w human-fat detective,

the film,

gives me story, sunny visible prose.

later is a school-night fish

wet and silent, swum clean.

and when strong solid coffee salvation

is fading like freckles in fierce sun

cheap booze

replaces

my snake pale legs

and monolithic broken loudspeakers

and when they are all staring at me in this pm damp room

without even chill kitchen radio creeping in here.

then I stare

with diamond-tired orbs

at the left space where

once

or twice

suddenly rested and soft and quietly talking

in ninja black or after-work jeans

sat sitting buddha still and bravely smiling

a gentle Irish nurse of candy swearing

small puppy-wet palms

round black-eyed frowns

that disappear like only children

and later is what night is

what mad saddle burr shopping is

and later is

when I know building work is needed here

a fast shoring up

and hasty plastering over

on my ripe empty-bottle husk

 

and later is

when I see my short hot life a slow bakers dough . . .

but!

later also is

when I am only up for total nothing tonight

no prowling art

no human fire

later now is

some reassuring black packet over-the-counter thrill-dull

is

sleeping with no-human-one

to strangle-hug myself to sleep on

with too few pillows allowed for my head on

but later also is

when I suddenly rise from van talk radio

and barge into the brutal fridge again

and later still is where night is

when the jazz silent cartoon on the slab TV

and the loud hipping hep hop out the living stereo

fundamentally CONSPIRE

to trip pop me over

inside the living room rug trap

and

down, slurped onto the carpets floor.

night is what late is;

when I have become colossal, a Character

in a half dreamed film noir,

some blue and incidental fucker

a TV footnote metal on a A4 clipboard

later is

when dream writing a novel on the last booze

when night-shift alone, sick of sunrise

when god-myth glorious

in a rainbow slick oil bubble,

unpaid and acting

is when a rubbish blackout will come.