RICH TEA & LUCOZADE

the rain is abrupt
here then over - a splashdown

maybe the gods
are testing their plumbing

they might have
a hard water problem too

~

& the traffic
going by on the wet top
sounds warm

like rich tea biscuits
taste warm
when youre belly sick

& self medicating
with original
red gold lucozade

& thorazine

REGULAR HORROR 10

despite all the regular horror
on the phone & in the mail

i am getting up 

when i can get up

& taking my coffee 

in the gardens lush overgrow

well fed & medicated 

clothed & unbombed

thanks to the coincidence gods

of the fortune crapshoot melee 

RETIRED GODS, A MOON WALLPAPER POP

 on the paved & indentured
    forest floors
         of 

    steel & glass
        we 

    fight ourselves

   to death & back

    with devil toys

   from the fire sale
         of 

      retired gods

    eager to boost

     their 

  diminishing  

    pension

        in their

      knee rug

        gin cafe

       twilight days

MASK PARADE

 

the blank muzzles 

create an illusion

of agreement & purpose

fugly highstreet parade

looking almost uniform

faces covered

thank the gods

why didnt we do this

years

ago

?

from sciencefocus.com

PICASA MADRIGALS, THE TIGERS & THE BEES

BETWEEN

between

gods
old paper
mumbo

off
white
hospital
walls

the pantomime 
bipolar
cage fights
in
parliament

and the eternal
daily
slap
of
laborious metabolising

doves collect twigs
for new nests

cats hide
from imagined thunder

black faced gulls 
look out in silence
from tv eaves
masked like mimes

then
a 
10 min monsoon

wet sock

from rspb.org.uk

ALL CLEAR AND POST

behind the glass
a woman in leather
runs from
alien and believable gods

move she says to herself move
she must answer the ringing phone
all our lives depend on it

this side of the glass
my unopened post sits there 
like a wrapped gift
would
sit
there - blunt and solid
with something of the mistake about it

( i had been compulsive and unthinking
  i was like hank 
  behind the glass 
  shot
  and 
  recovering
  buying minerals in bed from ebay
  in the night time tv gloop and glow )

the packages - they are like paper rocks 
strange samples on the kitchen tablecloth

a weird geology they demand attention

there could be ANYTHING inside couldnt there ?
and ignoring my knowledge
i 
savour
this 
manufactured mystery
for  l o n g  moments
sipping coffee number one

and the time ran then
it steamrolled over cold fear and the wired dread 
of these 
          falling / failing
                            faux
                              empire
                                 days
and over noons stagnation 
and all its attendant nothings
and i heard a tactile tick tock
and i felt a small vroooom
like a machine had started up
behind the days flat scenery
and the nameless Effort
    the orphan Art
    i
    had
squeezed out  bled out
forced and coaxed out

    ( the writingslob emitted curdle again )

    well now it Shone Easily - had no Hard Questions

and the day felt like a day then
an easy marker  a nice place
instead of another unsane blur
where only the edges make sense
like
crisp green leaves eaten into skeletons
by the long gone beasts of dawn

and when the cat steps up onto the bed
it is with a perfect sense of things

and shadows pass by the window
like of course they can and should

shadows of harmless other people
doing harmless other people things

and 
i 
feel
like
i
won an award - i can hear doves too
their repeating coo
like an All Clear siren today

the woman behind the glass
picks up the ringing phone

and she knows theres no rainbow 
you can see it in her eyes

and 
her
outstretched hand on the callbox window
is
a flat No  a spread Stop
in 
defiance

at circumstance 
at authoritarian retaliation
at
the
big
black
truck
running
her down . . .

the corner at wells and lake from matrix.wikia.com

IN THE ALLEY BETWEEN CHILDHOOD AND BILLS

if the gods are anywhere
theyre
in
the
silence when we stop - at last - for breath / time out
and
a
cigarette / muffin / a walk streetside in notime

maybe theyre 
in
the
back stairwell / under the steps
in
that nowhere corner / that leftover space
with
the abandoned decorators wooden ladder
and
the bike lock locked forever / arrested and undeveloped

hiding 
from 
what
they
did - taping up wounds / retired and ruminating 
in
the
alley
between childhood and bills

 from comixtakoma.wordpress.com