The nurse poured me another vodka
inviting me to carry on
but her charm is wearing thin
and I had told enough lies for one night.
Outside the barred windows
of the white tiled room I hear a siren calling;
the footfall of fugitives following
the masked ball from town to town.
On the lawn a piano is sleeping
in a pool of light issued by the soft clauses
of a moon tethered to a pylon
the colour blind mad deem ironic.
I collect my distress flares, an old atlas
and hand in my apologies to the primate
playing poker with a dead airman
on a tea chest in the guardroom.
My orders are tattooed on the wrist
of another woman who keeps a guru
in a bird cage on the balcony
for me to argue with.
We all share the same signal,
its light attracts the nightshift:
the itinerant gifts of big black taxis
old stations release on parole
To freelance the supply lines
for calling cards of the casino healers
who fall in love with the dreams
of those who have been discharged.
home page
The King of Dust
monarch of the motionless room
surveys his kingdom of white sheets
from a cage in the palace of the doldrums.
He summons up his servants
the enemies of the wind to dance
in the slow blizzard of dead skin.
They are the spirits of the half asleep.
Like dying flies they collide
in the stagnant still air
of his sweltering siesta.