BURMESE TIGER

i am a high tension cable
impossibly heavy
strung out by design

as
i
tap my bank app

and
log on my email

~

in these moments i am reminded
as powerful as after spring rain
of watching Threads at school

rare silence / blinds down

a level playing field in the classroom for once
as we were all shrunk behind our graffiti desks

there was no laughter 
as the people of Sheffield
pissed themselves
in the street 

for a month afterwards 
i expected to see
a mushroom cloud 
grey and rolling and blossom
over the maths block blunt concrete
every time i turned around

~

well my castle has subsidence 
i want pizza / lithium / victorian laudanum

i whisper 

          cheeseburger
       organic acupuncture
        free range tramadol
               
         a n y t h i n g 

~

and online and outside 
in the sky or under the ground

well there could be something awful there

but theres only the regular monsters
and we are numb to them

numb to them eating us in slices 
while telling us theyre not

~

it
feels
like
a hungry burmese tiger
is stalking me
from in the laurel bush

it
feels
like 
a car boot sniper 
has crosshairs 
on my soft cortex

it
feels
like
a
sudden and All Encompassing Last Draft

         is in the post
and all the church bells will start ringing

        Any  Minute  Now

to signal
      the 
   End Of It All

from goodreads.com